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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Fri Sep 7, 2012, 10:17 AM Sep 2012

Friday Rant: It’s Over edition

By Tom Toles
So there you have it. After I spent several blog posts saying how pointless the conventions were, the Democrats, God love them (God was placed into their Platform), have proved me wrong. Actually, the Republicans too.

They each put their best foot forward, and what feet! The GOP put on a headache-inducing propaganda fest that relied on misdirection and misinformation at every turn. This ought to tell you what you need to know. Here’s a Secret Code-cracking Trick to help you understand politics, and pretty much everything else anybody ever says. Listen to what they say, but then stop and think about WHAT THEY DIDN’T SAY. The Republicans didn’t make their case about what in the federal budget is ‘waste’ and why they consider it waste and therefore needs to go. Neither did they explain in what way taxes are so high on rich people that they can’t find enough money to invest, or how their tax and deregulation policies, that have done nothing but enrich the rich and devastate the economy and middle class will somehow THIS TIME produce some other result. So they were left grinding out grim speeches grabbing at emotional signifiers, and Paul Ryan fabricating an elaborate alternative reality to confuse you. It’s all they’ve got.

The Democrats, meanwhile, made their case. Go re-watch or re-read Clinton. Skip his oratorical flourishes and just listen to him deconstruct the the GOP claims and ads. It’s not a complicated case that he made, but somehow nobody had yet made it so well.. He unpacked the sorry mess of lies and distortions the GOP has prepared for you. On Obama’s stimulus package, and his health care law, and his approach to balancing the budget. All the information is there for you to make up your mind. Forget that the Democratic speakers are better speakers, and Republicans come across as out of touch, because they are. It’s all laid out for you, plain as day. If you’re not convinced, you are not convincible. To me this one is open and shut. But it’s not just up to me, we’re all in this together!, so to speak. But you have now what you need to know, and there will not be much new needed, or coming. Do your brain a favor, decide now, and skip every ad from now until November.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tom-toles/post/friday-rant-its-over-edition/2012/09/06/9536a318-f847-11e1-8253-3f495ae70650_blog.html

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