New Mexico Central

The Insidious Plot

by John Weckerle

Our readers may have noted that we’re occasionally sporadic with respect to the frequency of our posts.  The challenging economy is becoming a challenge, and sometimes we find ourselves working hard just to keep working hard, and the need for some of us to continue generating an income sometimes means a need to take a break from other pursuits.  We returned to the online world today and took a quick look in on the folks at the Sandia Tea Party, and noted a September 15 post by Edgewood Town Councilor Chuck Ring on the Rebuild the Dream Contract for the American Dream.  A copy of said contract is provided in image form – not surprisingly titled “Communist Contract AD Alliance Partners” by the author – as is a graphic providing the logos of organizations affiliated with Rebuild The Dream.  Mr. Ring invites us to go conspiracy hunting at a site called “Discover The Networks: A Guide to the Political Left.”  He then suggests that there is something misleading about Rebuild the Dream’s use of the logo of one of the supporting organizations, “OUR Walmart,” insinuating that OUR Walmart is a fictitious organization or one that may have “misused” Walmart’s name.  He points out that a Google search leads to a listing for “ourwalmart.org,” a site no longer in service with a link to Walmart’s corporate home page.

In this, Mr. Ring indulges in a little fast footwork himself – so fast that he apparently shot past the first three hits on the search he recommends.  The first two lead directly – and predictably – to the organization called Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OURWalmart), an association of Walmart employees who quite pointedly state that they are not satisfied with the conditions of the their employment.  In that context, we don’t see anything misleading.  A little research indicates that Walmart challenged the use of the domain name “ourwalmart.org” by the organization – a challenge that appeared valid given domain naming conventions, which is something your editor knows a little about.  However, we’ll point out that the logo on the “commiegraph” does not include a domain name, so we fail to see the deception in its inclusion on the graphic, which was clearly lifted from the Rebuild the Dream site and presented without attribution on the Sandia Tea Party site.

For those of our readers who feel that they have better things to do than hunt for commies hiding in the woodpile, we move on next to the dark hint of “hidden meanings” in the Sandia Tea Party article.  To assess the possibility of such concealed messages, we carefully read the contract, recorded ourselves doing so, and then played the recording backwards.  Except for a faint voice saying “Really?  This is the best thing you can do to find with your time?” we got nothing.*  So we did the next best thing, visited the Rebuild the Dream web site, and looked over the contract in its text form.  We found that the meanings were far from hidden; each of the “clauses” in the contract is accompanied by a fact sheet explaining the rationale behind the clause, and the organizations responsible for the content of the fact sheets are clearly identified.  Agree or disagree with the positions, but you can’t get much less hidden than that.  For the Google-challenged and those who don’t want to do the extra clicking, we provide links to the fact sheets here:

1. Invest in America’s Infrastructure.
2. Create 21st Century Jobs.
3. Invest in Public Education.
4. Offer Medicare for All.
5. Make Work Pay.
6. Secure Social Security.
7. Return to Fairer Tax Rates.
8. End the Wars and Invest at Home.
9. Tax Wall Street Speculation.
10. Strengthen Democracy.

Now, we want to make it clear that – unlike Mr. Ring – we are not encouraging our readers to either completely agree or completely disagree with the positions stated in the Contract or its supporting documentation.  We do encourage our readers to read the material, however; at worst, it may give them at least some insight into how those with whom they disagree think.  And this is the main point of our article today, because we are hitting the limit of our patience with respect to the invective that dominates public discourse on the very important issues we face.

The overwhelming majority of Americans need neither look right to see Karl Marx nor left to see Benito Mussolini.  The grand majority of us are growing increasingly tired of the radical right branding progressives as communists/socialists and the radical left branding conservatives as fascists/nazis.  Most people are capable of understanding and accepting differences in philosophy, respecting those differences, and working together on those issues where common ground can be found.  In his current book, The Believing Brain, Skeptical Inquirer editor Michael Schermer demonstrates (among many other fascinating things; we can’t recommend the book enough) that what liberals typically think about conservatives and what conservatives typically think about liberals is dead wrong.  Perhaps if more people took the time to understand their differences rather than be offended by them or use them for attack purposes, we’d find ourselves far more united in purpose, far more civil in discourse, and far more successful in overcoming the adversities our nation – and our world – face.

*Okay, we didn’t really do this, but we suspect this is pretty much the way it would have come out.

Friday, September 16th, 2011, by John Weckerle and is filed under "Halls of Dishonesty: Disinformation and Deception, Sandia Tea Party, Tea Party-gate ". You can leave a response here. Pinging is currently not allowed.