Everything is for sale, including our supposedly representative government. What I find almost worse is the market of public information--and what, apparently, is not for sale.
Fox News, the most popular (faux) news channel, is despite its slogan "Fair and balanced," an unabashed propaganda mill that actively disseminates half-truths that become, momentarily, lead stories in the rest of the news.
Supposedly, on the other side, is NPR, which Congressional Republicans and candidate Romney both want to cut off from the public teat. NPR may favor Democrats, you see, because it's just as wishy-washy as they are. It's not hard-line for tax cuts for the wealthy, but it takes no position and attempts to present a 'fair and balanced' presentation of the issue.
NPR listeners are better informed than Fox watchers, or those of MSNBC, but none of the above present serious analyses of an issue, like reasonable rates of taxation. Even on NPR, the tendency is to parrot whatever one side said, and then how the other side responded: a he-said-she-said model that requires of the reporter no thought or research.
Will the Watergate break-in, and the investigations that issued from it, be our last really serious and effective investigative journalism?
Fewer and fewer news bureaus have reporters on the ground, either around the nation, or around the world. A worker-police massacre in South Africa is reported on by a journalist in Nairobi, 1780 miles away. If something happens in Minnesota, the reporter may be sent in from Chicago.
And more and more reporters only report: recording what the official, and/or his opponent say, without any reflection like: What the hell is "legitimate rape?" Or, damn, is that how contraception works: "the woman's body" somehow knows how to get rid of it--no abortion needed? Should I report that Congressman Akin don't know nothin'?
Maybe Akin made even the laziest reporters sit up and realize: they can't just report; they've got to base their reporting on facts.
Maybe. If extremists--who seem to be overwhelmingly on the right during this period--keep on attempting to present fiction as fact and fact as fiction, ever more wildly, maybe a more responsible information system will emerge. I hope it will finally allow most people to really know what's going on, and why it affects them.
On the optimistic side: people do help each other, and given a choice, most people will lend a helping hand when needed. Factual and analytic reporting would help people.
On the negative: fear is probably our most powerful emotion, and the one-percent, ably represented by Fox and Limbaugh, are backed by much more money, because our moneyed Roman Senators only want more money, and think in zero-sum terms: if they pay workers more, or protect us more from their pollution (pay their own external costs), they'll get less. Their strategy: keep'em scared and angry.
Will fear and anger work?
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rush Limbaugh. Show all posts
Monday, August 20, 2012
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Trayvon Martin Does Not RIP
"I'll shoot any White Man who looks like a Republican," said Tim Dillinger, a white male member of what Elizabeth suggested be called our "neighborhood watch" group.
Black families tell about the moments when they have to have "the talk" with their sons, not about sex, but about how a young black man is in danger, because white people see him as dangerous, regardless of how nice or smart or gentle he really is.
Whites see young black men, especially one wearing a hoodie (masking his features, hiding his face), as hoodlums out to do no good: like Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida, who had just gone to get a snack at the convenience store.
I know what Sanford used to be like. I lived in a swamp to the west of town, near Oviedo. It's all subdivisions now, but then, we lived down a sand road from a 70-acre celery field. A crew of local (black) farmworkers picked during the celery season, and it was an assembly line going down the field: picking, processing, packaging and loading celery on a truck for northern markets. The farmworkers told me they worked for about six months, and then went on welfare for the rest of the year.
In effect, the state and local governments' welfare payments subsidized lower celery prices in northern, winter markets. But, of course, local whites saw welfare recipients as shiftless and worthless, a separate caste apart.
So now, in one of those spiffy new developments, with curving streets, cul-de-sacs and guarded entrances, a neighborhood watch "commander" follows an African American youth--against police cellphone advice--may have some confrontation with him, and then shoots him dead.
It's not entirely surprising that in the new Sanford, the police do nothing, even when Zimmerman, the shooter, confesses--no, he reports, claiming Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law and self defense. No one mentions the word 'crime.' A crime was committed here: a young man was killed in cold blood.
Yet, both Rush Limbaugh and President Obama call it "a tragedy."
Why isn't it a murder? How would you feel if the normal was the quote that begins this piece: if white men who looked like Republicans were the ones most in danger of being shot by a neighborhood watch group? In other words, this is all about race; about how black people are always suspicious, and white people are not.
Romans had slaves and free, but of all races, and divided free subjects into honored and humble classes: the US has always had at least two castes: black and white. Now, there are more, differentiated by color and ethnicity. Zimmerman was enforcing caste separation in the way most upper castes do: with violence.
Maybe, with Colorofchange and other groups, Sanford, Florida's police may now know: killing people, even of another race, is no longer acceptable, because we are all people and our other labels don't count.
Black families tell about the moments when they have to have "the talk" with their sons, not about sex, but about how a young black man is in danger, because white people see him as dangerous, regardless of how nice or smart or gentle he really is.
Whites see young black men, especially one wearing a hoodie (masking his features, hiding his face), as hoodlums out to do no good: like Trayvon Martin, in Sanford, Florida, who had just gone to get a snack at the convenience store.
I know what Sanford used to be like. I lived in a swamp to the west of town, near Oviedo. It's all subdivisions now, but then, we lived down a sand road from a 70-acre celery field. A crew of local (black) farmworkers picked during the celery season, and it was an assembly line going down the field: picking, processing, packaging and loading celery on a truck for northern markets. The farmworkers told me they worked for about six months, and then went on welfare for the rest of the year.
In effect, the state and local governments' welfare payments subsidized lower celery prices in northern, winter markets. But, of course, local whites saw welfare recipients as shiftless and worthless, a separate caste apart.
So now, in one of those spiffy new developments, with curving streets, cul-de-sacs and guarded entrances, a neighborhood watch "commander" follows an African American youth--against police cellphone advice--may have some confrontation with him, and then shoots him dead.
It's not entirely surprising that in the new Sanford, the police do nothing, even when Zimmerman, the shooter, confesses--no, he reports, claiming Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law and self defense. No one mentions the word 'crime.' A crime was committed here: a young man was killed in cold blood.
Yet, both Rush Limbaugh and President Obama call it "a tragedy."
Why isn't it a murder? How would you feel if the normal was the quote that begins this piece: if white men who looked like Republicans were the ones most in danger of being shot by a neighborhood watch group? In other words, this is all about race; about how black people are always suspicious, and white people are not.
Romans had slaves and free, but of all races, and divided free subjects into honored and humble classes: the US has always had at least two castes: black and white. Now, there are more, differentiated by color and ethnicity. Zimmerman was enforcing caste separation in the way most upper castes do: with violence.
Maybe, with Colorofchange and other groups, Sanford, Florida's police may now know: killing people, even of another race, is no longer acceptable, because we are all people and our other labels don't count.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Timorous Democrats
Republicans appear, with the help of Cato, Fox "News" and Limbaugh, to have created a whole new (fictional) world, one in which austerity and government lay offs create jobs, in which governments never create jobs, but "job creators" like Willard Romney do. It's an ideological system dependent on economic theories already proved more effective at amassing deficits, not jobs: the Laffer Curve and supply side fiscal policy. They state that taxes should be cut (even more) on the wealthy, and raised for everyone else, to stimulate the "job creators" already flush with cash, while gutting government services to those in need--to get them back to work!
Why are Democrats so timorous in response? They're terrified of the money (and media) against them, so they try to compromise just enough to get money on their side, to survive. That strategy was best embodied in Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council, a temporarily successful attempt to drive the Democratic Party to the center. It was Bill's genius to recognize that he could use some of the moneyed to gain support for a party that had a broader appeal, but was short on cash. Unfortunately, Wall Street was his main source of funds. Obama, too. That means no populist response, except rhetorically, to the bank and housing collapse and timid attempts to alleviate the worst effects. Obama may actually believe what he's saying, but he knows, or has learned, that nothing can be done, unless those who control the purse allow it.
Citizens United made the moneyed even more powerful, those I call Roman Senators here; they can now use their capital to buy the kind of government they want, which is why there will be piles of corporate money on both sides of the aisle.
In order to counter the money, only the largest and best-managed mass organizations could possibly have an impact. But the only ones on the progressive side not beholden to moneyed interests are labor unions. Before Reagan, they were powerful, although often crippled by graft and sclerosis. Since Reagan, they've been increasingly emasculated. The Scott Walkers in the states have been trying to destroy the only part of American unions that still had much clout: the public employee unions.
Paradoxically, such political abuse may have sparked popular outrage: the protests and recall election drives in Wisconsin, the repeal of Kasich's anti-union law, and finally, the Occupy movement.
The Occupiers may have had some effect on Obama's rhetoric, and may tip some Congressional races. In my district (Senator Gillibrand's former district), a dedicated progressive/Occupy sympathizer, Joel Tyner, is energetically campaigning to run against our Tea Party Congressman. He has enthusiasm, but neither money, nor organization (Gillibrand had both). Joel's problems illustrate how difficult it is to overcome elites bent on imperial overreach.
Move to Amend would repeal Citizens United; that would be only a first step to getting money out of politics.
Why are Democrats so timorous in response? They're terrified of the money (and media) against them, so they try to compromise just enough to get money on their side, to survive. That strategy was best embodied in Bill Clinton's Democratic Leadership Council, a temporarily successful attempt to drive the Democratic Party to the center. It was Bill's genius to recognize that he could use some of the moneyed to gain support for a party that had a broader appeal, but was short on cash. Unfortunately, Wall Street was his main source of funds. Obama, too. That means no populist response, except rhetorically, to the bank and housing collapse and timid attempts to alleviate the worst effects. Obama may actually believe what he's saying, but he knows, or has learned, that nothing can be done, unless those who control the purse allow it.
Citizens United made the moneyed even more powerful, those I call Roman Senators here; they can now use their capital to buy the kind of government they want, which is why there will be piles of corporate money on both sides of the aisle.
In order to counter the money, only the largest and best-managed mass organizations could possibly have an impact. But the only ones on the progressive side not beholden to moneyed interests are labor unions. Before Reagan, they were powerful, although often crippled by graft and sclerosis. Since Reagan, they've been increasingly emasculated. The Scott Walkers in the states have been trying to destroy the only part of American unions that still had much clout: the public employee unions.
Paradoxically, such political abuse may have sparked popular outrage: the protests and recall election drives in Wisconsin, the repeal of Kasich's anti-union law, and finally, the Occupy movement.
The Occupiers may have had some effect on Obama's rhetoric, and may tip some Congressional races. In my district (Senator Gillibrand's former district), a dedicated progressive/Occupy sympathizer, Joel Tyner, is energetically campaigning to run against our Tea Party Congressman. He has enthusiasm, but neither money, nor organization (Gillibrand had both). Joel's problems illustrate how difficult it is to overcome elites bent on imperial overreach.
Move to Amend would repeal Citizens United; that would be only a first step to getting money out of politics.
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