What has been interesting to me about Obama’s attempts to marginalize Fox News is the casual, pseudo-reasonable words the administration is using. It interests me because this is one of the most subtle and ruthless uses of Alinsky tactics I’ve seen.
Deuce Geary over at The Skepticrats has rightly pointed out the “wolf’s words in sheep’s clothing” aspect of the administration’s position and how this is being glossed over by many in the main stream media.
Where he and I part company on this one is on attributing this offensive against Fox to Obama being thin skinned about criticism. I don’t think that’s the issue at all: I think what we are seeing is a very powerful use of Alinsky tactics in a very well choreographed way.
To show what I mean, let’s talk about the polarized world view that the Alinsky acolytes on the far left are pushing:
When I pull out this diagram, anyone’s eye is immediately drawn to the over simplification and depiction of everyone to the right of the Mean Green New Left as on the Far Right but what is interesting, and applicable here, the Mean Green do not speak of themselves as any farther to the left than the classic Democrat party.
When you hear the Mean Green speak, they invariably describe their opposition as having moved to the “extreme Right” or the “radical Right,” when they are not actually calling their opposition Nazis or American Taliban, but the Mean Green do not speak of themselves as the “Far Left” or “Extreme Left” or “Radical Left.” Instead we hear the term “Progressive.”
This is a subtle and clever exercise in NewSpeak. Remember that one of the goals of Alinskyism is getting moderates who were leaning to your side to join forces with you. This is done in part by portraying the opposition as extreme, and thus scaring people into joining you for protection, but it is also done by masking your own extremism.
Think about yourself as a moderate, centrist liberal who is concerned with the horrifying rise of extreme, radical, far right, Nazi-Taliban-Fundamentalists that the Mean Green and their Main Stream Media allies keep telling you about. Which sounds more appealing to you:
- You can join with far left extremists who seek radical changes to American society by killing free markets and individual freedoms with a nearly all powerful government OR . .
- You can join the “progressives” who advocate vague and fluffy, but really nice things, like protecting the little guy, and helping people out, and saving polar bears and such (all of which, if you read the fine print, just happen to be achieved by killing free markets and individual freedoms with a nearly all powerful government)
Of course the two alternatives aren’t alternatives at all, they are the exact same Mean Green, far left. This is what we are seeing here. Which advice to country is more likely to appeal to moderates and independents:
- You should stop listening to anyone who disagrees with us or criticizes us and only listen to our approved propagandists . . . OR . . .
- We want you to have lots of news, the more news the better, but please don’t forget: what you hear on Fox isn’t really news. Just listen to the rest of the main stream media
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }