“Treated Like a Leftist Lunatic”
Kel is frustrated at the way I’ve been treated for the last six years, while consistently-proven-wrong pundits like Thomas Friedman have collected critical plaudits:
What I still don’t understand about humans or American humans is their ability to deny the obvious or their ability to deny or never bother to understand human nature. You have been right about this scum of an administration and their evil intentions from the get-go. Yet liars and idiots who give nothing but their less than knowledgeable opinions or they simply regurgitate White House talking points to be passed off as well thought out opinions, are given respect and accolades by this same media. T. Friedman, G. Will or C. Matthews to name but a few, are given the utmost respect by this same media. I can’t think of an area in which you were wrong, but if there is one or two, it pales in comparison to the multitude of things you were right about.
The above names have yet to be right about anything in relation to Bush or this evil war. Your writing contained research, even firsthand research in the region. Your columns are well thought out and researched as well. Your facts were there for all to see. Yet you were treated by the MSM as a leftist lunatic that absolutely should not be taken seriously. Now that you have been proven overwhelmingly correct in all your assessments, or most of them anyway, about this war and this administration, I wonder if that has changed. I doubt it, quite unfortunately. But my confusion about humans is why they will listen to liars and idiots as opposed to people who are correct. Why, Santy Clause why? It has happened throughout history as Galileo can attest (Galileo vs. the fucking idiotic lying pope or Clinton vs. Gingrich in more modern times). I have spent a lot of time trying to understand human nature but I just can’t get my head around this aspect of humanity and its subsequent complete idiocy. Why are people who are right marginalized and those that couldn ‘t be more wrong and are usually continuously so treated as intelligent and taken seriously?
I wanted to let you know that I am a big fan and you are one of the reasons I continue to believe in humanity. I don’t know why people like you are marginalized, even like Galileo, when you can show by the facts that you are correct. Thanks for all you do. I know it has to take guts and some huge balls to keep fighting with all of this country’s idiots threatening you with death. Those of us with a functioning brain see you as the hero you are.
Thank you, thank you very much, Kel
No, thank you, Kel and everyone else, for reading. And for supporting my work, not least by buying my books. It’s humbling.
11 Comments.
TED, U DA MAN! This Kel fella took the words right out of my mouth.
Is Ann Coulter's 15 minutes up yet?
Hmmm…looks like the comments are working.
This "Kel" fella got it right. And it is frustrating that nobody takes you seriously, even though you're correct 99% of the time.
You need a mustache. One of those things that makes you look like a professor in a porno movie. If Friedman shaved, he'd be the janitor at an adult novelty store.
Kel – in crime detective work there's an axiom which says if you want to a know whodunnit, follow the money. A lot of the answers to your questions can be found in the famous Sinclair quote "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his job depends on not understanding it".
He also said "Fascism is capitalism plus murder", which proves him to be an astute observer of humans and their political institutions.
The MSM is owned by men who are heavy contributors to the current administration, and who are some of the main beneficiaries of it's policies. You don't have to be a tin-foil-hatted-conspiracy-theorist to go from who is benefiting financially to what media they own to how they may be influencing what opinions are shown to the public. Oppressive regimes have long understood that limiting and obfuscating public access to information is key to maintaining power. Why else would the "Founding Fathers" have made freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and freedom to gather so central to civil liberties?
It is also the reason behind underfunding higher education. Throughout history, one of the means of oppression is to make education either illegal or unattainable for the masses.
As for the masses themselves, it's human nature not to want to A) admit you're a fool and have been duped or B) want to feel you're on the winning side. I bet most of the Bu$hco supporters still left – who aren't fanatic's of some stripe or millionaires – probably started out in camp B), but are predominantly in camp A) now.
You don't want to see me with facial hair, believe me.
Kel– i can answer your questions with three words: "might makes right."
the church had all the power, so galileo was screwed. it didn't matter that he was correct; he had to admit he was wrong. they would have tortured him to death if he hadn't.
and now chimpco has all the power. and, like smm says, the corporations which own almost all of the media outlets in the US are always going to side with their "business-friendly" buddies in the white house. the people that produce those TV "news" shows know that friedman is full of shit and that ted is right. but that doesn't matter. those "news" shows don't exist to be right, they exist to influence public opinion with pro-chimp propaganda.
it's all part of the grand scheme to keep pushing america politically rightward. call a guy like ted a "radical leftist" (anybody who pays attention to ted knows how ridiculous that is) and the wingnuts will seem centrist by comparison, and radical (even fascist) right-wingers like the neocons will seem only a little right of center. that's been going on for years, and the media corporations are the ones making it happen.
and it doesn't matter that calling ted a "radical leftist" and fox news "fair and balanced" bears no relationship to reality. reality is meaningless to these creeps. after all, people don't vote according to reality; they vote according to their perceptions of reality. and whoever controls the flow of information controls those perceptions, and so they can make themselves look like the good guys to the majority of americans who are either unwilling or unable to think critically about politics, and who instead rely on the idiot box to tell them who's right and who's wrong.
it doesn't matter how many times the neocons are proven to be liars or fools (which is pretty much every time). the media will always side with them, because they're in power, and might makes right. it always has.
Hi-
Love your work Ted, please live forever. Re Kel, hang in there, bro. I once did some web design for a right-wing zealot. I told him the hypocrisy had made me cynical. He smiled and said, "You're not cynical, you're a babe in the woods. It's so much worse than you can even imagine."
That cheered me up. I'm almost sixty years old, but I'll never be as debased and corrupt as that guy!
Kel,
2 + 2 = 5, yes?
The English journalist Robert Fisk had some interesting points on what troubles you, Kel.
In order to attain power, and to keep it, you have to shift your opinions to those of the people in power. That does not only go for media, but for colleges, universities and highly praised public figures as well.
Be sure to check out Fisk's latest masterpiece on recent Middle East History "The Great War for Civilisation."
A few days ago I read a book review on nature.com (see http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445365a.html) about the Bush administration and science, where quite some disturbing quotes were made:
'Two years ago the journalist Ron Suskind offered a disturbing insight into the presidency of George W. Bush. In an article in The New York Times Magazine on 17 October 2004, Suskind quoted a senior White House adviser mocking journalists and others in the "reality-based community" who believe that "solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality". The adviser added: "That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."'
"That's not how the world really works anymore"? Well, if that's their idea of reality, I'm not surprised thy actively discredit anything which could be represented as "objective facts"…
"We create our own reality" Well, if only others didn't have to share that fictional reality. We're quite satisfied with the original one, thank you very much.
Wonderful reading in your blogs, btw.