This "faith versus reality-based" meme is really taking off (Thank God)

[rocktivity]

Ron Suskind is going to be on the Al Franken show today (AirAmerica radio 12Noon-3PM Eastern)!

Suskind is the author of this groundbreaking (and hopefully election-breaking) New York Times article about Bush that is at the root of all this talk about faith verus reality-based "communities." Please read it if you haven't already. You can go to bugmenot.com if you don't want to register. Better yet, I'll just cut to the chase:

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about...Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He...told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend, but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality...

"That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality...we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

I was channel surfing one day and came across a scene from a Freddy Kruger movie. Actually, it was THE scene: the damsel in distress confronts Freddy with something like: "It's all over, Freddy. I understand it now--this is all a dream. You can't scare me or hurt me anymore because I know you're not real." And with that, big bad monstrous Freddy loses all power over her.

Ron Suskind is our lastest Bush-fighting hero because has given us our Freddy Kruger moment. Now everything the Bush regime has done makes sense--from the supersecrecy to the congressional circumventing to the loyalty oaths to the stage micromanaging to the whining about Bush's facts being checked to the media insisting that the race is still neck and neck. The Bush regime makes sense now because it DOESN'T make sense to allow it to continue!

:headbang:
rocknation

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Yes, BU$HCO are just bogeymen... and their faith is false.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. The arrogance of these bastards

is truly appalling.

They will decide what is reality and everyone else better go along? They can all go Cheney themselves.

[Carla in Ca]

21. Arrogance, yes but this also gives me another thought.

Tell me what you think...

I, and many others, have argued that 9/11 happened on his watch because he did not heed warnings. I hate it when people say 'he has kept us safe since 9/11'. I say he ALLOWED 9/11 to happen.

Anyway, here is my question. Does reality-based mean you are in a prevention mode, and faith-based means you deal with an event after it happens?

[JHB]

3. Now for Phase 2...

...Replacing the use of "faith-based" with a more accurate term: "fantasy-based".

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

9. Totally agree

When I hear "faith-based", I (as most people) think religion. Suskind's "faith-based" means without-a-doubt, head in the sand, everything will turn out fine because I have faith, I feel it in my gut.

Fantasy is a better term to use in the campaign.

[Zhade]

19. How about "blind faith-based"?

NT!

[tanyev]

4. Rampant egomania.

How many books will be written analyzing the Bush administration's psychological issues after this is all over?

[Silent3]

5. People who think like this about "creating reality"...

...need to have a major dose of the real reality come along and whack them over their heads.

What's scary is if Bush wins, he'll be even more emboldened in this way of thinking, and when reality finally catches up with him we'll all pay the price.

[AirAmFan]

6. Any sign Suskind's insight is getting talked up on Wall Street? The Wall

Street wing of the Republican party wouldn't be able to hold on to its trillions if they weren't pretty firmly rooted in reality. This news about their Commander in Chief ought to be pretty disturbing to them, and make them think twice about going to the mattresses for Bush this year.

[peacetalksforall]

7. These two paragraphs are a breakthrough revelation.

When you revisit all the things that you've observed and that these two paragraphs support, but you couldn't accept them independently, we now have 'a' key.

The most obvious is the bombardment of declarations and executive orders that hit us without preamble. The next obvious are the little hints of what they want to do - what we thought were little tests are probably more diffusions. The volume of things to analyze has been like a torrential four year rain.

There are still other things to learn about - their ultimate agenda is the most important. It seems to be the destruction of the United States - economically, environmentally, physically, spiritually with the end results being submissive serfs - those left with a strong back and a willing mind.

[AntiFascist]

20. I agree!

See my thread regarding the other brand of coolaid:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2517038

set side by side with the final conclusions drawn in "Hijacking Catastrophe"

[secular_warrior]

8. These people are not your regular Republicans

They are Neoconservative Christiano-fascists who are intent on waging a holy war against the world. With this crowd I believe they are much more than simple corporatists. Corporatism is simply a means to an end for them: White Christian American hegemony of the world.

This crew is truly terrifying. It is every American's duty to stop them, regardless of political party or ideology. It isn't about Democrats winning so much as it's about getting these thugs out of power and restoring democracy.

[seabeyond]

10. i have been waiting for this one to come back

this is the hugest, the one that truly needs to heal,........cause fundies have screwed up so.

we are hearing it everywhere and bush cant stop it, and he is going to see how ugly it is. he is having to call it to win, hard place to be. two weeks, demolish bush with this

spread the word and hallalujeh. i can preach with the best of em

[Flubadubya]

11. Suskind's view reaffirmed by Pat Robertson...

You proabably have heard what P.R. said about Bush and the Iraq war on Paula Zahn's show last night, but he claims to have urged Bush (just before invading Iraq) that he (Bush) needed to apprise the American people on the casualties that we were likely to incur upon invading the country. Bush apparently told him, with supreme confidence, that we would sustain no casualties.

This is just further proof of the "faith-based unreality" that Bush continues to live in. I still cannot believe we are being guided by the hand of this madman.

Please, let the nightmare be over come November 2!

[BurtWorm]

12. Kick

Rock on, rocknation!

[jacksonian]

13. from the Suskind NYTimes article:

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

Bush's actions are too much part of an overarching program to called unstable. He is playing his part in the fascist parade, I mean who is seeing to it that this hatred is embellished, given a mass media appeal, a face to associate? As this piece points out, stoking it is the politics of Republicans, their whole political dream depends on there being this hatred. It's painfully obvious - no one has denied anything about this article, notice? They just grumble a bit, but no denial. What could be more obvious than that? They want hate and encourage it - that 2-1 margin who hate reality-based thought should be bigger in their eyes. You cannot depend on a politic of hate, pander to bloodlust and jealousy and they will devour their own. It is the politics of immediate gratification - they're acting like children bullying the schoolyard, but where are the adults? Not in the Republican party, evidently.

I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.

To be blunt, the "precipitating actor" theory leads to us all knowing perfectly well why we went off the cliff. That is where the blind actor will inevitably end up. The fate of all empires. But if we would know why we'll go off the cliff, why do we have to go there?

[rocktivity]

14. Here's a non-NYT link to the entire article

Courtesy of Bartcop.

:headbang:
rocknation

[AirAmFan]

15. Pushing further: When the WH abandons the 'reality-based community'

where do they look for staff? One place is Rev. Sung-Myung Moon's Unification Church! People from the Moonie seminary and the Moonie "University" of Bridgpeort now control millions of taxpayer dollars through the Bush White House's "Faith-Based" initiatives. See See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/03/MNG4M936HP1.DTL and
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1119622

These kinds of followups to Suskind's article need to be pushed to the limit over the next ten days.

[lapislzi]

16. Everyone I know who has read that article

is terrified by what it reveals.

Coupled with Gore's speech on Monday:

http://www.algore04.com/

it paints a chilling picture. This should be required reading for everyone.

[cheshire]

17. God is so going to get him for this. OOOWWWW LIghtning Bolt

[democratreformed]

18. I listened to him on the way to class on NPR. Great discussion.

I don't know what else to say. I am obviously of the "reality-based" mindframe. All the "faith-based" decision-making sounds insane to me. Ron did a good job of pointing that out too. I missed the end of it - I had to go in to class.