However, I’d be curious to hear your take on the use of the singular in Ether 8. Taken in conjunction with President Benson’s comments as prophet from the pulpit in General Conference, it surely leads to the thought that there is an organized group seeking to destroy freedom. ”[T]hey are had among all nations,” to copy Moroni’s phrase. Any thoughts?

Just a bit of information here: I actually saw “Children of Men” the other day. Usually I avoid R-rated movies, but I have a weakness for futuristic apocalyptics, so I saw it in my hotel room. Anyway, the movie was clearly a commentary on current politics in that the “Homeland Security” is this fascist force that rounds up immigrants and puts them in these concentration camps. Inside the camps, there are actions that are like Abu Graib. The heroes were protesters against the Iraq war, which is 20 years earlier than the movie.

Interestingly, it’s the Bush administration that is actually pro-immigrant, so it’s fascinating and extremely ignorant for the movie’s producers to try to criticize Bush on this particular issue. It should be one area where they praise him, but that is too much for leftists to do—praising Bush would be completely taboo, more controversial than the propaganda they put out.

Also interestingly, the pro-immigrant terrorists are also the bad guys in this movie, which is of course how it is in real life. The few good guys are deeply flawed human beings.

All in all, a very depressing movie. Can’t recommend it.

And… in response to Dave… I don’t even pretend to be as smart as Jon or Dave… but watching the news (PR for that matter)… it’s so easy to craft words in such a way to cast doubt… or demean, or discredit… A little word like “scheme” can do it. Sometimes it’s very subtle and people stuck in the zone of TV watching… can miss it. Suddenly their opinions are easily molded. Other times it can be more blatant – with anchors comfortable in their seats for years… they do it out of ego and an elitism that they know better than anyone… how people should live.

Have you read Bias by Bernard Goldberg? He’s fascinating.

in terms of newspapers, i feel like there is a broad array. the washington post and ny times are called liberal, although they have both liberal and conservative columnists (but the editorials are liberal, so fine). but the financial times and the wall street journals, two other major newspapers, are much more conservative. my main source of print news is The Economist, which is economically conservative but socially liberal (i.e., pro free trade and pro gay marriage).

i don’t watch tv news, so i don’t know, but at the beginning of the war, my sense (from hearing from people) is that the media were very supportive of the administration, which doesn’t smack of a liberal bias. (in fact, i felt the media was much TOO circumspect around that time, cowtowing to the “conservative” administration.) i did watch a fair amount of tv news around the time of 9/11 and didn’t get a sense of a liberal bias.

so what are the signs of this liberal bias in the news media? (or did you mean something other than the news media?)

You may be right about people using hyperbole to express anger at policies. But you are certainly right that such expressions are likely intended more for those already in agreement than for those who disagree, because unless I can readily recognize the hyperbole as such and as intentional, it simply makes me think those using such rhetoric are completely unreasonable, and makes me less sympathetic to their views and cause.

It would be interesting if someone would do some kind of study to determine whether or not the widespread use of Bush/Hitler-Israel/Nazi tropes by leftist protesters and bloggers is, as you think, generally intentional hyperbole or whether they literally believe what they are saying, as I think. And if it is usually intentional hyperbole, to whom they believe their rhetoric is directed: the choir or the congregation; and why they believe hyperbole is an effective rhetorical device in that context.

The issue of authorial intent and meaning in art is very complicated, and perhaps we can have that conversation another time.

And I believe that for many of us who aren’t super engaged in the political process (maybe not as much as I should be), these concepts ARE infrequent enough to still be effective.

Another role that they play is simply people expressing anger at policies they disagree with. Yes, it’s hyperbole, and maybe it’s not effective (I think that most VIEWERS of these movies don’t believe in a Bush conspiracy, so for them it’s more metaphor. And no one reasonable will be convinced by Children of Men that the Bush administration is trying to set up a fascist state. I think metaphors of this type largely convince the church choir and entertain the rest.

And at some level, perhaps these can be interpreted as a type of serious satire (oxymoron?). I’m not a firm believer that author intention is the only or even the best way to interpret a work of art, so even if the filmmakers believe something different and trying to do something different, the art – once released – may accomplish something quite different.

And that’s the end of my completely incoherent, uninformed, and unintelligent thoughts on this topic.

However, I think that these films and albums represent something a little different. I think that there are people in Hollywood and entertainment who really do believe that Bush is trying to become a dictator, or at least willing to play the fearmonger in that regard even if they don’t personally believe it.

The original comic of “V for Vendetta” was based strongly in fascist and anarchist political philosophy, and filled the kind of speculative role you describe. In the run up to the film’s release however, the movie’s makers made it fairly clear that they made it with current events and specifically the Bush administration and the war or terrorism in mind. And Alan Moore, the author of the original “V for Vendetta” comics, distanced himself from Wachowski brothers adaptation, decrying it as “a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country…. It’s a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives—which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England.”

From what I understand, the film adaptation of “Children of Men” suffers from the same problem. The original book represented the kind of speculative fiction that is valuable in this regard, but the makers of the film felt it necessary to throw in gratuitous references to the Bush administration. In some reviews I have read, they say that the movie resembles the book in only the most superficial way, and that a great deal of theme and even plot has little or no basis in the original.

The new Nine Inch Nails album is, by their own description, set fifteen years in the future from now (2022). And it strongly implies that the distopian society they describe is the direct result of current events and politic policies.

I feel a little silly discussing movies and music that I have not seen or listened to, so I admit in my ignorance that may be wrong about them.

Hyperbole is only really useful as a rhetorical device when it is used infrequently enough and in a context in which it can contrast with non-hyperbole, so that it can be readily recognized as hyperbole. When the hyperbole is invoked with such a frequency that it is not clearly identifiable as hyperbole than it has lost its rhetorical power.

I think that you would be surprised by the number of people who really have bought into the “Neocon/Bushitler” conspiracy. If you go read the often profanity laced threads at the Democratic Underground forum, or the Daily Kos blog community, I think it is hard to buy that they are simply using rhetorical hyperbole ineffectively.

I personally believe that few people actually believe that Bush is trying to become an actual dictator, nor do I believe that the people of Hollywood are trying to convince us of these (nor were PD James or Alan Moore, the authors of these works). I think these kinds of dystopian novels can explore where the curtailing of individual liberties can eventually extend.

Just as one legitimate consideration in thinking about the downside of telling a little lie is that it can grow into something much worse (although it often doesn’t), being wary of government attempts to curb individual liberties is also wise. It doesn’t mean it’s never necessary, and it doesn’t mean that in three years the USA will be fascist. But hyperbole has great value in making a valid point, not just in pushing a literal interpretation.