We live in a world where spin is king. Whoever controls the message controls the debate. It's one of the dictums of life whether it be in your relationships at work, with friends, lovers, family or in the world of politics.
As much as I knock conservatives in general and Republicans in particular on this site, I have to give it up to them, they are masters at message crafting and distribution. The dissemination of concise talking points on a variety of topics from national to local parties and activists is achieved in machine-like precision and is the envy of partisans and pundits alike.
Or rather was, until the message system imploded following their losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections as well as the mountain of reliable, verifiable information that directly refuted their original claims. The machine is now sputtering along, still producing talking points that are repeated endlessly on the floor of Congress, Sunday morning talk shows, Fox News, and AM talk radio but don't have nearly the results they once had.
However, now that the Republican party is talking only to their diminishing base, the darker, more sinister rumors have started flourishing and getting regurgitated from the halls of power to the coffee shops. Below are the top 5 myths being circulated by the Republicans and the right-wing messaging machine.
1. Obama was born in Kenya and cannot legally hold the office of President
This is the big one of the moment and has been repeated and emailed within the conservative circle of influence for months. It was even cited as a reason for rebellion by James von Brunn, who shot up the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, killing a guard (Stephen Johns) in the process.
The rumor started not long into Obama's 2008 stretch of the campaign when it became clear that he would triumph over Clinton in the Democratic primaries. It was debunked a few weeks later when the campaign released the certificate to independent experts to examine as well as a scanned copy to the Internet.
The experts confirmed the authenticity of the certificate while those who relied solely on the Internet version stated that it was a fake, noting that there wasn't a seal on the copy (which only faintly showed up on the scanned version since Hawaii at the time placed their seal on the back of such documents).
This has led to a fringe movement within conservative circles (who call themselves "birthers") who claim Obama never released the long form of his birth certificate and can therefore not be eligible to hold the office. Some have even tried to sue their way into federal court over the issue, only to be instantly rebuffed (one such case in Missouri is preparing to file their claim in early July).
2. Republicans understand the average joe / Democrats are elitists
Generally considered a meme that raises its head every once in a while on Fox, the idea of the "Volvo-driving latte liberal", too concerned with their own petty needs to be concerned about those of the regular joe is an older one but one that rears its head every once in a while.
Its most recent and most popular refutation came just recently in the form of a tweet from Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) when he typed "Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House". With that one tweet, Hoekstra started a micro-movement on the Internet that takes mundane events and inflates them to outrageous proportions.
Some of my favorites from the site Hoekstraisameme are: "I saw some scantily clad teenagers form a pyramid. It was just like being in Abu Ghraib", or "I just lost a game of Jenga. Now I know what it was like to be there at 9/11", or "My toilet just overflowed a little. Now I know how the Indonesian Tsunami victims felt."
3. Obama is a socialist
In the words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that word means what you think it does". Obama is not a socialist. He's a moderate Democrat who leans left on a variety of social issues. Nothing in his speeches, policy proposals, or goals of his Presidency espouse wanting to destroy capitalism or move production or distribution of goods to the ownership of the community. What he does want to do is eliminate the "casino capitalism" that awards bonuses to executives who take unnecessary risks or commit outright fraud to line their own pockets. If that's socialism, then sign me up.
4. Mainstream media is biased towards a liberal point of view
This was started almost 30 years ago by conservatives as they saw their influence in public debate begin to diminish following the Nixon scandal and Vietnam and didn't really catch steam under the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s. Sadly, this is also a lie. Cable news outlets may have anchors that lean one way or another on the political spectrum, but the companies themselves are part of large transnational corporations that are interested in profit and keeping their shareholders happy.
It's hard to do that when your employees are muckraking greedy politicians and companies that can help your bottom line. Now I'm not saying they exert overt editorial control (unless it's Fox News, who act just like Robert Greenwald's excellent documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism), but it's made clear through career advancements and story assignments how and what stories get covered.
Media Matters for America conducted a study concerning the concentration of conservative versus progressive guests espousing certain ideological beliefs who appear on their weekly panel segments. They discovered it tilted heavily in favor of conservative ideology. On NBC's Meet the Press it was 21% to 14%. On ABC's This Week it was 35% to 5% and on CBS's Face the Nation it was 20% to 0%.
5. Republicans are the moral leaders of this country
As I'm typing this, I'm watching the press conference of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford admit to the world that his hiking trip to the Appalachian Mountains was really a trip to Argentina to see his lover during his two week separation from his wife so they can try and put their marriage back together again.
This is about a week after Nevada Senator John Ensign admitted to an affair with the wife of a member of his staff, which was a couple of years after Larry Craig's conviction of soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom, which was a year and a half after Louisiana Senator David Vitter got into some trouble for screwing hookers instead of his wife, approximately two and a half years after the Rep. Mark Foley scandal in which he sought sex with underage male pages and about three years after conservative icon Rush Limbaugh was arrested for illegal drug use.
Can we please put these canards to bed rest now?
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smith and andylenny.
Added: 144 days ago by DCleary6
go to the forum/general comments about kontraband/republican myths. i posted this there. you should see the crap that has come in response thus far.
when this new president obama rears his ugly head and reveals his hidden agenda to the world you will be hiding in a hole.
1.) he is a socialist, just read some of his writings and who he has revered as politically worthy. he came from a community development background promoting social programs using legal influence backed by chicago thugs.
2.) what is the big deal in providing an actual birth certificate and not an official certificate stating that there is an actual birth certificate. hell, my kid has to prove more to his little league than this man has to be president. he is hiding something here and refuses to show it. he argues that the people who press this issue are being petty and he will not stoop to the demands. this is a cover for the real facts.
3.) he is muslim. he fell in love with a christian woman. the choice of church, pastor and the religion their children are raised under is the choice of the woman in a typical christian marriage. he has merely tolerated the great [link deleted] over the years to appease his wife. i wouldn't doubt if he has a prayer rug under his desk in the oval office.
4.) the limousine liberal has now been promoted to the lear jet liberal. everyone i work with who makes more money that i do voted for this freak and is now starting to really regret it. they all stated early on that they wouldn't mind paying a little more in taxes to help fund his agenda. they are going to get screwed now with his 250k threshold and then all of the other crap he is going to lay on them and the rest of us via his power grab and "energy" bill that is a value added tax on everything hidden in a cloak of "green politics".
5.) draw the line and it just goes left to right:
ge ceo jeff emmelt---> nbc/msnbc--->ge--->wind mills--->in the tank--->obama supporter
and you think that the media isn't in the tank for this fool of a president?
6.) myth number 6? not everyone in this world was raised with a liberal agenda as their mantra. some people actually have values and can back up what they say with facts and intelligent arguments. as a conservative and not a republican i cannot say this is true for the majority of the voting public that put this fool in office. many of them voted for him by just the color of his skin and those people don't consider that line of thought racist.
Added: 144 days ago by DCleary6
uh...yea. this is just a conspiracy theory smorgasbord of crazy. ok, where to begin 1) prove it. there isn't a single credible source (no, fox and drudge aren't credible sources so don't even start) for your allegations. not one. 2) he did turn over an actual copy of the b.c. to independent experts who confirmed its validity. apparently he was supposed to hand deliver one to you. sorry, that's kinda unlikely. 3) he's a muslim like i'm secretly elvis. again, prove it. 4) what's wrong with asking people who have benefitted from the bush tax plan to starting paying a bit more in order to restore basic services and infrastructure. taxes are the price we pay for some semblance of a civil society. 5) that logic is so tortured even cheney wouldn't go near it 6) well, i didn't have a 6th myth in the piece but why should that stop you? i'm still waiting for you to make a logical argument about anything in the piece.
Added: 144 days ago by mardod
triple posting? you're a douchebag.
Added: 143 days ago by chen47
i think that may be a system error and not the fault of the user. i've mentioned it to wes.
Added: 143 days ago by mardod
any argument that is presented you claim is not logical. you deny every fact. you accept what the talking heads on tv say as fact and refuse to even consider their views maybe tainted. i am wasting my time even telling you this now, because you will refuse to acknowledge any doubt. he entered college and received foreign financial aide. aide not offered to u.s. citizens. he traveled to countries that were forbiden for u.s. citizens to travel to, during times that travel was restricted. he promised that if his stimulas package was passed that unemployment would go down. today it hit 9.5%, that's up. he had already promised that if his bill wasn't passed unemployment would hit 9% by 2010. how deep does this hole need to be. now he and nancy want to tax 401k to pay for their illegal aliens they need to make comfortable to ensure their future. let's take those on welfare and unemployment that really want to work and train them to be drug testers. now anyone on welfare, unemployment, wix or any other govt financial program has to take monthly drug screening to get their check. not doing anything but making sure those on govt aide aren't spending that money on drugs. i promise you the revolts from jesse jackson and obama would make the news everyday for a year.
Added: 143 days ago by cwilson1963
ok then, point to me the documents that prove that he received this foreign aid. where are they and i will be more than willing to look at them. point to his travel records that will indicate the date, time and place of his travels that can be confirmed with state dept records showing the countries in question were forbidden for u.s. citizens to travel to. show me the exact statements he made claiming the stimulus package would bring down unemployment directly caused by his predecessor in the job, show me his plans that he and speaker pelosi plan to employ to tax 401k benefits to pay for providing comfort to illegal aliens. where are they? i'm not joking, i really am waiting to see the evidence. the problem though is that there is no evidence beyond what you read in an email that had been forwarded 187 times before it got to you. you, sir are being gamed. you're being lied to by people who want desperately to keep you in the dark instead of asking the real questions of our leaders that can lead to truly transformative change.
Added: 143 days ago by mardod
wow. i wish all liberals were as uneducated as you. you dont give any fact at all to back up your accusations. this is all 100% opinion. but then again, liberals have never been known to let facts get in the way of their way of thinking. seriously. if you are going to post a blog on politics, come armed with more that a thesaurus, computer, and complete ignorance of facts. you are the kind of liberal that makes conservatives jobs easy. thank you.
Added: 144 days ago by bjacobboyd
the info i cited came from the following sources: media matters for america (which i did cite), snopes.com, factcheck.org, polifact.com, and media research center. i'll be more transparent in the future with the sources i'm getting this info from. having said that, if you want to launch into a counter-argument or refute anything i've written, you're certainly welcome and encouraged to, but jumping and saying "you're stupid and you suck" and running away like a 5 year old girl probably isn't you're best move strategically. i'm just saying.
Added: 144 days ago by mardod
here is your un-biased whatch dog group. media matters for america. btw 501c3 groups are political groups
media matters for america (or mmfa) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2004 by journalist and author david brock. media matters for america describes itself as "a web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the u.s. media." media matters for america defines "conservative misinformation" as "news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda."[1]
as for factcheck and polifact, they are both owend by the annenburg foundation. both were noted by the wall street journal as deciededly left tilting. it has been suggested that they plant "conserivtative" stories to try to appear credible. sorry poor research. d minus for facts and supporting evidence.
Added: 143 days ago by 1adude
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