Jon's Soapbox
A Video Is Worth a Million Words
(Posted 10/18/2009) - If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this You-Tube video is worth a million words: The fake video-ad points to a noxious trend amongst house republicans who increasingly rely on hyperbole and ad hominem attacks rather than logical argument for a position.
These are difficult times for traditional fabulists because electronic capture and distribution of their statements makes it harder to isolate their target audience. House and Senate republicans are now visible to the world at large (via news nets and internet videos).
We are witness to an increasing bifurcation: true-believers accept outlandish and factually unsupported statements because they already share the assumptions that drive the conclusion. Everyone else just goes Huh? Time will tell whether raw propaganda can flourish in a society where any school child can fact check any claim using the internet.
It would be very one-sided of me not to note that this video is itself hyperbolic and uses ad-hominem attack. However the 'dirty dozen' house republicans sarcastically cited are, in my opinion, each being blown up by the very petards they have lobbed into the public discourse!