The Left & The Politization Of Tragedy

[foxpaws]

Not so much.
The left has generally defined the debate for generations through their monopoly of academia, news media and the entertainment industry. That continued monopoly has not only allowed them to define the debate in the most partisan and self serving terms imaginable, but has lead to an intellectual laziness and ideological myopia which dismisses any flaws in leftist thought/policy and blame political failings on external factors.

Nope shag - for a while the right has been defining the debate... certainly in the last 2.5 years. As the right find allies with such outlets as FoxNews, WSJ, and parts of the internet, they are able to define the debate in those avenues.

And don't think that by claiming that the left is dismissive of 'right thought' that the right isn't dismissive of left thought. Once again - the right doesn't even edge their toe into the debate any longer, they label, vilify and then move on.

The Right has occasionally been able to break through and redefine the debate on specific issue on more fair (meaning honest) terms but that is the most they have typically been able to accomplish. However, with the erosion of the monopoly in the media, that redefining of the debate toward more fair and honest terms is more common on more and more issues.

The right isn't redefining the debate to more honest terms - they are redefining 'their' media to 'their' terms. You lay claim that the left has done this for eons - and I don't, nor have I ever, argued against that fact. However, now the right is doing exactly the same thing. You don't see fair and balanced on Fox, you don't read both sides on HotAir. They have mirrored the left - and are as guilty as the left when it comes to redefining the debate.

Of course, you will not see it like this and claim that the Right has simply defined the debate on terms which unfairly advantage them. However, you will not be able to do this without redefining this debate on terms favorable to your argument (for instance implying that the claim of "Obama=Hitler" comes from the Right when it comes from the Left, a LIE that has been made numerous times on this forum).

Really - the right hasn't run with the Hitler/Nazi=Obama/Left allegory...

Erected by the North Iowa Tea Party - I guess a well-know left wing group...
(my example came first - and - my sign is biggest - I win.. )

How about Beck's continuing campaign to tie the left to Nazi's/Hitler
• Beck: Obama advisers show “the kind of thinking that … eventually led to the Holocaust.” (October 5)
• Beck likened reporting about him to “what Goebbels did.” (August 27)
• Beck equates children singing about Obama with “Hitler Youth.” (June 17)
• Beck: Putting “the common good” first “exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany.” (May 28)
• Beck: “frightening similarities” between Sunstein, Goebbels. (May 27)
• Beck: “You can’t just change the law” to raise BP’s liability cap; “Is that what we fought the Nazis for?” (May 4)
• Beck: Progressives use “democratic elections” to push dictators — “Hitler, ‘democratically elected.’” (April 28)
• Beck invokes Nazis to attack worker ID cards: “It was only one of the first things that Hitler did.” (March 9)
• Beck: Obama campaign videos were Goebbels-like “propaganda.” (February 16)
• Beck documentary linked progressives to Hitler.
• Beck on NEA conference call: “You should look up the name Goebbels.” (November 3, 2009)
• Beck compared Fox News to Jews during Holocaust, other news organizations to silent bystanders. (October 13, 2009)
• Beck on Obama’s “civilian national security force”: “This is what Hitler did with the SS.” (August 27, 2009)
• Beck told Newsmax: “I fear a Reichstag moment.” (September 29, 2009)
• Beck said he’s “not comparing” Obama to Hitler, then urged his audience to “please read Mein Kampf” and learn from Germany’s mistakes. (August 12, 2009)
• Beck compares media portrayal of “tea partygoers” to Nazi portrayal of anti-Nazi “complainers.” (August 11, 2009)
• Beck links health care reform to Nazis, suggests reform would kill elderly and newborns. (August 6, 2009)
• Beck said “the Germans” during Hitler’s rise “were an awful lot like we are now.” (June 10, 2009)
• Beck compared car dealership closures to Nazism, warning “at some point, they’re going to come for you.”
• Beck compared auto bailouts to the actions of German companies “in the early days of Adolf Hitler.” (April 1, 2009)

Unfortunately, someone so caught up in the leftist worldview will have a hard time seeing this truth when they cannot look past their own ideology.

While others need to take off the blinders, look beyond black and white, admit the world is full of gray areas, and get off their philosophical high horses.Because they wouldn't recognize the truth if that same horse bit them in the butt.

 

[shagdrum]

Foxy, we can cherry pick quotes and take them out of context until the end of time but it gets us nowhere. What matters is the logic that connects them.

On that note, you claims are based on premises that are exceedingly one side and dubious if not false. Also, your arguments are focused not on the substance the claims/arguments you are confronting, but on hyperbolic speculation about the claims. All this serves to redefine the debate on terms favorable to you.

For instance in the picture you have, can you show the billboard to be inaccurate? It is a comparison of the IDEOLOGICAL views each of these men subscribe[d] to. Hitler was a National Socialist. Lenin was a strict Marxist when he took power (only modifying the ideology when it was shown not to work in application). Is Obama not a Progressive or, as that ideology is called in Europe, a Democratic Socialist?

What is the conclusion you draw from it? That the right is saying that Obama=Hitler, or as you (intentionally) vaguely put it, "Hitler/Nazi=Obama/Left". That goes well beyond the point being raised by the billboard to create a caricature of conservative thought.

If all you can do is engage in posturing that is aimed at deceptively reframing and refocusing the debate on one-sided terms, then you are part of the problem of incivility when it comes to national discourse, not the solution.

 

[04SCTLS]

Foxy, we can cherry pick quotes and take them out of context until the end of time but it gets us nowhere. What matters is the logic that connects them.

On that note, you claims are based on premises that are exceedingly one side and dubious if not false. Also, your arguments are focused not on the substance the claims/arguments you are confronting, but on hyperbolic speculation about the claims. All this serves to redefine the debate on terms favorable to you.

For instance in the picture you have, can you show the billboard to be inaccurate? It is a comparison of the IDEOLOGICAL views each of these men subscribe[d] to. Hitler was a National Socialist. Lenin was a strict Marxist when he took power (only modifying the ideology when it was shown not to work in application). Is Obama not a Progressive or, as that ideology is called in Europe, a Democratic Socialist?

What is the conclusion you draw from it? That the right is saying that Obama=Hitler, or as you (intentionally) vaguely put it, "Hitler/Nazi=Obama/Left". That goes well beyond the point being raised by the billboard to create a caricature of conservative thought.

If all you can do is engage in posturing that is aimed at deceptively reframing and refocusing the debate on one-sided terms, then you are part of the problem of incivility when it comes to national discourse, not the solution.

Not everyone looks at this insightfully as you do.
A rightwing group puts up a billboard with Obama's picture next to Hitler and Lenin but they are not comparing them directly but only symbolically.
Looking at it less insightfully as a simple direct comparison is a caricature of conservative thought and a deceptive reframing of the debate.
You certainly are being creative here.

 

[foxpaws]

Foxy, we can cherry pick quotes and take them out of context until the end of time but it gets us nowhere. What matters is the logic that connects them.

Ah, I see that my example becomes 'cherry picking', but yours isn't... hmmmm

For instance in the picture you have, can you show the billboard to be inaccurate? It is a comparison of the IDEOLOGICAL views each of these men subscribe[d] to. Hitler was a National Socialist. Lenin was a strict Marxist when he took power (only modifying the ideology when it was shown not to work in application). Is Obama not a Progressive or, as that ideology is called in Europe, a Democratic Socialist?

What is the conclusion you draw from it? That the right is saying that Obama=Hitler, or as you (intentionally) vaguely put it, "Hitler/Nazi=Obama/Left". That goes well beyond the point being raised by the billboard to create a caricature of conservative thought.

Obama is an American Democrat. I will not be able to argue wheter or not his ideology is along progressive or democratic socialist lines until I know what definitions you are using.

However, I can very easily state that Obama is not a Nazi, nor is he a Marist.

Shag - you know completely well what the North Iowa Tea Party wanted to do - by placing all three men on the same billboard was to tie them together. I am in marketing - this is classic marketing - marketing (or in this case guilt) by association. The right creates their own 'caricature', I don't need to.

If all you can do is engage in posturing that is aimed at deceptively reframing and refocusing the debate on one-sided terms, then you are part of the problem of incivility when it comes to national discourse, not the solution.

This billboard reeks of 'incivility' when it come to discourse - it illustrates completely the lengths that this 'faction' of the Tea Party will go to. This billboard has nothing to do with debate and everything to do with labeling.

 

[shagdrum]

"American Democrat" says nothing about IDEOLOGY. It is mere party affiliation. However it is a nice attempt at (falsely) "labeling"; something that you imply, "has nothing to do with debate".

It is interesting the lengths people will go to in order to avoid certain labels...especially when they are accurate.

Social justice through collectivism is what defines socialism in any form and it is what defines every Leftist/Progressive ideology. The two are synonymous. This has been pointed out numerous times on this forum. In Europe, the two ARE readily identified together. In America, the Left works feverishly to avoid that label.

But enough with Foxy's misdirection and false equivalences. Back to the issue of Leftists exploiting tragedy for political ends...

YouTube - The Week in Stupid: Cable Pundits on the Giffords Shooting