Battle of the Bilge

A Rise in Rhetoric

The far right wing establishment has been growing increasingly bold in their attacks against the Commander in Chief in recent months, with Glenn Beck’s anti-Obama diatribes, the tea party and town hall gatherings and cries of a communist takeover becoming a common reality of everyday life. But one article posted this week at the conservative website NewsMax took the rhetoric to a new level. It caused such a stir that NewsMax has pulled the article from their site (but not before it was captured by several media watchdogs). Columnist John L Perry, whose long career in journalism and public service – he served in support roles for both the Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter administration – has been a loud and brutal critic of President Obama since the primary season. But none of the article he has written for NewsMax has garnered this much attention. Probably because none have been so obvious in their call for the overthrow of the President. Saying the possibility of a military coup is ‘remote, although gaining’ and that this is all hypothetical does not negate the danger of the words being used.
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“Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.” – Tony Blair

Prankster Activists Strike Again

Last year, the group The Yes Men printed a fake version of the New York Timeswith a headline that read “Iraq War Ends” and distributed thousands of copies on the streets of New York. This year, they’ve spoofed the New York Timeswith a headline that read “Iraq War Ends” and distributed thousands of copies on the streets of New York. This year, they’ve spoofed the New York Post in a special global warming edition with the alarming headline “We’re Screwed”:

The second story in the fake newspaper carries the title “Pentagon top brass warn: Act now, or pay later with ‘lives’”. Although the paper is clearly a spoof, the article itself is not too far off the mark, and except for the fact that they are taken cobbled together to form one narrative, the quotes and references to the NDU study are real.

The Article Text

The Pentagon has run the numbers. And they’ve decided global warming is real, it’s happening now, and it’s a US national security threat.

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Holding Tight to Belief

If you have a free moment, stop by the New York Times and visit this article. It is an interesting read comparing the 1909 Cook/Peary North Pole controversy with modern conspiracy theories and peoples’ general resistance to changing their minds despite contrary evidence.

The article includes a particularly fascinating snippet regarding a recent study done by fMRI on the 2004 US Presidential election:

With our rational faculties muted, sometimes the unwelcome evidence doesn’t even register, and sometimes we use marvelous logic to get around the facts.

In one study, Republicans who blamed Saddam Hussein for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were presented with strong counterevidence, including a statement from President George W. Bush absolving Hussein. But most of the people in the study went on blaming Hussein anyway, as the researchers report in the current issue of Sociological Inquiry.

Some of the people ignored or rejected the counterevidence; some “counterargued” that Hussein was evil enough to do it; some flatly said they were entitled to counterfactual opinions. And some came up with an especially creative form of motivated reasoning that the psychologists labeled “inferred justification”: because the United States went to war against Hussein, the reasoning went, it must therefore have been provoked by his attack on Sept. 11.

It has been often said that you can’t reason someone out of something that they did not reason themselves into. This study looks like it supports that idea.

Just more of the same, an old story with a new villain…

BotB Verdict

Summary

In a continuation of a pattern of emails designed to denigrate the president and make it appear that he is catering to the Muslim world, a viral email has emerged that leaves out a great deal of information about the history of the USPS stamp honoring the holiday of Eid. Beyond the fact that this email attacks the Commander in Chief, it has nothing to do with the military. But it has become a high volume inquiry in our email center so it is worth providing the information the original authors chose to ignore. Let’s start with the email.

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“America now has a moral imperative to remain the same: a land of personal freedom, a place of diversity and a dream for millions of a bright future.” – Sulaiman Al-Hattlan, Saudi journalist and political analyst

Eight Years, A New World

Exactly eight years ago, Muslim terrorists delivered a destructive and epoch changing attack on the United States. As we honor our fallen citizens of that day, and our fallen warriors that have given their lives to help ensure an attack like 9/11 will never happen again, let us also reflect on the fight still to come. In this long war against radical Islamic elements, there are no grand battlefield maneuvers or great victories to encourage us back home. There are only small engagements, targeted air assaults and long term rebuilding and modernization programs. While the casualties get the headlines, few take the time to report on the successes on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a world suddenly faced with a new paradigm in which challengers to the established order of things are making power moves and manipulations, we should never forget what caused it all and why.
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