Liberal Or Conservative ?

Let’s play a game. Look at the image below, and think about what you see. 

From your response, I can probably guess your political leanings. 

Want to play? 

Okay, let’s go.

Jon Stewart Rips Conservative Media

Wingnut Carson Coming To Worcester

Ken O’Brien

Dr. Ben Carson

The right loves nothing more than discrediting a progressive voice by being able to label it as coming from Hollywood or academia. But they are quick to cite someone’s credentials when that someone is parroting their favorite talking points.

Such is the case with Dr. Ben Carson who will be visiting Worcester for a much-touted speaking engagement in January. In a previous incarnation he was a widely respected neurosurgeon. With his anti-Obama speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, Carson became one of the right’s favorite new talking heads

The Core Of Contemporary American Conservatism

Ken O’Brien

Richard Hofstadter

There is a pronounced tendency to believe that the current gridlock in American politics is unique to our times.

Such a conviction is a vivid illustration of the truth of Santayana’s observation that “Those who cannot learn history are destined to repeat it”.

This November will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

It will also be the fiftieth anniversary of a lecture delivered at Oxford University by Richard Hofstadter.

While it is a reflection on recurrent historical trends in American political thought by those on the right, it speaks directly and with profound prescience to current circumstances.

I recommend it to those on the left and center of the current political spectrum as a means of understanding the genesis of current right wing hysteria.

Making Facts Malleable

Ken O'Brien

I've often resorted to the observation that, "You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts."

However that is becoming increasingly more difficult to argue.

The reason is the growth of a conservative media offensive that willfully distorts verifiable facts to perpetuate an alternative view that supports their ideology. In a sense they have injected a religious component into their political ideology that dictates that adherents accept their version of the "truth" on faith.

Such is not merely a reversion to the since renounced medieval church's response to Galileo. It is also an oxymoronic adoption of the philosophy of Islamic fundamentalists that they so roundly abhor.

Puncturing The Conservative Ideological Balloon

Kenneth M. O’Brien

Last week I published a post titled “Must See TV” that extolled the virtues of Fareed Zakaria’s Sunday morning program on CNN, GPS.

A self-announced Reagan conservative, Zakaria has taken issue with the current course of American conservatism.

In June 16^th’s Time Magazine he puts forward a concise and factual indictment of the absurdity of current Conservative ideological foolishness.

Just as I believe that his Sunday morning program is must see TV, so this article, “How Today’s Conservatism Lost Touch With Reality”, is must read journalism.