Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Columnist Employs The Technology of Negative Writing

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Hello.
I like Marge Eagan (actually, to paraphrase The Band: I can't stand what she says, but I love to hear her talk), really, but her piece today illustrates the power of the technology of negative writing, in which she indulges. Negative writing is where the writer uses words not to clarify or communicate an idea, but to confuse the reader or obfuscate an issue, which is the exact opposite of what a writer should do. It is always fuzzy emotional type concepts. Here are "the 1 percenters". Who are they? Don't define them, let the readers' imagination go to work. The less specific the better, the easier to hate, my dear. They are guilty of an unnamed "dirty little scam" and they are "petrified" it may be "exposed" by our heroic champions (Occupiers) of the little guy ("desperate, paycheck-to-paycheck 99 percenters"). Wow. So much assumed for the reader, so many oily insinuations. So few facts. But hey I guess the column can only contain so many words, why waste time with statements of general validity, just worm your way into the reptile brain of the reader. Then belittle him if he does not agree with the premise: one is a coward and a little on the stupid side too because one "apparently prefers getting fleeced to fighting the fleecers". Nothing of course, about how we are getting fleeced or exactly who is doing it - it is better to let the reader's brain fill in that blank from previous negative writings - "banksters, repugs, Jewish Billionaries, The Fed, and oh yeah the most amorphous 1%". Time for more name calling: we are "are gullible, beaten down, sad sacks". A sorry stupid lot really, anyone who does not agree, a piteous, wretched mass who have yet to have seen the light that America is the worst country in the world with a truly evil system and a miserable populace.

Yeah, I missed that somehow. What I observed when I visited Occupy Boston lact week was a combination of mental illness and far leftist propaganda and thought control. Homeless drifters, lost soul hangers-on and wannabes, and embittered losers mingled around with little to do. The common thread was a deep cynicism about the country, ranging from the mere conspiracy theorist to the delusional to the truly psychotic.
Margery's cadres all have hardened beliefs you find if you speak to them. Very sure and certain to the point of frustrating smugness but incorrect conclusions based on spurious information or even negative writings such as this short column.
Have a good day.
 

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