Posted on 07/09/2008 10:07:48 PM PDT by kristinn
...How important is calumny today? In 2000, calumny effectively led to John McCain's defeat in South Carolina. That smear campaign against him used robo-calls and fliers, and e-mail also played an important role, as the New York Times reported in February 2000. Arguably, calumny defeated John Kerry in 2004, and the infamous Swift boat television ads of that summer were, importantly, preceded by an aggressive Internet campaign begun that January that included perhaps the first viral campaign e-mail: a computer-generated image of Kerry and Jane Fonda beside each other on a podium at an antiwar rally. The image originally emerged at the Web site FreeRepublic.com, and Fonda had not in fact been at the event. But the damage was done. Today we are seeing viral anti-Obama e-mails, some of which I have traced to some of the same origin points for the 2000 and 2004 smear campaigns.
SNIP
A right to free speech is no excuse for lying. While strongly protected rights of free speech are critical to a healthy democracy, rights bring responsibilities. Citizens should, as a standard practice, take responsibility for their views -- the matters of fact and principle that they wish to put before the public for consideration -- by appending their full, legal names to their expressions, even in blog posts. While there are times and places for anonymity, it should be the exception. Unfortunately, the Internet has brought us to a point where anonymity is the rule, not the exception. Rather than facilitating free speech, this is corrosive to democratic discourse. It's time to rebuild a responsible culture in which people speak in their full, legal names and honor the truth.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I was taken in by the fake Kerry/Fonda photo when it first appeared, but only for a short while. Seemed to me at the time that the existence of the fake actually boosted the attention given to the real photo that I saw shortly afterward.
Let me give you a tip that may be comforting: Lies certainly propagate faster than truth, but they all have something that the truth does not have: a short expiration date. Truth does not expire.
A Dummy Allen BUMP!
??????
And when I said that lies have an expiration date, I was asserting, under the cover of a metaphor, that the false perception thus created gets continuously undermined by reality, so it needs constant tending and frequent replacement.
Before we had the internet (and FR!), it took much longer for the process to work. But it has never been absent.
Is this the "gravitas" buzzword of the 2008 election?
I look forward to their investigative report on the “calumy” at the Democratic Underground and Daily Kos sites.
Allen studies the way voters in a democracy gather their information and act on what they learn.
She was familiar, of course, with the false rumors of a secret love child that helped sink McCain's White House bid in 2000, and the Swift boat attacks that did the same to Democrat John Kerry in 2004.
But the Obama e-mail was on another plane: The use of the Internet made it possible to launch anonymous attacks that could reach millions of voters in weeks or even days.
Please Ms. Allen. The internet made it possible to launch anonymous attacks since, at least, the 2000 election that could reach millions of voters in weeks or even days. She never acknowledges the lies spewed about Bush.
To listen to her, one would think that before 2008, there were a only a couple hundred thousand internet users and all of a sudden there are millions, dare I say billions?
I began "internetting" on The Well. Then gopher, some prodigy, USENET, CI$, and then "web".
I will tell you a thing which is perfectly TRUE: The academic liberals with Democrats -- have been running the net a long time. Andd their "netting" attacks against Republicans and Conservatives began LOOOOOONG before the proverbial Sagan Billions Upon Billions arrived on the Internet.
So many times, what I'd see on "prehistoric" net, was a two-days-later "NEWS MASS REPORT"; on every wire, etc.
Liberals have been spinning gossip, rumor and innuendo since long before most people were up and running on what we now call the web.
Typical socialists can dish it out; but really don't uphold any notion of "equality".
The Al Gore "inventing the Internet" was really, an inside joke that mostly, only "socialists" understood. We thought it was funny; but they, socialists, nodded soberly when he made the quasi-code assertion: They knew what he meant.
Oh yes, sigh, for the days of a peripheral modem, a dial-up line, no static, and crazy-making syntax in order to "connect.......... NOT!
People across this nation, and world, really seemed to have no idea that the bias towards socialism was run so long ago on what we now call the Internet. And most all the sources for the bias, came from Academic Liberal Elites and their pals in the Media.
And now you might understand what newspapers MIGHT print a correction to a "front page headliner story" on page A22 in some obscure corner. Sometimes, the floating trial ballooning coming out of leftwing intelligentsia was so over-the-top, a very cursory examination of the story, revealed, certainly to the libs, they could pretty much get away with murder, and the MSM would cover for 'em.
CALUMNIATORS, civil law. Persons who accuse others, whom they know to be innocent, of having committed crimes. Code 9, 46, 9.SLANDERER. A calumniator, who maliciously and without reason imputes a crime or fault to another, of which he is innocent.
2. For this offence, when the slander is merely verbal, the remedy is an action on the case for damages; when it is reduced to writing or printing, it is a libel. (q. v.)
Webster's 1913 Dictionary
\Cal"um*ny\, n.; pl. {Calumnies}. [L. calumnia, fr. calvi to devise tricks, deceive; cf. F. calomnie. Cf. {Challenge}, n.]False accusation of a crime or offense, maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another; malicious misrepresentation; slander; detraction. ``Infamous calumnies.'' --Motley.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. --Shak.
Webster's 1828:
CALUMNY, n. Slander; false accusation of a crime or offense, knowingly or maliciously made or reported, to the injury of another; false representation of facts reproachful to another, made by design, and with knowledge of its falsehood; sometimes followed by on. Neglected calumny soon expires.
Danielle Allen, Year 0 of the Age of Obama:
... a useful distinction between accusation and calumny, or slander. Accusers present themselves and their evidence publicly so their accusations can be debated by the accused. That debate provides a reasonable basis for public deliberation. But calumny is anonymous, secret.
No, ma'am, sorry. A distinction that is hard to make today, and for the past 200 years in English, that language which we presumed that being among our intellectual literate elite you might be presumed to know.
By the way what language did Machiavelli write in? You must be very careful in translating Italian of the early 1500's into modern English, dearie.
Well, begging to disagree but to me, she looks cute.
It seems that CNN, AP, UPI, and others have no problem with placing digitally altered photos in their newspapers, and on their websites.
And they have never been held accountable for it.
In 2004 I was still blissfully ignorant. I’m sorry I ever started paying attention to what is really going on.
It’s like a sewer full of rats, snakes, cockroaches, insects and liberals.
No, “NARRATIVE” is the buzzword this time around.
Overly used by the libs. “NARRATIVE”, as in:
Barack Hussein Obama’s personal narrative is a total fiction.
What is going on between the two ‘men’ that want to be president of our great nation?
They both sound like children on the playground after being reprimanded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Can’t McCain tell Obama off? Doesn’t he know nice guys finish last?
McCain has been a leader of a of pilots, He has been a senator for years.
McCain loves America!!
The only thing Obama had done is HATE America.
What is going on between the two ‘men’ that want to be president of our great nation?
They both sound like children on the playground after being reprimanded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Can’t McCain tell Obama off? Doesn’t he know nice guys finish last?
McCain has been a leader of a of pilots, He has been a senator for years.
McCain loves America!!
The only thing Obama had done is HATE America.
WHO IS DANIELLE ALLEN? ANOTHER MAGIC NEGRO?
WHO IS DANIELLE ALLEN? ANOTHER MAGIC NEGRO?
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