A paranoia about engineered distractions, is possibly related to the phenomenon of 'You don't appear to be concentrating on {insert my important issue here} with the fervour that I demand. You all suck!' incidents that seem break out from time in the political blogworld.
Which always confuses me because even your local heavy handed Trotkyist front-group (Peoples Front of Judea, Socialist Workers Party, Project for a New American Century, or whomever) know that what you do is jump on whatever big happening is going on at the moment and shout as loud as you can that this proves, PROVES, that we must immediately invade all countries beginning with 'Ira'the Masses must rise up in Proletarian Revolution pronto!
'Successful' politics, as far as I can see, is about using everything that's going on -- whatever it is -- to justify and gain support for whatever we decided to do anyway. Which is why everyone despises sucessful politicians as the slimy slippery eels they are, unfortunately that appears to be what gets the job done. It's also why talented politicians seem to be invincible until the moment they start falling apart, since a big part of doing this well is arranging and portraying things so that, as far as possible, *every* outcome of a given situation is a gain in advantage for their side.
If they've ended up now trying to bring about a *particular* situation because that's the only one that'll give them advantage, they actually probably started losing the political game some moves back.
Pump up something already going on into a distraction? Fine. Use whatever's going on however objectively ghastly for our side, to bury our other ghastly problems? Nice Move. Feel you need to try to actually *engineer* a distraction? Uh oh, you might be losing your grip Mr.Politician.
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"Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap! "
Date: 2006-10-04 09:39 am (UTC)...
A paranoia about engineered distractions, is possibly related to the phenomenon of 'You don't appear to be concentrating on {insert my important issue here} with the fervour that I demand. You all suck!' incidents that seem break out from time in the political blogworld.
Which always confuses me because even your local heavy handed Trotkyist front-group (Peoples Front of Judea, Socialist Workers Party, Project for a New American Century, or whomever) know that what you do is jump on whatever big happening is going on at the moment and shout as loud as you can that this proves, PROVES, that
we must immediately invade all countries beginning with 'Ira'the Masses must rise up in Proletarian Revolution pronto!'Successful' politics, as far as I can see, is about using everything that's going on -- whatever it is -- to justify and gain support for whatever we decided to do anyway. Which is why everyone despises sucessful politicians as the slimy slippery eels they are, unfortunately that appears to be what gets the job done. It's also why talented politicians seem to be invincible until the moment they start falling apart, since a big part of doing this well is arranging and portraying things so that, as far as possible, *every* outcome of a given situation is a gain in advantage for their side.
If they've ended up now trying to bring about a *particular* situation because that's the only one that'll give them advantage, they actually probably started losing the political game some moves back.
Pump up something already going on into a distraction? Fine. Use whatever's going on however objectively ghastly for our side, to bury our other ghastly problems? Nice Move. Feel you need to try to actually *engineer* a distraction? Uh oh, you might be losing your grip Mr.Politician.