It’s frustrating to see the almost wholesale adoption of the Orwellian-named programs and ideologies of the Radical Right; and the accompanying almost rabid and irrational defense of any who would question it. In the post Squandering Influence, Larry talks about how the Right must begin to show some sign of aweareness of widely accepted scientific assumptions, and disp[lay some semblance of an awareness of real issues that people face.

this is the risk that the hard core right-wing evangelicals are taking on right now. Their super-heated rhetoric will run head-on into realities far more complex than they have demonstrated capacity to understand. It won’t be enough to demonize the liberal left relativists forever on issues such as end-of-life decisions, abortion, evolution and homosexuality, among others. They will have to show that they live in the same world, with its ambiguities and moral complexities that the rest of us live in. And they will have to demonstrate a capacity to function in a world of information and knowledge that is not a throwback to the 19th Century.

There was a confrontation in a session at BlogNashville this weekend when one of participants laughed (he said he didn’t, since he didn’t make a sound— but he shook his head rather inconspicuously and presumably looked around at his cohorts to share eye-rolling — all this in response to Dave Winer’s statement that “the economy sucks”. When Winer confronted him, distracted and obviously ticked off at this activity, he said “I think the economy is in fantastic shape”.

He goes on to defend his remark on Ed Cone’s blog, who asked him, via his own blog:

if I’d been in the room, maybe I could have asked Stan, wow, you find Dave’s comment that the economy is bad to be so wrong that you are laughing at it — could this be a moment to step back from your strong views and Dave’s strong views to look for things on this very specific subject on which we can all agree? What are some numbers that back up your claim that the economy is doing great, Stan? Can Dave agree on those numbers? On what those numbers mean? But that’s not the way it went, and that’s a shame.

Stan piped up in the comments, saying he didn’t laugh (as I described above), and then went on to post this:

He was speaking about the common ground we all share and decided to use, as an example, the fact that we all agree that the economy is bad. Talk about clueless! I just wanted to roll my eyes, throw up my hands in surrender and have this “train wreck” come to a quick and merciful end. Or call BS on him. Perhaps I should have just walked out. Instead, I controlled the urge and simply chuckled silently to myself while thinking that this poor fool was beyond help.

So he goes on to post a whole set of assumptions that is questioned by 19 of 20 economists (perhaps even more, when you talk to “unaffiliated” or bipartrisan economists, and ignores the measures you hear most often associated with economic strength: deficit, dollar value, cost of living:

First, I want to point out that what I found ridiculous was Dave Winer’s assertion that we all agree that the economy is bad. Given how strong the economy is, his assertion that it is bad seems pretty silly. However, it is ten times more ridiculous to assert that everyone agrees it is bad.

Ed Cone raised the question of what support I would have brought to such a debate. I’ll leave it with Larry Kudlow:

Ludlow is a former Reagan advisor, and an obvious member of Bush’s team of economists enlisted to be PR “expert witnesses” for the Bush politics of economics (I won’t even call it an economic strategy). To say, “I’ll leave it with……” and use such a partisan, is hardly going to be a part of an effective respectful discussion, because all that does is imply that if this “expert” doesn’t make it OBVIOUS that the economy REALLY IS REAALY GOOD, then you must be some sort of “poor fool”. Kudlow basically cited corporate profits and productivity, ignoring the effects of the larger economy and the hardships it is increasingly heaping on millions of Americans. Talk about your examples of people not being aware of where most people live, and the issues they face.

I hope the realizations start dawening sooner rather than later. The mass deception and smugness of those doing the deceiving is taking us down a perilous path. I hope that pendulum of rationality and realization will swing soon.