Archives for Category "Media Dysfunction"
May 6, 2008
Random Update - Mostly TLG Stuff
Some free association, just so I don't feel like a totally lame weblogger -Election stuff? I keep wanting to just quote random things and write "That is such bullshit" about them. For example: the "controversy" about Obama's pastor? Bullshit. The lapel pin nonsense? Bullshit. Obama's attitude towards reproductive rights activists? Bullshit. Clinton's pandering? Bullshit. Clinton's anti-economist gas tax nonsense? Bullshit? Everything John McCain says? Total bullshit. Anyway, you get the point. I'm finding it all very boring. Assume, that with rare exceptions, my commentary on almost anything to do with this election would be "That is such bullshit."
The Nationals got off to a horrible start, but are doing much better now. Seriously, the radio guys who call the Nationals games are sometimes really hysterical. Even when they're losing. I expect TheLittleGuy to recognize Charlie Slowes' voice when he's born.
TheLittleGuy got a cute little Nationals outfit at one of the baby showers for him - I look forward to getting a picture of him in it. Speaking of, yes, we've now had three baby showers and we are starting to be well-stocked (at least for the newborn phase) I think. Lots and lots of blue things. And some completely fabulous handmade blankets from TLG's super-creative ~Aunties, grandmother, and great-grandmother. If there are any other blankies in progress for him out there, though, never fear - one can never have too many blankets! I'm hoping to make him a quilt, too, sometime in the first year. Pictures one of these days real soon now...
Most of my mental energy, when not muttering "That is total bullshit" after reading the newspaper, is consumed with trying to stay on top of crap at work and preparing for the impending tsunami of sleep-deprivation and infant care once TLG decides to make an appearance. I have told him that almost any time after this week would be fine - this week is a crazy week at work, though. There are no signs that he's ready to move out anytime soon, though. Oh, for those who missed it, TheLittleGuy has his own Twitter feed now.
There was an earthquake here in Virginia today. We felt it in our house. Wacky times.
<=> | Comments: 1 | in: Federal Politics / Journaling / Media Dysfunction
March 4, 2008
Just Read Digby
I'm somewhat bored with and not paying much attention to the primaries right now. Although, if I'm honest, I'm probably paying significantly more attention than the average person, given that I'm such a nerd. For all your important political commentary, though, as usual, Digby has been excellent. This post in particular sums up many things extremely well. It's long, but just read the whole thing.Ohhhh, fine. Here are a few pull-quotes of note:
The sexism has been obvious to anyone who can see and those who insist to me that it doesn't exist remind me of nothing so much as Bush supporters who repeatedly exhorted critics to believe Junior or believe their lyin' eyes. I wasn't crazy then and I'm not crazy now. I know what I see [...]The comment thread on this post is interesting too.
Everybody says they want a fighter. Regardless of who you vote for, the woman deserves respect for refusing to back down from that lizard brain sludge.
And I would warn that if unfair and biased press coverage is now a disqualification for elected office, then I think we'd better think long and hard about whether the Democrats are going to be viable as a political party. Bad press for Democrats is part of the package. ( I would also add that I think it was part of the Netroots job to help fight back media bias against all Democratic candidates, even if as individuals we were pulling for a particular one. That did not happen and I think the Netroots failed miserably in one of its primary missions this time out.) [Ed - it was the job of anyone who calls themself a liberal/progressive/Democrat to push back against this nonsense... whether you like the 'netroots' moniker or not..]
Aside from the big 527s we know will be out there impugning Obama's patriotism, there are countless small wingnut welfare operations that have been waiting on the sidelines for eight years for their chance to make big money sliming a new Democratic administration.[...]
There are many wealthy, powerful interests out there that do not want a liberal Democrat to have the power to withdraw from Iraq or renegotiate trade deals or create universal health care and they will not make it easy for Obama to win. Those interests also run the media and a fund a fully functional right wing infrastructure that works to guide the election narrative.
Perhaps it won't happen this time. It's possible that the era of GOP smears is over or that Obama has personal characteristics that render them impotent and useless. But considering the egregiously sexist Clinton coverage in this campaign and the history of terrible coverage for Democratic presidential candidates since 1988, I think the Democrats would be foolish to assume that. The Republicans are very good at feeding these narratives to the press and the press has always shown itself very eager to gobble them up.
<=> | Comments: 2 | in: Federal Politics / Media Dysfunction
January 10, 2008
Tom Toles, Yesterday
<=> | Comments: 11 | in: Civil Rights & Feminism / Democrats / Federal Politics / Media Dysfunction
November 10, 2007
Juvenile Little Man-Children, Wanking RIGHT ON YOUR TV!
It is this kind of bullshit -- that Digby documents and characterizes so well -- that is going to push me into supporting Hillary Clinton. Because enough is enough, dammit -- these insecure little man-children really need to get a @$&* grip. Go read the quotes she found - these are some seriously twisted people controlling our political discourse. Digby says:I don't care who you support in the election, this kind of talk -- especially just spewing out in the mainstream media with very little awareness --- makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck if you happen to be female. It's like having everyone assume that the "normal" state of being in this world is male and this strange idea of appealing to women is some sort of illegitimate pander to an extreme, fringe interest group.And yes, when I was reading some of that, the hair on the back of neck did stand up. Truly horrifying.
For decades the Republicans have been running against the "soft" (read: "gay" or "sissy") Democrats and it's worked quite well for them. But with an actual woman running to be the Big Kahuna, it seems to have scrambled the decks, which isn't surprising. Their attacks are received differently when they aren't seen through the lens of a puerile boys locker room. It has a different characteristic, more jarring and dissonant, maybe because it's so much more direct. (I'm certainly not defending the "gay" slur either --- it's just that it's so commonplace in politics that most people don't even see it.)
But what did surprise me --- and I guess I'm just a fool for not having realized it before --- is that so many of these men in the media seem to have such severe psychological issues in this sphere. Tucker and Matthews and many of their guests are personally offended that a woman would appeal directly to other women for votes, as if that's undemocratic and unfair. And they get extremely bent out of shape when their sexist attitudes are challenged.
(Besides, Edwards screwed over the women bloggers, and Obama's got his head wedged with respect to religion and now Social Security, among other things.)
<=> | Comments: 2 | in: Media Dysfunction
September 3, 2007
Larry Craig and the Media
You know what bugged me most about the whole sad Larry Craig debacle? (For those not keeping score at home, Larry Craig is the Republican Senator from Idaho who pled guilty earlier this summer to disorderly/lewd conduct in an airport bathroom sex solicitation sting - apparently rumors have circulated for years that Craig is closeted...) What bothers me most is not the rampant Republican hypocrisy. Who here is surprised that yet another high-level Republican's "private" life is full of sexual hypocrisy? How many times does this sort of thing have to happen before recognizing that Republicans are a bunch of total head cases when it comes to sex and sexuality? Big surprise, there? (Read Talking Points Memo for the past week or two to get up to speed on this latest hypocritical Republican sex scandal.)And, what bugs me is not even how completely offensive it is that the moralizing, judgmental, stick-their-nose-in-your-private business party is the one that always gets caught paying for sex or having sex in other ways they've tried to make illegal. The most ironic comment most recently about this sort of thing was Rudy Giuliani snapping at someone who asked about his estrangement from his kids. He said something to the effect: you leave my family alone and I'll leave your family alone. Apart from the veiled threat there, and apart from the fact that Rudy's trying to be the candidate of the self-proclaimed "family values" party, who here thinks that ANY REPUBLICAN is going to leave their family alone? A major purpose for that party, it seems, is to dictate how people should live their lives and what constitutes a right and proper family and what doesn't. So I'm just going to sit over here and point and laugh at Rudy -- because he and his party will not leave my family alone, and any questions about why his adult children want nothing to do with him are perfectly legit in the environment his party helped create.
But, back to Craig. What bugs me the most about the Larry Craig tearoom scandal (google it) is that a sitting U.S. Senator managed to plead guilty to a crime without any of our esteemed national media noticing. For months. Don't these yahoos know how to set Google News Alerts? There are only 100 Senators, after all -- considering that a Kennedy can't get a parking ticket without CNN going into 24-hour breaking news mode, it just strikes me as pathetically incompetent that the national media are so insulated and isolated at their little cocktail parties that this just slipped by them. Or, the news organizations have been so stripped of beat reporters that there's just no one responsible for, you know, national news-gathering. Anyway, that's what struck me when I first heard about it. The hypocrisy from the self-righteous party is par for the course and to be expected from modern Republicans, but for weeks and weeks to go by before the media pick up on a Senator being arrested and then pleading guilty to a 'scandalous' crime? What a joke.
<=> | Comments: 4 | in: Media Dysfunction / Republicans
August 18, 2007
Hate Must be Taught, After All
Hate must be taught, as the saying goes, and it's not just children who can be taught to hate. A little while ago Rick Perlstein wrote an all-too-familiar lament about his older relatives being fed a diet of viciousness and hate through avenues such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and being taught to hate ... people like him.She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.A little while ago I was sharing a related lament with one of my relatives and something occurred to me. Not only do we live in one of most prosperous nation-states in one of the most prosperous times that has ever been, with luxuries inconceivable just a century or two ago, we also live in a time where the most sophisticated and most effective propaganda machines ever to be constructed are at work every minute of every day. Most of the time these machines are aimed at reinforcing capitalist myths and emptying wallets, but a significant sliver of this newly-developed propaganda capacity is in the service of an ideology focused on fostering divisiveness and contempt for others. So, while I am appalled at the unthinking repetition of insidious wingnut memes that I hear all too often, I'm also sympathetic. It is very difficult to resist the propaganda even when it's transparent ("buy this beer and beautiful blonde women will have sex with you"), and much more so when it is meant to fly under the radar (see Frank Luntz's entire life's work, for example) and masked in a veneer of patriotism.
I'd look out of [my grandmother's] eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?
One evening's visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O'Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.
Sara over at Orcinus had more to say about the grandma-snatchers and a proposed solution:
Perlstein's article has prompted a flood of comments, here and elsewhere, from anguished progressives whose mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents once instilled them with their liberal values -- but are now estranged from their families and lost to the right-wing airwaves. It's as though, while we weren't looking, the body-snatchers snuck in through the pipe and made off with their votes, their brains, and (occasionally) their money.
[...] America's elderly have been frightened by media fearmongers for as long as there's been TV -- and possibly (for those familiar with Father Coughlin), for as long as there's been radio. This is a fine old tradition, the natural outcome when the elderly are left alone too many hours each day with only a box for company. But it's not inevitable. There are things we can do about it.
[...] Most of us are very cautious and circumspect about leaving our children's developing minds to the tender mercies of the media. Those of us who care about the elders in our families might be equally vigilant about their media diets as well. We do not have to take the political hijacking of our seniors lying down, or assume that's just the way it is. We just have to do what we do with our kids: make sure they've got consistent access to appealing, age-appropriate media that gives them hope, confidence, and truly balanced ways of seeing the world.
<=> | in: Federal Politics / General Musings / Media Dysfunction / Religion & Politics / Republicans / Technology
