...saw that coming....

POSTED BY: Dayve
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 4, 2007 02:21
VIEWED: 4858
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DAYVE

Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:23 PM

Tom Tomorrow pretty much nails it every time….

(lifted from Huffington Post) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-tomorrow/mistakes-were-made_b_44514.
html

Mistakes Were Made

Quote:
Two takes on a similar theme this week. The cartoon above, from November '05, is one of my own personal favorites. I don't think I've come up with a better expression of the sheer infuriating helplessness many of us have experienced over the past six years. These days, I feel like we're moving closer and closer to the final panel, as Congressional Republicans insist that any timetable for withdrawal will embolden the terrorists, and Rush Limbaugh declares repeatedly that Democrats will be the sole owners of defeat. In short, they're laying the groundwork to blame the entire mess on those of us who opposed it from the start -- and at the same time, they're still insisting that there is no cliff, that the streets of Baghdad are so safe that you can go for a pleasant evening stroll without a care in the world (as John McCain told Wolf Blitzer the other day).
These people are always, always wrong. But they deny it as long as they can, and when they can no longer deny it, they change the subject.
Which brings us to this, more recent piece ...

(For more wacky Tom Tomorrow fun, visit www.thismodernworld.com.)

DEEPGIRL187

Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:29 PM

LOL, Dayve. That pretty much sums up the way things have been going the past few years.

*************************************************

"If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition."

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Thursday, March 29, 2007 4:34 PM

Boy, are you gonna get yourself in trouble... Someone will be along soon to call you a terrorost lover. Satire is a lethal weapon against those folks, because it's so easy, and it works so well, as they have no sense of humor.

DAYVE

Thursday, March 29, 2007 5:06 PM

..why do neo-cons hate people who actually think for themselves...??

FREDGIBLET

Thursday, March 29, 2007 5:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dayve:

..why do neo-cons hate people who actually think for themselves...??

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

DAYVE

Thursday, March 29, 2007 5:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by fredgiblet:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey

Thanks for that link.
I have seen excerpts of Mr. Altemeyer’s work before. Former White House counsel John Dean quotes Altemeyer in his book Conservatives Without Conscience.

From Democracy Now – part of an interview with Dean, conducted by Amy Goodman.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/15/1327200

AMY GOODMAN: You also have a quote at the beginning of your book by Professor Bob Altemeyer: "If you think the United States could never elect an Adolf Hitler to power, note that David Duke would have become governor of Louisiana if it had just been up to the white voters in that state." A lot of people criticize any references to the Holocaust or Adolf Hitler, when talking about what's going on in this country.

JOHN DEAN: Well, Altemeyer is one of the finest and most leading authorities in this question of authoritarianism. He was most gracious to me to take me where I spent almost a year in this body of science as an outsider. The inexplicable thing to me, and actually to him, is that this science has never been explained outside the academic community. And it's information Americans need. It's something that should be in the public square and for discussion.

Altemeyer makes that point, because it's very real. And he actually, ironically, started writing some of his peer journal material in peer-level books during Watergate, when he was struck at how long so many Americans clung to the Nixon presidency, never willing to say that this man had done anything wrong, down to -- it gets to about 23% to this day thinks he did no wrong. He said, “John, that's a very typical pattern in the demographics in the United States of the hardcore authoritarian followers, that their leaders can do -- or their authority figures can do no wrong. They won't question them. They will hang with them forever. They're like lemmings.”

Eta: this quote from Chuck Hagel

“This idea that somehow you don’t support the troops if you don’t continue in a lemming-like way to accept whatever this administration’s policy is, that’s what’s wrong. That is what’s wrong, and that is dangerous,” Hagel said.

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2007/03/28/460ae969
30c86

SHINYED

Thursday, March 29, 2007 5:57 PM

SOUPCATCHER

Thursday, March 29, 2007 5:58 PM

As a nice complement to Bob Altemeyer's research and John Dean's book I'd like to add a series of posts by Sara Robinson over at Orcinus ( http://dneiwert.blogspot.com - scroll down the left sidebar for "Cracks in the Wall" and "Tunnels and Bridges"). She addresses what we know about why authoritarian followers have stepped away from authoritarian leaders and how to foster and support that positive behavior. The first installment is a summary of Altemeyer's research so I'll skip to the end where she sets up the next installments:

Quote:
excerpted from http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/08/cracks-in-wall-part-i-defining.ht
ml
Dean is also emphatic that authoritarianism, in all its forms, is completely antithetical to both classical conservatism (he still considers himself a Goldwater conservative), and to the founding ideals of America. We must be clear: when right-wingers threaten liberals, they are directly threatening the seminal political impulse that created our nation. An operative democracy depends on having a populace that is open to new ideas, able to think for itself, confident in its abilities, willing to take risks, and capable of mutual trust. America was founded as the world's first radically liberal state. History has shown us that the nation's best moments, past and future, are created by people with a strong liberal orientation.

Authoritarians aren't merely constitutionally incapable of this kind of cultural and political openness; they are actively hostile to it, and seek to stamp it out wherever they find it. Everything in their souls drives them to dismantle the democratic impulse, and bring people under the heel of hierarchical authority -- which is why history has also shown us that the nation's worst moments, past and future, are created by people with a strong right-wing authoritarian orientation.

In my next post, I'll move away from Dean's book, and into a deeper look at the psychology of right-wing followers. We'll take a brief look at some of the reasons people are drawn into right-wing authoritarian belief systems -- and a longer look at the events that cause some of these same followers to eventually choose to abandon those systems.

* emphasis in the original *

* edited to add: Wow. Right on cue we have ShinyEd exhibiting exactly the kind of behavior Mrs. Robinson italicized in the above excerpt. If I had tried to prove that point I couldn't have done a better job.

* edited to add: And the post has now been erased.

DAYVE

Thursday, March 29, 2007 6:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ShinyEd:
Who made America a fucking joke today?...

Who indeed Ed, who indeed.

Look brother, i'm not trying to piss you off, but please try to open your eyes to what's going on in this world today. I love my country just as much as you and because i do - i complain. I complain everytime i see some power hungry egomaniac try to destroy the basic principals this country was founded on. I don't 'hate' a man simply because they prefer one ideology over another – it’s everyone’s right to make their own decisions, but to blindly follow without questioning authority can, and does often lead to disaster.

If I offended you with those cartoons, I do apologize, but at least try to be a little open minded about those with differing opinions. I try, really, I’ve tried to see the reasoning behind this administrations policies on many issues, but, honestly, in the end I just can’t.

As far as satire goes I just can’t help myself, to paraphrase Julius Caesar, ‘I came, I saw, I satirized…’

If the news is bad, don’t blame the messenger.

FREDGIBLET

Thursday, March 29, 2007 7:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dayve:
Quote:
Originally posted by fredgiblet:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey

Thanks for that link.

I figured that this wasn't a particularly serious thread, but when you posted that comment about the neo-cons it sparked a memory. I haven't finished the linked article yet myself but it is a very interesting read.

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