Since the 2008 election I have watched with growing disgust as a trend in our nation sickeningly snowballs.† This trend is one of the most simple and insidious tools of evil, and yet one of the most powerful. It is simply this: telling lies.
Finding themselves without a leg to stand on, the corporate forces that make up the power behind the Republican party have been searching for a way to keep the working poor, the people they oppress and trod upon with their every legislative move, on their side.
They need the votes of those people they are slowly suffocating and the only way to get those votes is to misrepresent everything they stand for, and everything their opposition stands for.† Slowly but surely, a once-effective political discourse has become a game of lies.
How else do you explain the continued persistence of rumors about President Obama that have been repeatedly proven to be false: that he was not born on American soil, that he is Muslim, that he is a socialist?
How else do you explain the arsenal of lies about the Democrat’s healthcare plan that have refused to die down despite having little to no factual basis: that it will increase debt, that it includes death panels, that the plan would (or would have at any point) forced Americans into a government plan?
The anti-Obama agenda is built more or less entirely on lies, an unprecedented state of affairs in American politics.† When outright lies aren’t being employed, dangerously misleading rhetoric steps in instead.
The Sarah-Palin-Tea-Party-Take-Back-the-White-House routine is an us-versus-them rhetoric, which characterizes Obama and the Democratic members of the Senate as evil socialists who can not be allowed to succeed at anything, and portrays the political field as a battleground.
Palin literally posted a map on Facebook with rifle crosshairs over the weakest Democratic Senate seats with an accompanying note telling her supporters to “reload.” This may not be a physical threat of violence, but it’s a disgusting and detrimental way to think about politics. We cannot afford to let the model of our government, compromise and rational discourse, give way to a turf war.
The system isn’t designed for a turf war. Obama and the Democrats are screaming for bipartisanship, for any semblance of working together, but the GOP has decided that governance is a war, and as a result it will be a miracle if any governance gets done in the next two years.
The most sickening part is that once the Republicans have dug in their heels and halted all political progress, Obama will be blamed for not keeping his promises of change.
We cannot let an overgrown party of stubborn, spoiled children hijack our government and our media. If the aggressors want a war, we have to make them fight fair ó because if they lose their primary weapon, lies, then they’ll have to rely on the strength of their policies ó and that’s a fight I have a good feeling about.
Intelligent debate is impossible without some agreed-upon premises. We need a media that calls out lies for being lies, rather than getting caught up in a distorted idea of fairness and balance.
We need to institutionalize truth and rationality, and come up with some kind of code of conduct for our lawmakers. Free speech is important, but the law protects against slander and libel for a reason. People have the right to know that the things their politicians and their media are telling them are based in truth, and right now they are simply not.
One response to “A cry for compromise and honesty”
“We need a media that calls out lies for being lies, rather than getting caught up in a distorted idea of fairness and balance.”
The best way to do this would be to not only accuse the GOP of spitting lies, but also Obama and the Dems. Obama said he didn’t want to buy GM… then did it and installed his own CEO. The Democrats have criticized the Republicans for threatening to filibuster bills and nominees… though Dems did it to the Republicans while they were in power. Obama cries that Wall Street fat cats are ruining America, though Wall Street donated more money to his campaign than it did to John McCain (“the corporate forces that make up the power” of Republicans actually are behind the Democrats).
I’m not a Republican by any stretch of the imagination, but you have to admit that Republicans and Democrats play the same game in Washington. Also, being all highfalutin and calling Republicans anti-intellectual is pretty insulting to about 50 percent of the American population. And, calling those people liars and “stubborn, spoiled children” is exactly the same rhetorical technique the Sarah Palins of the world use on Democrats… it lacks any real basis in reality, and it’s insulting.