Robot Pirate Ninja

I’ve been watching a lot of the townhall debates lately on C-Span regarding the current attempt in Congress to overhaul the health insurance industry in this country.   One of the better ones I watched recently was Representative Jim Moran’s (D-VI) trying to communicate to his constituents what is in the bill, what isn’t and why.   If you’d like to watch the entire thing, you can do so here.

I’d recommend watching that first, although it is nearly two hours long.  He does a very good job at the beginning of outlining a number of the myths flying around and then opens the door to questions.  Which is where Fox comes in.

During the question and answer period, a man was asked by Rep. Moran for his ID.  This is how Fox News portrayed that event.

Fox uses this edited clip to portray what Rep. Moran did as being unhelpful. What Fox neglects to mention, and completely misses, was the context of the question and what had happened previously during the town hall.

The way the question and answer portion of the town hall was conducted was very simple. Questions were submitted on note card, put into a box and then picked from the box and addressed by the Congressman. A very simple way to attempt to be fair and balanced in addressing voter concerns. The problem was that the simple method was abused.

Previous to the incident Fox showed, a name was called and as staffers attempted to find the woman whose name was on the selected card, another woman acted like she was the one called, grabbed the mic and started ranting about an unrelated issue.

In order to try and keep some semblance of order to the question and answer period of the townhall, Moran simply asked the man to confirm that he was the person named on the card pulled from the box.  That’s it.  Pretty simple and straightforward.  The man then asked his question (paraphrased: “Why No Tort Reform?”) which was then answered by Howard Dean (paraphrased: “We’re already taking on enough of the establishment here, adding more enemies wouldn’t help.”)

In this case, Fox made a completely unrelated point about the incident and used it to continue their ongoing storyline about how Democrats are unhelpful and hate America.

This can be contrast with a more rational take on the Virginia town hall, covered here.

[Howard] Dean spoke, and questions were taken from the floor. Many were combatative, with several questioners demanding to know what kind of health insurance Moran had and how much he paid. Moran answered. But he got more than a little heated when a woman lied about her identity and succeeded in getting the microphone through her ruse.

But somehow in all of that, in large part thanks to Moran’s grit, information was imparted and myriad voices were heard. As ragged and nasty as things got from time to time, it felt like democracy — in a good way.

And C-SPAN showed it all. I know I got up from the TV set better informed on the health care debate than I was when I sat down.

All of which brings us to the grand distorter currently gumming up the air waves via Fox, one Glenn Beck.  I’ve watched Beck a bit over the years, and quickly became rather dismayed at his style of disinformation dissemination.

To get a sense of how this kook works, Jed Lewiston put together this video compiled over the last *week* (just one week) of the crazy that currently being broadcast.

Pulling apart Beck’s delusional fears and massive inability to deal with reality are well beyond the scope of a single post.   When one has gone this far over the edge, no amount of interjection of reality seems to be effective.

I will try one thing though.  Beck has been ranting about Obama’s secret army for a while now, complete with Nazi references (all the while ignoring the fact that Obama, as Commander-in-Chief already has a real army at his beck and call).

The problem here is that this little nugget of delusional victimhood was debunked nearly a year ago by Fact Check.org.

Q:

Is Obama planning a Gestapo-like “civilian national security force”? I read a quote from Rep. Paul Broun from Georgia which stated that Obama wants to set up a civilian national security force that was similar to the “Gestapo” or the Nazi Brownshirts. What is the truth behind Obama’s statements that he wants to create a “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded [as the military]”?

A:

This false claim is a badly distorted version of Obama’s call for doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service.

The problem here is a psychological one.  Once someone has committed themselves to the conspiracies and the delusions, any new information regarding their inaccuracy is quickly discarded.  This is why folks who fall under this spell not only continue to believe in their alternate reality, but also loudly state that no one has ever proved it wrong (as such proof is ignored and/or quickly forgotten) thus confirming the lie.

It’s almost like these folks have a severe physical mental handicap.  A complete a total lack of ability to learn anything beyond the most rudimentary emotional reasoning.

And as Robert Downey, Jr. so eloquently pointed out in “Tropic Thunder”, one should never go full retard on purpose.

If they do, perhaps it’s a good time to change the channel, and starve the beast a bit.

I hear C-Span does good work.

[note: title reference warning: strong language]