One of you wrote in to say that Bill O'Reilly's latest screed against the Daily Kos community included some kind of reference to my recent cross-post there, calling it "incitement to treason."
Well, well. I went on Kos and asked if anyone could confirm this...
...and suddenly surged into the triple digits in comments and became "recommended."
... and suddenly B.O.'s attack on Kos is on the Daily Show.
Ah well, at least a few people have been drawn to notice and comment on my thread-suggestion, that the fundamental winning issue to use against the monsters is their ongoing War Against Professionalism - which subsumes the "War on Science" and the assaults upon the Officer Corps and the civil service.
You folks feel free to weigh in over there.
Or keep a tickler for:
http://www.dailykos.com/user/David%20Brin
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15 comments:
Heh. Funny to think that you, like all of us (deep down) are just another "comment whore" (as my daughter calls it!)
Wasn't the original quote, "ANY publicity is good Publicity?"
Mark Brown
Congrats!
It somewhat saddens me that it took B.O. to get DKos to take a look at your writings.
but, hey, at least they're reading!
So is this the same flap involving somebody calling the Pope a primate (which he is, in both senses of the word, which is just another way that Bill O'Reilley is a ignorant hack), or did something further set him off? I don't remember any talk about treason in the first one.
Although, when the president breaks his Oath of Office to defend the country and the Constitution, isn't that treason?
Looking over there, I see what you mean about quality of discussion.
I *did* like the tee-shirt, however:
Bill O'Reilly hates me...
...I must be doing something right!
We have 'shock jocks' over here, too: motor mouths who sell their spite or adulation to the highest bidder. Two in particular, John Laws and Alan Jones. Jones' brand of venom was one of the incitements to the Cronulla riots of 2005.
Oh Doctor Brin...
Another "de-ostrich" op-ed in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072501881.html
(via Andrew Sullivan)
One of us was appointed commandant of the Marine Corps by President Ronald Reagan; the other served as a lawyer in the Reagan White House and has vigorously defended the constitutionality of warrantless National Security Agency wiretaps, presidential signing statements and many other controversial aspects of the war on terrorism. But we cannot in good conscience defend a decision that we believe has compromised our national honor and that may well promote the commission of war crimes by Americans and place at risk the welfare of captured American military forces for generations to come.
In other words, the Executive Order that looks like it prohibits CIA torture, but in fact does not, is a bridge too far even for these red-meat Republicans. Finally, after years of waiting, the word "honor" has re-entered the public political discourse. This is your best tool for saving an ostrich, everyone! Trust me, I lived among them for years and years. As long as it's about policy and politics they'll never listen, but talk about the honor of the United States or the honor of the Armed Forces and suddenly you will have their complete attention.
Bush and his knights in black armor are dishonorable. They are lying weasels and anyone who examines the facts objectively knows it. And dishonor lasts much longer than war or peace, much longer than policy or politics; it lasts at least as long as anyone alive, and sometimes longer. Ostriches know this deep in their bones.
Lemmings don't know it, or know it and don't care. That is what makes them lemmings.
Hmm, there appears to be a problem with that link.
Try this one instead.
I just watched the bill o reilly bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuhnRcZbdo8
I didn't see where they mentioned Dr. Brin. Was one of the comments listed a quote of his? None of them seemed familiar, or to be in his style.
Or was there an altogether different attack of which I am unaware?
I was just told that the director of the CIA has called the chips in on Gonzo.
Maybe it is starting...
Maybe this is the beginning of the professional class starting to stand up?
Maybe it takes an absolute ugly stammering pig like Gonzo to MAKE them stand up?
We'll see...
In the meanwhile,
Regarding Kos:
Never been a Kos fan.
Can't say why.
Just don't like him or his site.
Sadly, this only proves Bill O"Reilly's transcendent genius for getting publicity.
O'Reilly is hopeless and clueless about nearly everything -- but one skill he has honed with the expertise of a Zen master: yanking peoples' chains and roping in the audience to his little freakshow.
The reason David Brin doesn't command the stellar audiences and gigantic salary Bill O'Reilly enjoys is that Dr. Brin discusses issues in a rational nuanced way. Dr. Brin calmly lays out the logic and facts and examines 'em with a coldly dispassionate eye.
Tragically, that's not the way to become noted as a pundit and a savant in These Benighted States.
To command public attention in the Benighted States of Amnesia, you must throw red meat to the animals. You must scream and froth and foam at the mouth. You must howl like a wild animal and fall on the floor and speak in tongues. Then the rubes come flocking into the tent to see what all the commotion is about, and where the freaks are so we pay a nickel to hoot and leer at 'em.
Koreyel mentions he's never been a Kos fan. Me neither. I can tell you why, though.
The Kossacks seem to have concluded that the solution to the electroral dysfunctions of the Democratic Party is to become just like the Repubs. According to the Kossacks, Demos need to become just as wild-eyed, just as hysterical, just as hate-filled, just as eagerly pro-active at lynching anyone who dissents from the party line, as the Repubs.
Pardon me, but that's not the solution. That's the problem.
Rick Perlstein take on Fox attacks on bloggers, with an anecdote about his grandmother…
One evening's visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O'Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
Watch this video.
Reflect, for a minute, on who America's grandparents are being taught to hate: Americans who do what Americans are supposed to do, what our founders implored us to do: debate vigorously and in the open, the meaning of the public good. They used to call these people "citizens." They're "like the Nazi Party," Bill O'Reilly says. They are you and me.
You've known it for a long, long time: every single hour of every day, Fox News conspires to degrade the capacity of ordinary citizens fighting for truth and accountability from American elites. Now finally—finally!—we have a campaign to degrade their capacity. Their capacity to turn our grandparents into frightened shut-ins. Their capacity to steal America for themselves.
The sad truth is that most people don't have the time to think. If you're poor, you're working two or three jobs and trying not to get sick. If you're middle-class, you're working 50 or 60 hours per week, and driving home another 2 hours a day.
If you want to relax at all, you pick one or two shows, watch them, and then watch the news. Oops? Is the news boring? That Bill O'Riely guy is always entertaining. He makes you feel. So you flip over to him. And he tells you what to think. And you let him, because... Well, it's easier that way, and you've still got to chase the kids around the house.
BO's type of attack is not about logic or the rules of debate. He is all about manipulating people's emotions and telling them just enough of what they want to hear that they believe you when you say the Democrats are trying to blow up the Sun (or whatever other line of BS you're peddling that day).
Logic isn't enough. Emotion must also be used. Emotion is the only tool that makes people *do*.
In an age where people are too tired to think -- and where school kids believe that logic is a type of arrogance -- appeals to emotions and use of logical fallacies are the only tools left.
I personally feel that these methods should be used carefully, but BO isn't being careful. He's just making up a new witch every week and telling his audience to go burn her alive.
Nevermind. I just saw a related clip. He never mentioned Brin. He did say a poster had called for the violent overthrow of the union. He could, with a stretch and a selective eye have been refering to brin.
I saw the clip...he's upset that some poster on DailyKOS called the Pope "The Primate".
The guy claims to be a Catholic.
Do'h.
Lo!
A few other career professionals speak up in regards to Gonzo's stammers, stutters, sighs, and spiteful spuriousness:
From the NYT:
"Even though they worry that it may hinder their career prospects, a few current and former Justice Department lawyers have begun to add to the chorus of Mr. Gonzales’s critics who say that the furor over his performance as attorney general, and questions about his truthfulness under oath, could do lasting damage to the department’s work."
But Yo!
The pig still squeals and steals!
I was just told that the director of the CIA has called the chips in on Gonzo.
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