Donkasaurus Post

“INSTA-BS” WATCH — Nancy Pelosi Fear and Remembrance Breakdown

Posted by admin - 17/09/09 at 05:09 pm

We’re no great fans of Nancy Pelosi either.  But some of the comments to Pelosi geting choked up over remembering the murders of San Franisco Liberal Mayor George Moscone, and Gay Council Member Harvey Milk, and illustrate just how wide the gap is in online partisanship — which often brings out the most partisan, one sided, often misinformation and belief driven rantings, possible.

That Milk and Moscone were shot by a disaffected Supervisor (who insanely received a ridiculously light sentence) is not really relevant to Pelosi’s sentiments, or concern.   That’s Pelosi’s home town.  She knew both of them.   The threat of violence today is very real, according to a recent DHS Report  undertaken by the Bush Administration, and recently concluded. 

Of course, some on the Right completely misinterpreted the point of that DHS report — which was not about the right wing, but right wing Extremism.  (Not a perfect analogy, but in some of the same ways that a Muslim is not, and should not feel indicted (unless he or she watches the Glenn Beck show), because of the greater world wide threat from Radical Islamic Extremism. (Also, itself, incidentally, a form of far to the extreme right wing thought – again, something very different than simply “the Right” or, simply “conservative.”)

There were suggestions that the wording of the report could have been different.  But the bottom line remains that the DHS itself, under a Bush Administration commissioned report, suggested the threat of extremism — not the threat of “right wingism” but “extremism” from some extreme and unbalanced elements of the far right wing — was very real. (If one were to listen to the rantings of Glenn Beck  for any length of time, one could see how this might be further inspired as well.  This past spring, for instance, Beck simulated pouring gasoline over the American people (by using studio props and a guest to be poured upon), held up a lit match while simultaneously saying this was what Obama was doing to the American people, while ludicrously telling his audience that Obama wanted to let all the terrorists onto the streets.  He has also suggested to his viewers, multiple times,  in even more incendiary fashion, that Obama is “coming for” them.  And these examples are not even the tip of the iceberg.)

Yet Pelosi is mocked, despised, loathed, and worse, because of her reflection on what is a growing, and legitimate concern over the deepening anger and further coarsening of our political debate, and further extreme expressions of hatred that our routinely being thrown about, even as our political dialogue becomes more and more misinformed. 

Of course, what did Law Professor, somewhat well known (and highly influential) Glenn Reynolds have to say about it all? Just a wink, nod, and an assist:

LOSING IT: Nancy Pelosi chokes up about political violence, doesn’t mention Ken Gladney. “Pelosi wants to silence opposition since she cannot outargue it, and her implied reference to the murders of Milk and Moscone as somehow comparable to political opposition to the Obama administration is flat-out despicable.” And desperate.

Pelosi doesn’t mention Ken Gladney!  Well, obviously, throw out the DHS report, throw out the trend of increasing threats.  Throw out Pelosi’s legitimate sentiments over two innocent (and left wing) political figures that she personally knew, at the hands of someone deranged.  Pelosi didn’t mention Ken Gladney!  Of course, Pelosi’s concerns can’t not be real — let’s mock and detest here! — because there are bad apples of every stripe! 

It’s logic like that (and like this), that earned Reynolds, years ago, “Yalie of the week” honors, and gets him such a big online following with a crowd that really wants to be fed those bits of information, and spun in just that way, that continue to feed their beliefs and views of the world, rather than, in fact, truly inform them.  All the while, most importantly, creating the impression of the latter.

That is, almost everyone wants to be made to think that they are thinking. And almost no one wants to actually think. Particularly if it makes them have to re-examine how, why and what, they think what they do.  We as people will follow all kinds of logic, that makes us think that we are thinking, and that manages to keeps us away from actually engaging in just that. 

It’s one of the many reasons why this particular blog/website (along with the fact, that well, we admit its a bit of a boutique blog and not a full time project) could not possibly reach a tenth of the popularity of Reynolds’ INSTA-BS.  It’s not partisan. It  makes mistakes, it misses some things, but it is objective.  It certainly strives to be. And above all else, it makes people think. And in politics, while it is the first thing that in our nation we need to do, it is really the last thing people actually want to do. (In fairness though, Reynolds does do a pretty thorough job of bringing a select  section of news snippets in comfortable, twitter like, dumbed down sound bite form, and is pretty witty.)

Of course, voters are much more open to re-examing what, how and why they think like they do, if an understanding of their point of view is understood,and not simply always mocked by those who need to reach others in sympathy.  Which is why we think the following from an otherwise extremely contorted article, is well worth considering.

Stepping up the rhetoric from mockery to pure hatred, and absent any evidence, Mr. Olbermann has called the president’s public protesters “worse than racists.” Political activist and comedian Janeane Garofalo colored them “racist rednecks who hate blacks”…

…Tea Party attendees and health care town-hall protesters share the common belief that the extravagant spending of President Obama and the Democratic Party — absent any checks and balances — will eventually lead more people into government dependency, higher taxes and, perhaps, our country’s financial ruin. These are legitimate fears felt by millions of Americans.

Of couse, we could take exceptional issue with the suggestion in the latter paragraph — in contravention to what Obama inherited, and to the rather different attitude expressed toward what was a fairly big government, and somewhat imperialist (and secretive, unaccoutable) Bush administration– along with noting that those concerns expressed above are still legitimate.

But that’s not the point here. The point is, instead, juxtaposing the actual beliefs — whatever type of combination of misinformation and actual concern that may be driving it — with its contemptuous dismissal by Olbermann and Garafaolo.  This plays well with those of like mind, but only furthers the self righteousness of the very crowd that Olbermann and Garafaolo seek to mock, and only furthers the in large part misinformation created divide, and degrading state of our dialogue that rests precipitously upon it, today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 0 and is filed under Uncategorized. The entry is tagged under You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.