From Latin [it does not follow] "The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion; an inference that does not follow from the premises." Funk & Wagnalls, Standard Dictionary, International Edition
Remember that definition. It's with us now more than ever. It will be for the foreseeable future. You see, Right Wing-Nuts have cornered the market on non sequitur and they're spewing it non-stop across the blogosphere, internet and every media market in America in an effort to demagogue their way out of a horrific reality caused by Republican rule over the last thirty years (YEAH-YEAH-YEAH…Including Republocrat William Jefferson Clinton*). The American empire has run its course. Only violence will secure (for the ever-dwindling "many") a continued lifestyle to which a proportion of Americans have become accustomed. "Many" defined as the swallowed hump that is the middle-class bulge in the belly of the beast; now being slowly digested; soon to be passed as one gigantic fecal deposit. Precisely the excrementitious result any real Capitalist system must ultimately produce.
America has operated for the benefit of its monied elites since inception. To believe otherwise is to have been propagandized by their fictions called History. That tale tells nothing of rich white men legalizing their two-fold self-serving agenda: Acquisition of more money and more power. Rather, that story is of good men of conscience, yearning to be free from the shackles of Royal decrees and burdensome oppression. Compassionate men, our Founding Fathers. Those saints to homo vulgaris blessing them with a democracy of, by and for the People.
Like I said, pure propaganda (and, I coulda used bullshit there for clarity). If you believe America is pure and God Blessed, a true democracy and really standing for the rights of the People, etc, etc,…then you're also likely to believe the following:
- The recent deluge of Fox-based noise quoting Cheney and Limbaugh and Beck as well as pretty much every pundit/talking head on FOX "news" channels, going on and on about how the Obama Administration is going light on "terrorists" by encouraging the civil trial in New York City of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed rather than using the military tribunal process. Typical charges have been leveled at Team Obama: Soft on terrorism. Naïve. Selling out our nation's security. Communist/Socialist. Muslim-lover. Blackman in whiteface and big red lips. Bone through nose. Goat-fucker. ** Any who believe the preceding is also likely to believe the George W. Bush presidency's claim that torture of "terrorists" was justified and legal. The tortured reasoning has been because these "vermin" aren't regular army—affiliated with no nation-state –the Geneva Conventions do not apply. But, the contradiction is this: If these "terrorists" weren't regular army in order to wiggle out from under the Geneva Conventions, why are these same voices now calling for military tribunals? Ahh, the problems with pesky reality always butting in and ruining such perfect illogic.
- The "Liberal" media is being typically unfair by going after Sarah Palin because she was caught reading off notes written on her hand when interviewing during the National Tea Party convention. While discussed at length by the usual suspects (Fuck News, folk) and even counterpointed by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, the essential contradiction wasn't stressed: Sarah Palin, just after she sarcastically referred to Obama ["This is about the people. And it's a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter."] not merely needed to read her own palm (where she had scribbled some talking points…"Energy" "Tax" "Budget cuts" with "Budget" crossed out, and "Lift American spirits." DUH!) which demonstrates a shocking, nay, appalling lack of "on her feet intelligence," an obvious inability to parse the here-and-now which is a trait that any President should have. Palin's palm reading was done surreptitiously! Like a school kid cheating on a test. She could have simply written the points down on a index card. But, no. She sought to put forth a false "perception" that was meant to make her seem Presidential, able to speak intelligently off the cuff. By doing what she did, she LIED to her own constituency and to the American people. Yet, the Tea Baggers fall all over themselves defending her. Now, before moving on, think about the points Palin did scribble down. What nitwit wouldn't know those talking points; couldn't recite them even in their perpetual stupidity-induced haze?! But, if you think about it, maybe she's on to something. If ever elected President, the American people would no doubt hope she keeps a note about which button to finger for the nuclear end game scribbled between her mavericky mams, just in case. Wouldn't want her to be quick-dialing for pizza and, "Oops…My baaaad."
- Another belief no doubt held by America's ignorami is that the recent US Supreme Court ruling giving corporations unlimited influence in American political elections is a good, wholesome, what-the-founding-Fathers-wanted kind of decision. All we've heard from the Right Wing-Nuts is that finally America's highest jurisprudential body has gotten it right when defining corporations: They're people! With all the rights of any American citizen. The FACT that corporations are increasingly foreign-based (to avoid paying their fair share of taxes) as well as foreign-owned seems to have had no bearing on the "Supreme's" deliberations. One wonders what leaps in logic will be induced upon, oh say, CITGO's (owned and operated by Venezuela, hence Hugo Chavez) massive funding of the next Democrat candidate. You can be sure there will be a huge, frothing-mouthed out-cry from these same Right Wing-Nuts about the undemocratic nature of this same Supreme Court decision. Again, while this issue has been bounced around on nearly every political talk show available, none have focused on the contradiction inherent in this decision; viz., allowing for unlimited (via corporate-scale funding of) "free speech" rights of corporations that deny same to their employees (also sanctioned by the US Supreme Court). Meaning, now in America, free speech is guaranteed to Corporations that deny free speech to the American citizens they employ. There have been numerous stories about employees fired for their Facebook musings on their own page done on their own time. Or those stories about corporate employees speaking out for unionization getting fired, etc. etc.
You know, there used to be a time, not that long ago, when being labeled (or worse, when proved to be) a hypocrite was a fate worse than death for a politician. Now, for the Right Wing-Nuts, it's a medal of distinction; showing an "intellectual" spryness, an uncanny ability to dance around facts until nonsense makes sense. Just like there used to be a time when a word's definition meant something; when using words was for communicating, for articulating ideas ever more clearly. Now we have Sarah Palin (and Beck and Limbaugh and Coulter and Ingraham and Hannitty and Dobbs and O'Reilly) using words strung together that, when analyzed, mean absolutely nothing. But, you see, this type of word usage isn't about articulating anything at all. It's about vague "button pushing" words used to tap into the anger born of unintelligence, bias, hatred, ill-conceived patriotism and a religious-based righteousness that supersedes all but the authority of their God. These words aren't meant to enlighten but to obscure reality from the fictions being perpetrated. Hey, here's a couple words for you that you would be well advised to study and know by heart: demagoguery and demagogue. If you believe the points above, you have already been subsumed by demagoguery as distributed by the demagogues just mentioned.
In fact, at least half of the American public has a collective knowledge base that is 180 degrees from (and exactly opposite to) reality; that's right, all turned around from what is true. Whatever you believe to be "facts" are very likely to be wrong. Your belief in US History? Wrong! Your belief in an America of, by and for the People? Wrong! Terrorism is a war to be won? Wrong (terrorism is a state of mind)! American elites are honest about fighting terrorism? Wrong (The United States is the most egregious terrorist nation in the world; why else do you think Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of the quintessential Latin American history book, "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano? and why else is the Muslim world so angry? Because they actually hate us for our freedom??? WTF! Analyze that phrase and see that it is a meaningless utterance of words that pushes buttons thereby instilling hatred of a people that have had their resources used and their way of life abused by the dual-headed monster AmerIsrael)!
Let's call America's Right Wing-Nuts something more appropriate: The 180s. Any time you hear an asinine, demagogic screed from the likes of the ignorami, be they local yokels or media darlings, label them what they are: A 180. A person bereft of reality relying on the punditry of demagogues without conscience; people that will believe anything.
Anything, that is, except the truth!
* Always the required disclaimer re Clinton when none whatsoever should be necessary. He was a Republican moderate and/or a compassionate conservative costumed in Democrat's rhetorical flourishes. Two "proofs," if you will: NAFTA and Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 which opened the legal floodgates to water the financial sector's abuse of the system which sprouted in the Financial Crisis of 2009 -11. 'Nuff said?
** I shit you not. Google "Obama sex with goat" and you'll get back a half-million entries. This one and worse where the picture has been poorly photo-shopped with Obama's face superimposed on the Nigerian miscreant and reproduced all over the internet. Notice: These last three examples are NOT about security issues but nonetheless relevant, as in, WTF???!!!
