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We are living in an Orwellian world… — 45 Comments

1. As the WH has already agreed in substance with Mitt Romney’s early assessment, isn’t it kind of weird that the quisling media seem still insistent about “Romney’s error”?

   Irony is soooo lost on those ignorant gets.

   Hmm. Is describing J-schoolers as “ignorant” giving the ignorant an undeserved bad name?

2. I just read a Politico report on Peggy Noonan’s WSJ reaction to Romney’s comment. Summary: Romney did himself no favors. Interestingly, the link I followed to the Politico piece was in Foreign Policy’s Morning Brief, which may be something read by folks across the Big Pond. It seems like people are trying to set up Romney as worse than Bush. Where were these people when Michael Moore was given a seat next to Carter at the 2004 DNC or when Dems pols stood in line for his movie? Where were they when Obama gave a campaign speech in Berlin? You know, that was the Obama whose foreign policy experience was gained at age 10 in Indonesia.

   As for Peggy, she should, in the words of Bob Gates, STFU.

3. Sorry. Can’t leave this one.

   What I’d like to hear:

   Reporter: Mr. Romney, are you ready to disavow your incredibly stupid and un-American comments about the Cairo embassy tweets and internet postings in light of the death of the ambassador to Libya?

   Romney: Interesting. The White House has finally agreed with my original analysis. Are you suggesting that the White House is wrong?

   Reporter: ??? (looks puzzled at this response, and turns questioning eyes toward producer)

   Romney: And if you are not suggesting the White House is wrong, does the White House agreement with my timely original assessment of the administration’s representatives in Cairo not mean that the media assessment of my analysis was a baseless faux pas, at best, from the beginning?

   Reporter: ??? (sweat breaks out on forehead)

   Romney: And as to the charge of “politicizing this”, wouldn’t it follow that the media are actually the ones guilty of politicizing this during a political campaign? And aren’t the media revealing either an an obvious inability to critically analyze the substance of the issue, or displaying a profoundly personal bias that doesn’t serve the interests of the dwindling majority of Americans still looking to the media for lucid information on current events?

   Reporter: ??? (sees producer frantically hissing from behind camera One: “Go to break! Go to break!”) And after we return, we go to Las Vegas to the Obama campaign.

   Producer: (throws up hands in despair)

4. Glenn Reynolds wrote (Instapundit @ 10:59):

   They [the MSM] defend Obama like crazed Muslims defend the Koran. No criticism can be seen as legitimate, because they have invested everything.

5. “Is describing J-schoolers as ‘ignorant’ giving the ignorant an undeserved bad name?”

   davisbr,

   That is NOT a rhetorical question, and the answer is yes, they are.

6. expat: quite some time ago Noonan went native in terms of being a member of the pundit class.

7. Mr. Romney’s silence, or even moderated ‘tut-tut’ on the matter would have been every bit as appalling as Mr. Obama’s variably insouciant, duplicitous, anti-American, pro-Brotherhood persona. It is a burden I’m sure to have to run against the vile incumbent and an ass-kissing, corrupt fourth estate but there it is. Romney should include in every criticism of Obama a salvo against the fourth estate. If the MSM conducts itself as though it is permanently joined to Obama mouth to groin than Romney should take every opportunity to make note of the obscenity.

8. T: LOL.

9. I’d like to see that scenario, too, davis, but reporters have no shame, and no ability to detect the need and time for having shame. They are completely clueless.

10. In any campaign, you go with the surest strategy that will yield a win.

    There is one thing that the media cannot spin and that is the hardship of every person looking for work, filling up their car with gas, trying to pay all their bills . . . .

    That is why Romney has committed to making this campaign about that reality, the economy. It really, really bugs me to see conservative pundits or pols criticize Romney for not doing this or doing that. For one, it doesn’t help, but more profoundly it shows they haven’t even thought the thing through. Which is supposedly their job.

    What the press has done in this story, well, doesn’t it make you feel sick? Couldn’t you just punch one of those idiots who were attacking Romney right in the mouth? Pamala Gellar calls them the enemedia. Her wrath is wonderful to behold.

    She is supported by the incredible legal work of David Yerushalimi and the American Freedom Law Center. If you want to do something, support the AFLC with your dollars and recognition.

    http://www.americanfreedomlawcenter.org/leaders/1/david-yerushalmi-esq.html

11. neo, you have identified the problem (a reality distortion field perpetrated by the MSM). But what is the solution? Clearly not negotiating with the MSM. They are hopelessly corrupt. There are probably not too many of them really (1000?) so the solution might be to get rid of them. Maybe this could be done by buying the major news organizations and firing the leading journalists and editors. Alternatively tax the hell out of them and put them out of business.

12. Steve: the only alternative I can think of is educating people in critical thinking.

    That’s not easy. Plus, since the left has gotten control of the educational system, it’s not gonna happen any time soon.

    I am convinced, though, that the turning point was the left’s control of education, which happened slowly but surely and to a great extent went unnoticed for quite some time.

    I guess another alternative is the press on the right and the blogs on the right. But aren’t they mostly preaching to the choir? I do my best, but it’s as a grain of sand on the beach. And if people lack the skills to think critically, how can they evaluate what they’re reading?

    Propaganda is a very powerful thing.

13. I’m at the point where I pretty much equate the appalling analytical ignorance of the quisling media and the Left as being on a par with the disturbing sub-human violence of the rapacious jihadis.

    Different, but equal.

    Savages, both groups. One with a veneer of smug pseudo-intellectualism overlying an empty facade of pseudo-rationalism wallowing in their self-imposed self-loathing, the other with a perverted masquerade of religiosity overlying a profound theological ignorance and fearful bigotry.

    Different, but equal.

    Both born in utter ignorance, standing upon misguided self-faith in their misguided gestalten, and profoundly and devastatingling anti-Western/anti-civilizational if allowed to flourish (let alone come to fruition).

    Different, but equal.

    The obvious solution to the problem posed in both cases is to make sure they have no descendants. Bury them.

14. We do not have a free press. In a country of “we the people”, we, the people, need a press with which to communicate to one another. We do not have one.

    I actually feel nauseated by the full realization of this truth.

    And, if Clint is right on stealing the election . . . we will have no choice but to tune out – or learn to speak in code. Perhaps neo could use the remainder of time between now and November to create a new language for those of us huddled here in the protection of a shrinking world intelligence?

15. well, you know, I meant protection FROM shrinking intelligence.

    oh, dear me suds. It all seems so … hopeless. One can turn to spiritual awakening and say, “N’importe.”

16. Check out this CBS News headline from this morning:

    How badly did Romney botch response to Libya attack?

    Not even “did he”, but “how badly did he”.

    The media has gone beyond partisan and biased, and has entered the realm of self-parody.

17. Thanks for this post, Neo. I have been fuming about this for the past 24 hours and it’s good to have the case laid out so clearly. Alas, like you I fear that the inattentive swing voter is probably affected by this kind of thing.

18. Wow.. It only took 5 years to convince those who didn’t want to be convinced that we are more soviet than they ever knew (since they didn’t know soviet)

    Apologies to Madonna, but it seems that in terms of disinformation and propaganda, we are living in an Orwellian world (or at least a Pravda-esque world)

    In both examples, you give your saying SOVIET. Rule by administrative councils (soviets).

    Pravda was the soviet paper
    Orwell based his work on soviet society

    If that fact weren’t already clear to me, the relentless MSM and administration focus yesterday and today on Mitt Romney’s quite reasonable reaction to the tweet from the Cairo embassy would have brought it home quite dramatically.

    Too little 40 years too late technically
    But at least it’s better to know why they are inflicting such on you, rather than sit around wondering what is going on and why are they persecuting you. no? it’s the difference between 1934, and the full realization that can’t be ignored a few years later…

    But note… so much of what i write, shows how much this process has gone on for long. form Walter Lippmann… to this…

    “The Women’s Caucus [endorses] Marxist-Leninist thought.” — Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, p. 597

    WELCOME to the Democratic Women’s Caucus!
    http://www.democraticwomenscaucus.org/

    You know.. They did not believe mien kampf either. After all, a common thread here is that each of these groups and things are pseudo open… ie, they don’t hide, but they don’t help you either… if your stupid enough to believe without comparing, then why help the enemy change sides and oppose you?

    The stuff they want has not changed in over 100 years, so how hard is it to know where they want to go and block it? not hard at all, except that we don’t believe their statements they make themselves!!! (and we believe even less someone working out some proof other than those statements)

    ie. We will prosecute a kid for making a gun with his fingers as being dangerous

    But when it comes to believing someone who wanted to exterminate all the blacks, Chinese, Jews, and is celebrated for that. And was at the forefront (with others in the US and Germany).. And then details it.. Works out methodologies and interventions, was caught experimenting on them, and their polices were not stopped until the 1980s, and are still practiced by apple computer in china…

    Why, we sit still and invent excuses in conversation as to why that is not what they said it was, what their actions show they are leading to, and all that.

    Whose problem is that?

    The persons doing it, or the delusional victims who refuse to comprehend what’s going on and just sit there and do nothing, while appearing to be very busy discussing it.. (And by do something I mean get out there and teach others. but that doesn’t happen until after you believe).

    I wonder: if you were to interview 100 random people on the street on the subject, what would their reaction be? Perhaps a lot of them are not even paying attention.

    i have found all three… in academia here today where i work, they barely knew that the embassies/consulates were attacked. They are even more surprised that Yemen is following, and they have completely forgotten the Israeli embassy/consulate being attacked one year ago on sept 9th, and that Obama took credit saving the people who locked themselves up in a safe room.

    You’re finally waking up to the fact that this revolution is not a game, its real, and you’re not just starting it, you’re in the MIDDLE of it… And it’s about to go hot… which doesn’t happen at the beginning… it happens as the end game…

    While waiting for the imagined signs that are not real, you let the start of it pass you by, and now we are all in the middle of it. To quote pink Floyd “No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”.

    THIS is why people do not see the revolution coming… until they are in the middle of it, ambiguity is gone, and there is no more ways to invent excuses.

    But by then, how deep are you? When do you recognize your drowning? Before when you think its ok, or in the deep middle of it when you realize you may die? After all, if you realized that before, you wouldn’t be there under most circumstances then.

    If we opposed and won in 1968, would we be here? If liberation wasn’t equivalent to betrayal. If Naomi Goldstein was seen as the communist author she was, and that her point was social agitprop from the soviets, would the women have turned into harem girls for the elite and remodeled society away from what they now, at 74% say they want!

    How’s this one.. Would we have removed all the anti-communist laws? ie. we did. the last one went out in Obama term in California. Which is why now it’s legal to do all this stuff to the kids

    And that’s what that movement changed. In fact, most of the changes, bribes, favoritisms, and so on, are all going to one class of people who can be bought… and who think they are morally superior, genetically superior, and don’t think they are betraying anyone, while at the same time believing that if they are, they aren’t responsible for it anyway. (and all of it doesn’t matter, regardless of any of that, the end result is the same. Its like arguing and winning through force that god is really a snail… a snail named George… when you die, the real deal at the end will be known regardless of George, no? So winning the wrong answer is not winning — its going over the edge of the cliff believing in victory… )

    and since we didn’t protect the rights of addicts to kill themselves, Bloomberg and all can tell you what or what not to eat, and with obamacare doubly so.

    Note that vegetarians are more suggestible. And its part biological as the leaders of any social primate group get more meat than lower down servile members. (ergo why cults do this, and note that even Jim Jones did)

    But here goes the big big point I couldn’t convince you or anyone of.

    Totalitarianism is about how many laws, and where the laws go.. it’s not reprieved by claiming that the point was just, as in social justice, drug war, etc…

    For instance, in the contract of men establishing the state called a constitution, where does the state derive the power to control the bosses by misuing taxes, inflation, mandates, etc?

    No matter what, I couldn’t tell you that the magic red light doesn’t stop anyone.
    Neither does the magic paper… what stops them is you not permitting them an inch.

    Was it really moral to save addicts from themselves? No.

    This months NATURE has an article discussing using chemical warfare stuff on crowds to control them. I wonder, if that is it, then aren’t they assuming that the state is always right (And that includes that Nazi state and soviet state)? And so, they ignore the idea that people might have a right (As the founders said) to throw out employees who took over the company… inventing drugs and chemicals and such for the state to neutralize crowds, does what?

    Insure totalitarianism forever — and creates the boot on the neck.

    Social interventionists in medicine do not realize that they are following exactly in joseph Mengele’s logic, reason, and methods. It just seems different when they do it than how it appears from the outside looking in.

    The rest in the next post/s

19. Steve wrote: “neo, you have identified the problem (a reality distortion field perpetrated by the MSM). But what is the solution?”

    Neoneocon responded: “the only alternative I can think of is educating people in critical thinking.”

    Let me amplfy that thought. I’ve long believed that most people have fundamental critical thinking skills. Without them it would be very difficult, if nigh impossible, to get through daily life. IMO the trick is to show people how to transfer their critical thinking skills from one area to another. A plumber, is constantly solving problems, so is a mechanic and so is a homemaker when they each ply their skills. That why metaphors and parables work so well; one must take an indistinct problem (a $16T debt which no human neing can identify with) and rephrase it in a way that makes sense to the fundamental critical thinking skills that all people have (e.g., a family budget).

    There is no disagreement in my mind that leftistist ideology has poisoned the well. I’ve mentioned before that there are still many people who see the Dem party as still the party of JFK, LBJ and Tip O’Neill. That’s the long-lasting result of propaganda, but with any luck, that mask is slipping on a daily baiss.

    So too the media mask. One can have critical thinking skills, but in 1979 when the only source of information was the local newspaper and the network news, what good were critical thinking skills without another benchmark with which to compare? All hail the internet and Fox News; the internet made it virtually impossible to be involuntarily shielded from the truth, and Fox News presented an alternative source which covered stories that the MSM often spiked. Remember when you hear the internet being derided as a bunch of amatuers in pajamas pretending to be reporters and Fox News derided as the spawn of Satan, they must be on target (the only time you get flack).

    As for Romney’s comment, that’s precisely what Ann Coulter said; he’s driving the MSM beserk so he must have touched a nerve, and the MSM is so inured to its liberal mindset that they are marvelously unaware of the fact that something that can’t go on forever, won’t (i.e., their monopoly of the national dialogue).

20. Steve: the only alternative I can think of is educating people in critical thinking.

    How about a YouTube-like channel, a la Voice of America (before it was penetrated)? Something that strove to be scrupulously honest and even-handed, so that even its worst critics could not validly point to a misrepresentation?

    That could circumvent the MSM, indeed upstage them, by becoming over time the trusted source for news commentary. (PJ Media is good, but we need one that is less identified with conservatives.)

21. One problem with the current teaching of critical thinking is that too often it produces people (especially among the none-too-bright) who think they can ascertain the truth by splitting everything down the middle, which of course rewards staking out an extreme position.

22. Artfldgr: you write, ” It only took 5 years to convince those who didn’t want to be convinced that we are more soviet than they ever knew.”

    I haven’t a clue who these “those who didn’t want to be convinced” are. The people I know who didn’t want to be convinced are still quite unconvinced. And most of the people on this site were not saying to you that Obama was a moderate and not a leftist bent on power after all; they didn’t need much convincing to see him as a leftist tyrant. Only a couple of people were fighting that idea, as far as I can recall, and most of them are not still around here.

    Or perhaps the disagreement is about the word “Soviet”—in other words, whether Obama is about to start a gulag, or whether he’s much more of a Chavez-type? I favor the Chavez-type explanation—although it’s a good possibility that the left in this country would create a gulag if they felt it necessary. So far it hasn’t been necessary.

    I wrote a fairly lengthy piece on this subject back in 2009:

    Remember that what the Nazis appeared to be when they came to power is not what they were ten years later. The tyranny they so clearly implemented grew and built over time. Nor did they come to power through a coup. Everything Hitler when he first to come to power was strictly legal (see the latter part of this post). Again, don’t get me wrong–I do not see Obama as Hitler. I see him much more as a Chavez wannabee, a smoother and seemingly more erudite (although I believe Obama’s erudition is merely a veneer) version…

    Most predators pick on the weak or the injured. I believe that, although in earlier times this country was strongly inoculated against the tyranny of someone such as Chavez or Obama, we are now in an enervated state and more susceptible to their enticements. This weakness has been coming on for decades, due to an abandonment of teaching about our own country–its culture, values, and history, as well as its foundations and goals–as well as a lack of critical thinking.

    Very few people here are just waking up to these facts. I have no idea why you persist in saying so.

23. a $16T debt which no human neing can identify with

    I crushed my liberal friend on this one by asking him how many zeroes were in a trillion. Crickets.

    I’d love to see Romney do that to Obama, who would probably evince the same reaction.

24. although it’s a good possibility that the left in this country would create a gulag if they felt it necessary. So far it hasn’t been necessary.

    Neo, I think you’d be closer to the mark if you replaced “necessary” with “feasible.” Recall Ayers’ comment about offing 25 million people.

25. Occam’s Beard: the problem as I see it is not lack of good information. It’s out there. The problem is (a) lack of time and motivation to seek it; and (b) lack of ability to process it logically and critically. The MSM pre-digests the news for people and spits it out as propaganda, which makes it so easy. Hardly any work at all for the reader/voter.

26. Remember that what the Nazis appeared to be when they came to power is not what they were ten years later.

    Hitler assumed the Chancellorship on 31 January 1933, and opened Dachau in March of that year (to house political prisoners). Strictly speaking it was legal because IIRC he’d been granted emergency powers, but the Nazis showed their true colors with alarming celerity.

27. Neo, you’re right. That’s why we need an alternative to the MSM to perform the same function of pre-digestion, but does not take it so far as the MSM, which completes the process of digestion and produces … well … the product of digestion, to extend the GI metaphor.

28. Occam’s Beard: that’s my point about the Nazis, actually. They gave hints of what was to come (and Mein Kampf give more than hints). But the degree of the horror to come, and the exact specifics, were not at all clear at first. My post that I linked to in that comment went on to add:

    But we need to remain on guard. It is important to remember that, just as a layperson cannot always tell from looking at a photo of a creature in its embryonic stages exactly what sort of animal it will become, it is difficult to predict the form tyranny will take, or how successful it will be in tightening its grip. That is why we need to be aware of the early signs, and to take them seriously.

29. I got a chance to give a few people in the MSM a piece of my mind today and it was fun. I went to the Romney rally in Virginia today and stood right behind the press tent. I didn’t use profanity or say anything threatening but, I did call them: hacks, court stenographers, told them we needed a real media, etc.
    I was surprised so many of them looked uncomfortable. (Of course they probably thought I was crazy and might jump over the gate.) I did think a few of them may have been shocked that someone publicly accused them of bias and incompetence. Regardless of whether or not I looked like an idiot, I’m not going down without fighting back.

30. Absolutely right, neo.

    Most people do not appreciate how quickly a situation can sour. A few arrests, some rumors flying, and people start watching what they say and do. It’s all downhill from there as the repression ratchets up.

    That’s why we have to come down like a ton of bricks on even relatively benign abuses of governmental power (e.g., using the IRS against political opponents, as the Administration did against that guy in Idaho) to nip that stuff in the bud.

31. Of course they probably thought I was crazy and might jump over the gate.

    Works for the Muzzies.

32. Occam’s Beard: I only yelled loud enough to be heard and no Allah Akbar.

33. KLSmith, next time cut loose with a resounding “Allahu Ahkbar!” Oh, and be sure to post video on YouTube.

34. Nah, being able to tell George stephanopoulis that he was a hack was good enough.

35. Or perhaps the disagreement is about the word “Soviet”–in other words, whether Obama is about to start a gulag, or whether he’s much more of a Chavez-type?

    SEE? you still dont get it.

    DEFINE soviet for me PLEASE…

    because it has nothing to do with gulag.
    and the sentence you just said, makes no sense given what the word MEANS.

    and to most westerners it has no meaning, they just pretend to think they know by the wame way they learned most words. by usage.
    but did that help you work out what the knights who say nee were afraid of?

    A soviet is a council…

    and Obama and Chavez are the leaders of the highest council. whether there are gulags, camps, and all that, depends on whether the council decide that’s a good way to handle deviants (based on that other description).

    So every time these guys made committees to run this, and councils to run that, and all that… they were sovietizing us…

    since you didn’t know that this is rule by council/committee you did not think to prevent these councils of thinkers handling issues. did you?

    the act of delegating powers to a lower body is how soviet rule works… so you have the committee for women, the committee on race.. (no committee for the enemies)…

    Women’s Committee Backs 3 Democrats for House
    http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/womens-committee-backs-3-democrats-for-house/

    you didnt recognize it, as you dont know a soviet is a commitee… and when you take over and make a soviet state, you make commitees that run committees that run down to the local level where the people have to comply with any committee orders.

    FDA – a committee that now makes law through delegated powers
    EPA – a committee that make law using delegated powers,

    what body rules our government?
    the COUNCIL on foreign relations

    what is the UN? a council… no?
    what is the supreme soviet? a council… no?

    so when you have the presidents council on XXXYYG, and he delegates powers to it, then isn’t her creating soviets to handle things?

    Soviet (council)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_%28council%29

    Soviet – English: Council) was a name used for several Russian political organizations. Examples include the Czar’s Council of Ministers, which was called the “Soviet of Ministers”; a workers’ local council in late Imperial Russia; and the Supreme Soviet, the bicameral parliament of the Soviet Union.

    you dont understand me YET because i am still speaking their language and your only just learning it.

    suggested reading: Social Engineering; The Art of Human Hacking

    So.. does your definition have anything to do with what it means? can you actually critical think your way to a point if you dont know what things mean?

    a soviet is a comittee.

    do commitees have gulags? is a gulag a defining quality of a committee?

    so Obama and Chavez, and Putin, and Stalin, and Mao, and Clinton, are all the same…

    collectivists.. in which there are no individuals, just councils and council leaders…

    so the key here is not what you think it is.

    the key here is DELEGATION of powers…
    the soviets have power that they shouold not have in our constitutional republic as it forbids such delegation.

    and if you don’t know this, you wont or cant tell the difference between a normal committee and what is a committee of the soviet type with powers to make laws by making rules and policy.
    [edited for length by n-n]

36. The problem is (a) lack of time and motivation to seek it; and (b) lack of ability to process it logically and critically.

    and (C) to recognize knowledge and defer to it to maximize merit… not all knowledge can be derived without knowing.

    the blind leading the blind thinking very hard, will not think their way out of the forest.

    Especially when the machine they are using, was affected by the system in their formative years.

37. That is why we need to be aware of the early signs, and to take them seriously.

    yup..

    naked women in the mud calling for communism and having free sex was your first clue… the big lesbians calling you comrade in the womens meetig was the second clue… and the quotes as to the womans caucus voting to make a commuist state. that was another clue… norm thomas declaring he wont run for president any more, as the democratic partys platofm is indistinquishable from the CPUSA platform.
    (oh, and the CPUSA is endorcing obama again, that was a clue too)

    how did that work out?
    how many clues do you think are needed?

    ie. way back when i was arguing with Huxley, did you get the early signs? or did people refuse?

    even now, they thin this is the start, when this is the END GAME of a 80 year project

    the left was VERY careful not to give you a clue that was not ambigious…

    but hey, even helen thomas anti antisemitism wasnt enough. was it?

38. “It should be transparently clear to any thinking person what’s happening here. But how many people think critically when they read a story? It’s so much easier to jump on the meme bandwagon.”

    There’s a reason why it’s not transparently clear to ‘thinking persons’ what’s happening here. Thinking critically generally happens within the filters of a person’s beliefs. The MSM has spent decades defining “the narrative” of how the public should view ‘greedy, selfish” Republicans. How conservatives are reactionaries who want to turn the clock back to a nostalgic, mythical America that never truly existed.

    Once those memes are accepted, mostly through the sheer repetition of the left’s ‘big’ lies, any ‘critical thinking’ takes place within the parameters of those memes.

    To truly think outside the box of our beliefs, requires fundamentally questioning the very premises of the unquestioned memes that most accept. Something few are willing and perhaps able to do.

    Neo and my political views have followed a similar arc from committed liberal to neoconservatism to a conservatism that avoids easy categorization. Our host did not come to her views quickly, nor did I. It took years and much deep reflection for me to evolve into the views I hold today and her ‘about me’ page indicates the same.

    Is it reasonable to expect that others, similarly entwined within the false memes of the left, come to a quicker understanding?

    This is the beginning of the middle of the fight between the left and right, not the end.

39. Artfldgr: my older post that I had linked to was talking about gulags vs. Chavez, and it was in that context that I was contrasting the usual, vernacular meaning of “Soviets” (as in “people in charge of the USSR”) with someone like Chavez. Words are usually used in their vernacular sense unless specified otherwise. I also indicated the essential similarity between “soviets” and “Chavez” types of leftism by saying that the latter would do what it took (including gulags, if necessary) to gain their goals, which were essentially the same.

    You seem to believe that people have been rejecting what you say, and disagreeing with you, and misunderstanding you, or are completely ignorant, when they have not (of course, some people have and are, but I think you are creating a group of strawmen in regard to most).

40. I’m not sure that this anecdote really fits with this friend, but it recently happened, and it is tangentially related, so i thought I’d share it here. A colleague who is a hard-core Democrat remarked, “I think Romney is doomed. It sure seems like an act of desperation to shoot off a remark critical of a statement made by the embassy in Cairo when the Ambassador to Libya was just killed.”

    I responded only, “Well, the embassy’s statement was pretty stupid.” I didn’t say that even Obama’s administration later distanced themselves from the statement, though I might have.

    Rather than argue the point, though, this fellow changed the subject. “Well, with 54 million Hispanics, Obama is sure to get about 75% of those and he will also get 97% of black voters, so he’s sure to be re-elected. The Republican Party is doomed until they figure out how to appeal to Hispanic voters.” Now I don’t know how, precisely, you get from Romney’s criticisms of the embassy’s pandering statements to a discussion of the implications of collective racial identity in contemporary politics, but it sure seems rather Orwellian to me: if one line of attack against Romney won’t work, might as well switch to another one just to preserve the narrative that he’s doomed.

41. M of Hollywood remarked: And, if Clint is right on stealing the election . . . we will have no choice but to tune out — or learn to speak in code. Perhaps neo could use the remainder of time between now and November to create a new language for those of us huddled here in the protection of a shrinking world intelligence?

    That question and observation reminded me of the section of Armando Valladares’ excellent memoir Against All Hope where he writes about how he and his fellow political prisoners felt starved for true and reliable information about the world outside of Cuba, and how they developed not only codes for communicating with each other, but also methods of critically reading the publications of the state-run media to try to ascertain the realities that were being hidden from them.

42. Neo,
    I think the MSM know for a fact that the vast majority of Americans who are actually paying attention (to anything) are too naive to know there’s no law compelling the “news” to be truthful. They know without a doubt they will be believed by the majority of Americans, whatever narrative they tell. And it’s our own fault.
    I am more dismayed and annoyed by people around me who are deliberately ignorant and completely oblivious than the media who feed it to them. They’re simply lazy and self absorbed. I know intelligent professionals who can’t be bothered to vote, but will ever miss an episode of their favorite TV show. They would rather be entertained and told what they should think, than take the time themselves- it’s easier and more fun to get an opinion from a few minutes of John Stewart or David Letterman, than invest a few minutes in reading, or take an interest in their government or participate. Apathy is on the side of the media and they know it.
    I get the feeling almost nobody is concerned with world events, national debt, or anything that doesn’t affect their immediate plans 4 hours into the future. I might be wrong, but I think our culture has become entirely preoccupied with personal and trivial interests, and need to be entertained in order to assimilate any information.
    The producers of TV shows have more influence on the political opinions of most Americans than anything else in their lives. If Jesus were alive today, he’d have to compete with Facebook or American Idol, and his he would stand no chance.
    People like you are the exception – bloggers, people who visit blogs, people who engage in discussions about political events are not common. The average person would consider paying this much attention to current events somewhat obsessive and extreme and boring. I am certain that a large percentage of people don’t know who the VP of the United States is, and don’t care.
    I watched Michelle Malkin ranting on Fox news last night — if you get a chance, check it out. She expresses the incredible frustration we all feel over the Orwellian media in a way that we can all understand. She was brilliant and far more articulate than I could hope to be about the utterly dispicable way the media have behaved. And she also is incredulous the American public has no idea how they are being manipulated. They, WE are to blame because we are that stupid.
    I hope I am wrong, but looking at polls and what the media is doing, it seems that it will take a total collapse of our economy or some disasterous event to reshape Americas thinking, or lack thereof.

43. Artfldgr: [translation program-Cassandra 2.0]: “You’re all wrong! I’ve been telling you dolts for years how much you didn’t know! You’re all so uninformed none of you even knew how wrong and uninformed you were! Wrongy-wrong-wrong. I can’t believe how little thanks I get for trying to educate you ignormuses. Loop.

    You’re all wrong! I’ve been telling you dolts for years…”

    But seriously. I love Neo’s site. I really enjoy 99% of the commentary, and the rest of the time, I can just scroll past Art. But he’s getting to be too much.

    It’s at the point where I feel I am at this interesting cocktail party with a lot of intelligent people, with interesting stories to tell and great insight and not an idiot in the bunch. And then, every fifteen minutes, this character storms in the room and shouts in the guests’ faces how ignorant they all are. And lately, he’s been shouting at the host.

    This needs to be said regularly:

    Artfldgr, start your own blog. So the people that enjoy your fountain of wisdom and prophesy can go there and be enlightened. Post links to it in your comments.

44. I’m waiting for the day, should it come, when I feel free to shoot neo-nazis on Main Street. In my town there will not be many such critters; but I can hope DC sends east & west coast thugs and thugs from Chicago and Detroit my way so I have a target rich environment. The eyes do not improve with age. 😉

45. Exactly. America is Americans’ to lose. If they lack sufficient discernment or place their dreams of instant gratification before the viability of their society, then they will, at minimum, lose their nation.

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