Are liberals "handicapped" by logic?

[Atticus]

In his 1988 book. "A Brief History of Time", Stephen Hawking relates the following story:

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever", said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

It seems that "little old lady" or her kin is at every Tea Bagger rally, is a frequent caller to every right wing radio talk show and has her very own signed copy of "Going Rogue". Glen Beck HAS to be her favorite grandson.

In '04, the Swift Boat ads were so dog-shit crazy and transparent that the Kerry campaign assumed that Americans would see through them and discount them. They actually thought the ads might backfire and win the election for them. That would have been logical.
How'd that work?

This year, when Republicans told lie after lie about the Health Care legislation, no one called them on it it any forceful way. No one called them "lyin' sons o' bitches" or anything nearly so colorful or passionate. "Surely," said the Democrats, "once people SEE that there are NO DEATH PANELS in our bill, they will be angry with the GOP partisans who lied to them. We don't need to explain the obvious. We don't need to get 'negative' and 'partisan' and brand them 'liars'."
How'd that work?

There are other examples, but you get the picture. We can have the angels on our side; we can have truth and justice and simple transparent reasoning which totally supports every aspect of our position, but it counts for nothing if we allow some little old lady wearing tennis shoes and waving a Gadsden flag to trump it all with "turtles, all the way down!"

[BlooInBloo]

1. Americans in general simply don't *care* about what's true and what's not...

It's not limited to one party.

Most recent common example here: "Ban derivatives!" from a jillion people who have no idea what a derivative is.

[paulsby]

3. ah yes, another "dumb merkuns" post. here's a hint

this is not unique to americans.

people are people

[BlooInBloo]

8. Thanks for providing another example, though it really wasn't needed...

Note that I never said it was unique to Americans.

[Xipe Totec]

7. This post is derivative (nt)

[BlooInBloo]

9. Touche.

:P

[paulsby]

i trade derivatives

i'll admit i don't understand some of the more esoteric ones, but options and futures aren't that hard to understand

[Xipe Totec]

14. I commend your sense of humor

and grace under fire.

:thumbsup:

[BrklynLiberal]

2. the ignorant and the fearful are very easily led by the evil and those that crave power.

Logic has no effect on them..only irrational fear and apparent self-interest -
at least what appears to be good for them at the time -
can get them to stand up and shout.

[mzteris]

11. or led by those who want to sell books. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

17. good point.

[Xipe Totec]

4. I think this video illustrates the point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhlHzYt4xRM

[RKP5637]

5. IMO the dems give the general public too much credit for thinking... I believe

most Americans just react, and react to what hits their hot button. Emotions will cloud logic almost every time, generally... and the first wrong statement said loud enough will be taken as truth, the Primacy Principle at work... and if that doesn't work, say the same wrong thing over and over and many Americans will come to believe it as the truth. And talk in short choppy words, Bush was a master at that...

[defendandprotect]

16. The POINT of propaganda is to short-circuit thinking ... and the GOP has long practiced it --

It always requires response ....

"Partial Birth Abortion" = "Partial Truth Abortion" . . . .

too long delayed response is no good --

[RKP5637]

22. Why do we have such a prevalence of RW talk radio shows. Is it just the

demographics of the listeners? Around here it's on AM, of course, but now I've been hearing it creep onto FM too. And shortwave is filled with RW religious shows. It's most infrequent when I hear moderately left leaning stations...

[defendandprotect]

29. For the same reason we've had so many rw think tanks and ...

an alleged right wing religious movement --

This is all sponsored by right wing elites/wealthy -- and right wing corporations.

Religion has always been a tool of the elite --

organized patriarchal religion underpins patriarchy.

The GOP in the 1980's gave start up funds for the Christian Coalition.

Richard Scaife financed Dobson's organization and other rightwing wealthy funded Bauer's org.

Our CIA created the Taliban/Al Qaeda thru ISI Pakistan funding it up til 9/11 -- and they did

it to "bait the Russians into Afghanistan in hopes of giving the Russians a Vietnam-type experience."

We didn't want to be the only losers!

Nixon funded rw Israeli Fundamentalists which buried the Israeli left seeking peace.

And which gave US a foothold in ME.

Netanyhu seems heavily implicated in the assassination of PM Rabin -- "Murder in the name of God"

They say that US/Israel weapons production is so intertwined

that you can barely tell them apart. We fund their warmonger/warmaking. We also store nuclear

weapons in Israel.

US has also been involved in trying to create a violent Islam ... those notoriously violent

Islamic books we heard so much about where written and produced here in the US and shipped into

the ME. See a note on that below --


Limbaugh -- when Randi Rhodes also worked for Clear Channel she had a higher rating than Limbaugh.

But they steadily refused to syndicate her!

NBC decades ago got rid of their #1 talk show host, Phil Donahue --

It isn't that there isn't a market -- they did the same thing with Hightower -- they need to block

any truth from getting thru in order to keep rw myths/propaganda in play. RW myth is like a

mirror -- any bit of truth shatters it like a pebble.


I'm sure you've heard of the role that Gen. Edwin G. Walker played as an aside in the assassination

of President Kennedy. How many know that he had been fired by JFK for distributing right wing/

Nazi material in the military? How many know that Walker led the racist riot at Ole Miss against

their enrolling James Meredith? Walker was arrested there and psychiatric aid recommended.

http://www.textfiles.com/conspiracy/walker.txt




With the death of Wm. Buckley/CIA evidently some CIA info came floating out about how the CIA

had been supporting/financing right wing Senators/Reps in the Congress. The CIA would take money

from any right wing source -- includng the KKK. They used this money to fund people like

Pat Buchanan -- who GE/NBC also kept in play with "Crossfire." Two of the members of Congress

I'm familiar with are Sen. Strom Thurmond and Rep. Jerry Ford. Evidently, there were many more;

Sen. Jesse Helms is another name I've heard mentioned.


Further, we don't really know if there ever was a "Southern Strategy" or if there have only ever

been computer steals. The large and small computers began coming in during the mid-late-1960's.

Coincidentaly, about the time we were passing The Voting Rights Act.

The large computers were used by MSM which up until that time were only able to report actual vote

tallies. With the computers they were now about to PREDICT and CALL electiosn for candidates.

PREDICT and CALL Electoral College votes for the presidency. We simply saw that process reversed

in 2000 with John Ellis/Fox News reversing the call of Florida for Gore -- and later it was

called for Bush! We know that the small/individual voting computers are hackable. I'd question

elections all the way back to Nixon/Humphrey -- 100,000 vote difference in that one!


And, there's always more to learn and understand --



-------------------------------------

Meanwhile, here's some of the info I'm aware of ...

FIRST PART OF THIS DEALS WITH HOW US/CIA CREATED TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA . . .
TO BAIT RUSSIANS INTO AFGHANISTAN . . .


SECOND PART DEALS WITH THE TEXTBOOKS --



The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_i... ...


---------------------------------------------------

SECOND PART --


The US spent $100's of millions shooting down Soviet helicopters yet didn't spend a penny helping Afghanis rebuild their infrastructure and institutions.

They also spent millions producing jihad preaching, fundamentalist textbooks and shipping them off to Afghanistan. These were the same text books the Western media discussed in shocked tones and told their audiences were used by fundamentalist teachers to brainwash their charges and to inculcate in young Afghanis a jihad mindset, hatred of foreigners and non-Muslims etc.


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd.

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.

But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit, print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into Afghanistan without high officials in the US government approving those primers.

http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/jihad.h...

[RKP5637]

30. Thanks for your reply and this info. Very interesting. I'll also read the links you included.

Thanks again!

[defendandprotect]

34. Ok -- also keep in mind that ....

we talk about a corporate press . . .

that certainly includes MIC interests -- how many Pentagon officials under

contract to networks?

You should also explore Carl Bernstein's work on CIA journalists -- try Rolling Stone

for that original article. At the time, I think he estimated something like 400 of them --

a few years later, he was estimating 1,200 of them!

Congress has steadily refused to bar CIA from infiltrating networks and other news media.

Many more now, of course --

Needless to say we have heavy influence on our "free press" by Pentagon and CIA and the

whole MIC complext is at stake there and to be protected from any challenge!!

$600 billion+ a year budget!! That needs a lot of protecting --


Finally, don't forget that "Operation Paperclip" by Allen Dulles brought in tens of thousands

of Nazis and their families to America -- they were used to FOUND the CIA and many also

funneled into the FBI and many other government agencies -- Werner Von Braun heading NASA and many

others joining him there.

Evidently JFK began to figure this out -- I think he had a go around with Von Braun because

WVB wanted to use nuclear fuel. JFK was completely against it.


And, of course, the only way the right can rise is with violence -- assassination!


Good luck in your research!!


:)

[treestar]

28. Yet they expect the US to be "Number One" in the world

Pathetic.

[RKP5637]

35. They (RW) might be able to fool some Americans, but not the whole world over time, especially

as other countries move on into the 21st century. Our failures swept under the rug will become really prominent IMO. Hopefully those that take them (RW) at face value are catching on and digging deeper for "real" information... I hope, I do hope someday... they will try something other than Fox News and the like. As I've read, this is probably now the most propagandized nation ever of industrialized nations.

[Ian David]

6. You know who ELSE didn't believe in turtles?

HITLER!

:sarcasm:

[BlooInBloo]

12. I heard Obama is gonna put us all in front of Turtle Panels.

[Atticus]

31. Ach! Mein Gott! nt

[DJ13]

10. I sometimes feel our party deliberately ignores the craziness

Like in 04 when many party big shots really didnt want Kerry to win because they knew Hillary was planning to run in 08.

[Ian David]

13. I don't think Kerry wanted Kerry to win, either. Help is on the way my ass. n/t

[defendandprotect]

18. Well, IMO, it's more than "craziness" -- there's underlying threat from the right ...

which is real -- they have a big "get even" attitude and as one prominent liberal writer

whose name I can't recall at the moment has said of them . . .

"They'd just as soon shoot you as look at you" --

That's how they rose to head government -- it's the only way they can rise -- violence

and deception - stolen elections.



AND, most Dem leaders understand their ready violence -- certainly in the past they used

assassinations to bring them to power.

And, we have the Wellstone tragedy to look at -- 9/11 - Anthrax -- and let me assure you

Sen. Tom Daschle was quite legitimately concerned about how they were demonizing him.

[Igel]

15. Not in the least.

I've never met one who let logic get in the way of something they really wanted to believe. Handicap? Try "barely noticeable," under the right circumstances.

Of course, this is far from a left-of-center afflication. It afflicts those left, right, up above, slightly below, those inhabiting the "same space in alternate universes," whatever that may mean, and even the rare soul impaled directly on the center.

[Stevenmarc]

19. No we are handicapped with crappy marketing skills we can't seem to make logic snappy.

[RKP5637]

36. Absolutely true. The dems need s NEW advertising agency... We seem to fall

short on promoting the good stuff Dems so... hence many just hear the RW negative talking points pounded 7x24.

[Odin2005]

20. Our problem is that we assume most people are rational and will be swayed by bare facts.

People are NOT rational, myself included.

This is not a Right-Wing failing, Left-Wing failing, or an American failing, it's a HUMAN failing. I have noticed that those who most pride themselves on being logical and rational are the ones with the most repressed irrational side that comes out in dogmatic rationalizations.

[RKP5637]

24. Good points!!! n/t

[Odin2005]

25. Thanks!

[The_Commonist]

21. I generally like the human species.

But sometimes, not so much.
Turtles, on the other hand...

[Oregone]

23. Thus proving that there's no accounting for taste

[RainDog]

26. That's why political parties have different people in diff. roles

Grayson is great at what he does. Someone like him has been loooong overdue in the Democratic Party.

Franken has his own style - he is definitely scoring points off the lying liars.

The Daily Show preaches to the choir.

And Americans are segregated by different "realities." Only one of them is reality-based, however. How do you get through to people who operate via cult-think?

[RKP5637]

32. "How do you get through to people who operate via cult-think?" IMO it's nearly

impossible since the way they innately process information is why they ended up in cult-think. In their sense of reality true rationale logic in our reality has no meaning, of course. It's a deprogramming effort to attempt to reach most of them IMO. Often I wonder if it's organic or is it conditioned programming. I suppose some combination there of... although, often, I am beginning to think more and more it's a hardwired brain function, so much of their talk anymore is so outrageous.

[sendero]

27. I've been saying this..

... since I got here in 2002. The Democrats are complete milktoasts when it comes to rhetoric. Nothing has changed in 8 years. There is not ONE PROGRESSIVE VOICE of any audience that can state the obvious with the venom the Republicans use SO EFFECTIVELY.

I've given up worrying about it.

[The Straight Story]

33. Logic to me: Your body, your choice. That does not go well with many on the left or right (nt)

[wuushew]

37. kick

:kick:

[jmondine]

38. Emotion is a far more powerful motivator than reason

If progressive strategists were better at grasping this, the GOP wouldn't stand a chance.

Fear may be all they have, but fear is the most potent short-term motivational tool.

[Fumesucker]

39. I"m reminded of Adlai Stevenson's reply to the lady who told him he had the vote..

The vote of every thinking American..

"Madam, we need a majority."

It's hard to get much more succinct than that.

[county worker]

40. What is logic?

Logic examines general forms which arguments may take, which forms are valid, and which are fallacies. It is one kind of critical thinking. In philosophy, the study of logic falls in the area of epistemology, which asks: "How do we know what we know?" In mathematics, it is the study of valid inferences within some formal language.


"We can have the angels on our side; we can have truth and justice and simple transparent reasoning which totally supports every aspect of our position, but it counts for nothing if we allow some little old lady wearing tennis shoes and waving a Gadsden flag to trump it all with "turtles, all the way down!"


The two paragraphs above have little to do with each other.


What you have is opinion! So does the little old lady have an opinion. Whether you have truth or angles is a whole different matter.

[lumberjack_jeff]

41. Lakoff had it right

http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3014

Real reason is embodied in two ways. It is physical, in our brain circuitry. And it is based on our bodies as the function in the everyday world, using thought that arises from embodied metaphors. And it is mostly unconscious. False reason sees reason as fully conscious, as literal, disembodied, yet somehow fitting the world directly, and working not via frame-based, metaphorical, narrative and emotional logic, but via the logic of logicians alone.
Empathy is physical, arising from mirror neurons systems tied to emotional circuitry. Self-interest is real as well, and both play their roles in real reason. False reason is supposed to serve material self-interest alone. It’s supposed to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?,”which President Obama assumed that all populists were asking. While Frank Luntz told conservatives to frame health care in terms of the moral concepts of freedom (a “government takeover”) and life (“death panels”), Obama was talking about policy minutia that could not be understood by most people.

Real reason is inexplicably tied up with emotion; you cannot be rational without being emotional. False reason thinks that emotion is the enemy of reason, that it is unscrupulous to call on emotion. Yet people with brain damage who cannot feel emotion cannot make rational decisions because they do not know what to want, since like and not like mean nothing. “Rational” decisions are based on a long history of emotional responses by oneself and others. Real reason requires emotion.

Obama assumed that Republicans would act “rationally” where “rationality” was defined by false reason — on the logic of material self-interest.

[Codeine]

42. A quick reading of DU will demonstrate

that a lack of logical and critical thinking is hardly unique to the Right.