td:

thanks, I’ll consider it.

Rico,

I’m not one to dive into partisan conservative echo chambers for fun, but I have followed links to a few. And believe me, their commentors are every bit as dysfunctional as TD’s - even more so, since I’m more inclined to disagree with them anyway.

Go “home” rico. Give it a rest. The passengers and crew want you rested and relaxed.

tdbach:

A current article in truthdig regrets the demise of big newspapers because it fears that “big story journalism” will suffer. Now that’s a great issue to discuss.

But the very first poster came out with: “Remember: “News” is a verb.”

Please explain to me how I can possibly resist! I am absolutely certain there are posters of this calibre on conservative websites, and I would miss no opportunity to thrash them with my 3rd grade grammar text. But by reading truthdig, I have a far better chance for a twofer.

Wow Rico,  you must love me…...I sure hope you arna’t

gayboy/////ypu wil be OD=K

The Amazon with the huge, huge, rack wants the
Truth_Seek_Wand….and i am to busy for you Rico.

It use to be a baton,,,,,,,,,,,,,,now she wans turn it
back….......no way rico…..it is Truth_seek-swand

mustprotectifmakewizard….goodluckrico,,,iamtroubled

Dear fellow TruthDig readers -

I apologize for losing my temper so badly. I’ve clicked the “Ignore member”
button on Rico, Sauve’s profile, so at least I don’t think he can email me. I hope
that in future, I won’t be able to see his inflammatory, ignorant, hate-mongering
snippets of doggy doo. I have also unchecked the box that says, “Notify you when
others comment on this article?” I just don’t understand the psychology of people
who seem to enjoy angering complete strangers. I see this picture of a fellow with
stripes on his shoulders. He could be a Scientologist for all I know. They are on
record for being homophobes, which fits neatly into the right wing’s agenda of
politics of division, politics of hate. Gerard, you are my hero! Thanks everybody,
Hollywood Russ

Dear Rico - “See what I mean?”  What do you mean? What do you stand for?
Beside being a hate-mongering piece of dog excrement, what do you stand for?
You are a victim of your own sense of self-importance. Why don’t you do the
whole world a favor and stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. You’ve
gotten my dander up. That’s not so easy to do. Your choice of words make me
hate you. If you were right in front of me now, I do my best to kick your ass. I
might lose, considering the fact that I am not in the best of health, but I’d go
down swinging. I’ve never been so angry with another blogger, poster, troll,
whatever, in my life. You make no sense. You only troll this site, and probably
others, just to upset people like me. Signed, Jew-loving baby-killer aka Hollywood
Russ

JcV:

As I said in one of the first posts, and in response to “tdbach” Sirota gives away his game when he blames the “conservative media dreamland”. No complaint about the “progressive media dreamland”.

You find the bickering boring. But, as I told “tdbach”, I can’t control myself when confronted by some of the goofy posts that appear, a la “ofersince72”. I should be more serious. But, also, as I said, more often than not, when I confront a poster’s smugness, usually by merely asking a question, I get personal attacks instead of honest rebuttal, as if it never occurs to the poster that his opinion might be debatable.

I welcome serious debate, COMPLETELY devoid of ad hominem attacks. Maybe you and bach and ardee could have a debate here some time.

rico, suave,

Ok I’ll ask - what is you genuine, serious view on all this (article and the postings that followed)? What do you really think?

For the record, I find the bickering boring. I’d rather have reasoned responses from people whose experiences vary from mine. I crave the information, not the confrontation.

-Jv

td:

I must hand it to you. You have me pegged. You are of course correct in that, with few exceptions, I gravitate towards posters who confirm my prejudices. But in my defense, I listed the “assumptions” based on return posts, most of which fail to address the issue at hand and instead go right to the ad hominems I listed. Rarely do I state a position on anything, because no one asks. They just assume I’m… Maybe I’m a masochist, holding myself up for ridicule. Maybe I’m being quixotic, I don’t know. I’m more certain, as time goes by, that sarcasm and parody aren’t changing many minds. I don’t know, maybe I’ll get bored and move on.

But then I read stuff from the likes of “ofersince72” and I just can’t help myself.

Thanks again for the critique. Maybe you and I will have a chance to seriously discuss issues here. I promise I can be serious if need be.

While I’m always grateful for anyone thinking I or my writings are thoughtful, and while I can readily see that you aspire to (and generally succeed in) “keeping your head while others lose theirs,” I must hold fast to my original theme: you don’t seem to understand how exemplary you are of this hopelessly bifurcated debate. You lament ”the arrogant smugness of nearly all the writers and posters” and posit that “[m]ost posters assume, because I disagree with them, that I am an ultra-rightwing wacko fundamentalist Christian gun nut fascist law-of-the-jungle Gordon Gecko capitalist Jew-loving babykiller. Of course, they HAVE to believe that to further insulate themselves in their little ideological cocoons.” But, Captain, you’re stitching your own cocoon with an equally extreme characterization of readers of Truthdig.

Returning to my second theme, if this is such hellhole echo chamber filled with arrogant and smug-assed whackos who hold you in such distain, why spend so much time here, if not to confirm your prejudices about liberals and liberal philosophy while having a little fun getting the natives restless? Surely, the occasional thoughtful response isn’t enough to keep you coming back. To borrow your analogy, I would never dream of grabbing a front row pew at Pat Robertson’s church, Sunday after bloody Sunday, in the hopes of learning about what makes Christians tick and thereby enlighten and perhaps modify my conceptions of faith. I think I have a pretty fair handle on their version of Christianity, and it bears little resemblance to the Christianity I knew growing up. Even if I were a devout atheist, I’d think, “why bother?” However, if I were the mischievous type, I might go there to make sport of challenging their more arcane beliefs in clever ways, just to watch them squirm.

I didn’t mean to suggest that I know your reading list. (I’ll take your word for it that you don’t watch Fox News.) I was only suggesting that a true agnosticism would be better served by limiting your time in places like this and spending the bulk of your free time reading relatively unbiased stuff and thinking.

But that’s not nearly as much fun, is it?

tdbach:

Re “Hollywood” below. See what I mean?

rico—“jew-loving baby killers.” For those few words alone, you should be taken
out to the north forty. You completely disgust me. Don’t bother responding
because I know the cut of your jib and I already know what you are going to say.
You can go straight to hell, you bigoted SOB. Never in all my time on the Internet,
have I ever been so offended. BTW - I love Jews! I believe abortion is a human
right that every woman possesses in this male-dominated world. Control over
their reproductive organs is a sign of modernization. In your secret world, you
probably think the chador is a good thing.

td:

Thanks much for the thoughtful reply. Seriously!

“You enjoy poking holes in our collective fantasy balloon – or at least that’s what you think you’re doing. You’re part gadfly, part proselytizer. You use this site (and perhaps others) to confirm your world view, not to challenge it.”

You are right. Almost. Gadfly, yes. Proselyte, not so much. You’ll note that the vast majority of my posts, including this one, begin with a quote from another poster. The rest of the post is my comment about the quote or challenge to the poster to defend the quote in question.

The thing I noticed right away at truthdig was the arrogant smugness of nearly all the writers and posters. If anyone uses this site to confirm a worldview it’s them. Any deviation is met with derision and disbelief in the possibility that there could be ANY intelligent opinion other than the ones constantly reinforced in this progressive echo chamber. Most posters assume, because I disagree with them, that I am an ultra-rightwing wacko fundamentalist Christian gun nut fascist law-of-the-jungle Gordon Gecko capitalist Jew-loving babykiller. Of course, they HAVE to believe that to further insulate themselves in their little ideological cocoons. You did it yourself, albeit mildly, by assuming I don’t have the “correct” reading list, or that I watch Fox (I don’t) or that I read other blogs (I don’t).

truthdig reminds me precisely of what it must be like inside one of Jerry Falwell’s or Pat Robertson’s churches. So how do you reckon my reading truthdig “confirms” MY worldview?

“You may kid yourself, rico, but you’re not fooling anyone else.” I hope I’m not kidding myself, and I certainly am not trying to fool anyone else.

By the way, your analogy worked just fine. I merely pointed out that you had it backwards. It didn’t invalidate it in any way.

Thanks again for the note.

rico, suave:

I believe that you believe you come to this site to expose yourself to “countervailing information,” but I don’t believe for a minute that that is what’s really going on. If there was the slightest trace of agnosticism in you, you wouldn’t dare spend so much time here – especially not so much time engaging in debate. You’re very sure you’re right (after all, you see “the way the world actually works” not the way we liberals wish it worked). What’s to be learned from delusional people? The truth is, you enjoy provoking. You enjoy poking holes in our collective fantasy balloon – or at least that’s what you think you’re doing. You’re part gadfly, part proselytizer. You use this site (and perhaps others) to confirm your world view, not to challenge it. You may kid yourself, rico, but you’re not fooling anyone else.

Politics has become trench warfare now – that’s the point of Sirota’s article. We stay in our respective trenches and hurl our artillery at the other side. Even those who crawl to the enemy’s trench are there to leave a grenade, not negotiate a peace. “We” are wrong, you are right. Simple as that. You have followed the natural ontological progression from “raging liberal” student to mature conservative realist, while we got stuck somehow in childish fantasies. Unless you can win us over, there can be no “peace.”

As to your misunderstanding of my poorly chosen analogy: I’m well aware of the importance of instruments to piloting an aircraft. More often than not, it is the failure of a pilot to believe his instruments over his senses that leads to crashes. My point was that human behavior is not like physics, and governance is not like piloting. Conservatives may rightly believe that people are not perfectible (of course, liberals don’t think they are either, but why get in the way of a cozy conservative myth?), but they think markets are nearly if not entirely perfect and shouldn’t be tampered with by government. Don’t let feelings or senses of right and wrong get in the way of believing in that market instrumentation!

If you really want to open your mind to other ways of looking at the world, rico, stop coming to TruthDig, stop watching Fox News. Get your news from newspapers. Read books on narrow sociological and economic topics (and not broad ideological screeds), and make plenty of time for yourself to simply think.

At the end of the day, you may still be conservative, but you’ll be a more open-minded and thoughtful one.

samo-samo: “It is hard to know how to defuse the ‘propagandistic hypnotic illusions’ but there could be a way; to hunt and research for the
origins of ideologic thinking. And because those fantasies’ artificial inception is now so deftly
obscured, we can no longer wake up, even if facts tell us we’re in a dream—and even when the dream becomes a nightmare.” 
  I doubt the search for origins would help as much as showing the hidden purposes and results of powerful manipulators using “magical thinking” as a method of control, preventing thought and understanding.
  As to “telling us we’re in a dream/nightmare”—the situation itself is telling us that every day and more and more people are realizing it.  The deftness of the obscuring is more and more obvious and penetrable.
  In short, I think that, as is often the case, the manipulators are over-playing their hand and the veil is falling of its own weight.  At least I hope I’m right, judging from the as-yet-incomplete evidence:  more and more people angrier and angrier,
plusgrowing worldwide awareness of the extreme danger of the human situation, plus the continuing failures of conquest and organized violence.
  And ricosuave:  I’m not actually pessimistic—yet.  I’m forever putting up suggestions about possible paths to salvation, cooperative action etc. etc. In fact, someone has said nobody pays any attention to my comments because they are unrealistic, or something like that.  They are only unrealistic if we think they are unrealistic. Nothing I have suggested has been that original or bizarre.

samo:

Usually I think you’re an idiot, but THAT was a beautiful piece!

Thank you.

****************

“”“What is the circuit breaker in this delusive cycle? It’s hard to
know if one exists, just as it is difficult to know whether Cobb’s
totem ever stops spinning. For so many, meticulously
constructed fantasies seem like indisputable reality. And
because those fantasies’ artificial inception is now so deftly
obscured, we can no longer wake up, even if facts tell us we’re
in a dream—and even when the dream becomes a nightmare.”“”
*****************
It is hard to know how to defuse the ‘propagandistic hypnotic
illusions’ but there could be a way; to hunt and research for the
origins of ideologic thinking. Case in point could be the origins
of religion, the biggest and oldest propaganda machine of all
becoming based on imagination and lies; or just plain natural
instincts that taught humans to react to and anticipate danger or
procuring food.

I don’t doubt at all that the earliest of hominids, through the
observation of the night sky with its set picture and the very
slow and obvious changes, led them to build ‘sacred sites’ for
astronomical observations which is no easy feat to be done in a
decade or maybe even a century of ‘sky watching’ that would
eventually lead to erecting objects that would indicate the
furtherest points at which the sun would rise in summer and
winter and the points of the equinox of spring and fall.

Then there came the imaginative idea of the zodiacs, and
eventually astrology, and the people’s or some person’s
representation of what was at the time the best way to get and
give further meaning to them, fables of course. But in this ‘highly
technocalized’ and convenient world it is very hard to go back
and do some as so quaint and arcane as to study by observation
and documentation of the sky anymore which as far as education
is concerned, far too many would not know how to derive
meaning from it.

Maybe if anything, this shows where it possible for the use of
real information can be converted from what is real to some sort
of esoteric reality to a bunch of mind bending and stupefying BS
to gain control over others. But as mentioned already the
education or the intellectual quotient these days are based
mostly on belief of lies and crap that people are to easily tricked
into thinking what is lies, subtle as they are, are the truth and
incapable of differing of reality and belief because belief through
propaganda has all but hard wired them to not recognize the
difference.

But there is a useful benefit to looking into the beginnings of
most anything, it should enable people to see that there may be
a decided difference of what was original and ask or seek as to
‘why’. And maybe above all it should be noted that probably in
most all species, there are lies and deceptions.

kerry:

“the impulse to condescend is rude.” So right. It’s one of my biggest faults and I have trouble controlling it most of the time.

I must disagree with you on one point though. The biggest problem we have today in political debate is PRECISELY that two people have two means for the same term and they never come to an agreement on what the term will mean for that particular debate. So they talk past each other.

Take any hot button word in today’s social/political milieu and you can see what I mean.

Suave

I do happen to FEEL just about everything… including convictions.  I feel convictions. This is why I need intellectual foundations to ground me.

I did not misuse the term and I don’t subscribe to Ellis’ definition.  I don’t mean to be harsh, but no one has the right to define another person’s terms.

I phrase things a certain way for a reason, and I think the impulse to condescend is rude.

kerry:

While I think Ellis is full of hot air, I don’t think he was trying to insult you or tell you how to feel. Just trying to define a term which he thought maybe you were, from his viewpoint, misusing.

Lighten up on the poor guy. Don’t take it personally.

Ellis

How dare you tell me how and what I feel.  You don’t know and I chose my words carefully.  Please DO NOT respond to any of my comments again.

Ellis:

I guess Fidel, Mugabe, and the Sheiks are Conservatives then.

gerard:

I don’t share your pessimism. We can change the government when the current situation reaches a critical mass of unacceptability. That we’re not there yet doesn’t mean we never will get there. There are more pissed off people, on both sides of the ideological divide, than ever before. But, evidently, still not enough to shake everything up. This November will see an exciting election, but not a seismic one. Maybe 2012?

Sirota:  “For so many, meticulously constructed fantasies seem like indisputable reality.” 
  Meticulously constructed fantasy—There’s nothing I (we) can do to change the government. If
I (we) try, either nothing will happen or something bad will happen to me (us).
  Actual reality—I am, (we) are morally obligated to try, whether we succeed or not.  Success depends largely on how many of us try, what and how we try, and how consistently we try. As to something bad happening to me (us), something very bad is already happening and is very likely to continue or get worse.
  But then, there’s always Hamlet lurking in the human mind:  “Who would bear the whips and scorns of time .. but that the dread of something ... makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?”
  Will “meticulously constructed fantasy” win out?

JcV:

Thank you very much for the post. Well said!

Unfortunately, websites (both left and right) like this are not properly structured for serious, in depth debate. Long posts are ignored and short posts, such as mine usually are, are regarded as shallow and facile, as well they should be.

Let’s just try to do the best we can.

Some on the “Left” (stupid divisions, for simple purposes) may complain about not being listened to, but this misses the entire discussion that is not being had because people love to bicker. Truly, bickering is more fun than having an honest, nuanced and well considered conversation on the problems this planet is facing, but we no longer let our serious adults hold positions of real power. The “right” is interested in schoolyard antics, the left doesn’t want to take direct action and I truly have no idea what conservatives actually conserve. Our language is so disconnected from any real world actions, that solutions seem impossible on any large scale. So be it.

Those who hold progressive views (the ones I hang out with not the ones I read on the internet) are interested in living on earth, and living well. They want to garden, study science, make art, become a thoughtful human being. My conservative friends - and I do have them - are largely interested in becoming rich enough to insulate themselves (physically and chemically) from the social storm they see brewing and many figure Jesus is coming soon, so why bother. Live large, die rich, go to heaven. We don’t hang out much,, certainly not at their homes.

Oh yes, a simple return to the principles of reasoned debate would be nice all around. No ad hominem attacks - stick to the topic. No straw dogs - stick to the topic. If you can.

I see you are dumbing down this thread too RICO

are you of Cuban decent?

diamond:

What “the left” is complaining about is that not enough people are listening to them. There may be a non-conspiracy-based reason for that- They have nothing to say to the great majority of Americans.

Is there any room in your “bubble” for the notion that the brand of progressivism promoted by the likes of truthdig is completely anathema to most people?

kerryrose:

Re the “diamond” post. See, that’s exactly what I mean? There’s no argument there, no rebuttal, just invective. “diamond” has no defense of his position, only vitriole. He’s flailing and wailing, no more no less. There is some hope for him though: I’m only “tragically stupid”, not quite a moron.

diamond:

Actually, I said Sirota is complaining because nobody listens to HIS propaganda, except on “tragically” marginal sites like truthdig. Murdoch knows progressive propaganda doesn’t sell, and so, ignores it. Bummer.

Rico, suave you’re a babbling clown and a tool of the right. Conservatives of whatever nationality or religious conviction, are the biggest enemy the human race faces today and you’re a conservative. Rupert Murdoch is a repulsive toad as are his ‘workers’ on Fox News. You calmly admit that he and his media empire spew propaganda out 24 hours a day, seven days a week but then you infantilize this horrible proposition by claiming that the left is only complaining because he’s not doing their propaganda! That is NOT WHAT THE LEFT IS COMPLAINING ABOUT. They are complaining about the fact that the mainstream media in America is essentially a dirt machine for the Republican party the far right, the even further right and the fascists who run America. If you weren’t so tragically stupid you would have worked that out and you might even be disturbed by it.

kerry:

You’re absolutely right concerning the death rate among the sacred cows of human nature. Let the studies continue.

But if you really want to get depth of understanding of an issue rather than just breadth, dip your toe into some conservative opinion sources. Feel free to be repulsed if it comes to that, but also take satisfaction in breaking out of your “bubble” even if you had to hold your breath.

Cheers.

Suave

I feel my convictions—emotionally, ethically, philosophically.  The reason I search out intelligent progressive websites is for information,  I want to give depth to my understanding of the issues.  I personally need an intellectual rationale to understand how conservative and liberal ideologies have affected the world.

Conservatism may be more realistic in it’s understanding of human nature, but being realistic gives permission, to excuses our very worst impulses.  Also, many ‘taken for granted’ things about human nature have come under scrutiny by sociologists, anthropologists, and biologists in the last few years.

kerryrose:

I guess I could, but I don’t want to be “ensconced [in Sirota’s] impregnable bubble.” Unlike you (may I be so bold as to presume) I want to read opposing views, not be comforted by people who already generally think like I do. I know how they think already. What’s the fun in that? Truthdig is the ONLY blog I subscribe to or read.

I want to know how you think. Too many of us, left and right, live in “bubbles” of our choosing and avoid the discomfort of opposing opinion. That’s usually because we are so insecure in our philosophies that we can’t stand to have them questioned.

The reason most of my posts start with a quote from another post, usually followed by a terse, smart-ass remark, is because I find the overbearing smugness and unmerited confidence of the poster insufferable. The degree shrillness and hysteria of the responses I get in return are a perfect measure of the deep-down insecurity of the responder. My favorite, “You’re a moron,” tells me, for instance, that the responder has absolutely NO basis in reality for holding the opinion he does, only that he’s helplessly flailing and gnashing and raging against an issue over which he has no understanding or power, and that, rather than try to defend his position, resorts to personally attacks.

I don’t live in “continual frustration” with truthdig. I find it only ocasionally frustrating, usually hilarious, sometimes bathetic, sometimes disturbing, but ALWAYS entertaining.

Good stuff in this article.

D. Sirota asks: “What is the circuit breaker in this delusive cycle?” Probably, this
is the most pressing issue we should be discussing but, instead, we continue to
discuss the two-party politics which is exactly what those in power want us to discuss. There are no signs of what the circuit breaker might be other than some
catastrophic event.  It’s a tough issue because of the cultural programming
that has taken place over the years. It goes beyond politics; it is emotional and psychological and it is part of the culture already. Most people in the US are not able to see things in a different light anymore. Political choices are seen through the lens of the two parties, no matter how disappointing these prove to be. The population has lost the capacity to apply basic wisdom to solve the country’s problems so they continue to repeat the delusional political cycles. They are petrified to try a different approach and they have convinced themselves that this is normal, that there are worse places, that it can only get better, that it’s someone else’s fault, and so on.

Suave,

I admire your ability to read the blogs on this site religiously every day, and continually find them distasteful, and liberal nonsense.  I certainly wouldn’t have the stamina to engage with a conservative website everyday.  Why live in continual frustration?  You could find a site that confirms your worldview and live in peace.

Old Man Turtle:  Thanks again!

tdbach:

The first half of his article was perfectly balanced. But then he said, “The conservative media dreamland, for instance, ensconces its audience in an impregnable bubble…” That to me sounds like envy. What about the “progressive media dreamland” in which he is ensconced? I don’t have to lampoon his motives. He does a great job himself.

And, you have it exactly backwards in your piloting analogy. It’s the INSTRUMENTS that convey the “facts”, eg, which way is up, and that’s why I trust them. Your SENSES only convey “preconceived ideas”, eg ‘It sure feels like I’m straight and level’, even as you are rolling upside down in a cloud. Trust me on this, I’ve been trusting my instruments, and questioning my “feelings,” for forty years, with pretty good success.

“You are so thoroughly captive to a viewpoint – however it was inculcated into your way of thinking – that you can’t or won’t hear any countervailing information. Instead of addressing the points he makes, you resort to cartoonish characterization of his motives.”

I was in college in the sixties. I was a raging liberal, anti-war, voted for McGovern in 72, the whole bit. Then it slowly dawned on me that liberalism and progressivism didn’t really describe the way the world actually works as accurately as conservatism does. Progressivism is pie in the sky “If only we could make people behave THIS way” dreaming. Conservatism is, “People are NOT perfectable, so let’s discover their motivations and deal with them” realism.

If I didn’t want to hear contervailing information, I wouldn’t be reading truthdig now would I. I’ve been getting on this site daily for almost a year now. Believe me, I read a lot of “countervailing information.”

Why is it ok for progressives to dismiss conservative motives out of hand, yet when conservatives dismiss progressives, they’re ignorant kool-aid drinking rubes?

I’m afraid it’s the ‘nature of the beast.’  Goebbels,
who perfected the Big Lie technique of propaganda,
supported his Big Lie theory based on the principle
that a lie, if audacious enough and repeated enough
times, will be believed by the masses.

He also ‘advised’ any would-be propagandist that
“Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda
output should be true or false.”

As far as the media are concerned (and I include
blogs) the reader/listener/viewer is continually
bombarded with fictionalized fact interspersed with
factualized fiction finally creating a blurred,
undecipherable, ‘picture’ of reality is neither fact
nor fiction.

I appreciate the honesty of this article. It shows something that I have argued
about a lot in this site:

““When misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to
corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds,” he wrote. “In
fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs.””

I appreciate it doesn’t only call conservatives “misinformed people” but also
liberals.

For some other more subtle examples of ideas that have gripped entire societies
often to their detriment, see the documentary films of Adam Curtis.

Do not begin your evaluating human behavior from an arbitrarily selected point in recorded history. Sirota does and proffers no enlightenment.

And, of course, like all pols, clergy, collumnists he omits to postulate let alone aver that history teaches.

I evaluate as factual that all humans appear unsane and in endlessly mumber of ways.
And the FIRST CAUSE of it is? Person owning-commanding another person!

I do assert that prepriestly rule we were sane. Once rendered unsane and insane perhaps and split assunder in cosa mias; each person for herself or family against all other families, the iron-rule by cosa nostra was easy.

Does one see a worry on face of a CNN reporter, a congressperson, judge, general, ‘educator’ about cosa mias soon uniting to a degree to form a cosa nostra gang!

And only a cosa nostra gang can effectively confront another cosa nostra gang! tnx

rico, suave: with delicious irony, you miss Sirota’s point while at the same time confirming it.

You are so thoroughly captive to a viewpoint – however it was inculcated into your way of thinking – that you can’t or won’t hear any countervailing information. Instead of addressing the points he makes, you resort to cartoonish characterization of his motives. 

Maybe it’s a pilot thing – you’ve learned to trust your instruments (preconceived ideas) instead of your senses (facts). But you landed in an oil-spoiled salt marsh this time, rico. Don’t you think that the new media, with its islands of partisan homogeneity, harden opinion to such a degree that other ideas, no matter how forcefully articulated and substantially supported, can raise a ripple? Isn’t that worth contemplating, discussing?

Is David Sirota as vulnerable to “inception” as rico, suave? I think he would agree that he is. It matters not at all if his thesis arose from a frustration with being heard. Is he right?

You, inadvertently, confirmed that he is.

“excluding other ideas (say, antiwar opinions and critiques of the free market) and bringing audiences to seemingly self-conceived and rational judgments—judgments that are tragically misguided.”

There’s the heart of Sirota’s article: “Waaaaah! Nobody listens to left wing propaganda! All they listen to is Fox or the MSM’s propaganda! Why won’t anybody listen to MY propaganda?”

Look Dave. Everybody has to believe is something, right? If your propaganda doesn’t float as many boats as Rupert Murdoch’s, then just maybe that begs the question of the proximity of your propaganda to the reality of everyday life for the majority of people.

Calling people misguided because they listen to Fox and the MSM is petulance, not persuasion.

It’s not just right-wingers though - it’s difficult to
find an opinionated person who is not in their own
‘bubble’.  It’s an unfortunate consequence of egotism
that we take our opinions as part of oneself and
therefore in need of motherly nurturing and vigilant
protection.

Pretty damn good interpretation.

Last paragraph of Sirota’s article: “For so many, meticulously constructed fantasies seem like indisputable reality. And because those fantasies’ artificial inception is now so deftly obscured, we can no longer wake up, even if facts tell us we’re in a dream—and even when the dream becomes a nightmare.”

I find this very insightful.
  1. “Meticulously constructed fantasy”—There’s no alternative to war.
  2. “seems like indisputable reality”— Wars have always been fought, throughout history.
  3. “facts tell us—that is not true”—Peace, peacemaking and keeping the peace have also happened throughout history. In fact that’s why we are still alive.
  4. “fantasy deftly (deliberately) obscured”—Nobody reports on peace, reminds us of peacemaking, tells us keeping peace is possible, shows us how.
  5. “we can no longer wake up even if ... the dream becomes a nightmare”—surely the present situation of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanitan are surely a nightmare, and the nuclear predicament is a nightmare and global warming is a nightmare etc. etc.
  It almost suggests that the majority of American people (as well as many others for different reasons accruing from “civilization as we know it”) are so traumatized we resemble PTSD victims of war in that we cannot “wake up” and escape from violence we have unwittingly helped to create (by not resisting the nationally-authorized “dreams of conquest, superiority, righteousness, victims of “terrorism,”  etc. etc.
  Somebody pick this up and go on ???