Fellowship of Punditry

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Cul Heath

Mick Arran

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The Fellowship is accepting new members. Inquire within.

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  • George Orwell

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    Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

    In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

    If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

    But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

    Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

    Whatever is funny is subversive, every joke is ultimately a custard pie... a dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

    In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

    All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.

    At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

    Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

    John Stuart Mill

    Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

    The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time.

    The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

    Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

    A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

    Mark Twain

    Don't let schooling interfere with your education.

    All generalizations are false, including this one.

    A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

    Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.

    Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

    The Public is merely a multiplied "me."

    Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."

    Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

    Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.

    Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

    Winston Churchill

    The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

    I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

    Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.

    Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

    Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

    However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

    In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

    Otto Von Bismarck

    When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

    I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

    Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

    Be polite; write diplomatically ;even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

    Voltaire

    A witty saying proves nothing.

    If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.

    When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

    I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.

    To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.

    Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

    It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

    The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.

    Karl Marx

    Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.

    All I know is I'm not a Marxist.

    The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

    Wednesday, June 09, 2004

    "Terrorists for Kerry by Dick Morris"- A case study of ideological arrogance

    By Nick

    FrontPage magazine.com :: Terrorists for Kerry by Dick Morris:

    "Osama bin Laden could have made a good living as a political consultant if he did not choose to kill babies instead."- Opening Line

    In Morris's first claim, notice the ABSOLUTE language:

    Every bomb, terror attack, suicide raid or urban guerilla offensive is aimed squarely at ending Bush's political career. Ironically, the real test of American resolve will not be our willingness to stay in Iraq, but our desire to keep Bush in office.


    In essense, he is arguing that "American resolve"- is ideological, and dependent on one politician getting re-elected. Morris supports this bold assertion with a naive historical interpretation. Notice the reference to the conscripts of the North Vietnamese Army as "Terrorists":

    The history of terrorists messing around with the political systems of their victim countries is a long one. The Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Tet Offensive in January 1968 set in motion a chain of events that led to Sen. Eugene McCarthy's excellent showing in that year's New Hampshire primary, Robert F. Kennedy's entry into the presidential race and, finally, Lyndon Johnson's withdrawal from the contest.


    This is an illogical and fallacious assertion. The Tet Offensive caused McCarthy to do well in New hampshire and led to Robert F. Kennedy's entry into the 1968 race. Therefore had Kennedy and McCarthy not entered the race Johnson would have stayed? Johnson would have lost anyway, and Vietnam broke him beyond caring. When politicians make a war, voters will hold them accountable for the aftermath! Hence: Our Republican System.

    You see kids, Morris lays it out. If you are against Bush, you are for Al Queda (Its bizarre that such assertions aren't criticized as being undemocratic) :
    The thugs want Bush out and are determined to ratchet up the cost of the Iraq War to bring about his ouster. That's why they will target any American they can. By having the troops continue their current activist role in Iraq, Bush is sticking to his policies at the risk of committing political suicide.

    Al Qaeda and the Ba'ath Party want to defeat Bush to avenge his tough stance against them after the 9/11 attacks. They know that John Kerry would usher back the Clinton days of timid U.S. reaction and that the Democrat's likely repeal of vital sections of the Patriot Act would open the door for their terror strikes in America.

    ------------------------------------------------------
    This article never discusses the possibility that the Bush Doctrine is a cold-war era solution for an Information Age conflict. They never actually refute this assertion: Bush's foreign policy was a blunder that made the world more dangerous than necessary. Maybe that assertion is wrong, but as of far I've seen large amounts of evidence from everywhere in the world, and across all ideological spectrums.
    Instead, Morris, out of desperation, is playing the "We are anti-anti-Americans" card; you are either with America, or you are against America. . Simply put, Morris is amongst a army of radical-right pundits who claim authority to define what is "American". Therefore all opposition to them is "anti-american". What constitutes true "American" is a democratic decisions- it's very definition is the will of the voters. It is arrogant and destructive to inject such extremist dogma (my side is always right, therefore you are wrong) into a debate of profound importance. I'm not against conservatives viewpoints, but I am squarely against anti-anti-American rhetoric. Call me an anti-anti-anti American, but don't claim thats anti-American. Its nothing but a cheap shot that depends on short term ideological definitions of a Democratically built concept like "America". Shame on you Dick Morris.


    posted by Nick at 6/09/2004 04:09:00 PM |

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