Amazing. We are witnessing a battle to control minds...to nullify and control what

[wiggs]

the public sees, thinks, and hears. There's an element out there vigorously creating reality with its lies, twisted logic, smears, diversions, polarization efforts, and vast network of propagandists. Of course, this has been going on for a while in more stealthy fashion as DU well knows. But now it is evident, naked, concentrated, out in the open, and desperate. A nerve has been hit. Weekend events have shed light on a reality that, for the hidden RW power structure, must be nipped in the bud before a nation wakes up to what has been going on.

In countering the obvious natural thoughts and discourse the public might have about the violence, the RW is exposing another aspect of itself that it doesn't want to...its history, willingness, and ability to manipulate public perception through control of media. Over decades and with billions of dollars in investment and with trillions of dollars at stake, the RW has built a machine of control and we are seeing it at work in all its glory and chilling effectiveness. This is why the investment has been made...to make sure people believe that what is plainly evident is not true.

It is no less twisted and brilliant and Orwellian than 2 + 2 = 5

How many times on how many issues have we said there is no legitimate other side of the argument (torture, false wars, bp spill, global warming, trickle down,etc etc)? Yet, through constant and coordinated propaganda a different reality is created which a portion of the public can believe and defend, not through logic but through faith?

The PR battle we are seeing goes way beyond the current tragedy, IMO. I hope it is not too late for the public to see what is going on.

[get the red out]

1. They will get the great message all patched up fast enough

And by that time the average American will be wondering why President Obama sent that sick young man to assassinate that congresswoman.

[wiggs]

5. It has worked in the past, over and over. nt

[eleny]

2. As the hours go by I hear new words in this situation - like "finxated"

Loughner was "fixated" on Giffords since 2007.

And then the news story about Palin's stalker emerges.

A pattern begins to take shape and we accept that both women have had stalkers. Palin has a stalker so why not Giffords.

Palin couldn't have any fault here because she's a victim, too.

It's just an example of what's happening now but you're right about there being a larger PR battle.

[Supersedeas]

3. 2+2=5 and never any mention of OK City, Anthrax, the assassination of abortion providers

The Media and Astroturfing created the shockjock superstars that spew this vitriol, now the Media is trying to draw an equivalence to military peaceniks and treehuggers.

The desperation on cable news and morning network shows is palpable.

[notesdev]

4. The verifiable lies I have seen to date

1) fake Facebook page claiming he was a Palin fan
2) fake voter registration claiming he was a Republican

At least a few people have had the decency to note when things have been debunked, which is about the only redeeming feature of this site in the past couple of days.

The way people are carrying on, it's as if they really do want to mainstream politically motivated violence, give it credibility. As in they'll be terribly disappointed if, on sober reflection and full analysis of all the facts, that it isn't.

If you approach the story without preconception I don't see how you avoid the conclusion that the guy was simply plain off-the-wall nuts.

Personally I want to see his medical records, I think the real truth behind this lies in his mental health treatment. I have seen people who were otherwise harmless turn violent after being given various (legal, prescription) drugs and combinations thereof.


Everyone who has jumped the gun and accused his/her political opponents of responsibility for this crime ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You want to know why this country is angry and uncivil and getting worse? It's your own damn shoot-first, ask-questions-later behavior causing it.

[wiggs]

12. Be clear: I don't know this specific guy and don't know the level of connection to RW

hate. But public discussion is nose-diving into false equivalencies, confusion, disclaimers, scrubbing, deliberate diversion, polarization, propaganda, over-narrowing of the issue (are the crosshairs gunsights or surveyor marks?), overbroadening of the issue (well dems did it 30 years ago) etc so that healthy viable discourse might be hopeless already. I hope not. But confusion and manipulation is the aim of much of what I hear right now from the RW.

I object to pre-emptive confusion and manipulation from both sides, just as I object to both sides if they call for bullets, not ballots, as a means of political change. It's just that one side does it more than the other and we ought to be able to see that and talk about it.

Even if this guy didn't personally subscribe to Palin's website and there's no provable connection between any of the poisonous RW violence-talk and this shooter it is plain and clear that, as W. Pitt has written today, that when you play Russian roulette someone will get hurt sometime and somewhere. The blame for playing the game lies with many in the RW and corporatist world and they are working overtime to make us believe otherwise. Their excuses are many, and appear to include that the bullet chamber was empty when pointed at Arizona this last weekend.

We need to talk about the hate and we need to talk about the vast RW/corporatist effort today to torpedo meaningful discussion and analysis. That's my main point...we are seeing an aspect of this huge social and media propaganda structure expose itself for it's own protection today.

[DearAbby]

6. Say, don't believe your lying eyes

looky over here. It has been working well for them so far, we have to figure out a way to stop this. Inciting violence isn't a protected right under free speech.

[kctim]

7. How is the public to see what is going on

when ALL that is really known are the opinions of partisan hacks trying to score political points?

[wiggs]

13. From Bush years: reality does not come from observation and rational...

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Reality is what they say it is.

2 + 2 = 5

[kctim]

16. Then why the games?

With the "ability to manipulate public perception through control of media," why begin with right-wing fanatic and work towards crazed liberal?
Why not just simply create a 'reality' where there is no question that a liberal loner is responsible?

[wiggs]

17. That's what they are doing, or something similar. Remember, the Sierra Club

was responsible for the BP oil spill?

[kctim]

18. If they are, then they are not very good at it

The "facts" of the event almost always come out after the "pundits" have given their two cents and even then they keep up with their version of what "really" happened.

FWIW, I do agree with you overall, I'm just having a hard time figuring out who it is thats in control.

[catzies]

20. That is the crux of the biscuit right there, to me. n/t

[walldude]

8. Actually what we are witnessing is a bunch of people

who know they fucked up and who know that their little "jokes" as Coulter likes to call them, have been taken the wrong way again by some nutjob. Now they are scrambling to show how they are the "party of personal responsibility" by blaming it on the left.

[Odin2005]

9. It's so damn obvious, why can't people see it?

[reggie the dog]

10. i had to stop watching the news with my parents around the age of 14

or 15 (1993) because i would so often yell and talk back at the screen when i noticed that they were drawing biased conclusions and reporting them as fact. so often they pull that shit in the usa on tv news and in print. the bbc does LESS of that, as do most papers in france, here in france we have left, center, and right wing news sources so you know what you get (i tend to read right wing news to see how they interpret events as an exercise at looking for ideology lead their writing and logic even if it is not done to brainwash (honestly most media in france, when drawing conclusions, explain their logic quite a bit more than in the states where you are just supposed to "believe" like they are a preacher or something).

the us media has been force feeding "trickle down is good" and judging everything from a right wing totalitarian mindset. for how long did the media not even question the war on drugs? no talk of personal liberty. they just towed the corporate line and when traffic and blow came out and we finally started to see articles about it 911 took that off the front page

now the media does the same shit, they report anti terror measures through a totaltarian lens in which liberty, free circulation, and presomption of innonce have no place

the media in the usa is and has been totalitarian in this sense for some time, hell since i have been "aware" of politics as a teenager in the mid 90s. no talk of personal liberties, drugs are bad mmmkkk, then no talk of personal liberties...terrorsts.....bla bla bla.....code red.... holy shit!

[Peregrine Took]

11. Where is this all leading though? It can't continue as is with them having us

constantly up against the wall with their control of the media, their hate talk and violence.

What does the future hold? Does Obama have a plan?

Bring back the Fairness Doctrine?

Go after the extreme right wing hate groups that they have been ignoring for years?

I just don't see how its all going to end.

[wiggs]

14. How Orwellian is this Bush-era statement re reality:

"The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"

They tell us what's real. We don't, or can't, process observations and analysis through public discourse in a healthy way. We are TOLD what reality is (ie dittoheads).

Healthy Forests = increased logging

Clear Skies = reduced regulation

2 + 2 = 5

[upi402]

15. nascent Nazism

call it what it is and don't let them intimidate with their propaganda media

[seabeyond]

19. exactly. stewart... both sides tone down rhetoric. say what? now, rw cant be blamed

though his reasoning for "both" sides toning down the rhetoric was so assassination didnt happen to a dem. now we are suppose to ignore the very thing he told us to stop because of consequence.

so fuckin ironic