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I can't STAND Laura Ingrahm. Of course, anyone who's good friends with Bill O'Reilley has to be mentally diseased. This interview was clearly manipulated, you can see the tactics in action. She's constantly interrupting, never letting the WCW chick express one idea. This reminds me of something Noam Chomsky was discussing in an interview I saw. The Right has a decided advantage in the realm of political debate, especially on television, where commentary is devided between commercials. The far rights' positions are overwhelmingly simple: the united states government is always justified in any military endeavor, as long as it's an attack on some nearly defenseless country and republicans are at the helm, that the united states has a devine right to act as it pleases, that all trade barriers should be eliminated, and Christianity is the "right" religion, and god likes us best. These opinions can be clearly expressed in short sound bites we hear all the time, "War on Terror", "Fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here", "Support our troops", "Love it, or leave it", "Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud.", etc. For instance, take the buildup to confrontation to Iran, you've got speakers from both sides, sandwiched in between commercials, the far right pundit reiterates the smoking gun mushroom cloud nonsense, fight 'em there because, etc., his position is clearly stated and defined. Moreover, slogans are easier to say with conviction because they take virtually no time and explanation. To counter this argument, you'd naturally bring up the US support of the Shah, the fact that Iran AGREED to suspend ALL nuclear programs if the US would back off, that the "war on terror" is fundamentally flawed because you cannot shoot/bomb/kill IDEOLOGY, etc. These are all fine points that cannot be adequately made in that time frame. Add a few interruptions, misdirections from the other side, the commercial comes and you're point hasn't been made. By making it impossible for the other side to be clearly expressed. If the left is incapable of mounting a significant offense, the right wins by default. This, also, is why they're base is so strong, as much as we'd probably like to deny it, many Americans aren't that bright, we're scandalously behind on literacy, to the poorly educated a simple slogan uttered by a confident-sounding well-heeled republican carries weight, the poorly educated are more likely to identify with the right, associating it with christian values, sports, and what they perceive as americanism, which the right fetishizes. People like Howard Zinn, or Noam Chomsky, and other leading leftists idealogues are very intellectual, well-spoken, and use big words which these people find confusing and associate with weakness. This is something we need to be cognizant of if we want to make real progress.
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