Today we hear and read about more “reality making” by our right wing friends and pundits. The whole process goes like this:(my emphasis and paraphrase) “We have an agenda and we are pursuing it relentlessly. We are right! We have the answers. We are creating the new reality. Any variation from our new reality is the fault of our enemies, the liberal left.”
The liberal left meanwhile looks up from its meanderings through life and tries to find a response to what is actually happening in their daily lives, culture, and politics. Figuring out the reality consumes them, what to do about it befuddles them, working together to find a way binds them together. They hear the right wing blustering about how everything is the fault of the left and if things followed the new “correct” reality all would be well… so…
In the Center for American Progress newsletter today we get a humorous example of this phenomenon. We have a natural disaster in California. Let’s see what has happened so far. On the right from the newsletter: “Fox News pointed the finger at al Qaeda terrorists. Glenn Beck said the fires were hitting some "people who hate America" and later blamed the fires on the "damn environmentalists" and their "bad environmental policies." Michelle Malkin, a leading conservative blogger, echoed the complaint, pointing to "litigious environmentalists" for "standing in the way" of Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative.” and “Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, derided the supposition that global warming has played a role in the wildfires, mocking it as something "alarmists are talking about."
On the left: only a few responses are to be found from liberal pundits mostly to point out that the “Healthy Forest Initiative was more concerned with giving logging companies free reign over forests than enacting sensible forest-fire prevention.” Not to mention the fact that warmer and dryer summers make conditions for ground fires much more prone to ever larger wildfires. duh....
Meanwhile all the liberals and “enemies of America” concentrated on taking care of each other like this:
“Thousands of Californians who took refuge at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium had an experience far different from refugees who fled to New Orleans' Superdome in the wake of Katrina. Californians were greeted there by clean cots, tents, pillows, and blankets. "Volunteers offered massage therapy, yoga, kosher food, and art projects for kids," and others arrived in clown suits to entertain the children. "We have the luxury of being able to count on our neighbors," San Diego Mayor Gerald Robert Sanders said. "The folks in New Orleans didn't have that luxury, because everybody was impacted."”
Whose response was best in this emergency? Think about it!
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