alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

February 5, 2008

Falsely Shouting History in a Crowded Blogosphere

by AltHippo @ 5:17 pm. Filed under Liberal Fascism, tba2008

Rick Perlstein captures my frustration with the historical revisionists: (The Big Con)

So here’s my question: a supremely absurd regurgitation of these arguments has recently shown up in the conservative magazine Commentary. It gives me a headache to debunk historical solecisms point by point; the futility—the truth won’t change these people’s mind—makes me feel like I’m filling a bathtub with an eye-dropper. But for my loyal reader’s sake, I’ll do it—if you want me to.

So please do vote in the comments: is this a productive use of my time?

Let me put it like this. One of my favorite authors is Plato. Particularly the great allegories of Books 6 and 7 of The Republic where Socrates/Plato talks about the noetic world, an ideal realm that acts as a model for the iconic world. A place where the only thing greater than the truth, is the goodness of the truth.

And then, there’s the Pantload. A man who apparently takes delight in leading his readers astray. He fabricates a history that never existed. Where liberals tried to traduce the state (through universal health care, no doubt) and in a binge of power almost brought the republic down, replacing it with a fascist, totalitarian state. For proof Goldberg has a dingbat science fiction writer, or more accurately a very good science fiction writer who had some dingbat ideas about society.

The most threatening thing to people like Goldberg is that the idealism that him and his cohorts have worked so hard to kill off might have survived the Fear and Loathing of the 1960’s. The left, progressives, liberals, what have you, must either have cynical motives or have been moved by some kind of totemic worship. To whit:

But my favorite example of JFK-driven magical thinking comes from Sidney Blumenthal’s column on Al Gore’s (ill-fated) endorsement of Howard Dean:

Gore’s endorsement of Dean is the most important since grainy film was shown at the 1992 Democratic convention depicting President Kennedy shaking hands with a teenage Bill Clinton.

Either Blumenthal didn’t realize or care that President Kennedy didn’t endorse Bill Clinton. JFK merely shook hands with a teenager from Arkansas whom he no doubt never thought about again. The rules of the space-time continuum apply, even to Clinton sycophants.

There’s no serious way of responding to idiotic cracks like that.

To go back to Rick Perlstein’s question, is debunking the revisionists a good use of time? Here’s the thing. There needs to be a way of setting the record straight. There are real people out there whose livelihood depends on people believing the worst things about the left. There needs to be a way of letting people know that the revisionists are not being honest with their readers. And, I don’t really see an alternative to using this thing we call the blogosphere towards that end.

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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