From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Sun Aug 08 2004 - 23:45:44 BST
Hi DMB and Ian,
Now THERE'S a subject as self-contradictory as jumbo shrimp. But
mine is a methodical madness.
David, thanks for the reminder about the Franken book. You may know
that Fox tried to sue him for using the phrase "Fair and Balanced" in
the subtitle. They were, literally, laughed out of court.
You guys might be interested to know that there is also a new
documentary called "OutFoxed" which shows precisely how deliberately
UNfair and UNbalanced Fox is. Just tons of examples of how their
"reporters" are ordered to say things in a certain way.
Their right-wing political bias is so clear it's not even worth
talking about. Their jingoistic cheerleading for the "war" in Iraq
was, and continues to be, almost surreal.
For example, American riflemen in Baghdad, who hide and shoot
defenseless people from a great distance, must be called "marksmen"
not "snipers." Although "cowardly snipers" is fine for Iraqi
fighters who do the same thing. (In fairness to snipers on all
sides, what they do at least requires more courage than firing Cruise
missiles from battleships 50 miles at sea.) And you may have noticed
that Fox reporters never talk about suicide bombings, as they are
ordered to use the phrase "homicide bombings" instead. I guess the
word "suicide" here invokes too much of a sense of cause and
political desperation, even though "suicide bombing" is the more
informative phrase.
Then there's a great clip where Bill O'Reilly responds to a viewer's
complaint that he shouldn't tell his guests to "shut up" when he
disagrees with them. O'Reilly says "that's only happened ONCE."
This is followed by a long series of soundbites from his show where
we hear him telling a dozen people to shut up. It's very funny.
Anyway... On to the logical analysis part of the subject...
Ian said:
Logic itself is what is misguided, in all human scale matters,
(other than those rare cases of controlled scientific experiments).
msh says:
I have to disagree. People use logical argument all the time in
their attempts to persuade, or to justify their actions. Bush and
Major and company offered at least 4 different arguments for the
invasion of Iraq, one after the other as each preceding argument was
proved fallacious. I think, using logical and evidentiary analysis,
the persuasiveness of an argument can be reduced to near 0. Which in
some circumstance might save lives.
Or so it seems to me..
Best,
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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