Denialism

Where’s the Hitler Zombie when you need it?

—

by

MarkH
in

Well, I won’t watch CNN anymore, after Glenn Beck decided to call climate scientists who actually believe climate science Nazis. You read his profile at Media Matters and it’s clear pretty much anyone he disagrees with is a Nazi.


Disagree with him on healthcare? You’re a Nazi.
Disagree with him on global warming? You’re a Nazi.

Oh, and some people aren’t just Nazi’s, like Hillary Clinton, she’s also the Anti-Christ, and those Katrina victims? They’re scumbags. Muslims (even in congress)? They’re traitors.

This guy has never met a hyperbole he didn’t like (like my hyperbole?). It is disturbing to me that CNN feels like it needs to compete with Fox by essentially hiring cranks like Beck and Nancy Grace. It seems like there should be a market for news media that goes high-brow rather than just hiring loudmouthed morons that alternately channel Debbie Schlussel and Bill O’Reilly. Instead opinion and screaming is considered premium prime-time comment, rather than real journalism and informative debate.

I think Glenn Beck gets two symbols. One is a preview of tomorrow’s post, the other, you’ve seen before.
i-62a2141bf133c772a315980c4f858593-5.gifi-83ab5b4a35951df7262eefe13cb933f2-crank.gif

Comments

12 responses to “Where’s the Hitler Zombie when you need it?”

  1. Stuart Coleman

    Maybe it’s just a failure of imagination, but I can’t see what an exploding robot could stand for. I’ll have to stay tuned to find out!

    Reply
  2. Ray

    It is disturbing to me that CNN feels like it needs to compete with Fox

    Can you $ay dollar$??

    And you get more of those by reaching the more people. And you reach more people by reducing your standards to the lowest common denominator.

    It seems like there should be a market for news media that goes high-brow

    Can you say NPR or BBC?

    Reply
  3. John

    Stuart, don’t you remember how Captain Zap Brannigan, I mean Kirk-Captain Kirk, defeated all those evil computers?

    Reply
  4. MarkH

    Ray, note of your two examples, one isn’t in this country, and the other is public?

    Of the three commercial networks here all seem to be in a perpetual race for the bottom. I’ll have to find Ted’s favorite John Stewart quote about this.

    Reply
  5. Ex-drone

    The only thing saving Beck from suffering the same fate as Imus is lack of sufficient viewers to make anything he says consequential.

    Reply
  6. Paahtoleip�

    Stuart Coleman “Maybe it’s just a failure of imagination, but I can’t see what an exploding robot could stand for. I’ll have to stay tuned to find out!”

    But I must be a spoiler (we don’t need imagination, we just use “eliminative filter” {Awww. that sounds so, so, bad…})

    Okay, we have 5 general tactics are used by denialists to sow confusion.
    And then we eliminate few(in this case 4). They are:
    *conspiracy
    *selectivity (cherry-picking)
    *fake experts
    and
    impossible expectations (also known as moving goalposts)

    So we get… (if you are curious, you can find it out)

    Reply
  7. Ray

    Ray, note of your two examples, one isn’t in this country, and the other is public?

    I know. Isn’t that a sad commentary? (And of course, I should also have included PBS.)

    Reply
  8. krisztian pinter

    interestingly enough, once i was called communist by a global warming denialist in a forum. it seems that their mind accepts the fact that global warming “believers” are communists, liberalists and rightist extremists at once. they accusations are not any more coherent than their “theories”.

    Reply
  9. Anna Z.

    Calling someone a Nazi is getting really old. Of course originally liberals picked up the practice and did it to death before the conservative crowd figured out they could play turnabout and hurl it back at liberals. I wish both sides would stop. I can’t help feeling we indirectly help the real Nazis in the world, white supremacist groups in the U.S. and anti-immigrant political parties in Europe, when we toss the word about so casually. Comparisons to Hitler/Nazism/fascism are starting to acquire an eye-roll factor – more of a discredit to one’s own point than the opposition’s. How can we adequately express the dangers of the White Power movement, the KKK, the National Socialists, and their ilk when we’ve already established that half the freakin’ Congress and the majority of voters are Nazis? We’re turning into the “boy who cried Nazi.”

    Reply
  10. SLC

    As bad as Glenn Beck is, he is not even in the same league as Michael Savage (nee Weiner). Savage makes Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh look almost moderate.

    Reply
  11. Bob JAckson

    I hope we are careful here to make sure the dual arguments about global warming/climate change are acknowledged:

    One, is the earth getting warmer, by fractions of a degree? Yes.

    Two, is anthropogenic centered global warming a settled science or debate? Hell no. I notice many logical fallacies from the Gore, et al camp that go unchallenged as well. We get into a logic trap as well when we assume only one side can be deniers.

    Reply
  12. MarkH

    I’m afraid not Bob. The consensus science in this case is that global warming is anthropogenic. That’s what the IPCC is all about.

    And before people dig up that canard that science has nothing to do with consensus, don’t bother. That’s a figment of Michael Crichton’s imagination and a typical example of the Galileo Gambit. It’s a joke, don’t bother.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *