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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Factophobia
Message-ID: <7800753@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Nov-85 17:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800753
Posted: Tue Nov 26 17:20:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Nov-85 01:15:49 EST
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Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 26 17:20:00 1985


[ Jim Balter (ima!jim)]
>[criticism of my polemical methods]

(1) suggestion vs implication. I gave no names or features  iden-
tifying  a  particular  article, so was not obliged to recheck
anyone's wording. I attacked a  world-view,  not  a  person.  In
fact,  my  satirical  picture  fits *you* better than Mike, who is
sometimes objective.  Had you noticed that, you might  have  com-
plained  that  my  "weak  brethren" misquotes your "small minds".
The same answer would apply.

(2) You are right that tone and wording flavor the 
impression. Total sterility is impractical and undesirable.
Madison Avenue is another extreme. Or, should I say, near extreme,
since some of your own articles go beyond. I am too lazy to search,
but they go somewhat like this: BLATHERING IDEOLOGUES WOULD
HAVE US ACCEPT THE RIDICULOUS NOTION THAT ... .
No exaggeration here, except for the lettering.
It is as if I said "our wonderful free-market economy
has again out-performed itself". At least that would be positive.

In the episode of jobs for women, which you mostly discuss,
the packaging was very slight, compared to the fact. Completely
neutral wording would convey exactly the same impression.

	--Try this :
The following data is from Detroit News :
Since Reagan took office, 84% of the 7 million new jobs and 65% of
salary growth went to women.
	--Want to post it like this ?

(3) It is the *selection* of data  that  you  really  object  to.
Remember  the  Marshal  Ogarkov episode ? There, I posted a *com-
pletely* bare fact. You greeted it even more violently than  this one.
	---Factophobia, all right.

Madison Avenue is tricky. But a regime of  psychological  terror,
existing  in  much  of US educated community, is far worse. There
are many people out there who, for example, *vote for Reagan* who
never  dare  to  open  their  mouth to say anything in his favor.
People live in an world insulated from non-kosher facts. 

During the Cambodian Holocaust, for example, they had no idea  of
it. ( It was in NY Times, all right, in rare small notes on back pages,
with "unconfirmed" the most prominent word. On  editorial  pages,
they  could  find Anthony Lewis lauding Pol Pot's promising so-
cial experiment.)
Right now, they talk of El Salvador, not knowing that
right-wing terror is long over, it is all left-wing now.  

Some of this regime exists on the net, too; and you  are  one  of
its active enforcers. I ignore your taboos, hence the outcry.

Last point: *I consider breaking these taboos more important
even than the content of what I say*. In the name
of intellectual honesty (which you often take in vain),
it is unfair to say A when you wouldn't dare to say non-A.

		Jan Wasilewsky