Reality-based: How did the right make that a bad thing?

[I Have A Dream]

I always hear the right slamming people for being part of the reality-based community. My guess is that's the opposite of the faith-based community -- correct?

How did they manage to convince America that this is a bad thing? Usually, they do a better job of naming things. (Usually the opposite of the evil thing that they're actually doing.) However, people still understand that this is "bad". Is this something that churches discuss?

Why wasn't the left able to use 'reality-based' against them? How are they able to insult us by using this phrase?

I'm so confused as to how they keep winning at these word games even when it doesn't seem as though they should be able to do so given the words involved. (i.e., "reality-based" seems like a good thing to me.)

[applegrove]

1. They needed it to be a bad thing - so they made it so.

[I Have A Dream]

2. Yes, but how did they convince the American public to perceive...

it as such?

[Sanity Claws]

3. I'm not sure they have

I don't think as many people have heard that term used as you have. I heard it for the first time this week and I do read the news. However, I don't watch the talking heads or cable news.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

6. Only 'politically aware' people have read Suskind's 'Without a Doubt'

and anyone who WOULD read this is 'without a doubt' AGAINST Bush. If more Republicans actually read this and were aware of it... well, there'd be a lot less of them.

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/sloth/2004-10-16b.html

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.'' 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. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

[noiretextatique]

4. orwellian: it allows them to get away with doing nothing

cause god is going to take care of it. if you don't "believe" enough and are too "reality-based"...that's the problem. it's not that our priorities are totally screwed up as a nation.

[EC]

5. Well, if it helps, I worked with this fundie once

she even sold Herbal-Life products, and she walked around as though in a trance, always smiling and glazey eyed, saying the Lord Jesus will provide. Well, the store closed and the Lord Jesus provided her with government assistance...I swear some of that stuff they feed them in the Herbal-Life crap, must zombie them out, cause you look at this woman and I could swear she looked like a heroin addict...

I'm guessing they just make their own little world...

[msgadget]

7. Because their programmers spun it that way

Suskind was onto something revealing about the WH strategy re propoganda and, knowing they couldn't refute it, they made 'reality based' a lefty - automatically bad - thing. I won't credit it with being the opposite of 'faith based' because the right's political use of faith is anything but spiritual.

[firefox]

8. They will not use the term often

The first time I even heard the term was in a thread here concerning the the meeting of the Bilderburgers a few months ago when the claim was made that the feared the "reality-based" something or other. There is one quote that someone uses in their signature that uses it. Then I have read it at CounterPunch in the last few days. I think maybe Scott McClellan might have used it a few days ago and it might have been in one thread.

The concept is really not part of the PTB's vocabulary. That is why I have added it to mine these last few days. I really do not know what spawned your comment that it is used against us and I do not see how it could be pulled off.

What we want is a reality-based community that does not buy into the projection of fantasy by government and media. What we need is people to abandon the fantasy camp and join the reality camp. America is not the best place to live in the world as one thread yesterday said it was 13th and Ireland was #1. We do not have the best health care in the world. We do not have the best legal system in the world. We don't give a dam about spreading democracy. There is too global warming. And the USG with the help of the CIA is the biggest terrorists on the planet. We do not spend a half a trillion on defense as part of it should be called offense. WarCriminal is not compassionate nor conservative. Cutting tax collections is not the same as cutting spending that is really what taxes us along with the interest that comes with cutting collections. We have a controlled media and not a liberal one.

I really do not know the reference for your comment or understand how you think it could be damaging. I do not even believe the PTB want the term in circulation, just like they do not want to talk about depleted uranium or the drug war.

You are damned right that I am reality-based and in this case I would be extremely happy to see someone bring it on.

[I Have A Dream]

9. I feel the same way that you do. This is my point.

I am "reality-based" and I can't see how this could be viewed as anything other than positive.

I've heard it several places. McClelland might have been one of them. It was always used in a derogatory manner when I heard it. Maybe it's not in use as much as I feared. I hope that this is the case mostly because if they're able to make that phrase be viewed as being a negative thing, I fear that they can do anything that they want with language. (Basically, I was worreied that we've finally gotten to the point where the right could say anything and people would just accept it without question.)