"Some people are actually honestly irritated by Durbin’s [Gitmo=The Gulag] comments and came to the conclusion on their own [ourselves, for example], without having their puppet strings yanked," writes James Lileks, citing the paranoia of his local rag -- the Minnesota Star Tribune -- re the vastness of the right-wing conspiracy that thwarts all good intentions of the violin-playing left: "By caving in [tearfully "apologizing" yesterday], Durbin did just what the orchestrated right-wing smear effort required to succeed." Lileks slices and dices the Strib and fellow travelers in the Bush Lied, People Died community:
Orchestrated? You really have to believe in all sorts of deep dark conspiratorial drivel to think that there was a coordinated effort. Apparently they believe that there’s a vast, well-oiled propaganda distribution machine with a big red handle in Karl Rove’s office; he throws the switch, and the information courses out to the talk shows and the blogs. You can think this if you wish, but you look foolish before anyone who has any experience in, oh, talk radio and blogs . . .
It looks orchestrated from the outside, but if you knew nothing of humans, sports, or basketball, you might well assume it was not a competition but a rather energetic form of cooperative dance.
But even if it was orchestrated: so? If the White House has taken the quote, sent a tape to every news station in the country, ran it in a commercial, emailed everyone on Glenn Reynolds’ bloglist: so? That’s politics: the other side says something that fires up your base and botherates the middle, so you use it to your advantage. If coordination is somehow a sin, then we can only assume that the fight to keep John Bolton’s moustache from frightening the horses is a random, ad hoc, catch-as-catch-can thing.
Dr. Sanity explains the psychological dynamics of the Democrats' Disorder [she was here discussing projection and paranoia as psychological defense mechanisms among "many Muslims and nations of the Middle East," but the diagnosis is a perfect fit for our friends on the left side of the aisle as well]:
The unacceptable thoughts or feelings [in this case, orchestrated smear campaigns] are denied ('not owned') by the person experiencing them, and instead are projected onto another.
Thus, the person who originally had the offensive thought or feeling becomes the helpless victim of the evil "other," and they do not have to cope with the fact that the evil lies within themselves.
Projection as a psychological defense mechanism can eventually lead to full-blown paranoia, where -- even to the most casual of observers--the delusion (or projection) is completely out of touch with reality.
Yup. "Bush=Hitler"=Completely out of touch with reality. Where are the men in the white coats when you need them?
Hate to admit it but the greatest generation raised in the person of the Boomers some of the most spoiled people who are ignorant of human nature and are the truest "Intellectual Morons" since the decadance of the fall of Rome.
Posted by: goomp | June 22, 2005 at 05:57 PM