A Little Parable About False Witnessing and Malice from the Slacktavist...

[liz_marcs]

The Slacktavist has a little parable about bearing false witness on his blog today that is really a must-read.

It's also pretty clear just who he's talking about in his parable as he tries to explain the fearful, malicious mindset we're seeing coming from the "Obama is reely a sekrit Muslim!" crowd and Palin's vicious acceptance speech, which seemed to be 50% lies. (Oooops! She lied again again! And again!)

And what really confuses the hell out of me is that even after Palin's been caught in several lies over and over again over the past week, she keeps repeating the same damn lies. It's almost like she thinks people are stupid.

The Slacktivist — reporter, progressive, and evangelical Christian — attempts to explain this mindset to us reality-based peoples in today's blog entry. (It's Part 1 of a two-part series.)

Although I am loathe to support his anti-Heinlein theory that one should never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to malice, since he's more familiar with the kind of mindset that he's targeting I'll take his word for it that the population of people who fall into this category is a whole lot bigger than I'd like to believe.

In the meantime, I still believe that there are some low-information voters out there who just need a few facts.

So, mon amis, I have a list of sites you should bookmark and read on a regular basis so that when you meet a low-information voter who just might believe that Obama's a supah sekrit Muslim bent on killin' whitey (presumably after he raises whitey's taxes), you'll be properly prepared to set them a-right.

[Oh, and for you GOPers out there, you might want to take advantage of these sites, too. No matter what they tell you, the facts do not have a liberal bias. I swear. Cross my heart and hope to die.]

Sites you need to bookmark until at least November 5:

• PolitiFact, a graphics-heavy, interesting little site from the St. Petersberg Times. Be sure to read the commentary that comes with each of the ratings, because you'll quickly find that something may be technically true (and thus rated as true) while still being a lie.
  
  
• FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Not flashy, but definitely my fave. So painfully politically neutral that its earnestness rolls off the page.
  
  
• OntheIssues.org, non-partisan guide to the candidates and the issues. Feels a little like it's being held together by chewing gum, spit, and a whole lot of volunteers, but definitely a good way to get a quick snapshot on where all the candidates stand.
  
  
• OpenSecrets.org is where you go when you wanna follow the money in the politics.
  
  
• I'm not a fan of RealClearPolitics because it's got too much opinion and not enough analysis. That said, I'm throwing it out there because it's got a lot of fans.
  
  
• FiveThirtyEight (leans left), Electoral-Vote (leans center-left), Pollster.com (neutral), and Election Projection (leans right) are all excellent sites that help the common voter make sense of polling, the Electoral College, surveys, and how news (and the lack of news) affect polling results from one day to the next. Highly educational whatever your political stripe.
  

---

P.S. — Can someone tell me where the summer went? All I know is that one minute it was June 30, and now it's September 8.

Do you realize that I still owe something like 5 people phone calls from the first week in July that I said I'd call? [Tries not to look at szandara and kurukami and a handful of other LJ-type people who might not want the general public to know they live near me.]

I swear I meant to call. I did.

But, see, I was kidnapped by this army of ducks while kayaking...



This meeting of the Glorious Duck Revolution shall now come to order. Top of the agenda: How do we get stupid humans to feed us more bread?
[Photo taken while kayaking the Charles River on Sunday, July 27, 2008. (Photo by Lizbeth Marcs)]

Comments

[bellatemple]

So, now I'm, like, ridiculously proud that a site sponsored by my near-adopted hometown and home of my alma mater's newspaper is topping your list of fact sites.

*fistpump* You go, St. Pete!

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

She keeps repeating the lies because that's what the Repubs do. I cannot be too cynical today. Lies are shiny and happy and neat. The truth is messy and complicated and tends not to resolve itself into a happy bow.

[kurukami.livejournal.com]

This is why I so very much want to do my get-the-truth-out-on-Palin-in-neat-little-soundbites-fliers project. : )

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Do it. You can get linked all over. Try Melissa McEwan at Shakesville and spread it around. Just no sexism.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

I will not, and cannot, defend the Republican party. However, you clearly haven't looked at some of the links provided if you think lying is a one-party monopoly. Look into it, and you'll find that both parties are a bunch of liars =/

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

You'd do wise not to assume that someone has not looked into matters in a manner you see fit. Thanks, but don't patronize me, dear. You're not up to standard in that area. I've been voting longer than you've been alive. I don't need your impertinent advice.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Ducks are sneaky. Remember that.

My m-i-l constantly sends us nonsense from the urban legend of somone hiding in the backseat of your car so they can kill you to the much more dangerous Obama is an evil Muslim terrorist. I'm hoping she no longer believes the second one, but who knows. I grow weary of stupidity. And it mostly is stupidity, not malice.

More and more people in this country have no interest in facts any more. Not the current President and not half the people I talk to.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

And so it is with out of sheer desperation that I provide the above links...links which are actually entertaining as well educational...lo' these 7 weeks before the election...

Sometimes I think my parents might be slightly odd. I was on the phone with my mom while we were watching Palin's RNC speech. It was at some point during the speech that my mother became convinced that Palin was evil. And she's skated Godwin's law a couple of times since.

I'm pretty sure that Palin's not evil, although it appears she's never met a lie she didn't like and is willing to repeat it over...and over...and over again even after she's been caught out.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Given what she did as a mayor, I think if she's not actually evil she can a totally ruthless, vindictive bitch. And that's close enough to evil in my book. (Apologies to female dogs.)

[kurukami.livejournal.com]

Evil? Maybe, maybe not. Manipulative, Machiavellian, spiteful, and willing to abuse the governmental power she assumes she has? Hell yes.

Oh yeah, and lie about it later to try and cover her tracks. Forgetting that she has much all over her moose-hunting boots and has left a trail that anyone willing to look can see... *eyeroll*

Palin's the Quayle and Agnew of this election cycle, rolled up into one beauty-contest-winning package. *headdesk*

[drmercurious.livejournal.com]

Sometimes ya just gotta call a mallard a mallard. She has no care or concern for anyone that does not share her viewpoint 100% and she'll happily do whatever she is allowed to do unto them....and even a few things she /isn't/. If she ain't evil, she'll do until Nick Scratch comes to town.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Gah.

1. Nothing wrong with being a Muslim. I served in Iraq, and saw it my own damned self.

2. Obama's issues got nothing to do with his religion.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Try telling the vast majority of this country there's nothing wrong with being a Muslin. I am disgusted by the cycle of religious intolerance that is becoming more and more evident every day.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

I would instead say that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim that isn't also wrong with being a Christian.

[sylo-tode.livejournal.com]

I don't think P&G is a good example of maliciousness over stupidity. I remember when I first heard that rumor. I was intrigued by it. When I repeated it, I always said, "I heard ...." I never stated it definitively as truth. That isn't to say that the people that started the rumor weren't being malicious, of course.

The current political stuff, however, is probably malicious stupidity (idiots that are looking for reasons) or stupid malicious (let's see if these morons will believe this!).

It's the people that "in power" that are being outright malicious when it comes to these "rumors." Naturally, they aren't rumors when they start then, they're just lies.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind, but I copied some of the links and posted them in my journal for people.

Thank you for them, by the way. There's so much information on the net, that it is at times hard to tell what is factual and what is fabricated.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

"By the fruits of their labor ye shall know them," yes? War, death, disenfranchisement, destruction of the Bill of Rights... This is not just stupidity. This is sheer, malicious, intentional evil. And I don't say that about many things or people.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Great ducks. What sort are they?

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Mallards, I believe.

Ah, we have them here---Minnesota---along with Canada geese, egrets, and bitterns. God, they're so lovely, especially on these fall days.

[spiralleds.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. It clarified my mistaken belief that McCain has cow towed to the Pres et al. on the issue of torture. At least I can rest assured that he's held the line that torture is wrong.

And what's wild is I remember first hearing about the P&G rumor when I was four, at most five years old. I remember being at our neighbors' house and that couple, with whom my parents were good friends, showing my parents this mimeographed sheet with all the vague info, including how to connect the stars to make "666".

In retrospect, I realize now that the response of my parents was the vaguest of vague polite noises one makes when you think an idea is crazy talk, but when you're polite midwesterners you don't tell your friends they are crazy. But at the time, I was observing this and thinking as a four year old will that if C & M said it, it must be true.

And in retrospect of this article, it's like having another piece fall in place, because I have a strong feeling that they were selling Amway, though I don't remember that element of specifically. I doubt C & M knew it was a lie, but I'm guessing they were overly willing to believe it because it proved their company was good.

I also remember it coming up when I was in high school and/or college and thinking "Hey, I remember this from when I was four, the CEO couldn't have told this to Oprah, or even Donahue."

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

McCain caved, didn't he? He doesn't talk about that now that it's not him in the box.

[rudyhenkel.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links. The first two are especially good. I do think that some of the posters on here, however, are not aware that lies come from both sides. Not to say there isn't a lot wrong with Palin (there definitely is,) but be careful of just repeating whatever negative "facts" you hear about her, or you're no better. For example, the fact that she is under investigation for abuse of power does not automatically mean that she did abuse her power.

*sigh* This election will come down for be to the question of which I hate more: socialism, or religious stupidity. Close call.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it's interesting. Every time someone points out something wrong about the GOP, somebody pipes up, "OH, YEAH? the DEMOCRATS AREN'T PERFECT, EITHER!"

Well, duh. But when one examines the seriousness and effect of errors... Y'know something? Bill Clinton lying about sex ... well, just about everyone does. Dumb mistake. Didn't affect his bringing down the deficit. Falsifying information to get America into an illegal war? That's treason.

Oh, and Harding screwed his teenage mistress in the Oval Office, and got her pregnant, and Republicans in Ohio still put up a memorial to the lying, cheating bugger. Apply your standards evenly or stop pretending to be fair and rational, eh?

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

You've defended two Republicans, brought up socialism, and compared disparate real world things as opposite equals. Hm. You've not said one thing about an actual Dem, just defended McCain and Palin both.

Re the "all the same" argument...

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/community-news/obama-lcv-endorsement-88083002?click=main_sr

Highlights:

Senator Obama's energy plan would end our dependence on foreign oil and create as many as 5,000,000 alternative-energy jobs. Senator McCain’s plan continues the Bush Administration’s policy letting Big Oil write energy policy.

Obama and Biden support plan to make polluters pay for pollution credits and to clean up toxic waste. McCain wants us to foot the bill for clean-up and to give polluters billions in tax breaks and subsidies.

Obama and Biden have fought to keep our air and water clean. McCain has voted against clean water ten times and voted six times to make it harder for states and the EPA to keep our air clean.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that America must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 in order to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Obama’s plan will reach that goal. McCain’s plan doesn't.
The record speaks for itself

Barack Obama earned a lifetime environmental voting score of 86%. Biden earned an 83%. McCain earned a 24% score.

Decisions are made by those who show up. In the last two years, John McCain missed EVERY SINGLE major vote on energy. One vital 2007 bill, to move billions of dollars in tax credits from the oil industry to wind, solar and other clean energy sources, failed by one vote: John McCain’s. Obama and Biden, also running for President, voted for it.

Obama proposes to double the fuel efficiency of our cars in 18 years, reducing our oil consumption by at least 35% or 10 millions barrels per day. McCain voted against increasing fuel efficiency in 2003 and 2005. He missed the 2007 vote. Presumably, he ran out of gas.

In 1986, Joe Biden offered the first Senate bill to fight global warming pollution. McCain has voted with Bush, who doesn't believe climate change exists.

Obama plans create 25% of our electricity from clean energy by 2025. McCain opposes any national renewable energy standard.

McCain accepted more than $2 million from the oil and gas industry, more than half of that since he changed his position on offshore drilling last month. His forthcoming plan to open America’s playgrounds and sandboxes to drilling is expected to net another $1.2 million.