Chris Lott's Library tagged rhetoric →  View Popular

"...people like Goldberg are becoming extra rancid and reckless in their rhetoric precisely because they know that these rhetorical devices have ceased working. There is a definite sea change when it comes to American policy debates toward Israel. They no longer possess the ability to stifle dissent through thuggish intimidation tactics and they know that, which is why they can now do nothing but turn up the volume on their name-calling attacks."

www.salon.com/...goldberg - Preview

politics pollinks israel rhetoric journalism

"What makes this journalistic servitude to the Washington establishment most repellent is that these same pundits generally -- and David Brooks in particular -- endlessly hold themselves out as the Spokespeople of the Ordinary American, even as they work tirelessly to protect the Washington political class from their beliefs, interests and sentiments. That's how people like David Brooks pile media deceit ("we speak for ordinary Americans") on top of political deceit (we view campaign commitments as "blather" to keep the masses satiated and quiet)."

www.salon.com/...brooks - Preview

politics journalism rhetoric msm

Scary... the Left has their own problems, but where is the even remotely mainstream Lefty equivalent of this kind of horror show?

dneiwert.blogspot.com/...onism-in-america-appendix.html - Preview

politics rhetoric language

"Barack Obama’s inaugural address is proving to be more powerful in the reading than it was in the hearing." Sorry, but I still heart the often annoying Stanley Fish. This is a good piece.

fish.blogs.nytimes.com/...barack-obamas-prose-style - Preview

speech rhetoric politics obama inauguration

This is not just a question of people with too much time on their hands beavering away at the keyboard on controversies that affect nothing – if it were “only” this, there would be little to worry about. The problem goes deeper. It is partly that so much of this activity is harmful and wasteful, in a context where intelligent citizens working in a spirit of constructive dialogue could in principle perform a useful role in clarifying issues and arguments and offering usable ideas to those seeking solutions to the conflicts concerned. [...] In this sense such internet politics is not just self-defeating but also profoundly exclusionary. Only those who are similarly versed in the minutiae of the conflict can participate fully. How telling that the supposedly democratising force of the internet should be subverted in this way! This is politics for insiders. Indeed, the ranks of the insiders may have been swelled by the internet, but the cliquishness of this new political class is no better than the more traditional political cliques. Worse, so obsessed is this clique with its endless internal arguments that the need to connect with those on the outside - both the larger citizenry, and those at the sharp end of conflicts - is largely forgotten. What remains is a mode of politics that has abandoned both persuasion and anchorage in reality outside the discursive bubble.

www.opendemocracy.net/...the-politics-of-me-me-me - Preview

politics blogging communication rhetoric