Weaving Straw Basket Cases 1
At Philly dot com, Chris Kelly considers how straw men (straw persons? straw crows? straw scarecrows? strawcrows?) are created and used to distract us from what’s happening.
A nugget:
It’s how Rush Limbaugh, who recently signed a $300 million contract to build and destroy legions of straw men every day, can claim he is a spokesman for the working class. It’s how Sarah Palin can be talked about as a serious candidate for president, and how a weepy basket case like Glenn Beck can be held up as the “only sane voice in the media.”
It’s how so-called conservatives can insist that the Wall Street bankers who crashed the economy should keep their astronomical bonuses, but unionized public employees should give up their hard-won pensions. It’s how President Obama can tap General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to help “reform” the corporate tax structure, even as the New York Times reveals that GE – with worldwide profits of $14.2 billion last year – paid zero U.S. taxes.
March 29, 2011 at 11:16 am
[…] the lead-in from a columnist at the Philly Inky, by way of Frank at Pine View Farm: Even the most specious arguments are granted legitimacy simply for having been made. Every opinion, […]