One pattern that I see repeating regularly is that people who are legitimately seeking to improve the world come in contact with the central political machine of the right. They become so despondent that they turn to any opposition to stand against the evils of the GOP.
For example, the political pundit David Brock was deeply disturbed by the Left wing attack machine that went after Clarence Thomas during his nomination for the Supreme Court. Mr. Brock was so disturbed that he researched the issue and wrote a book called "The Real Anita Hill" which called in to question the attack.
Right Wing thugs like Hannity and Limbaugh made so much noise about the book that Brock quickly discovered that his research on the Left Wing attack machine placed him squarely in the center of the same type of irrational attack machine on the Right.
Exposing the inner workings of a left wing attack machine was not leading to a better form of discourse. It simply fed fuel into a right wing noise machine. This noise machine was not seeking to better our society. The GOP was simply making noise machine to capture power for a corrupt centralized party and its cronies.
When the GOP use and abuse idealists like Brock and Huffington, the idealists viciously turn on their abusers.
Brock wrote a book called "The Republican Noise Machine" that argues that the GOP is as vacuous as the left wing attack machine that went after Clarence Thomas. Brock went on to create a progressive think take called Media Matters to expose the vicious partisanship that defines right wing media.
The observation that the Right is as bad as the Left is not surprising when one realizes that the Left and Right were produced by the same reactionary partisan forces.
The great left/right split which dominates politics came from the French Revolution. The Left sought to use big government to impose radical social change, while the right sought to preserve the class structure of the ancient regime.
Both sides (and the middle) of this reactionary movement were opposed to the American Experiment in Self Rule and the ideals of our founders.
In philosophy the term "modern" refers to anyone in the intellectual tradition of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Hegel 1770-1831 used Kant's work to create modern logic. Modern logic is a paradoxical way of thinking that denies the fundamental laws of classical logic. In his Philosophy of History, Hegel created a formula in which the pundit presents history as a series of conflicts with the pundit selectively presenting aspects of the conflict which advances the pundits partisan cause.
Hegel's Philosophy of History is essentially the business plan behind Fox News which presents news as a series of conflicts with an eye on framing its partisan cause as the champion.
Hegel loved word play games that framed slavery as freedom and freedom as slavery. The slave who lives in the castle lives like a king in the lap of luxury while the king is a slave to the demands of the state. Hegelian logic says that the ultimate freedom is found in slavery. Modern Liberalism, which holds that people will find ultimate freedom in a totalitarian state, flows from Hegel's Modern Logic.
The Radical Left, Reactionary Right and Dialectical Center all have the same reactionary movement in the 1800s. The Left/Right split comes from the French Revolution. Modern Liberalism (aka progressivism) and Modern Conservatism flow from Hegel's Modern Logic.
Read Hegel's Philosophy of History then watch Fox News. Fox News is Hegelian thought put into play.
Read Hegel's work on logic and you will find the foundations of the Democratic Party.
The Left and Right are from the same mold. The two sides of the coin are made of the same metal. Brock was upset about the attack machine on the left to find the same noise machine on the right. This happens because Conservatism and Progressivism are from the same mold.
Americans have lost the ability to engage in discourse not because of the noise, but because we have accepted a failed framework for discourse.
The Role of Noise
Noise is not, in itself, evil. When people are being abused by their government they need to make noise to seek redress.Noise has its place in politics. When rational discourse breaks down, the disenfranchised must make noise.
Noise is not the problem. Things break down when there are no substantive issues behind the noise. In the case of Clarence Thomas, there was an attack machine that viciously attacked a Supreme Court nominee without substance.
The Health Reform debate has me livid. Health care reform is probably the single most important issue of our generation. My direct experience is that the GOP is happy to see people make anti-Obama noise. But that it puts down substantive talk about free market health care reform.
This formula of attacking Obama while actively suppressing talk about free market alternatives to PPACA creates a dynamic in which there are no adequate alternatives to PPACA on the table. Since there are no alternatives on the table, electing in members of the GOP will not provide us with a better system of care.
Making noise is not, in itself, evil. Quite frankly, noise is the only recourse for the disenfranchised. But, if there is no substance behind the noise and when the people making the noise simply have partisan desires for power, then the noise is nothing more than partisan nonsense destined to lead our nation down the wrong track.
The rhetorical question behind this post is: "Is it all just noise?"
Conservatives make a greate deal of noise about Obamacare but they actively suppress discussions of free market health care reform. Conservatives appear to be making noise with no interest in finding solutions. Since Modern Conservatism has the same origins as Modern Liberalism. I am led to concede that the GOP is nothing but a vacuous noise making machine.
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