The up-is-downism of American political discourse: Special Mosque of Doom edition

Agh, the "Ground Zero Mosque" (not actually at Ground Zero; and a community centre, not a mosque) issue has had me spouting off with such spittle-inflected bile around the house that I thought that I needed to write this down.

Where to begin?

As usual, I am tempted to once more highlight the complete and utter failure of the American journalistic class. It has, as is par for the course, done a bag-up shite job of: (a) do straight reporting without pushing a meme - only yesterday did AP cotton on and ordered a directive not to call it the "Ground Zero Mosque"; (b) acting as gatekeeper/watchdog of civil discourse by allowing the meme's pusher(!)- the disgusting Pam Geller - on telly to push her flavor of patriot-laden bigotry.

Instead on dwelling on the shititude of the journalistic class, I am much more interested in pointing out how the entire crux of this debate - that, to quote Sarah Palin, "is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing" (bleh) - illustrates how Republican behavior is the very type that they claim to be against.

The Republicans (and now some cowardly Dems) claim that because some people feel "sensitive" about certain issues - in this instance the existence of Muslims,apparently - small-government decisions should be overturned.

Right, so let me get this straight. The Republican party, which claims that the government has no right to interfere with private persons and local government decisions, wants to interfere with private persons and local governemtn decisions. And the reason is that a certain segment of the population wants special and distinct consideration, on the grounds of sensitivity. This is from the party that hates affirmitative action because it privileges one group over others. Have I got this right?

Never mind the fact that the dog on the street, never mind most terrorism experts, will tell you that the best way to shore up support for terrorists is to persecute the group they claim to represent.

Wonderful. So in the up-is-down world that is American political discourse, the party that claims to value private property, small government, equal treatment for all groups regardless of race or creed, and national security wants to jepordize national security in order to persecute private individuals and small government so that the will of a distinct identiy group can be met in order to satisfy their sensitivies.

Once more the emperor has no clothes.

And is acting like a wanker.

Aha! I knew it!

I am in the depths of trying to finish an endless re-write of a section of my dissertation so I have still been away.

In lieu of a long post that I have been working on (which is now a bit out-of-date anyway) I want to quickly draw attention to this very unsurprising fact.

According to this study, the four major media outlets in the US have radically altered the way they describe water-boarding since 2004. For most of the last 100 years, this practice was unequivocally referred to as torture. However, once the US started doing it, it was called something else - anything else.

I have been back-and-forthing with a friend of mine about the lackluster, obsequious, and power-shielding/power-worshiping nature of political court-stenography journalism in the US, and I feel this little cherry really supports my point.

Hat tip: Glenn Greenwald