Abstract: Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times has assembled a fine piece of propaganda constructed along classic lines in order to promote his sacred mission to convince voters that the Tea Party people are out of line with reality and that we must not cut spending. This piece is extraordinary as it serves as a perfect student exercise on the proper way to attack and demonize the opposition and reverse the designs of the enemy in terms of taxation and spending and government metastasis. Friedman analyzes the Republican opposition and instructs them in their proper role if they are to be Real Conservatives. This ruse is amusing and this hoopla attempts to stir derision and consternation within the ranks of the opposition thus saving the day [Nov 2012] for the Second Obama Enlightenment. This is such a farce. But, to conclude, we must give Friedman an A++ for his efforts.
How to best read my blogs:
[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]
To begin:
We are constantly entranced and synthetically enlightened by political essays slickly embedded in sausage-machine grade propaganda pieces that are proffered to be authentic [or at least sincere], but which seem to magically blend in with all the previous erstwhile rants published in the Walter Duranty Papers[1][2]—aka [the near-bankrupt] New York Times. The word tautological needs a broader definition and some attending attributes to describe this tedious and monotonic exercise that never fails to maintain and preserve the monotonicity of the left-wing political effort. The notion that the Times is ‘fair’ or objective is an essay into itself where this coveted position may be objectively challenged in doubtless every op-ed article they have written in their 40 year history and beyond that arbitrary goal post and into the murky political depths of the last century.
I have written extensively on propaganda essays and selected examples deriving, I think, customarily all or most all of my examples, are extracted from the
Let us amuse ourselves with this current specimen:
“It becomes clearer every week that our country faces a big choice: We can either have a hard decade or a bad century.”[9]-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: September 20, 2011 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]
Thusly, we are presented with two [and only two!] difficult and agonizing choices that will be painful and tormenting for all and there is no escape from this fate. This is crap, of course, but it does shadow the New York Times’s senior propagandist Paul Krugman in its tiresome construction and form. The student meticulously practices the lessons of his master. Obsequiousness is a virtue in leftist circles.
Well, as the man who fell from a 90 story building was overhead shouting by a couple having cocktails on the balcony below: so far so good!
“We can either roll up our sleeves and do what’s needed to overcome our post-cold war excesses and adapt to the demands of the 21st century or we can just keep limping into the future.”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
Occasional reinforcement of the conclusion is good practice as we follow the text especially for some readers of the NYT who have difficulty in processing maudlin thoughts but have a good hanky nearby or getting a second opinion from another victim. The only two choices remain, but need extensive elaboration and here it is:
Let’s drone on about only two choices:
“Given those stark choices, one would hope that our politicians would rise to the challenge by putting forth fair and credible recovery proposals that match the scale of our debt problem and contain the three elements that any serious plan must have: spending cuts, increases in revenues and investments in the sources of our strength. But that, alas, is not what we’re getting, which is why there remains an opening for an independent Third Party candidate in the 2012 campaign.”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
This is a classic piece! After the conclusion has been carved out in stone and amplified several times, the next step is to define what actions and attributes must accompany the mental implantation of the effort by our politicians to ‘save our society’ or thoughts roughly equivalent to that rubbery effect. Next, he slips in the ‘obvious’ list of three efforts that are a rigid must: Spending cuts, taxes and ‘investments’ meaning more taxes. We must wait and see if our author pushes the ‘cuts’ off into some enchanted land that may appear some decade or so away into a place where our children or grandchildren will be burdened with this debt mess. There will be no immediate spending cuts proffered other than to the military if he wishes to remain employed at The Old Gray Lady.
The Ultimate Plan carefully crafted for us complete, we need to switch into attacks and a proper demonization upon the opposition:
“The Republicans have come nowhere near rising to our three-part challenge because the G.O.P. is no longer a “conservative” party, offering a conservative formula for American renewal. The G.O.P. has been captured by a radical antitax wing, and the party’s leaders are too afraid to challenge it. What would real conservatives be offering now?”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
This is news. The Republicans were never so aligned as Ike, Nixon, Bush1, 2 and John McCain have demonstrated in public. Here, using a wave of some wand, the opposition party is transformed into some special and grossly simplified target with identifying parts suitable for direct attack or elimination. Such news makes conservatives yawn. Our tax revenues are consistently wasted on fluff and emotional social programs that tend to work better in reverse than in the forward direction like my old Buick.
As is proper and mandatory with the left, they need to first divide and then attempt to conquer so that the ‘solution’ to this well-defined and noble process is rendered obvious and simple. Here, for our education, the role of the ‘real conservative’ is outlined for us. We are also notified that ‘real’ conservatives actually have narrowly defined roles and dogmas and the current conduct and thinking of many Republicans are out of line with true conservatism. This is the best opportunity in the text to interject falsehoods and to attempt to foster puppet making so as to convince voters that this narrow radical group has infected the opposition party. The radicals are merely out of line. Progressive readers of the NYT now are prompted to drool. We have a solution!! Just divide the enemy and they can be attacked separately.
A blueprint for the ‘real’ conservative is now cast before us with glowing terms:
“They would understand, as President Eisenhower did, that at this crucial hinge in our history we cannot just be about cutting. We also need to be investing in the sources of our greatness: infrastructure, education, immigration and government-funded research. Real conservatives would understand that you cannot just shred the New Deal social safety nets, which are precisely what enable the public to tolerate freewheeling capitalism, with its brutal ups and downs.”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
This is an apparent essay in Pure Reason where spending cuts are never proper. This ‘investment’ nonsense is reiterated for mind-numbing fortification of this central point. We cannot cut anything! More and higher tax revenues are necessary. Next, a list of what ‘real conservatives’ would find obvious spews forth in an emotional and omnipotent essay:
“[1] Real conservatives would understand that we cannot maintain our vital defense budget without an appropriate tax base.
[2] Real conservatives would understand that we can simplify the tax code, get rid of all the special-interest giveaways and raise revenues at the same time
[3] Real conservatives would never cut taxes and add a new Medicare entitlement in the middle of two wars.
[4] And real conservatives would understand that the Tea Party has become the Tea Kettle Party”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
Well, that just about covers the whole political spectrum with the sweeping embedded conclusion that any tampering with our Hell-bend descent into toxic debt is the fault of radical elements on the right and this current pathway that lacks massive new taxes is a disaster. Of course, he makes no mention of our debt levels now, where we spent 40% in deficit for a tidy sum of $1.5 Trillion dollars and that annual burden is 11% of the sour GDP and that next year this marginal increase will bring our debt-to-GDP levels past 112%.
Well done and a salute to our author and praise for the careful supervision of the editorial staff. This is a classic piece.
Now, on to some numbers, a risky prospect for the tax-mongering left:
“Mr. Obama gave us the credible $447 billion jobs program, but his deficit reduction plan announced on Monday to pay for it and trim long-term spending does not rise to the scale we need. It may motivate his base, but it will not attract independents and centrists and, therefore, it will not corner the Republicans.”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
Here, we hear of yet another jobs program and this one is deemed ‘credible’ for unknown reasons outside of mere political lackyism.[10] We have never had a credible jobs program. The New Deal, War on Poverty, HUD, Great Society, busing, welfare and other progressive programs failed to meet objectives, unless, of course, the real objective was to grunt and grab for other people’s money.
“My fading hope is that this is Obama’s opening bid and enough Republicans will come to their senses and engage him again in a Grand Bargain. My fear is that both parties have just started their 2012 campaigns. In which case, the rest of us will just sit here, hostages to fortune, orphans of a political system gone mad, hunkering down for a bad century.”-- Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?
The clincher: “I am scared!!!” We can all panic and run around in circles as we are programmed to do when we hear ‘The Sky is Falling.”[11]
rycK [a 5th generation Californian in exile]
Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com
[1] The Babbling Brooks of the
[2] In honor of that celebrated Communist stooge and liar and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for the
“He said that these people had to be "liquidated or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass". Duranty claimed that the Siberian labor camps were a means of giving individuals a chance to rejoin Soviet society but also said that for those who could not accept the system, "the final fate of such enemies is death." Duranty, though describing the system as cruel, says he has "no brief for or against it, nor any purpose save to try to tell the truth". He ends the article with the claim that the brutal collectivization campaign which led to the famine was motivated by the "hope or promise of a subsequent raising up" of Asian-minded masses in the Soviet Union which only history could judge.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty
[3] Krugman Applies Protosimian Logic to Health Care. Big Government and Higher Taxes! Of Course!
[4] Propaganda Gem: Krugman Distorts History as He Grubs for More Taxes.
[5] Propaganda Alert: The New York Times Axes the Right Questions and then Answers Them with the Left Answers.
[6] Political Lessons from the Fairy Tales by the New York Times: Propaganda at Work.
[7] Propaganda Lesson: Economics and Recessions from The NYT: A Long [Sad] Story and Stern Tutorial on Tax Cuts.
http://rycksrationalizations.townhall.com/g/2bea69e5-bb30-4923-9ed4-192199970c1a
[8] Generally, in propaganda exercises of the basest sort, it is permissible to ignite enticing political flames with the conclusion boldly stated up front and then use the remaining text to amplify the original assumption thus providing a ‘proof’ that the initial argument was sound. This forms the tightest ring of circular logic that such techniques can devise as long as no probing questions are allowed. An example bursts forth in the Opinion Pages of the New York Times as of 8.06.11:
“Amid all the debt hysteria, it’s worth taking a look at the actual arithmetic here — because what this arithmetic says is that the size of the deficit in the next year or two hardly matters for the US fiscal position — and in fact the size over the next decade is barely significant.”-- The Arithmetic of Near-term Deficits and Debt By Paul Krugman August 6, 2011, 12:00 PM [Emphasis is mine in all quotes unless specifically stated otherwise.] http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/the-arithmetic-of-near-term-deficits-and-debt/
[9] Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On? By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: September 20, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/opinion/friedman-are-we-going-to-roll-up-our-sleeves-or-limp-on.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
[10] “Pagpapakatuta” in Tagalog
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