FOR YEARS, THE PUBLISHERS OF POPULAR MECHANICS MAGAZINE BOASTED THAT SAME was "written so you can understand it."

The same approach which a certain Julius Streicher made infamous with his Nazi-era anti-Semitic tabloid weekly Der Sturmer; the better to whip the Great Unwashed across Nazi Germany into a patriotic frenzy of anti-Semitic hate serving Hitler, Germany and the Aryan Master Race with oversimplified articles laden with anti-Semitic bromides and canards complimented with cartoons reinforcing the same anti-Semitic themes over and over again.

And which seem to remain all the more popular among the Zealots and True Believers in conservative "winning of hearts and minds" propaganda of a crude, pathetic and baseless sort appealing especially to so-called "Real Americans" as are, by and large, vulnerable and socioeconomically-dispossessed--the core audience for bigots, hatemongers, "patriots" and suchlike weird and unwholesome types fond of selling what turns out being a bill of goods packaged as a New Golden Age for America.

Case in point, from the ConWebBlog vis-a-vis the so-called "WorldNetDaily":

Dr. Frank Rosenbloom ("board-certified in internal medicine and practices general internal and hospital medicine in Portland, Ore.") begins his June 19 WorldNetDaily column by stating, "I am awed by the power of words and how, when properly utilized, a minimal number of words can convey great ideas and have lasting effects." He then abuses and debases the power of words through smears and out-of-context quotes.

First, Rosenbloom engages in the WND tradition of likening President Obama to Nazis:

A now well-known political figure ran a campaign promising change. His success was largely due to his skill as an orator, his use of words. He used many words to assuage his detractors, claiming that capitalism and the church were in no danger from him and he was no threat to those who had worked hard and succeeded. He was fortunate to be conducting his campaign during a severe economic downturn. The stock market had fallen, banks had failed, businesses were closing, and unemployment was increasing.

As we know, this politician was elected to the highest office in the land. His programs promoted redistribution of income, government control of large industries, nationalization of trusts and banks, and the suppression of religious conscience. He derided the people he felt were in control of the monetary system and complained that negative elements in society were trying to hold back the progress that he was going to ensure with his new programs. From the beginning he supported abortion and euthanasia – for certain groups of people. This politician's name, of course, was Adolf Hitler.

Rosenbloom then upped the smear ante by likening Hillary Clinton to Chairman Mao:

Consider the quotations below:

"Genuine equality between the sexes can only be realized in the process of the social(ist) transformation of society as a whole."

"Women's empowerment is always, always about more than bettering the lives of individual women. It is part of a movement."

The first is by Chairman Mao, the second is by Hillary Clinton. Yet, they are of similar form and speak from similar ideology.

Finally, Rosenbloom takes Obama out of context to falsely claim that he was bashing Abraham Lincoln:

Barack Obama said: "I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator." President Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address to commemorate the dead, to consecrate a cemetery and to inspire our country to continue on in its valiant struggle. A mere 278 beautiful words written on the back of an envelope, it is widely considered the most inspirational speech ever given. 

First, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and his Gettysburg Address are two separate speeches. Second, when placed in its proper context--a 2005 essay on Lincoln Obama wrote for Time magazine, which does not mention the Gettysburg Address--it's clear that Obama was, in fact, praising Lincoln:

Still, as I look at his picture, it is the man and not the icon that speaks to me. I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice. Scholars tell us too that Lincoln wasn't immune from political considerations and that his temperament could be indecisive and morose.

But it is precisely those imperfections--and the painful self-awareness of those failings etched in every crease of his face and reflected in those haunted eyes--that make him so compelling. For when the time came to confront the greatest moral challenge this nation has ever faced, this all too human man did not pass the challenge on to future generations. He neither demonized the fathers and sons who did battle on the other side nor sought to diminish the terrible costs of his war. In the midst of slavery's dark storm and the complexities of governing a house divided, he somehow kept his moral compass pointed firm and true.

Rosenbloom also wrote: "Gifted speakers and writers often use a select few words to maximum effect. As evidenced by the length of this article, I am not one so gifted." Nor, apparently, is he gifted in making a reasoned argument that doesn't devolve into hateful smears and selective quoting.

All in the name of "winning of hearts and minds," as the patsy will likely have it.

But then again, these same specimens of conservative Zealotry and True Belief would just love to deploy Orwellian Newspeak to further the desire of oversimplifying the message by oversimplifying the language down to bare essentials, given the opportunity ... or, even better yet, that indecipherable right-wing tax-protest jargon known as "In-The-Truth", whose adherents consider as being more logical than conventional English brcause "In-The-Truth" is based on the laws of mathematics.

Especially through duckspeak of the most pathetically obnoxious stylee to further dumb down the appeal to the Great Unwashed.

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A KEY ARTICLE OF FAITH WHEN IT COMES TO CONSERVATIVE "WINNING OF HEARTS AND MINDS" PROPAGANDA TARGETING THE MASSES is that which calls for the use of scapegoats to explain (howbeit irrationally, and without credible evidence to support) current problems--"written so you can understand it," remember?

The notion thereof having recently been deflated thus by BuzzFlash (gimme-cap tip to BartCopE! for suggesting this) in deflating conservative propaganda vis-a-vis the near-collapse of capitalism with American characteristics being the byproduct of gays, liberals and National Minorities:

The threat to the white male oligarchy of the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor had gotten so out of hand that if it weren't for the inspiring drama of the Green Revolution, I might have been aphyxiated by now with the hypocrisy of it all.

Here we have the white male Republicans of Wall Street cratering our economy, only to be bailed out by middle and working class taxpayers. The Wall Street river boat gamblers lost their bets and then we gave them hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare.

But to BuzzFlash's knowledge, it wasn't the "threat" of gays, minorities, liberals, and empowered women who committed economic treason; it was due to the reckless and greedy actions of full-fledged members of the white boys club.

Ann Coulter should have directed her book "treason" at the Wall Street white male Republicans, but that wouldn't have sold many books.  You got to blame the woes of America on "liberals" and a "secular society" to get those desperately seeking a scapegoat to pony up for pages upon pages of demagoguery without any basis in fact.

And let's not forget our American version of the "Supreme Commander" (the new Shah) in Iran, the self-righteous fundamentalist right. They blame the "destruction" of American society on "promiscuous sex," homosexuality, and liberals.  But the last time we checked, it was the God-fearing corporatist side of the GOP that drove the U.S. economy and foreign policy into the ground.

And when you get back to Wall Street, there's nothing to beat the casino playing that left us in ruins, followed by the ultimate government lavish dole, followed by hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses for failure--or is it economic "treason"?

The "liberal" mores of Hollywood had nothing to do with what went down in the financial markets, but it would make a good movie.

In fact, it has made a good movie.

It was called "Wall Street," and it was filmed in the Reagan era, some 20 years before the blowback of financial treason brought our nation to its knees.

And it was Republican white males--not gays, liberals, or powerful women--who achieved what Osama bin Laden could only dream about: crashing the American economy and weakening our nation to its core.

Come to think of it: What would constitute the Final Perfection of a "Christian" model of free-enterprise With American Characteristics such as conservative propagandists are holding dear as an article of faith (as if implying there was a clear interconnexion between the defence of free enterprise, American sovereignty and sovereign identity "antient and peculiar" and Traditional Morals, Decency and Common Sense)?

Aren't we forgetting that the apartheid regime in South Africa saw free-market capitalism as necessary to the defence and maintenance of White Christian Minority Honour, Power and Privilege (as if seeing such as a means to an end: Subjugating the "inferior peoples"--blacks and those of mixed race which the regime considered "coloured"--to the point of extinction)?

And what about Occam's Razor, a/k/a the Principle of Parsimony (which, know, holds that the simplest explanation considering all the circumstances, not the simplest per se, is the best such)?