Friday, July 18, 2008
‘Centrists’ Running the Asylum
From: http://lefti.blogspot.com
A very perceptive analysis by David Sirota:
In the asylum that is American politics, beware a candidate like Barack Obama when he is lauded for moving to “the center”—because usually that means he is drifting away from it. ... Day after day, smiling anchormen, blow-dried correspondents and silver-tongued congressmen follow the Big Lie theory of indoctrination, taking to our televisions, radios and newspapers insisting that crazy is normal, the majority is the minority and—most important—the fringe is the “center.” This is no accident. These voices of the status quo do not want the status quo challenged. They deliberately broadcast messages crafted to get us—the mainstream—to question our mainstream-ness, while convincing politicians that the Establishment’s extremism represents a responsible middle ground.The corollary, which Sirota doesn't discuss, is when slightly liberal Democrats like Daily Kos or MoveOn.org are referred to by the media as the "far left." This serves a double purpose. One is to discredit and marginalize such actual moderates, and the second is to put real people on the far left (say, Cynthia McKinney or Gloria La Riva) as so far beyond "far left" that they aren't even to be discussed in "polite company."
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