Holiday Breaks And Monday Morning Revelations

I did a couple of brief pieces over the long holiday weekend and did my best to stay away from as many news sources as possible. It's a drying out period that I think was long overdue.

However, I did spend quite a bit of time reflecting on all that has happened this year - and not just in politics. What I came away with is a sense that America, by and large, is even more divided now than the day after Obama was elected. From my perspective, this is due in no small part because of most American's laziness to research.

I've thought this way for a long time, yet I didn't realize the intensity of the sloth-like behavior of those that constitute some of the loudest and more extreme voices on both the left and right. The sad part of all of this is that those on the right are the ones that seems to have the upper hand in controlling the message.

This isn't just an "ignore them and they'll go away" issue, nor is it a "if you talk about them you're just legitimizing them" issue either. The problem the left - both liberals and progressives alike - has is that we tend to play too much defense rather than focusing on an offensive strategy. To put it into more simplistic terms, we can't seem to be focused enough on our goals because we feel the need to debunk any and everything coming from the conservative noise machine.

More on that later on though.

Here's what has been gracing my computer screen since I awoke this morning:

- WikiLeaks has dropped more documents that reveal some interesting, if not ultimately predictable, information about American diplomatic practices. I'm still on the fence in regards to this type of distribution of information, as it can cut both ways. That aside, it is reported over at Crooks And Liars that Fox"News" is formulating the narrative that WikiLeaks should be classified as a terrorist organization:

This makes one wonder if they have some dirt on Republicans that they are nervous is about to come out.

The Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian have had these docs for several weeks, so I'm curious as to how the vetting process was conducted and who was deciding what pages to reveal to the public. Certainly there's more in there than what will appear in your media outlet of choice. You can sift through the entire document dump here.

- When the former director of the OMB under Ronald Reagan, David Stockton, says the the modern GOP has abandoned fiscal responsibility in favor of deifying the Bush Tax Cuts, I'm wondering how deafening the silence will be from the right.

It's this sort of statement that will likely be ignored in favor of cranking up the volume on the "highest tax increase ever" meme. I'm immediately reminded of how so much of what the modern conservative movement is against, their sainted Ronnie actually accomplished during his tenure as President.

- The rhetoric from war hawks like Liz Cheney is going to get exponentially louder since North Korea launched artillery shells onto a disputed piece of land largely considered to belong to South Korea.

It's people like Cheney, Palin, McCain - and their media masters at Fox"News" - just aren't going to be happy until we launch a preemptive strike against North Korea, or Iran, or maybe even both at once. And considering they have been declaring "victory" in Iraq after the draw down of soldiers there, one has to wonder what they would consider "victory" in those countries should America actually use military force.

It certainly wouldn't be like fighting in the desert, that's for sure. This is something that conservatives simply aren't considering - the implications of attacking countries far more developed than Iraq and Afghanistan.

And Monday's just started.