Paul Krugman exposes the "MODERATE" fallacy, whereby Liberal groups ENABLE the GOP dictatorship that crushes their own agenda...
We couldn't say it better than Buzzflash has today: the Republicans skillfully play the "MODERATE" card and "PARTISAN!" charge to ENABLE ONE PARTY TYRANNICAL RULE.
A subset of this trend is the major propaganda technique, "EQUIVALENCY." "Equivalency" in political campaign or editorial news terms means getting six "experts" from one side of an issue to oppose six experts from the other side of the issue, and, Presto! you have expert deadlock... which usually works to the favor of the Republican Party/Big Business agenda, whether in trying to define MINIMUM WAGE as costing American jobs, tax cuts for the wealthy (DEFICITS) as boosting the economy, or human energy consumption as producing greenhouse gases and global warming.
On each of these issues - and dozens of others - the Repuglicans and their Big Media allies can simply DROWN OUT THE TRUTH, by STACKING THE DECK with hired schills. Fox 'news' infotainment announcer Bill O'Reilly specializes in this tactic, getting a token liberal opposition voice on his show, and then drowning that voice out with a scolding rant and no opportunity for rebuttal. Right-Wing radio demagogue RUSH LIMBAUGH takes the basic "stack the deck" tactic even further - allowing NO OPPORTUNITY for REBUTTAL of ANY of the fake 'facts' he spews on his show. Yesterday, the Randi Rhodes radio show (Air America) caught and highlighted (rebroadcast) a clip of such a simple Rush Limbaugh pronouncement, "An Increase in Minimum wage actually DESTROYS jobs in America, the vast weight of statistical research shows.." without Limbaugh offering up a single such study as proof.
Thus, when Repugs want to ramrod an issue through Congress, they first get their captive media to get "EQUIVALENCY" in the discussion by stacking the deck with hired shills, and then take that step to its ultimate conclusion - SHUT OUT ALL DEBATE WHATSOEVER.
It is in this SHUT OUT OF DEBATE that "MODERATE" Republicans (and, often, Conservative Democrats such as Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman) HELP THE Republican RIGHT-WING one-party TYRANNY, because when critical issues come up to the Republican dominated House or Senate, the Repub. leadership 'WHIPS' moderates into line, and they thereby ENABLE dictatorial, one-party rule.
Krugman's article is a "Must See",
========================================
Liberal Advocacy Groups Who Support "Moderate" Republicans Enable GOP Tyranny
A Buzzflash Editorial
Fri, 08/04/2006
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorial/63
A special nod to Paul Krugman this morning for reiterating an important point that BuzzFlash has noted before.
http://rozius.blogspot.com/2006/08/paul-krugman-centrism-is-for-suckers.html
Liberal advocacy groups who defiantly support so-called "GOP Moderates" in general elections over progressive Democrats enable one-party tyrannical Republican rule.
You really have to be plain politically stupid not to do the math. If you elect a Lincoln Chafee, and we have editorialized on this before, you help to ensure a Republican majority in the Senate. And if you help to ensure a Republican majority in the Senate, you help to ensure the one-party, anti-Constitutional, destruction of democracy by the Republicans.
Groups like the Sierra Club and Naral are both naive and enabling to support someone like Chafee, even though they must know that nothing favorable to their causes will pass through a Republican Congress. If Lincoln Chafee were for their issues, he'd be a Democrat. He knows that his vote on some occasional progressive issues is useless, because he is just a marker the Republicans need to control the senate.
The White House and Bill Frist decide what happens in the Senate, and they don't bring up or pass bills favorable to progressive causes. Furthermore, supporting a dimwitted Republican from perhaps the most Democratic state in the Union, Rhode Island, is plain dumb, as dumb as Chafee reportedly is.
As Krugman astutely points out, since the Gingrich "revolution" in 1994, the Republicans have made every vote for Congress a vote for CONTROL of Congress, because it's the leadership that manipulates the agenda and bills.
The self-righteous positions of progressive advocacy groups like the Sierra Club and Naral that they have to support "moderate Republicans" is suicidal. First of all, Chafee basically only votes against the White House when they know that they are going to win anyway and allow him to "take a walk" so that he can appear "moderate" in his home state. His votes have no impact in a Republican controlled Congress.
Secondly, the one-party national government of radical extreme Victorian authoritarianism can only survive if it controls Congress. Because that is the only way that it can prevent investigations that will disclose its illegal behavior, incompetence, dismantling of the Constitution, and illegal election activities.
It's called rule by despotism.
Krugman has got it right.
The Republicans don't have to win by themselves.
They can just watch groups like Naral and the Sierra Club shoot themselves in the face.
A Buzzflash editorial....
A subset of this trend is the major propaganda technique, "EQUIVALENCY." "Equivalency" in political campaign or editorial news terms means getting six "experts" from one side of an issue to oppose six experts from the other side of the issue, and, Presto! you have expert deadlock... which usually works to the favor of the Republican Party/Big Business agenda, whether in trying to define MINIMUM WAGE as costing American jobs, tax cuts for the wealthy (DEFICITS) as boosting the economy, or human energy consumption as producing greenhouse gases and global warming.
On each of these issues - and dozens of others - the Repuglicans and their Big Media allies can simply DROWN OUT THE TRUTH, by STACKING THE DECK with hired schills. Fox 'news' infotainment announcer Bill O'Reilly specializes in this tactic, getting a token liberal opposition voice on his show, and then drowning that voice out with a scolding rant and no opportunity for rebuttal. Right-Wing radio demagogue RUSH LIMBAUGH takes the basic "stack the deck" tactic even further - allowing NO OPPORTUNITY for REBUTTAL of ANY of the fake 'facts' he spews on his show. Yesterday, the Randi Rhodes radio show (Air America) caught and highlighted (rebroadcast) a clip of such a simple Rush Limbaugh pronouncement, "An Increase in Minimum wage actually DESTROYS jobs in America, the vast weight of statistical research shows.." without Limbaugh offering up a single such study as proof.
Thus, when Repugs want to ramrod an issue through Congress, they first get their captive media to get "EQUIVALENCY" in the discussion by stacking the deck with hired shills, and then take that step to its ultimate conclusion - SHUT OUT ALL DEBATE WHATSOEVER.
It is in this SHUT OUT OF DEBATE that "MODERATE" Republicans (and, often, Conservative Democrats such as Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman) HELP THE Republican RIGHT-WING one-party TYRANNY, because when critical issues come up to the Republican dominated House or Senate, the Repub. leadership 'WHIPS' moderates into line, and they thereby ENABLE dictatorial, one-party rule.
Krugman's article is a "Must See",
========================================
Liberal Advocacy Groups Who Support "Moderate" Republicans Enable GOP Tyranny
A Buzzflash Editorial
Fri, 08/04/2006
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorial/63
A special nod to Paul Krugman this morning for reiterating an important point that BuzzFlash has noted before.
http://rozius.blogspot.com/2006/08/paul-krugman-centrism-is-for-suckers.html
Liberal advocacy groups who defiantly support so-called "GOP Moderates" in general elections over progressive Democrats enable one-party tyrannical Republican rule.
You really have to be plain politically stupid not to do the math. If you elect a Lincoln Chafee, and we have editorialized on this before, you help to ensure a Republican majority in the Senate. And if you help to ensure a Republican majority in the Senate, you help to ensure the one-party, anti-Constitutional, destruction of democracy by the Republicans.
Groups like the Sierra Club and Naral are both naive and enabling to support someone like Chafee, even though they must know that nothing favorable to their causes will pass through a Republican Congress. If Lincoln Chafee were for their issues, he'd be a Democrat. He knows that his vote on some occasional progressive issues is useless, because he is just a marker the Republicans need to control the senate.
The White House and Bill Frist decide what happens in the Senate, and they don't bring up or pass bills favorable to progressive causes. Furthermore, supporting a dimwitted Republican from perhaps the most Democratic state in the Union, Rhode Island, is plain dumb, as dumb as Chafee reportedly is.
As Krugman astutely points out, since the Gingrich "revolution" in 1994, the Republicans have made every vote for Congress a vote for CONTROL of Congress, because it's the leadership that manipulates the agenda and bills.
The self-righteous positions of progressive advocacy groups like the Sierra Club and Naral that they have to support "moderate Republicans" is suicidal. First of all, Chafee basically only votes against the White House when they know that they are going to win anyway and allow him to "take a walk" so that he can appear "moderate" in his home state. His votes have no impact in a Republican controlled Congress.
Secondly, the one-party national government of radical extreme Victorian authoritarianism can only survive if it controls Congress. Because that is the only way that it can prevent investigations that will disclose its illegal behavior, incompetence, dismantling of the Constitution, and illegal election activities.
It's called rule by despotism.
Krugman has got it right.
The Republicans don't have to win by themselves.
They can just watch groups like Naral and the Sierra Club shoot themselves in the face.
A Buzzflash editorial....
posted by verifi at 5:12 PM
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