“A Battle Between Reality And Myth”

So said Tony Blair on Sunday, in probably the smartest move he has made in the two years since I started paying attention to him.
He has set up the debate over Britain’s position on the EU Constitution extremely cleverly. The critics and Eurosceptics are on the back foot, and if Blair keeps hammering this soundbite home, they’ll stay that way.
It is an incredibly clever phrasing. Of course, it helps that the facts are on his side this time. It also doesn’t hurt that the opposition – the ‘mythmakers’ – include in their number many at the racist end of the nationalism spectrum.
The debate is really about whether or not England should go it alone or should join the EU fully. For what it is worth, I think England would take a hit by joining the EU fully at the moment – the currency is incredibly strong right now, and that alone is a good reason to stay out. In the long term, though, it will be better if they do sign up. Certainly, as an internationalist, I think it will be better for the world if they do join, not least to weaken that awful Anglo-American alliance that is sustaining a lot of horrible situations in the world and undermining the UN. But from the perspective of a Brit, it is clear there are valuable arguments on both sides.
Its a tricky sell to the public, but Blair is going for it in exactly the right way. With this angle he’s got a shot. Wow. He almost earns some respect from me for it.
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Reality vs myth is at the core of so much political debate, especially with the very sophisticated manipulation of the media around the world. In America, of course, this is particularly clear.
(Although the culture wars that are dividing America are probably best understood as myth vs myth – a society split in two, divided between the contrary narratives served up by the massive PR operations of the two opposing forces.)
The Right-wing media machine is making great hay at the moment of Chris Hitchens, a left-wing commentator, tearing strips off Michael Moore’s new film Fahrenheit 9/11.
This fits into a decade-long effort to label Michael Moore as an extreme and unreliable propagandist – the left’s equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. A lot of people on the left have fallen for this; indeed, among a certain chunk of left-wing thinkers it is necessary to denounce Michael Moore before going on to attack the right with one’s credentials as a clear thinker established.
Be clear about this: Moore is not a left-wing Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh, along with the rest of the extreme right, tries to characterise their political opponents as dangerous and deluded people who can barely conceal their hate for right-thinking, ordinary Americans. Their political project is primarily about finding “proof” of America-hatred, and discounting any counter-evidence.
Any approach that fosters hate is itself hateful.
Michael Moore does not foster hate.
Nothing could be further from the truth. His political project is to expose as false the narrative presented by those in power.
The powerful, the Bush administration in this case, always present a narrative to the world that explains and justifies their actions. This narrative often bears little relationship to the real evaluations and value judgements going on behind the scenes.
This is why all the nitpicking sites that ‘debunk’ Bowling for Columbine miss the point. They turn elisions and normal documentary practice as misrepresentations, and shout that this invalidates the whole. It doesn’t.
This is why Chris Hitchens misses the point.
As I put it in a post on RPGnet, “Hitchens has valuable points to make. He buries them in irrelevant personal insults, straw man attacks, massive oversimplifications, false dichotomies, and an apparent inability to comprehend Moore’s intentions, let alone consider the validity of those intentions or his success or otherwise in achieving them. Ultimately it is shoddy evidence that doesn’t lead to the conclusion we’re asked to swallow.”
I guess I should put a conclusion here, but I’ve run out of thinking. Maybe someone else can do one for me. If anyone’s read this far.