Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Reality Bites (Back)

Select quotes from Seinfeld, "The Opposite" episode:

George : Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable, I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but ... I was perceptive. I always know when someone's uncomfortable at a party. It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I've ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat ... It's all been wrong.

Jerry : If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

George : My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with my parents.

Victoria : I'm Victoria. Hi.


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I don't need your stinkin' graphs, your charts, your indexes, your GDPs, your unemployment rates, your inflation rates, your analysis or your opinion.

All I need to conclude that a recession is coming is to listen to my friendly neighborhood propaganda merchant, the conservative talk radio host. Across the board, these partisan mouthpieces continue to maintain that a recession is all but a Democratic electoral fantasy, ginned up by an insurgent liberal base in an election season eager to pile on the Mount Everest trash heap of Bushian failures.

Time and time again, these Republican fluffers have called it wrong, from Iraq to Iran and everything in between, every prognostication and assessment upended by reality. In the immortal words of John Bolton, "even a stopped clock is right twice a day". But these people don't even have that much and are on such a losing streak that it is NOT coincidence. Odds being odds, no one who is taking one side or the other could ever be wrong every time. And yet the deniers are always the last to accept things like global warming and the imminent economic slump. The reason for that is so obvious I shouldn't have to even say it - it damages their paymasters' political fortunes. And so they scream over and over that it's their "opinion" and they're entitled to it and you traitorous liberals can "put it in your pipe" and smoke it. I actually heard one of these hacks (some tool named Jerry Agar) cite the upcoming Super Bowl celebration as evidence that the economy is just fine, thanks.

This is simply strategy under cover of commentary and opinion. Whenever I hear this kind of baloney I wonder to myself why it is in this society that it's lower than low to sell your body off for money, but it's perfectly fine to sell your soul and what comes out of your mouth. They can mock the "Reality-Based Community" all they want, but in the end, Reality Bites Back.

6 comments:

Weaseldog said...

Overall, I never was a big Seinfeld fan. But I really enjoyed that episode.

And I hear you. Our commentators argue that their audio vomits are just opinions, then insult anyone that disagrees with their 'truthiness'.

Those folks will always have a die hard base. There will always be a segment of the population that is drawn to sermons, and needs to be told what to think. Experience and facts will never sway them. they trust only the media's authority figures. They honestly believe that the Sean Hannitys of the world our geniuses beyond our ken.

Lefty said...

Seinfeld's a little vanilla for me sometimes. But I remembered this episode in which the complete opposite is the right approach.

Unknown said...

So lets do the opposite!

Write Kucinich into the Ballot and vote him cleanly into first place.

That will knock the wind out of the murderers.

Don't say a word. Just do it.

That will take the sails out of the mouthpiece that funds.

Do it at your local City Hall and make it a countable paper ballot.

That will disrupt the Window to death, sure as shit.

Get some brains. Wow, what a concept.

Anonymous said...

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day," huh? These people are like digital watches. When *those* stop, they're *never* right.

Unknown said...

What's really amazing is a great many of the talk-radio listeners understand - on some level - that it is all a bunch of strategic lies. They know that their job is to pretend to believe those lies in order to serve the "greater truths" that lie behind them.

Unknown said...

Actually, I think they're more like the Winkies, who served the Wicked Witch of the West. The Scarecrow was really the Brains of the operation: he had the best ideas, as self-effacing as he was. The Winkies were the ones who thought they had no choice but to follow the Witch and parrot her ideas. They were the ones without a brain, or courage, or a heart.

But they praised Dorothy when she managed to put an end to the Witch's tyranny - that's how you know it was a fantasy: in reality the wing-nuts would be (WILL be) scathing in their ingratitude, and claim the old ways were better, even while enjoying the benefits of a more enlightened administration. God willing, may it BE a more enlightened administration, and not just the same-old, same-old!