We Deserve What We Get

This column is not about Hillary vs. Obama vs. Edwards. The truth is if I had the choice I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich because he's against the war, for the impeachment of war criminals in government, smart on the environment and the economy, and he has a sense of humor about UFOS. He's not afraid to joke about 'em for fear he'll be labeled a nutcase -- as indeed he was.

But I don't have that option. Kucinich represents my views, but he only got 1% in New Hampshire. Too bad.

I want to talk not about candidates but about our media turning every presidential election into a high school popularity contest. And we let them get away with it. And we don't stop Rupert Murdoch, Clear Channel, Disney, GE, Sumner Redstone and a few others from owning all the media all the time.

Our magazines and newspapers are so dumbed down that they never discuss issues, only stereotype or attack or puff up candidates -- and all for the most idiotic things -- like their marriages, which in truth we know nothing about -- or their weight or their clothes or their hair. They don't discuss brains, intelligence, psychological maturity, but only who's up or down in the polls, cuter in photos, who misted up, cried or didn't cry, said "my friends" like Reagan or mimicked Bill Clinton's style or JFK's or whomever's. Our press is a disgrace.

When Al Gore was a candidate, he was mocked and slimed by our stupid press. And look who we got? Cheneybush! Now Hillary's being slimed for being a woman, for being the wife of, for being smart, for being political, for being old, for not having left her husband -- just as she'd be slimed if she had left her husband. She has baggage -- like any old broad -- because the truth is that the older you are the more baggage you have. So there's ageism too. And a new fresh face, with less baggage, is like the latest starlet in Hollywood. We never heard about Edwards' ideas until his wife got cancer. We heard about his haircuts!

We never discuss psychological depth because hey, who cares if the president's a bomb-happy dry-drunk trying to play out an Oedipal war with his father? We never talk about people being tested in power or how steady they are or whether they read books or understand what they read because we judge them on their looks. Or one idiotic sound byte, taken out of context.

We had gazillions of columns about Al Gore's weight gain and growing a beard -- I was even asked to write one for the New York Times -- and I obliged because that's all the news that's fit to print and I like shooting my mouth off on the Op-Ed page as much as anyone. Besides women writers are only drafted for the most trivial subjects. We comment on style not substance, beards not policy, clothes and shoes and chick lit and cooking. The men get the big topics like war, though women have the most to lose--like their children whom they carried and nursed and suckled and love more than themselves--as of course do many men.

Bush was considered a good ole boy and Gore was a considered a nerd. Now Edwards cares too much about his hair, Hillary "cried" in the press--though she didn't cry in reality. But we live in this parallel universe where there is no reality. Obama? Who knows who he is? A brilliant writer, yes, a cute young guy, yes, a progressive, we think. But who really knows? I give him the benefit of the doubt. Why not? But what a stupid way to choose a President!

If Eleanor Roosevelt were alive and running, they'd talk about her big teeth and her hoity toity accent. If JFK were alive and running, they'd reveal his affair with Marilyn and slander his wife for it. If Jackie O were alive and running, they'd say she fucked Onassis -- which she did -- while she was married to JFK. If Plato were alive and running, they'd say he was gay--though many Greeks were bisexual and thought nothing of it.

So kids, if you elect a President of the United States like you elected the President of the GO in High School, you deserve what you get.

Comments

[texanna]

Erica, you're 3 for 3 with me on your last posts. I have the same opinion of the media coverage, or better yet, lack of coverage as you do. But, what can we do about this state of affairs? Even when we repudiate them, as the voters of NH did, they don't see what is really going on. No, they continue to blather and bloviate about everything BUT the real reasons that they got it wrong.

[StephieL]

The news media committed vote fraud during the New Hampshire primary by attempting to fraudulently predetermine the results of last week's New Hampshire primary throgh the use of phony "polls" and news stories in an effort to derail Hillary Clinton's campaign by pitting Barack Obama against her and the other Democratic Presidential candidates, including Dennis Kucinich.
That tactic backfired, because Clinton won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but even though the vote fraud was clearly documented, no one has bothered to accuse the American news media of committing vote fraud through a deliberate and intentional effort to manipulate the primary election before a single vote was even cast.
Unfortunately, the majority of the American population know more about the personal crises of Britney Spears and O.J. Simpson than they do about the global financial blowout which is sweeping more of our fellow Americans out of their homes, business and jobs. And the corporate oligarchical masters who control and manipulate American media and American politics are determined to crush the nation in order to render it weak, ineffective and unable to propose solutions to the global financial crisis which will mark the end of America as we've known it.

[Forwhatsitsworth]

Wonderful! I feel the same level of frustration with the press...

[batguano]

Straight, to the point and right on target! Thanks Erica.
The "Fourth Estate", our "free press", the "libral" media have failed our nation and abandoned their obligation to deliver the TRUTH and actual news and information. In place of competence and commitment, we get propaganda, pap, scandal and sophomoric drivel. Democracy only works, IMO, with an educated population, an INFORMED population and an electorate that actually takes or has the time to vote. Given that our embarrassingly dumbed-down educational system has "graduated" several generations of morons, our press has been co-opted by corporate monopoly and that most Americans are "wage slaves" and do not take or have the time to vote, we are indeed "in a world of shit". Add to all that (which is only slightly overstated) the astonishing, to me at least, fact that we do not have a National Holiday for Election Day and we are at a political crossroads.

[Nommo]

We had much better people running in GO elections. They had not yet had the opportunity to swindle bunches of people out of their money yet. Hell, at that age, most of us could not even imagine white water.

[jhamm1]

"The truth is if I had the choice I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich because he's against the war"

"We never discuss psychological depth because hey, who cares if the president's a bomb-happy dry-drunk trying to play out an Oedipal war with his father? "

Jesus, Jong. You still don't get it. Either that, or you simply prefer the alternative of electing a bomb-happy dry-drunk with an equal incentive toward waging "pre-emptive" wars just because the candidate in question just so happens to be female.

"Obama? Who knows who he is? A brilliant writer, yes, a cute young guy, yes, a progressive, we think. But who really knows? I give him the benefit of the doubt. Why not? But what a stupid way to choose a President!"

Indeed, perhaps roughly comperable to the stupidity entailed by electing a female president strictly for the sake of electing a female president.





If you could put aside your obvious predispositions in perceiving sexism everywhere it does and doesn't apply toward one's criticism of Hillary Clinton, perhaps you could deduce the actual circumstances that a significant portion of her well-justified browbeating has resulted on account of legitimate contentions over her political stances as opposed to something which can be so simplistically summarized within a turgid rehash of the all too familiar "intimidated by a strong woman" formula.

[Thorn]

I stopped reading at "I'd vote for Dennis Kucinich." Bye.