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Is the Democratic party's worst enemy...

22:06 / 02.08.04

Democrats and Democrat supporters?

Take Democrat Senator Jim McDermott. He appears in Fahrenheit 9/11 claiming that the Republican party have been using the terror alerts for political purposes, raising the level of terror threat to keep Americans scared and keep other news stories off the front pages.

Now, to me this sounds entirely plausible, the problem lies when Senator McDermott claims that the level of alert has even reached 'red'. That is simply not true.

Then there are books such as We The People a call to the American people to take back their country written by Thom Hartmann, ‘internationally known speaker on culture and communications, an author and an innovator in the fields of psychiatry, ecology, and economics". Illustrated by Neil Cohn in a format very similar to that adopted by Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, Hartmann’s book raises many legitimate concerns about the state of democracy in the United States, such as the conflict of interest involved in corporate ownership of electronic voting machines. However it also opens with a Godwin-tastic comparison between the post 9/11 Republican Party and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Further it in includes not entirely accurate claims such as ‘in England people who modify their cars to run on vegetable oil are vilified and even prosecuted’. People using alternative fuels are only liable for prosecution if they fail to pay fuel duty on the oil they are using as a fuel. see here.

If I can spot such overgeneralizations in some elements of Hartmann’s work how can the rest of his assertions be trusted?

So, what do people think – are the democrats and their supporters simply offering the kind of factual distortions that have been the stock in trade of Republican supporters for years or are they actively harming their credibility as a trustworthy alternative to the current administration? Or are such considerations unimportant in the ongoing drive to get the currant administration out of office?

What do you think?

23:05 / 02.08.04

I think the hard part of the Dems is that just making the case against Bush with the facts in hand is a difficult enough task. You almost need more spin on the bullet to get your point across.

For some reason, with Cheney's connections to Haliburton, energy meeting secrecy, the Plame investigation, the WMD fiasco, all of these things have yet to really catch on with the American public as a whole. The closest the American public came to really getting disgusted with Bush was during the Abu Ghraib photos and his bald-face support of Rumsfeld during it. Shy of that, pundits almost have to resort to outlandish accusations, in the same stripe as their Republican counterparts, just to get noticed and usually to the detriment of the facts they carry. Or the messenger. Or both.

FOX and other conservative media outlets have done such an ironclad job of convincing the American people that Bush is 'the right guy' that it's going to take something very tough and penetrating to burst that idea.

Hopefully the Plame investigation will drudge up some more heat on Dubya. But the fact is, we're running out of ammo to throw.

23:40 / 02.08.04

Agree with DM here. Well, it's not as if it's hard to make a case with the facts at hand - the problem is that the facts have been so successfully counterspun. As you say, all of these things have yet to really catch on with the American public as a whole. As soon as they emerge they are buried by counterclaims with little factual basis behind them that are given equal coverage in the name of "balance", and then, the worst media sin, they become old news.

I'm toying with the idea myself that gross propaganda lies might be the best way to challenge this, but unfortunately, with the media the way it is, gross propaganda lies from the wrong source don't get anywhere, they're not reported with anything like the appropriate fanfare. And once the lie machine has been set up, even if it works, it's then going to continue once the immediate objective has been achieved.

00:53 / 03.08.04

Here's the thing: right-wing pundits and demagogues deal in dodgy assertions, massaged facts, ill-conceived notions, half-truths, false premises, and outright slander all the fucking time. And we take this for granted.

When Michael Moore commits a lie of omission by failing to provide the context for a figure, all Hell breaks loose. But when Rush Limbaugh states unequivocally that the Clintons had Vince Foster assassinated, nobody bats an eye.

Why are we holding the Dems to a higher standard? Because they/we are the "good guys"?

What's going on, I think, is that the country is so polarized, and the stakes so high, that the Dems feel they can't afford to continue using Marquess of Queensbury rules against a foe who's swinging brass knuckles and a bolo knife.

But we'll wring our hands over it afterwards, which makes it all OK.

As Toby Ziegler said: "They will like us when we win." And the Democrats have had enough of noble failure, thanks.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

07:58 / 03.08.04

If you think about it, it's pretty much the same here. I'd love to see a political candidate who told the unvarnished truth - heck, I'd sign on the dotted line and work for them - but I'd also expect to see them get roasted.

09:13 / 03.08.04

I think one problem is that the party is housing at least two different political ideologies. What I mean is you have the Joe Liebermans of the party who are actually quite conservative and want to see the party continue to lean that way. On the other hand you have your Jesse Jacksons (sorry I was having trouble thinking of a truly liberal democrat and this was the best I could do!)who would like to see the party maintain its more liberal ideologies.

I think because the party as a whole can't agree on which direction it should go in, the whole lot comes off as less cohesive as the Republicans.

That said there are certainly arguing factions in the Republican party as well, but perhaps those factions are less divisive.

21:13 / 03.08.04

I don't really hold the Democrats to a higher standard than the Republicans because they're not "my party" - to me they're just a bunch of gangsters who want to rule the country but will provide a better outcome than continuing to let Bush do it, and are the ones most likely to succeed in getting him out. It's not like I get my information from them.

The only issue with them lying and exaggerating is "will it work? Can they tell good lies?" and they're currently at a media disadvantage when it comes to lying. Sometimes, truth is the best propaganda.

Cherielabombe - people always argue more when they're not in power; it gives factions a chance to get their oar in under the assumption that the way to win might be theirs. If your general group is already winning then the assumption is that doing the same thing will continue to work, so people are less likely to want to screw with it. That's my analysis anyway.

Jack The Bodiless

22:10 / 03.08.04

The liberal left has always lied and exaggerated in the media. As has (obviously) the fundamentalist right. It's not a function of the political ideas of the movement, it's a function of organised media itself. You cannot fully trust what the media say without juxtaposition with other, sometimes opposed media. Even then you have to acknowledge that it may be suspect. Everyone has an agenda, and everyone wears blinkers when it comes to exploiting that agenda. Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, everyone else - they're all pushing their own ideas, and just because you agree with the principles they propagate doesn't mean that the evidence is correct, or even accurate. This should be self-evident, surely? We're not kids...

22:44 / 03.08.04

Well, yes.