Black Helicopters Over Nashville

[Skeptic]

I like these quotes:

Perhaps the most distressing part of all is that few media observers bothered to catalog these bizarre, conspiracist outbursts, and instead fixated on Sarah Palin's Saturday night keynote address.

Gee, I can't imagine why. Perhaps for the same reason people didn't bother to look for "Whitey is the devil" or "Bush will declare a dictatorship" kooks during the DNC, and instead focused on Obama's acceptance speech: namely, while if one checked one were sure to find them milling about, that hardly means that was the important issue of what the DNC was "really" about.

It is as if, in the current overheated political atmosphere, we all simply have come to expect that radicalized conservatives will behave like unhinged paranoiacs when they collect in the same room

So if other reporters report similar impressions, well, that settles that the right-wingers are kooks. But the fact that no other reporter seems to have noticed what this reporter notices just proves it is so obviously true and expected by everybody that they felt no need to report it!

(And Obama is a reptilian. This wasn't reported in CNN today. But that just shows CNN reporters expect him to turn into a ten-foot lizard once in a while, so they don't consider it newsworthy.)

Well, it's either that, or that the only one who actually "expected" and therefore found such behavior was the reporter, while people who actually reported the important events that went on, like Palin's speech, didn't seem to notice.

And, of course, the reporter is here contradicting himself: earlier he says he has special expertise ("writing a book about 9/11 conspiracy theories for Harper Collins") so he is qualified to see what was "really" going on in the convention. So which is it? Did all those other reporters notice and didn't say anything because it they "expect" conservatives to act this way, or did he notice things others did not because of his expertise on conspiracy theories?

You know how many illogical conspiracy theorists were there in the "tea party" meeting, Mr. Kay?

One more than you think.

 

[Cynic]

Sure it's possible. That's why we give racists the benefit of the doubt, right? All those people getting "smeared" all the time, maybe they really are subhuman.

In fact you nailed it in your first sentence: "Smearing" is crap. It's a crap way to make an argument. It's a crap way to support a claim. It's a crap way to sway public opinion.

"Smearing" is a stand-in for real arguments, real evidence, and--as we can see here--real reporting.

It's crap. Are you seriously asking us to consider the possibility that shoveling enough crap will sooner or later pile up into a rational case for or against something? Why not reject it as a big pile of crap?

I mean, seriously? "The mainstream media shovels so much crap, maybe they're on to something!" How does that make any sense at all?

Yes, smearing is a crap way to make an argument, to support a claim, or sway public opinion. Consider the irony then of declaring that any news article that doesn't go your way politically is a smear.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

On a related note, Glenn Beck just unearthed a Tea Party Truther. Fortunately, it looks like we're abandoning ship fast.

People like Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart calling out the kooks isn't going to help the liberal smear machine.

 

[dudalb]

I get the feeling that a number of mainstream conservatives think they can somehow take over,control, and use the Tea Party Movement.
That tactic has been tried on both sides of the political spectrum,and it usually fails.

 

[Gangularis]

Ah, yes. "The Nation" and "Newsweek"... so reliable in their report on the Right.

The left-leaning mainstream media (Newsweek, Time, CNN, the New York Times, etc. -- "The Nation" is not left-leaning, it's just far-left) don't seem to realize that they have long ago blown any claim they might have had to anything remotely like balance or objectivity in reporting about the Right, so people simple don't believe their "discoveries" any longer.

That is due to the fact that their "discoveries" about all right-wing movements always seem to follow the same trajectory:

1). First they ignore it, being too busy to celebrate the "historical achievement" and "explaining" to everybody the "revolutionary importance" of the latest democrat to win an election. Never mind that they said the same about every democratic politician.

2). Then they scorn it as a "tiny bunch of extremists", cooks and crazies, whose existence just shows how the "GOP had lost control", is going to go down in flames any disappear any blessed day now, etc.

3). When that doesn't seem to have the least effect on slowing it down, and the movement cannot be either ignored or laughed at any longer, they go to plan B, an "investigative journalist" 'discovering' that "it might be a big and popular, but it really is dominated by a tiny bunch of extremists". (Or does anybody for a minute think that if Mr. Kay had written a report that was not "they're crazy, I tell you, they're crazy", then Newsweek would have published it as a "web exclusive"? ... no, didn't think so.)

4). The next step, if (1)-(3) fail and the movement keep growing, to start panicking and give the democratic politician more and more shrill and contradictory advice about what he must do to defeat the growing menace of the Right-wing movement.

5). If the democratic incumbent ignores their hysterical and self-contradictory advice (and rightfully so: that's all he needs -- advice from panicky journalists) and (as sometimes happens) loses the election to what a few months ago was a "tiny minority of extremists", they go into deep gloom, and write funerary obituaries to democracy / America / justice / liberalism / the world, since the tiny minority of evil extremists had, somehow, won.

They don't seem to realize that they are falling for their own propaganda of stages (2) and (3) when they reach stage (5), nor that making them react in such a ridiculous, if predictable, manner (look at CNN's reports on the "Tea parties" a few months ago, from stage (2), as opposed to this one, a typical stage (3)) is part of the reason people join the "extremists" in the first place.

That sounds like a conspiracy from the left leaning media and Newsweek!!!




So let me get this straight.. The group of people (Tea Partiers) that is not lacking in birthers, and even truthers, and call Obama a "Fascist, communist, dictator", and who are obviously paranoid of big government couldn't possibly be paranoid about black helicopters flying about? It must've just been exaggerated or made up by a Newsweek investigative journalist?? What sounds more likely, the former, or the latter, to you?

The tea-party movement is dominated by conspiracist kooks.

In that case it shouldn't be too difficult to name several people in positions of influence within the Tea Party movement, who are conspiracist kooks.

What's that you say? Nobody important? No names? Just "buzz" on the "street" from various unnamed "dudes"?

Stellar reporting, there, Walter Ego. Let me know when your latter-day Woodwards and Bernsteins start quoting Deep Nose or Deep Ear.

Just because no widely known public figure has the audacity (or idiocy) to fully represent, and encompass, the mentality of a lot of these folks does not mean a large portion of the self professed "tea baggers" aren't whack job loons paranoid about black helicopters.. They are obviously desperate in looking for a large public figure willing to come close to representing their beliefs - hence, Sarah Palin..

 

[Skeptic]

Just because no widely known public figure has the audacity (or idiocy) to fully represent, and encompass, the mentality of a lot of these folks does not mean a large portion of the self professed "tea baggers" aren't whack job loons paranoid about black helicopters..

True, true. But, of course, it doesn't mean a large portion of the self professed "tea baggers" are whack job paranoid loons, either.

The large amount of vague references to "lots" of people who agree with the loons or how the reporter "feels" about the "atmosphere" in the convention, etc. -- together with a paucity of verifiable names or actions -- is typical of such broad-brush, smear reports about "the crazy conservatives" from the likes of Newsweek.

 

[INRM]

How are the Tea Partyers reactionaries?

 

[Cynic]

How are the Tea Partyers reactionaries?

Their inception was a reaction to the imminent election of Barack Obama, for one. They were protesting things he neither said he was going to do nor had done or even has done. It doesn't get much more reactionary than protesting things that haven't happened.

 

[leftysergeant]

This is the one good thing about the MSM's smear machine.['QUOTE]

We have nobody to compare to Breitbart when it comes to smears. A torrent of clingy mud flows from every word the low-life writes or speaks.

But when you wrap your own candidates in cotton from the nasty and unfair and unfounded rumors from the right, you usually end up with a huge problem down the road -- like the Clinton impeachment or the John Edwards scandal or Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddik (sp???).

Conflating things you shouldn't there. Whether Clinton boinked Monica or not was not our business, and the judge who said that anyone had the right to ask him in court is, in my mind, a pretty sorry excuse for a judge.

Nobody suffereed criminal abuse of their rights from what Clinton did.

Edwards is a low life. So freaking WHAT? We threw him under the bus when the evidence was in.

Ted Kennedy is a more dificult matter. But none of us were there and the answers diedf with him. whoop

But here's the thing that makes us on the left better than the scum behind the Teabaggers.

We wait for actual evidence and we call people who present criminally defective evidence criminals.

You call them heroes if it slimes the left.

Look at the trouble Obama's obvious lack of qualification and experience for the job -- ridiculed as "right wing paranoia" by The One's cheerleaders, which meant most of the MSM, before the election -- is costing him, the democrats, and the country now.

Balloon juice. You also dump on the press for calling the Arctic Airhead unqualified. You can't have it both ways.

 

[Sporanox]

Ted Kennedy is a more dificult matter. But none of us were there and the answers diedf with him. whoop

I won't press this if you stop perpetrating your outlandish conspiracy theories about Breitbart.

Yes, smearing is a crap way to make an argument, to support a claim, or sway public opinion. Consider the irony then of declaring that any news article that doesn't go your way politically is a smear.

Is there somebody that does so present here, or are you making a general statement?

 

[theprestige]

Their inception was a reaction to the imminent election of Barack Obama, for one. They were protesting things he neither said he was going to do nor had done or even has done. It doesn't get much more reactionary than protesting things that haven't happened.

This is, in fact, a smear.

The tea party had its inception in widespread support for one Rick Santelli's outburst on natoinal television in mid-February 2009, a month after Obama had taken office and several months after he had been elected. Santelli was objecting to the government's mortgage bailout program. In his rant he referenced the Boston "tea party" of 1773, a protest against policies of the British government. Apparently his idea resonated with fiscal conservatives, and thus the Tea Party movement was born.

One wonders how you could get both the timing and the motivation for the Tea Party movement so laughably wrong.

 

[leftysergeant]

I won't press this if you stop perpetrating your outlandish conspiracy theories about Breitbart.

Breitbart is a documented lunatic, liar and anti-Democratic agitator. He funds the crimes of the pimp and sleaze.

Flat busted.

Please let me know if you would like the Breitbart discussion split off into a new thread. Otherwise, please stay on topic. Thank you. While this is posted in Lefty's post, I bear in mind that the first mention of Breitbart was not by him.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LibraryLady

 

[INRM]

I thought the definition of a reactionary was a person who wanted to go back in to a time they believed was a "golden age".

 

[Walter Ego]

This is, in fact, a smear.

The tea party had its inception in widespread support for one Rick Santelli's outburst on natoinal television in mid-February 2009, a month after Obama had taken office and several months after he had been elected. Santelli was objecting to the government's mortgage bailout program. In his rant he referenced the Boston "tea party" of 1773, a protest against policies of the British government. Apparently his idea resonated with fiscal conservatives, and thus the Tea Party movement was born.

You are correct.

By most accounts, the Paul Revere figure of this Second American Revolution is an excitable cable-news reporter named Rick Santelli, a former futures trader and Drexel Burnham Lambert vice-president who stood on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange last February and sounded the alarm on CNBC about the new Administration’s planned assistance for homeowners facing foreclosure. He proposed a nationwide referendum, via the Internet, on the matter of subsidizing “the losers’ mortgages,” winning both the attention and the vocal support of the working traders in his midst. “President Obama, are you listening?” he shouted, and then said that he’d been thinking of organizing a Chicago Tea Party in July, urging “all you capitalists” to come join him on Lake Michigan, where “we’re going to be dumping in some derivative securities.” It was a delicate pose—financial professionals more or less laughing at debtors while disavowing the lending techniques that had occasioned the crisis—but within a matter of hours a Web site, OfficialChicagoTeaParty.com, had gone live, and by the end of the following week dozens of small protests were occurring simultaneously around the country, invoking the legacy of early New England colonists in their revolt against King George.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/01/100201fa_fact_mcgrath?printable=true#ixzz0fMILV8sz

The New Yorker article quoted is a thoughtful piece about the Tea Party movement which has drawn praise from conservative commentators and is highly recommended.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Breitbart is a documented lunatic, liar and anti-Democratic agitator. He funds the crimes of the pimp and sleaze.

Flat busted.

Bare Assertion Fallacy.

The bare assertion fallacy is a fallacy in formal logic where a premise in an argument is assumed to be true merely because it says that it is true.

One form of the fallacy may be summarized as follows:

* Fact 1: X claims statement A.
* Fact 2: X claims that X is not lying.
* Conclusion: Therefore, A is true.

Put into practice, this fallacy would read:

* Fact 1: Simon says that Jack eats ice cream.
* Fact 2: Simon says that Simon is not lying.
* Conclusion: Therefore, Jack eats ice cream.

A second example:

* Fact 1: John Lefty says Jesus is the Word of God Breitbart is evil.
* Fact 2: John Lefty says he is speaking the truth.
* Conclusion: Therefore, Jesus is the Word of God Breitbart is evil.

 

[Walter Ego]

Conspiracy Movie Debues in Nashville

It was the filthy hippies who did it!

On Friday night [of the Tea Party convention], Andrew Breitbart introduced “Generation Zero,” a splashy documentary that argues that the financial crisis was deliberately engineered by radical 1960s ideologues.

Footage of dancing hippies and pictures of Saul Alinksy — the radical organizer who has become a household name among Tea Parties — were intercut with conservative writers like Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, historian Victor Davis Hanson, and Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald, explaining how left-wing theorists had long wanted to bring down capitalism and replace it with a socialist society.

http://washingtonindependent.com/76005/tea-party-convention-marks-coming-out-for-a-movement

 

[Sporanox]

Breitbart is a documented lunatic, liar and anti-Democratic agitator. He funds the crimes of the pimp and sleaze.

Flat busted.

I'm curious, lefty...how do you justify accidentally killing a young woman by driving off a bridge while drunk, then swimming out of the car and going to a hotel instead of trying to get help, then comfortably eating breakfast the next morning before finally reporting the crime?



EDIT: This is not a tu quoque sparring attempt. Lefty brought it up and I want to hear what defense he offers.

 

[Newtons Bit]

I'm curious, lefty...how do you justify accidentally killing a young woman by driving off a bridge while drunk, then swimming out of the car and going to a hotel instead of trying to get help, then comfortably eating breakfast the next morning before finally reporting the crime?



EDIT: This is not a tu quoque sparring attempt. Lefty brought it up and I want to hear what defense he offers.

I didn't know that Lefty was a Kennedy!!!

 

[Cynic]

This is, in fact, a smear.

The tea party had its inception in widespread support for one Rick Santelli's outburst on natoinal television in mid-February 2009, a month after Obama had taken office and several months after he had been elected. Santelli was objecting to the government's mortgage bailout program. In his rant he referenced the Boston "tea party" of 1773, a protest against policies of the British government. Apparently his idea resonated with fiscal conservatives, and thus the Tea Party movement was born.

One wonders how you could get both the timing and the motivation for the Tea Party movement so laughably wrong.

Without my necessarily suggesting what it means, I'm curious what you think of this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/business/media/03cnbc.html

Since the commentary, which was viewed millions of times on CNBC.com and YouTube, dozens of “tea party” protests have taken place in cities across the country, and some conservative groups are planning a Tax Day Tea Party for April 15.

Mr. Santelli’s televised commentary appeared spontaneous to viewers. However, the Internet domain name ChicagoTeaParty.com was registered in August 2008 — well before his commentary — but not used until afterwards. The registration was first reported by two bloggers for Playboy’s Web site who said it was evidence that Mr. Santelli’s remarks were a “carefully planned trigger” for the protests. (The blog post was removed without explanation Monday.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

This is, in fact, a smear.

The tea party had its inception in widespread support for one Rick Santelli's outburst on natoinal television in mid-February 2009, a month after Obama had taken office and several months after he had been elected. Santelli was objecting to the government's mortgage bailout program. In his rant he referenced the Boston "tea party" of 1773, a protest against policies of the British government. Apparently his idea resonated with fiscal conservatives, and thus the Tea Party movement was born.

One wonders how you could get both the timing and the motivation for the Tea Party movement so laughably wrong.

I don't buy this for a moment.

The Tea Party was primarily a reaction against Obama. If Obama had lost the election, there would not now be a Tea Party movement.

I appreciate the attempts by thoughtful and reasonable conservatives to voice their positions and attempt to impose that position on the Tea Party, but one only has to look at the signs and listen to the over the top rhetoric to realize that the Tea Party movement is not that reasonable conservative position.

What's wrong with the bank bailout? It's socialism!
What's wrong with health insurance reform? It's socialism and fascism!
What's wrong with Obama? He's elitist and an atheist Muslim communist!