"Remember the story of Kenneth Gladney? You probably don't, unless you're a right-winger. He was a guy who got knocked over for a second during a contentious town hall meeting in St. Louis in 2009. He quickly became a folk hero to right-wing bloggers, because he was, if you squinted, a black conservative victim of Union Thug Violence."Isn't that clever? I suppose so. Witty? Somewhat, sure. A hate filled assault upon everything worth caring about? Definitely.
Wha...? What's that again?
In fact it is just that. It's a prime example of what I drew your attention to in my recent post on the New York Times article "Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth" - if you care about what is good and true, because it is good and true, then Alex Pareene just launched a verbal assault upon all of those things you care about, as do all those who use reason for the reasons that they do. And in this case 'they', although not limited to, certainly include '... your typical effete coastal liberal elitist...', as he describes himself, and all others who agree reason is simply a useful weapon, a tool to get what you want, as does the vast majority of our cultural and wackademic elite. And it is by way of their agreement with that view, which puts them in direct and constant opposition to Reality itself; an affliction I'll call 'Reality Denial Syndrome', and if you haven't noticed, it has reached epidemic proportions amongst such effete leftist bath houses, as Salon.com.
Have another look at his quote, it's revealing and, not that it's likely to have anything to do with the author (see his pic here), but it is pregnant with meaning... and not the meaning he meant it to mean. For instance, look at what he reveals about himself in just the first line; it's ugly stuff and very nearly indecent exposure:
""Remember the story of Kenneth Gladney? You probably don't, unless you're a right-winger."So here we have Alex Pareene confessing, exuberantly, that the beating of right-wingers are unworthy of attention. The beatings of people concerned with ideas you don't like, are unworthy of notice? Is this... guy... flirting with hate speech, here? Nooo of course not, if you've been paying attention, 'hate speech' only applies to leftists approved incidents, and this is why. For this happy member of the media, when he hears that someone has been assaulted, having their fingers bitten off, etc, the old time journalistic process of "Who? What? When? Why? Where?", is perverted into something which, once stripped of its pretensions, looks a bit more like this,
"Someone was assaulted? Waaaiit a minute, 'assault'? What kind of assault? No, I don't mean how they were assaulted, tell me about whether the person assaulted was worth caring about... you know, are they members of our approved victim groups? No? Were they leftists? No? Were they attacked by right wingers? Well do they help our cause at all? Wha? You mean they were right wingers? Sooo... so what? Move on already."Is that the thought process of someone concerned about what is true, or of someone concerned with triumphing over what is true?
Then we get to this part: " a guy who got knocked over for a second during a contentious town hall meeting in St. Louis"
Who 'got' knocked over? As if something just 'happened' to him... like a tree falling in the forest?
But no, Kenneth Gladney didn't simply find himself mysteriously upon the ground thinking "I wonder how I got here?". No, Gladney, a very slightly built fellow, was shoved, punched and flung to the ground, and then kicked & stomped into it for good measure, courtesy of some very large, beefy SEIU thugs distributing some social justice to those whose choice in ideas they didn't approve of.
Watch the video - is there some mystery about how he 'got' on the ground? No, not the case... is there some legitimate point of view that can cast that as something which just 'happened' to him? If that happened to someone you cared about, would you approve of someone telling the world about how they 'got knocked over'? Would you try to overlook that if you saw it happen to someone else? Why not? Well that is the very reason which Pareene is opposed to. And when reality comes rattling the cage of people like Pareene, they try to pretend that no one actively did something, nooo, it just 'got' done... somehow... 'tee-hee!'
Kenneth Gladney was promoting materials favoring the Ideas which the purple people beaters disagreed with, they beat him to the ground. That is how he 'got' there. And it wasn't for 'a second', watch the video, it drags on for a number of them.
Funny, huh? If it happened to someone you cared about, would you laugh about it? Do you think a concern for Justice lives in the person who would?
And another fact of reality which Pareene seeks to wipe out, is that the assault didn't take place inside the contentious town hall, as he'd like to lead you to believe, it was outside, on the sidewalk, where Gladney was offering his materials for sale- flags, buttons, etc - which he was hoping would appeal to the then still new phenomenon, Tea Party people.
IOW, he engaged in the very American activity of entrepreneurship - he didn't just try to get a buck, he took a risk, invested and worked in the hopes of earning a profit - and with no guarantee that he would make one. So naturally, recognizing the very antithesis of SEIU ideals in him (initiative, effort, risk without guarantees), the SEIU goons beat the crap out of him, in much the same way that their favorite President is doing to the American economy as a whole. But I digress. Sort of.
The next line leads us to the unsightly racist soul (or facsimile thereof) of the leftist blowhard (no double entendre intended) on glaring display with the next phrase,
"He quickly became a folk hero to right-wing bloggers, because he was, if you squinted, a black conservative victim of Union Thug Violence."What do you suppose he means by 'if you squinted'? Does that mean that Gladney was somehow 'less than black' because appletini boy here assumes he's a conservative? Could that possibly mean that only leftist blacks are real blacks? That the only good black is a leftist black? Hmmm... I'm not sure... perhaps we should ask Condi Rice or Colin Powell (prior to his coming out of the left leaning closet)? Or Thomas Sowell... or... yeah, come to think of it, I think that probably is exactly what he means by that. You've got to wonder about the mind that considers such thoughts to be worthy of thought, don't you? How close do you suppose what is good and true can be to such a mind?
And wait a minute, hold on, I thought Conservatives and Tea Party people Hated blacks? I thought that that was the only reason why they were angry at Obama, because he was black, not because of anything having to do with his proregressive leftist ideas, right? Well... I'm confused, then... if that's the case, if race is everything... how then does he assume that conservatives now like Gladney, because they think he's a conservative? Because of the ideas they think he stands for?
Don't trouble yourself with trying to sort that out, for the leftist suffering from RDS, such exercises in 2+2=1 works without any discomfort at all - it's the nature of the disease to arrive at less than you began with, but for the rest of us here in reality, it's too painful to even consider.
But Alex forges on even further, not only showing his disdain for even the appearance of getting his facts right, but showing even further how the ideas he associates with Gladney, somehow exclude him from simple human consideration, because of those ideas Pareene associates with him,
"He was also uninsured -- yep! -- and the hospital visit he had to make in order to demonstrate the severity of his "beating" also made him a right-wing charity case. He then began appearing at Tea Party rallies and on Fox News in a wheelchair, etc., etc. Liberals laughed bitterly at the "uninsured person protests government-funded healthcare" story and then forgot all about Gladney, forever. But the conservative bloggers never forget an exaggerated or wholly invented tale of victimhood."Dana Loesch hits a key point of this in her post on Big Journalism,
"Even more disturbing, Pareene’s tone towards Gladney’s need betrays the progressive loathing of charity. Progressives will eagerly trot out the poor to use as electioneering devices but when it comes time to actually care for those in need, they kick them over to the government. They can’t be bothered. There are Appletinis to drink!The fact that a person is beaten, or injured, or in any sort of situation that might be considered appropriate for simple human charity is of zero concern to those possessed of RDS, the first point of interest is whether or not they can be used to promote the point they want to bludgeon you with - if not? Trash 'em and toss 'em. Even the facts of Gladney's current spinal condition is used as fodder to be taken out of context so as to better trash him with a snicker.
(Gladney wore a neck brace during the trial. The neck brace was unrelated to the two-year-old incident. You know that whole thing about frivolous lawsuits and tort reform and the culture of victimhood and ambulance-chasing trial lawyers? Yes, well, the conservative movement totally means all of that, until someone in an SEIU shirt briefly knocks someone over.)Gladney wore a neck brace to the trial because he just had spinal surgery. Also, how is this a frivolous lawsuit again? Did Gladney ask for a frillion dollars in damages? Does Pareene understand what “tort reform” means?"
On a roll, appletini Pareene goes on to sum the trial up this way,
"Now, two years later, there is closure: The two SEIU thugs who viciously beat Gladney went on trial (for misdemeanor assault) on Monday. The trial wrapped up on Tuesday. The jury deliberated for 40 minutes and then found both of the accused not guilty. (CASEY ANTHONY ALL OVER AGAIN!) Gladney's own ridiculous testimony basically exposed how much of an overblown farce this entire incident was from the beginning."I'd suggest you read the 24th State articles, and here , and here, and here, watch the videos, make your own judgment. Casey Anthony had a full and fair trial, the jury found that the evidence didn't prove her guilty, and to the best of my knowledge there was no monkeying around with the trial, or in its scheduling, or in the selection of prosecutors, timing, etc, IOW it was a fair trial, justice was done. But Kenneth Gladney's trial? At the very least there are questionable issues. See for yourself. Judge for yourself, you know, you report & you decide.
As Pareen says himself, "This is where it gets really good", and he's sure got that right, here's his lead in,
"TBogg found BigJournalism.com's explanation for how this travesty of justice was allowed to occur. Because of Media Matters! See, SEIU paid Media Matters some money, and then, mysteriously, Kenneth Gladney lost his case."At any mention of inferring conclusions from facts, those whose stand on reality is a bit light in the loafers, will find themselves compelled to restate them without the context necessary to give the facts a factual basis, or to use their fave word of yesteryear - gravitas. And of course at the same time they'll need to mock what is serious - the more serious, the more mockery required of them. As does Pareene when faced with relevant facts, he does his best to paint the story as being simply silly 'spiracy thtuff,
"This conspiracy, like so many others, goes all the way to the top."Does he attempt to debunk the alleged conspiracy at all? No. Does he demonstrate that it is simply an arbitrary set of assertions, correlation without causation? No. Does he do anything to make his case, other than calling it bad words? Nope. That's not an option for those afflicted with RDS. To choose to use his powers of reasoning to artfully lay out an argument, to expose factual errors, would be to suggest a use for reason which he has no use for, it would imply a fondness for the reality he is in fact estranged from.
What he does do, as all the reality challenged do, is attempt to deny reality by ignoring it and by forcing his willful ignorance upon all those within range of his influence. The best way to avoid any actual argument, is to just paste it with a label, as if he'd made an argument - which is done easily enough by calling it a 'consipiracy theory'. Simple. Just like they taught him in Logical Fallacies 101.
Do I have anything to back that up with? Well of course. For instance, he selectively quotes only enough of the article that fits his Procrustean purpose,
"When you look at the timeline of events and the media calendar in general leading up to the Gladney incident last August, it’s difficult not to conclude that there was collaboration amongst White House staff, components of Big Labor, and certain liberal media outlets. However, we know that all will continue to deny it.", and then follows it up, not with any devastating facts, but simply some simpering snits of 'spiracy stuff,
"Apparently SEIU and Media Matters for America and George Soros and the Tides Foundation and Eric Boehlert and the city of Montclair, N.J., acting on orders from the White House, all used their wizard powers to convince a jury in St. Louis that Kennedy Gladney was not actually assaulted. And that is how the vast left-wing conspiracy works."The problem which the leftist RDS sufferer most dreads, is that Reality is always there, ready and waiting, to expose them to the bones of their ugliness. And all of the proof needed to do that, is available in what they did, or didn't, say themselves. A simple review of the Big Journalism article in question, shows that at a minimum he's lying by omission. He deliberately dropped that portion of the article which connects the quote he lifted, to a firm grounding in sensible reality. Here's the context which gave the preceding statement from P.J. Salvatore on BigJ its relevance,
"Further, just as the flurry of media activity finally starts to wind down a bit around October last year, this is when SEIU makes three separate donations to Media Matters totaling $50,000, under the classification of “Communications”, according to the SEIU LM-2 report. (In reviewing other LM-2s for several previous years, this appears at least to be the first time that SEIU has donated to Media Matters, and there does not seem to have been another donation recorded since these.)Far from wild eyed 'spiracy sstuff, the article notes what are at the very least interesting bits of information and reasonably worthwhile questions to be asked... but only for those concerned with what is real and true, but they are quite another thing for those furiously fleeing from it at break neck speed.
This is the type of funding that I would question in return to Media Matters. With their membership being so low and their unfunded pension expenses so high, can the SEIU really afford to be randomly donating funds to an organization like Media Matters? Perhaps SEIU purchased advertising on Media Matters’ website, but then I’d think it would be categorized as such, as others ad expenses in the LM-2 were. If not advertising, if not random donations, then what’s the reason for SEIU having donated these funds? One could logically conclude that Media Matters performed a service in return. Only they can answer that."
Mr. appletini is just a bit too light in his reality loafers to enjoy his facts being grounded, but those of us with both feet on the ground would do well to always check to see if the story we're being fed is... just some story you're being fed.
Again, if the Truth is your purpose for Reasoning, then any politically inspired beatings would be of importance to you, you wouldn't dismiss them with mockery; on the other hand, if your purpose for Reasoning is to Win, to win your arguments without regard for the truth or the rightness of an issue... then you will employ every logical fallacy, mockery and derision you can manage, in order to defeat your opponent... and obviously, without regard for the Truth of the matter.
That last part is an important part of the matter. Mockery and derision are obviously legitimate tools of rhetoric. And slipping into a logical fallacy or two is not in and of itself enough to put you into the category I'm putting Pareene in. It's not even a matter of being correct on an issue, or in error - there would be no possibility of gaining knowledge if there wasn't also a possibility of making an error - no, this is not a matter of an error of knowledge, or a lack of skill, but of deliberate intent.
Knowingly, intentionally, using logical fallacies, mockery and derision against what you are aware is true, because it conflicts with your position, not only without regard for whether it is factual, good and true, but because they are, is using your powers of Reason as a weapon in a futile attempt to attack and subdue reality, because what is real isn't what you want to be real. But if that were their only point, it would only be worthy of pity - reality after all, can't be subdued, but their real goal is to separate you, and anyone else they can influence, from reality, so that they can more easily pretend that their lies have value... a second hand value which is wholly dependent upon your laughing and nodding along with them.
People like Alex Pareene, and those of like mind who populate places such as Media Matters, Salon.com, etc, have put themselves in direct and constant opposition to Reality itself, because it is a threat to all they desire, but even worse, they seek to draw you into their conspiracy against it as well, and that is an evil, hateful assault upon everything worth caring about, an attack upon all that is good and true because it is good and true.
The laughter of such a leftist is no laughing matter, far from being the best medicine, it is a deadly poison which you'd do best to keep far away from.
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