It's a terrible practice to place quotes around a conjunction, but it fits here because the GOP Debates may indeed be THE SAME as the issuance of propaganda.
Let's understand that these debates are, to some extent, programs meant to shape the population's view of political reality. When we see them from this perspective, we have to appreciate them as superbly crafted propaganda tools.
I was listening to Rachel Maddow this evening, and watched her segment on "The Road to RepublicanLand" on MSNBC. She talked about the altered, and unchallenged reality that was promoted by all of the candidates-- false assumptions referencing accepted falsehoods. Any conclusions, however were left up to us. And I have one:
We're are watching a series of debates that spread falsehoods about the government's record by 7 or 8 "candidates", all of whom pretend to not know the facts.
Yet they do know the facts. Of course they do. These people are professional media performers first who co-operatively understand a general framework for a script. They know about Bernanke's record on inflation and they know about jobs created by the Obama's first Stimulus package. There are no challenges to any falsehood from any "opponent" because no one wants to be perceived as supporting Obama.
Just as no politician ever wants to do anything from which he/she can be labeled as "soft on drugs", no Republican ever wants to be perceived as agreeing with ANYTHING done or said by Obama.
Therefore, candidates can say the most outrageously false statements about anything Obama, and there will be no challenge that would make Obama look the least bit favorable. Each falsehood can be more outrageous than the one before it, and not one candidate will challenge the falsehood. Onward the march of falsehoods go until it really gets crazy.
The GOP media stars on stage last night are all really smart people who know what they're supposed to do: they are to stay on stage for as long as possible and say the same things about Obama and his performance, over and over, until the falsehoods take on the importance and veracity of real facts. The GOP is preparing the nation for the general election. NOW. (And they're months ahead of the dim-witted Democrats.)
Right now, it doesn't matter who among the GOP candidates will remain through the primaries to the last round of debates; what matters is that the anti-Obama message must be driven home by ALL OF THEM, as a team.
Let's notice that the vocal mode of the conversations on the CNN program last night was the SHOUT. Everyone shouted, or the volume on the sound board was turned WAY UP. Even lackey Wolf Blitzer trumpeted his nasal noise into all of the vibrating living rooms of unsuspecting couch potatoes who have no idea how they're being manipulated. The loudness gave the impression that all of those word salads were so important. No, they were "historic."
Historic, indeed.
Right now, the Dems have no answer to this onslaught of re-framing meant to deceive an entire nation. They move about with business-as-usual moderation not even aware that the GOP is running rings around them.
Whoever surmised that we're becoming a nation of dumbed-down marshmallows destined to be a population of chronically sick slave wage earners wasn't whistling Dixie.