The parallels between the Minnesota anti-PRT propagandist's disinformation tactics and the Rove/Mehlman political strategy of "Talking Points" are self-evident. Both play fast and loose with the facts; both repeat those falsehoods over and over, hoping they become truthy to a significant number of people.
This reporter used to find this frustrating, since it was coming from a person associated with the lefty Lloydletta and Dump blogs. But we now know that Ken Avidor's finger-pointing at a few of PRT's conservative supporters is a case of Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much (See his Right Wing connection!, 9/7). In that post we saw Avidor's connection to conservatives, and how he spoonfed anti-PRT lines to a conservative letter-writer. Here (first comment), in support of a claim that the Green Party is like a cult, he cites an article about the 1970s Minneapolis group known as O. In the article, Dean Zimmerman (the ex-Councilman and frequent target of Labridor's venom) refers to O. as "this co-op organization with the left-wing dogma."
Why does Ken Avidor attack conservatives like Mark Olson and Michele Bachmann on the one hand, yet on the other hand link "co-ops" and "left-wing dogma" to cultism? It can only be because he is neither right nor left--in the same way that Avidor is anti-innovation, a value which is neither liberal nor conservative. Therefore it would seem that he occupies a point in space wholly separate from the customary political spectrum--call it neo-agrarianism if you want. One can only hope he achieves his Utopia--he won't have computers, the Internet and other "high tech crap" with which to continue to wage his propaganda campaign.
Another repugnant Resmuglican tactic Ken seems to have adopted is the way he implies that his targets are mentally unbalanced, for instance with such choice words as--
And when PRT advocates respond to his ad hominem attacks and willful inaccuracies with understandable anger, Ken Avidor tries to use that too: in that instance his opponents are having a meltdown, or practically foaming at the mouth.
He and his follower also describe PRT advocates and research-based facts using anti-intellectual labels, such as--
Meaning that people working on PRT are both crazy and smart. He is telling you smart equals crazy. Real nice, coming from the Transportation "Editor" of the Twin Cities Daily Planet.
It reminds one of the ways our country's right wing attacks liberals and moderates: principled opponents of the White House are called Bush-haters; defenders of the Constitution and Bill of Rights are with the terrorists. We are told we are naive, or thinking the wrong kind of thoughts. And don't forget how the Amateur Pharmacist calls women's rights supporters feminazis.
Look at the neocon blogosphere's take on how Bill Clinton reacted to Chris Wallace's recent ambush. The right-wing line is Clinton reacted to someone lying about him by getting ANGRY, so that means he's crazy!
Sound familiar?
Update: More name-calling from Ken Avidor (3/23/2007)
gPRT
Ken Avidor, RFD
1 comment:
Excellent analysis.
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