Just Give Me Some Truth
In the '60s, the media pushed the country against the Vietnam War. The Tet Offensive bled onto living room TV sets, Walter Cronkite came out against the war, citizens were outraged and convinced.
The same with Watergate: Central and somewhat trusted media outlets pushed and probed and exposed and again, citizens were outraged and convinced.
Now, the lament (in liberal circles) is that, no matter what crimes the Bush administration commits, nothing sticks. Approval ratings plummet but still: no big trials, no major special prosecutors, no impeachment hearings, no outrage, no one convinced.
The problem is that The Information Age is exactly the opposite. There's no longer anything even close to a consensus of where we gather truth. This isn't the information age, it's the blather-ation age. All we have is a trillion sources from which to choose truths we want to believe.
In the national newspaper of record, Maureen Dowd slams away at the Bush administration with what seem like irrefutable facts and irrepressibly funny venom... to no real effect. Even 20 years ago, it would have been outrageous/disrespectful -- impactful -- for a columnist for the New York Times to be so vehement. Now, conservatives slough her off and liberals read her partially for ammunition and partially for entertainment.
And if Maureen isn't entertaining enough, we turn to Bill Maher. He makes a grudging effort to have a dissenting viewpoint on his show and a gallant attempt to maintain civility. Usually he out-debates his conservative guest with a combination of his impeccable logic, his emcee bully-pulpit, his stand-up skills and his home crowd advantage. It should be somewhat satisfying and yet, and the end of every show, he looks more exasperated with the impossibility of having any tangible impact.
Preaching to the choir is a deadening experience.
Then again, preaching to the heathens isn't much better. On the right, a respected conservative columnist like David Brooks in the New York Times sounds more and more desperate in his attempts to gently get liberals to think another way. Ask a Maureen Dowd fan if he or she read David Brooks today and you get this put upon reaction of, "I started reading but by the third paragraph, I just couldn't stand it anymore."
Instead, we spend our lives preparing for an argument we'll never have with a person we'll never meet whose opinions we could never change.
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I agree with you, and you are part and parcel of it.
Until Journalist's and Politician's children are drafted to go to war nothing will change and this coumtry will sit on it's hands instead of waving them in the air in protest.
Ahhhh, to wistfully long for the good old days of Pravda.
if you want to see where this is headed in America, look at Iraq and the Sunni, Shiite and Kurds.
When reason won't work to change your enemies opinion resort to violence. That, and our 30 second attention spam.
Heard anything about Myanmar/Burma and the slaughter of protesting monks lately? I didn't think so.... It is still happening today, I saw it on BBC.
~!@
How could a putative liberal lament that we no longer have ONE source of news?
The news (and government education) has been dominated by the left for decades, and now that some alternatives are arising, the left doesn't like it.
Also, peer pressure seems stronger than ever. Why should anyone think for themselves and risk losing their friends?
Which is more important, being right - or winning?
Join me in exploring reality at http://www
Just from the mere fact that you think that both the news and education are Liberal dominated tells me that it would be a waste of time to go to your website. This mantra that the educational system is Liberal and all the News is read with a liberal bent has been chanted by the right for decades without any proof. I don't think your reality is very real if you buy that lie!
This is why the country is in such bad shape. Because some people just want to believe whatever they want. No matter what evidence is presented that Bush has broken the law, ordered torture, etc. Those that don't want to hear it just say, that's liberal. Evidence that global warming is happening, well that's liberal. Just labeling something liberal means its automatically false, and can be discounted.
I think part of the problem with conservatives in the country can be summed up by another lame analogy. If I'm driving down the right side of the road, as we do in this country, the middle of the road will be to my left. If I'm particularly unable to step outside of my own perspective, I will say that the middle of the road is on the left.
So it is with media. To someone who is of the right-wing persuasion, a totally unbiased report will appear to be "to the left" because of their own bias and inability (or unwillingness) to see from any perspective other than their own.
So when you see comments like the above, well, draw your own conclusions.
Excellent Aramingo. Excellent indeed. I perused LeeRoys site and found it wanting indeed.
I'm a centerist myself but his type of horsefeathers has no more place than the actual "left."
Still, to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi. Truth is a matter of perspective.
Handyman and conservativeslayer present excellent arguments as well.
Thanx to all of you.
LeeRoy-Get a life buddy.
I have never been able to discern an over all liberal bias in the content of the news. Peer pressure makes you say that as it has become a conventional truth. when I ask to show me where the content is liberal i usually just hear assertions that it is-- everyone knows it is.
The problem, as you put it "is that, no matter what crimes the Bush administration commits, nothing sticks."
The reason it doesn't stick is that Pelosi, for whatever reason, has put 'impeachment off the table.'
This has given Bush and Cheney the go-light to do as they please. For when you tell criminals that they can lie and steal without consequences, they will do just that.
c'mon Peter. Let's lay the blame where it belongs.
Cheney is a smart man, and that's why Satan hired him. He learned the lessons of VietNam the hard way, by losing the imperial presidency to the Constitution once, and he's not going to do it again, Damn it! Murdoch corralled the evil liberal press by setting them up for a fall with Fox News and his hot button press, now complete with the acquisition of the Wall Street Journal. Another good hire for the Prince of Darkness. And Thomas was just itching for relevance, so he got hired onto the Supreme bench. George "execute them all and let God sort them out" Bush was the last hire.
Hey Joe. In the Marines we had a saying that went, "The first to go and the last to know. We shall defend to the death our right to be misinforme
Have a good one buddy.
"This isn't the information age, it's the blather-ation age."
*******
You'll recall the request for the Office of Misinformation?
Yes, it was rejected and absolutely reviled... But Cheney called it his own intelligence network.
Compared with the "parallel institution" (our "Watch dog") it sounds completely credible..
The Mainstream telejornal just sit in their gilded cages and squawk like they are supposed to, adding to the "signal to noise ratio." All the corps need is a LITTLE doubt to work their Big Tobacco magic... And who DOESN'T doubt telejournalists on major channels?
The higher the signal to noise ratio, the easier it is to confuse.
A better education is impossible with the limited government proscribed curriculum being imposed on public schools. 'No Child Left Behind' is Bush's method of forcing a limited no-creative non-stimulating curriculum to force- feed children, the government propaganda that teaches unconditional obedience to authority, a Nazi method used since Busmark, to perpetuate an evil corrupt government controlled by the Federal Reserve Banks.
Who was Busmark UncleJoe?
Very astute observation nonetheless.
Yours is the most concise description I've read about life after the "End of History":
"There's no longer anything even close to a consensus of where we gather truth. This isn't the information age, it's the blather-ation age. All we have is a trillion sources from which to choose truths we want to believe."
Yes, and yes. But this sentence still betrays a confusion: "The problem is that The Information Age is exactly the opposite." No! The problem is Information Overload and not enough KNOWLEDGE. "Information" is NOT knowledge.
To quote Caleb Carr, "Information is not knowledge.
http://www
I agree with you to some extent. It seems this information age has polarized and divided us. We tend to gravitate where we feel welcome or comfortable. Then we are bombarded by mostly one sided views, truthful or not. Conservative love talk radio and liberals read the NY Times. My small city paper carries the weekly op-ed from Maureen. My reaction is exactly the opposite of what you described regarding the average liberal Times reader. There is nothing gentle about her view of this administration. Her hate spews and flows so quick and fast, I don’t even bother to read it.
I disagree with you about the attitude 20-years ago. Ronald Reagan was laughed at, vilified and lampooned at every opportunity by the left. And remember the attitude of the democratically controlled congress regarding Reagan and the Iran-Contra affair? There was no evidence but the charges were serious enough to warrant an investigation.
Same deal with all these crimes you mentioned regarding Bush. Come on. You leftists have portrayed him as the dumb frat boy that can hardly talk, much less walk. But Hillary claims Bush tricked her into voting for the War. Apparently he has evaded all the charges and threats about impeachment. The dems, controlling both houses now for a year have been beating their chests about charges, impeachment and investigations about this administrations so called crimes. The truth is, Pete, there has been no wrongdoing worthy of serious charges. Your pals in the MSM have been tossing everything but the kitchen sink hoping something will stick. Lies told over and over become truths, especially to liberals tuned into ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, W. Post, and yes The Huffington Post.
So lately the liberal smear focus has shifted to talk radio. Some of you liberals are willing to throw out the 1st Amendment to silence the opposition. Thank God for the 2nd Amendment.
It is truly amazing how effective such a simple strategy can be. Just repeat the same lies, over and over again, and they become de facto truths. The right-wing conspiracy theorists that harp on the liberal bent of main stream media outlets are LIARS! But, it is a wonderful strategy that allows them to keep quiet the 90% of the time that the MSM parrots their propoganda, and be able to scream, "Conspiracy!" at the top of their lungs whenever the MSM steps out of line. How perfect! You can't lose. On a positive note: The truth IS coming out, and, yes, there is a lot of noise that comes along with it. But, as long as the Internet remains democratic, there is hope for all of us. Certainly, some will continue to seek out only the channels that reinforce their narrow viewpoints. But younger generations are being exposed to these new, democratic outlets at just the right time (hopefully, at least). Mass Media consolidation will have no positive social impact. To argue otherwise is to ignore the rules of business. Access to the White House and people of power is restricted on many levels to those that play the game by the rules of the powerful.
Fortunately, true believers in free speech will always demand the truth as well as their rights as guaranteed in the constitution. They will also defend those same rights of others - especially those with whom they disagree. To do otherwise is to be, truly, unamerican. And to be so fearful of an amorphous enemy that you allow your own, or anybody else's rights to be taken away, is to be, truly, a sad sack of shit not worthy of taking part in a serious discussion about the future of our great democracy.
And we can always put our greatest hopes on the strength, intellectual curiosity, and integrity of our offspring.
Compare the Internet with the ancient Tower of Babel story. Big parallel there.
If everyone defines words to mean what they choose, how is that not a different language?
Mehlman has the progression all wrong re reading David Brooks, at least in my case. I used to think that if the NY Times thinks Brooks is worth reading, perhaps I should give his columns a try. It was AFTER reading his columns that I realized that they were a waste of time, but I kept at it on the theory that maybe eventually something Brooks says would make sense. It was seeing Brooks on TV-political panels, panels made up of people from both sides, that made me realize that since Brooks is clearly a take-no-prisoners guy, why should ANYBODY but his choir read HIS crapola.
Apparently, Mehlman thinks that there is some truth IN BETWEEN what liberals and conservatives say, a truth that can be at least partially attained by splitting some kind of difference, making some kind of compromise.
The practical problems with that idea are twofold: First, the conservatives have NO intention of compromising about anything, (if Mehlman hasn't paid attention to their lock-step voting, perhaps he hasn't noticed how they habitually behave in a way that doesn't exactly foster agreement EXCEPT with each other), and second, (even if conservatives were to show some willingness to compromise) how does one reach a point of maximum agreement with people who willingly condone lying about young adopted children in order to win elections? Would it be by some kind of mutual agreement that it is OK to slime children SOME OF THE TIME?
Ok. I will type this real slow so you liberals can understand. There are no crimes. Got it? I remember "fitzmas".
I still chuckle when I remember reading posts by KOSkiddies that they were taking off from work because they thought Rove was gonna be "frogmarched" the next day.
Perjury and obstruction of justice are not crimes?
OJ is innocent and bin laden has never been charged with a crime regarding 9-11, and the FBI does not even list him as wanted for 911. I LOL when I remember bush saying he was wanted dead or alive and then never charging him with the crime. Proof positive of innocence by your reasoning mike.
Another point.. notice... we have no Attorney General.
Bush's Justice Department is like a graveyard.
Why can't Bush fill the position? Would it require him to hand over too much incriminating evidence to the Judiciary Committee?
HuffPo people....
thank you
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