“Cite a few examples of Conservatives [sic] writings where they are specifically coached on how to frame arguements [sic], using specific language and phrases so as to achieve their goals, as does your idol; Lakoff.” Sick!
A younger, local contributor to the Benicia Herald Forum took his usual umbrage at my factual, well-supported statement that his far right gangs have machinated wrongly for forty years to, in effect, burn down this nation and replace its public institutions with corporate privation and depredation masquerading as government. He wants to think that I and others of my view are mere creatures of ideology with no grip on fact. In fact, he projects his own state, status and modus operandi. He seems to think no answer can be valid and viably based in solid reference more than loose opinion. (Nor has he any depth worth mentioning in Idolology, or he would be less victimized by his own idols.)
But, notice the difficulty he poses. He doesn’t ask for listed sources of talking-points that involve issue-framing. He asks me to identify, in effect, a manual of procedure that coaches right wingers in some way similar to what Lakoff does for Progressives in a couple of books. Nonsense! Right wingers would not be publicizing backroom stuff like that. They would expose only the results of using such lore. There would be some science to it, as for instance, the psychology of salemanship or persuasion, and the demographics of opinion formation, involving unscientific uses of sociology, etc.
So, let’s see. Where would that sort of lore be held for application by extremist operatives who want to destroy progress, disvalue liberality and defeat democracy? Some series or complex of rather hidden workshops? Think-tanks? Yes, exactly. Not only are workshops in political conceptualization actively hypothesizing and testing suasive ideas but several key figures give voice to the selected “meme’s” which their proponents develop, hoping they will gain foothold in the public mind. Various corporations, institutes and political groups including very wealthy, hard right-wingers give financial support and moral approval to these unethical workshops and the hired sell-outs who inhabit them. Helping spread the results of such questionable work is a gaggle of many bloggers who form a huge megaphone for blaring bad messages to vulnerable ignoramuses and uncritical malcontents. These bloggers and their audients reverberate semantic dreck back and forth among themselves and spew it where possible into the public ear, amplifying it in process and magnifying every sort of flaw they can find or invent in government acts, policy and proposed legislation while swaddling each detail in bad feeling by associational misframing, including flat out lies often repeated by seemingly different voices from broadly orchestrated sources.
The GOP/Tea Party/Ultra-conservative propaganda machine has many parts. Let’s start with the aforementioned on-line blogs: Drudge Report / WND /BrightbartTV / Fox Nation / Free Republic / Town Hall / Powerline / NewsBusters / Hot Air / American Thinker / Red State / Big Government / Daily Caller / Michelle Malkin / Instapundit–Pajamas Media / Atlas Shrugs / Corner National Review / Big Hollywood / Big Journalism / The Right Scoop / Gateway Pundit / Right Wing News / Jihad Watch /Weasel Zippers / Lucianne / Frontpage / Dick Morris / Right Pundits / Newsreal / Washington’s Blog / Moonbattery /DBKP / Volokh Conspiracy / The Anchoress / Ace of Spades / Wiz Bang / Riehl World View / I Own the World / Jawa Report / Althouse / Sweetness and Light / Jammie Wearing Fool / Outside the Beltway / Black Five / Doug Ross@ Journal / Don Surber / Say Anything/ The Peoples Cube / Yid With Lid / Legal Insurrection.
[These were gathered and posted by Pamela Geller, 8-12-10 in Blogosphere: The new Power, Blog Affairs | Permalink, as shown on “Atlas Shrugs,” same date.] A few of these may, by now, have passed away. Not listed are innumerable blog-dot-coms with followings too small to enumerate. CONSERVATIVEbyte.com by Jay Taylor, claims membership in “Liberty Alliance,” and may have some readers but relies heavily on FoxNews for material and slant. Titles of articles offered indicate Taylor is spreading all the darkness he can about government.
But these are all “small potatoes” in a field dominated by semi-covert workshops, such as Cato Institute/ American Enterprise Institute, Institute for Justice/ Rightwing Rutherford Institute / Manhattan Institute for Policy Research–SourceWatch / Fraser Institute / The (discredited) Heartland Institute / J Street / Israeli Institute / Aipac / Hudson Institute Right-Wing Agenda–Act Up new york (sic) / Illinois Family Institute / Lowy Institute / Right Web–Institute for Policy Studies / Vin Weber / Right Wing News / Discovery Institute / Hoover Institution / Sutherland Institute / The DeVos Family / Koch Empire–Americans for Prosperity / Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation / Leadership Institute (Morton C. Blackwell) / Liberty Institute / Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research / Intercollegiate Studies Institute / Longview Institute / Population Research Institute of Penn State / Competitive Enterprise Institute / National Association of Scholars / Institute on Religion and Democracy / Life Issues Institute / Acton Institute / Ruth Institute / Brookings Institute / Breakthrough Institute / Tea Party Conference–Center for the Comparative Study of Societal Issues / American Rights at Work (Berman Front Groups) / Patrick Henry College / Foreign Policy Research Institute / Gatestone Institute / The Maldon Institute / Grover Norquist, Karl Rove (and associates) / Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council (they promote Rush Limbaugh, that simplistic, armchair “redneck!”) / The Republican National Commitee / U. S. Chamber of Commerce / Libertarian Party / Forbes Magazine / Wall Street Journal / National Review / fundamentalist churches and a number of small, hole-in-the-wall foundations fronting big PACs.
All these add up famously to the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy that its participants so ardently and vociferously deny has any existence while vigorously projecting their own beastliness on to everyone the least bit to their left. It remains incredible how religiously self-righteous and self-blind these adherents of universally encompassing, human failure and world destruction continue to be, including my ego-inflated opponents on the Benicia Herald Forum. I trust my pitiable challenger now has a noseful of concrete and specific references. They may now thank me for these contributed facts. I will think about whether or not to consider apologies from them, though I fear they lack the “class” to offer any such thing.
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