To hear it told every night on the Fox News channel as though it were the urban legend of Cropsy whispered menacingly around a campfire to make the skin of its wide-eyed listeners break out in goose flesh, America is mere moments away from a democracy destroying apocalyptic brawl. The scrupulously cast family archetypes (Papa O'Reilly, Brother Glenn, hot cousin Megyn, et al) tell us with wide "I told you so" eyes that the fix is in, the jig is up and the storm troopers are coming: so, horde your gold, hide your daughters and prepare for Stalinpalooza.
Of course, they are totally full of the stuff that makes moist, dark clumps in boxes of kitty litter.
Denied the time to reintegrate their god-given sensory apparatus for more than the millisecond unfilled by blaring ads for prostate medication, cars and Red Lobster, the audience these murmurers of mayhem corral don't know that. But once again, the simple act of stepping outside the noxious cacophony yields one a saner perspective.
If we as a nation had the strength to detach from the glittering, flickering baubles beamed into our cerebral cortexes and mute the bleating klaxons, we'd realize that the "news" spouted from many a sneering, slanted mouth is pure carnival barking, and we'd see what America has allowed itself to become.
Under the trickle-down tutelage of greed-engorged magnates, whose intoxication seems to rise exponentially with the dismantling of every pertinent regulatory mechanism, the American character once known for its optimism and can-do spirit has been steadily conditioned to become twitchy, utterly consumed with consuming and scared shitless (or oil-less or ihone-less or Beck-less). And disaster capitalism is now the main bolt in the capitalist's quiver. Raising hackles and blood pressure is big money.
Take my buddy, Andrew Breitbart.
To the right, he is a take-no-prisoners provocateur who seems to have little fear or patience for things and people he feels are responsible for the degrading of democracy. He has an itchy trigger finger and is a potent avatar for those looking to "git some".
To the left, he is a blue-eyed blustering bully and pathological prevaricator who runs his own tea-bagging town square, complete with stocks and gallows.
His ascending profile and in-your-face approach to partisan journalism is something the left and the right are both frantically trying to adjust to, as most of their high profile spokespersons rarely go face to face and toe to toe with detractors the way Breitbart does; the left struggles to publicize his discredited attacks to a wide enough audience in order to squelch his swelling presence (which you'd think would be easy given the "Liberal Media". Strange, that!) and the right is once again trying to crowbar some space underneath its carelessly indiscriminate umbrella (and by indiscriminate I mean every nut crawling around with a ka-bar between his teeth and Don't Tread On Me underpants) to utilize his talent and add to their party's imperative: assemble potential customers.
Because as inflammatory and hurtful as he and his brand of journalism may be, the guy is, given the state of the art, just making a living.
This might be a simplistic reduction of the episodes which have riled individuals, smeared reputations and cost innocent people their livelihoods, nor is it me condoning what he does in any way (like he could give a shit). The list of incidents which have come to define his presence on the scene reads like a rap sheet of a cultural commando, part nipple-tweaking imp, part vein-bursting brute.
But really, he is only the latest incarnation in a line of right wing Barnumesque self-promoters. Or more precisely, he may in fact be the embodiment of the product that guys like Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch have produced, exploited and relied so heavily upon -- that of the enraged white guy who has rights too, you know.
The problem with their toxic spiel is that it's bad business. Not in the short term, obviously (to listen to Daddy O'Reilly tell it, they're the biggest things since white bread and US Steel).
But soon, once the seeds of mayhem have borne their inevitably bloody fruit, that consumer base will be rendered either unmanageable by conventional means or utterly obliterated. Which, given the current paradigm, is perfectly fine.
Disaster is a state of mind; making hay from horror is what finally elevated tabloid journalism from the smeared ink headlines "Boy Locked in Freezer Eats Own Feet" to the flashing chyrons "Obamacare Death Panels". While people's fealty to authoritative institutions is culturally---genetically ingrained, those institutions have themselves morphed from trusted and dispassionate dispensers of fact to roiling, raging profit monsters.
Or perhaps all this thinking is just the balm required for one to stay sane in a world where Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigrants are beheading Arizonans, all Muslims hate all Americans, Christmas is being canceled, black people will certainly kill white people, the Rapture will pull the devout out of cockpits and clothing, whatever is on the media's lazy Susan of lethal memes.
The fact that profit has trumped principles as America's prime directive is the real indication that a cultural cancer has set in for good and the real end times (as opposed to the ones concocted to keep people scared and spending) might just be the setting of the sun on the American era, the slow fade of its pride and potential, with only the loud, the opportunistic and the media savvy motivated enough to rake in and profit from the dregs.
So next time one of these right wing loud mouths asks you to step outside, think of it as giving the economy a much needed boost. Or just kick him in the balls and run.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheStevenWeber
More to the point the Republicans as the minions of a handful of plutocrats must magnify their power. They know on a numerical basis there is no way this tiny minority can influence the political process. They have long ago set out to degrade public discourse, promote cynicism, despair, and inertia, in order to suppress the average American from voting--allowing their fanatical base to win elections for them.
Republican alchemy has turned news into entertainment and vice versa. Faux News is an epitome. Not only does it promulgate lies and disinformation, it makes its owner a boatload of money in doing so. Whether the random ravings of Beck or the studied prevarications of their pseudo-journalists the alibi is that it's "just entertainment." Sell the fools what they want. If you want truth go to the library. As master propagandists the Republicans have clouded the American mind and degraded the capacity for analytical thinking. How else explain their ability to turn the majority against their own best interest.
Sometimes one must be careful what one prays for. The Republican pandering to the religious right, has metastasized into the tea bagger movement. A movement the Republicans can't control.
The daily spewing of fear and loathing from the Fox News reporters, along with their Becks and Limbaughs, have created a Frankenstein monster. America, goood. Liberal, baaad.
The thing the Repubs didn't anticipate, is how broadly their brainwashed minions would interpret the label, "liberal." Now it's considered "liberal" and unforgivable, for a staunch Republican to simply say they like President Obama.
Of course that's entirely understandable, when you considere Obama has been compared to every evil dictator and oppressive political idea in history by your propagandist on Fox.
As Obama himself pointed out to the the Repubs when he met with them earlier this year, they cannot demonize the president and his party, and then justify working with them to their base.
I actually think this policy will backfire on the Repubs, but if it should ultimately work and put them into the drivers seat again, what kind of nation will they inherit?
A country seething with anger, bitterness, fear and ignorance. A Frankenstein monster created by a party gone mad with lust for power, unleashed and uncontrollable even by it's creator.
Sadly, Obama seems either unwilling, or unable to deal boldly with these plutocrats and their minions.
This phenomenon is profoundly ignorant, but since our airheaded journalists aspire to become celebrities (viz. David Gregory) they shun in depth coverage for fear of losing "access." Quite simply we cannot rely on broadcast journalism to deliver reliable information. While the internet and print journals (and some blogs) still offer sourced, analytical journalism, the public has lost its taste for complex analysis. They love the TV talking head food fights and carefully crafted sound bytes. We are repeating the demise of Ancient Rome, substituting a media circus for important information.
In college I signed up for classes to master the information. If the prof was amusing, so much the better, but in any case I had to pass objective tests at the end of the term. Sadly, America has expunged intellect from popular discourse. We want our bombastic clowns (like Glenn Beck and O'Reilly). The more random nonsense they spew the better. Sic transit gloria Americana.
rest of us don't have to be bothered. You can't argue with a fence post. Kams is not going to
change stances and not going to win the hearts and minds of the rest of us. I believe we have
been way too patient with kams babble. Initially Steven may have been having fun yanking kam's chain, but ultimately only encouraged kam's sense of intellectual equality.
mmh
I thoroughly enjoyed it! Thanks! Fanned and Faved!
Of course there WAS some speculation earlier in the piece about the UNDERWEAR some conservative is likely to have on, but it doesn't really count if there's no mention of gential atrophy, dysfunction, or violence.
Sad but true. No one ever guaranteed the good ol' U.S.A would not fall to pieces and this "cultural cancer", if not stopped or overcome could drag that freaking "city on a hill" right into the gutter. SW might even say we're already there, and I'm not sure I would disagree. I could laugh at the Glenn Beck's and the Breitbarts and appreciate their comic genious as they rake in the bucks,if it were not for the millions who get sucked in by that crap they spew. Anyone on Twitter and/or Facebook can see for themselves the insanity of the RightWingNutJobs.
Then again if as a country, we are that stupid, do we deserve to survive?
P.S. grammar police are such a pain in the butt. We could all use some editing, but not always polite to point fingers. Let's retain some civility...
And I contend that MSNBC is just as guilty as Fox. They focus on what the left wants to hear. And in an extremely monotonous way too (re: Rachel Maddow as one example). Everyone is out to make money. And truly, if everyone was not, we'd be in trouble... our economy would crumble. This IS what works. And capitalism IS a self correcting system. If Fox News is truly guilty of deception and fear mongering the public will catch on and stop watching.. the market will recognize that there is a need for true honest reporting and THAT cable news outlet will then become #1. (A MUCH MUCH better system than the government deciding which news outlets are not worthy and then banning them… or an .. cont..
vty. mmh
"distortion"? ME? Where?
whom by the way, everytime i see him on tvnow, i see him with completely different eyes.
@kams "(please note.. this is not a direct Obama / Hit ler comparison)."
well, lol, not directly.
i have a birhtday present for both of you. the pastor of the 9-11 "christian" center, to which kams belongs is currently scrambling to do damage control because of posts made on the community blog i shared with kams. he is crying copyright infringement. so much for "free press".
http://tothewire.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/its-just-not-about-hate/#comment-17844
THANK YOU MR. W.
extreme nut group like Jour no list who thinks THEY know what is right and is completely comfortable with deciding for everyone. What a bunch of arrogant hypocrites). But as it is now, it is Fox News who is #1. And that is because people see them as the most reliable of the 3. And I predict it will stay that way for a long long time. Thank goodness!!
http://www.dcbureau.org/20100203319/Trento-s-Take/trentos-take-fox-news-cant-ups...
But when you "know what is right, etc.", it is CORRECT in every way.
Modeling hypocritical behavior is not helpful to eliminating it, or so it would seem...
mmh
mmh
hand it out a tea party rallies. #1 even if they would stumble upon this blog, they would quickly stumble off, and if they stayed to look around, they certainly would move away from your piece here.
#2 they couldn't possibly get past your vocabulary much less the meaning of the whole. That's the crowd we are dealing with now.
Love your rants but could you use that big brain of yours to come up with workable solutions to
these issues? solutions, man, solutions. - cause we will follow you anywhere.