Attaturk asks
“So tell us, this day of all days, those things you are not thankful for.”
I’ve never seen what the problem is with cursing the darkness, so this is right down my alley. Fuck you, darkness!
He goes on to say
“I’m not very thankful that several major news organizations are run by a gaggle of wankers, who will lie, smear, and deceive many people, including some of the ones I’ll be stuck with today”.
This cues one of my stock sermons: the word “wankers” is not strong enough and misses an important point. People like Dowd and Stephanopolous and Mika and Matthews and Cokie are just doing their jobs. They were hired to wank. Ashleigh Banfield, for example, was completely mainstream and had all the skills of a TV journalist, but she was a Canadian unfamiliar with American wank culture, and because of a single commonsensical true statement that she made on the air about Fox News, her career came to a screeching halt. This example could be multiplied indefinitely; even Dan Rather was not wanky enough for American TV, and that’s saying something.
By contrast, Hannity, Dobb, Limbaugh, Beck, and O’Reilly are not wankers. They’re deliberate malefactors. They are actively malevolent and have devoted themselves to the dissemination of disinformation and viciousness.
I’ve been saying this all along and have convinced nobody, but the problem is at the upper levels and seems unlikely to go away. Everybody agrees that Murdoch, Scaife, and Rev. Moon are evil forces, but none of the other owners are significantly better. The network and cable bosses get less flak than Murdoch et. al. because they’re faceless, but they are also actively sabotaging American democracy. And Graham at the Post and Sulzburger at the Times have also bought into the center-right agenda: they want low taxes (especially inheritance taxes), a permanent state of war, and the weakening or dismantling of the welfare state, and in the end they will be happy to get these with the help of an authoritarian, anti-popular government.
These are the real issues of our time; many feel otherwise, but many are wrong.
Bill Moyer and three people at MSNBC are almost the only strong liberals in the major broadcast media, if you call PBS major, but Moyers is only on once a week. The Times and Post have a few good people, but most of their supposed liberals, except for Krugman, are feeble. Krugman writes strongly, but he’s not left; he belongs to the right, NAFTA wing of the Democratic Party.
The center-right / right domination of the big media isn’t absolute, but it’s overwhelming. Krugman and Olbermann were probably hiring mistakes (Olberman is an ex-sportswriter, and Krugman was a NAFTA cheerleader and Nader-hater) and Moyer is an eminent relic of better days who they’d really like to squeeze out. Before 2003 when Olbermann came on there was literally nothing to watch on major TV or cable, and Olbermann himself is only very mildly center left. The leftmost 20-30% or so of the political spectrum is still pretty much unrepresented (maybe Ed Schultz counts), whereas the rightmost 20% gets at least its share of air time.
The ambient politics of America — the politics you pick up if you’re not paying attention — is far right. Without rightwing media saturation the Bush-Rove-Gingrich-Delay team could never have controlled American politics the way they did 1994-2006.
What to do? A lot of progressive media criticism reminds me of Russian peasants trying to get past the Czar’s evil ministers. “If only our little father czar knew of our troubles, then he could help us”. It doesn’t work that way. Under present management, things will never improve much. At the moment, the media seem to be favoring Obama over Palin, though just barely. But that’s a tiny victory, and it only happened because Obama has proven to be their kind of guy, and not ours.
To my knowledge no radical, dissident, or reform movement has ever had any success while relying on the already-existing media. The blogosphere has been a beginning, but my guess is that it doesn’t reach more than 20% of the electorate. As long as the majority of people get their news from the present radio, TV, and cable sources (and the major newspapers we have today), we will continue to lose.
Trollblog 
November 26, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I can’t see the blogosphere as much of an antidote either. Plenty of that is right leaning, and while there’s potential for a real left — and I suppose there are outlets — it’s so far from the ambient sound as to be irrelevant.
John, you and I disagree on the potential for leftward movement of the Democratic party. (I say some with serious effort, your position is, as I gather, zero). On mass media, though, I’m pretty much a defeatist.
A personally charismatic enough candidate could break through, and run counter to the media narrative. The current President might have taken a run at it, and maybe a second term, if the right descends further into Palinism, would look different.
I’m not holding my breath.
November 26, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I think that the Democratic party will only move left if there are people winning primaries who are unresponsive to and independent of the state and national party. Basically the prairie populist (progressive) model 1915-1940. In ND the NPL almost took over the Republican Party.
In 1930 Hoover tried to defeat 3 Senators in the primaries and all 4 won.
Unfortunately, disloyal Democrats today are centrists, though I suspect that Feingold isn’t beloved by the machine.
November 26, 2009 at 4:47 pm
4 out of 3 ain’t bad.
November 26, 2009 at 6:11 pm
To me MSNBC is a lesser evil and all of the others are basically crap. But I’m pretty sure O’Reilly and Limbaugh make more $$ than anyone; they say that Murdoch dislike O’Reilly but can’t afford to can him.
Since one of my basic points is that people wrongly focus on Fox instead of the Times and the Post, you’re not arguing with me at all.
November 27, 2009 at 6:18 am
Time for the New Progressive Party. It may be nearer that you think.
November 27, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Should Fox offend us more than Katie Couric/CBS does, howeva, or the other networks?
Yes, for reasons that seem self-evident. Insisting on equivalence everywhere incentivizes the worst behaviors by removing any penalty for those who want to make the switch from bad to awful.
The Republican Party was historically too sane for the Kristols and Goldbergs and Falwells of the world, but I never heard them say that a voter might as well vote for a Democrat. The entire point of Falwell, in fact, was to educate people to the important distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, and to work to heighten those distinctions.
November 27, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Yet doesn’t mean I support GOP.
“Abet” would probably be a better word than “support.”
I realize you’re hesitant to own up to the implications of your positions – it’s sort of your defining trait. But you’ve got me curious: Will you at least admit to preferring Hannity to Olbermann and Ann Coulter to someone like Hillary Clinton?
November 27, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Horation has a grab-bag that he reaches into for his positions on things. Contrarianism is the common factor.
“The worse, the better” and “At least Beck is sincere” are his positions of the moment.
Truman would watch Olbermann, no question. Olbermann is pretty much one of those corny, boring, sentimental old New Deal Democrats adapted for TV.
November 27, 2009 at 5:07 pm
You’re inventing things again. There’s no grab bag. Economically speaking, PF’s the free market clintoncrat. I’m the one in favor of regs and New Deal (in principle), and intervention (without blessing Keynes).
You and most of the TB regs engage in this strange ID politics (even while criticizing it at times). The media power playing is mostly meaningless. There are few if any clear distinctions between CBS/NBC/Fox, et al
Im the one who dissed Beck (in fact, I recall you defend mormonics). Olbermann, btw, is an old LA sports announcer, turned coke head, and then they made him into the teary-eyed Sally Fields liberal of the hour. Sentimentality, produced by NBC. Not corny, or populist–corporate all the way, like his bosses at Microsoft. Billy Gates probably himself had a hand in that.
November 27, 2009 at 6:19 pm
No, it’s a grab bag. New Deal Dem, then Nietzschean, then street punk, than radical, then libertarian. I’ve given up trying to find an actual point of view. I’m not willing to accept your position of any given era as your actual position.
The nearest to a root position I can find is a surrealist performance art version of disdainful critical theory defeatism, but that’s something I’m all too familiar with and have specifically renounced (even though I relapse in bad moments).
November 27, 2009 at 6:53 pm
the Clinton Administration (like, de-reg, per the orders of Gingrich and Gramm)
Clinton administration positions are, in each case, noticeably less extreme than the positions of the Republicans. As I explained, those who would paper over this fact are abetting the Republicans.
You acknowledge preferring Hannity to Olbermann – you say that twice, so that’s an unusual level of consistency for you – without admitting that you’re more comfortable with Republicans than Democrats. What’s the problem?
Or Big Al Gore, anti-unionist
Ah, so now you’re pro-union, eh?
Your whole toxic misogyny shtick, by the way, also puts you firmly in the camp with the Republicans. I can’t work out why it troubles you to group yourself with your own people, but it’s pretty obvious that you’d be right at home at a Tea Party.
November 27, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Produce your criteria, or ethics-o-meter. Or for that matter, solve Hume’s is-ought problem. In fact, you’re the free market advocate, and have numerous times praised de-reg, and if I recall, Al Gore (oil man, anti-unionist, even anti-green initially). Res ipsa loquitur. I think you objected to someone who argued for higher capital gains taxes
And you’re going for the ID politics again (like most predictable pseudo liberals from unfogged), PFster. You’re a misogynist, just one who puts on the pseudo-feminist act. And that’s a non-sequitur as well, a typical liberal cowardly one. You sound like a cop.
As Lenin said in regards to Upton Sinclair’s writing, the Trollbloggers lack theoretical understanding. You dream of some perfect Clinton or Kennedy-esque liberal suburb (tho’ one where the workers still respect their manners), and businessmen all give to charity–a dream which has little basis in history, or contemporary politics.
November 27, 2009 at 7:42 pm
For the record, I’m not all that excited about demonstrating my liberal bona-fides. “Liberal” and “conservative” are moving targets, and though you’re saying silly things about my stated positions, my actual positions would be, in any sensible society, pretty centrist.
If, on the other hand, we’re defining Paul Krugman as a liberal, then it’s probably okay to call me a liberal too. But geez, Krugman was a functionary on Reagan’s economic staff and has been a strong advocate for the Republican Ben Bernanke. He would have been right at home in the Clinton administration, and was pissed off that he didn’t get that opportunity. Somehow, Krugman has developed a reputation as a liberal because he’s a deficit hawk and shares some of Pat Buchanan’s views on military interventions. How does that work?
I mean, yeah, he said mean things about Bush, but how much of a corrupt cult of personality has modern conservatism become if Krugman can be regarded – both on the left and right – as a liberal?
November 27, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Or for that matter, solve Hume’s is-ought problem.
Back to the grab bag.
November 28, 2009 at 4:05 am
This strikes me as akin to debating a sack of drunken parrots raised in a college dormitory wing reserved for philosophy and poly sci students. I’ll pass. While I’m passing though, I’ll mention that Glenn Beck is certainly not sincere. He’s so phony, he’s probably a petroleum by-product. I found this out while checking on the claim in some liberal circles that he endorses the rumors of FEMA detention camps. He doesn’t, but he gave a misleading teaser saying he “couldn’t debunk” the rumors. When his own show started, he attacked the rumors, but put on a little dog-and-pony show about having technical difficulties with his video pretending that *that’s* what he meant by unable to debunk – just couldn’t get the video working. Seriously, he did. The man is so fake cotton must turn to polyester on his body.
Meanwhile, of course, the FEMA camp rumors follow a familiar pattern of taking things that are true and that people on the non-mainstream left have been talking about for a long time – like Operation Garden Plot, a counter-insurgency program by Nixon that involved mass detention run by FEMA, and its re-invigoration – and twisting it into drivel. Liberals, predictably and stupidly, don’t just say “this story is crap”, but “anyone who would believe anything like that is crazy”, which is, of course, the trap. Meanwhile, the fact that Beck is being unfairly (in this case) attacked by the likes of Olbermann helps his credibility, as his supporters can easily show that this particular attack is unfair.
Here’s a beginning on Garden Plot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Plot
And here’s Glenn Beck’s bit on the FEMA camps if anyone cares:
]
Part 2 (with some editorial overlays):
The original clip from FOX and friends is here (starts at about 1:50, so you can skip some generic Beck blather):
November 28, 2009 at 9:56 am
The root source of your (where you = mainly politicalfootball, but also others) difficulties in understanding horatiox’s position, which in this thread at least is quite clear and eminently sensible, is your inability to break out of the profoundly stupid and very American liberal/conservative dualism mindset. Liberals and conservatives in the US, as horatiox points out, are two wings OF THE SAME FUCKING PARTY, who take it in turns to run things for their bosses.
How many times does it need to be said before it sinks in?
Your whole political process is a spectacle, and that’s all it is. Which isn’t to say that it isn’t played seriously; after all, the entertainment industry is as serious a business as any other.
If you people had the slightest interest in real change, you wouldn’t be defending one wing against the other, or indulging in silly fantasies about “changing the system from below” etc., etc. God knows you’ve had long enough to work this out. Emerson for one certainly displays enough familiarity with US history to know this full well.
November 28, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Horation’s inconsistency is between posts, not within posts.
As I’ve said in various places, I’ve been around the block a few times in left wing politics and also have gone the defeatist route. What I’m doing now is premised on avoiding both correct-position ideological 2% leftism and defeatism in order to find an approach that will do something. The alternative would be apolitical defeatism; I’m burned out on guerrilla theater, correct-position, and personal-conscience politics.
Given the actually existing US, what I see to have been the most productive strategy is the kind of inside-outside approach used by third parties and non-partisan progressive movements.
It is unfortunately not true that the two parties are the same. Up until WWII the organization Democrats were as conservative as the organization Republicans, and there were more or less equal numbers of progressives in the two parties, usually working together against their own party’s leadership.
If we could safely play the two parties off against one another, we’d be ion a much better position. But the Republican Party is controlled by hard core rightwingers comprising about 30% of the population; the moderates and liberals have been purged.
America’s real problem is too many conservatives, too many inattentive and discouraged voters, and too few leftists or liberals who are, in addition, poorly organized and rather lazy. Add to that structural problems such as the two party system, the right wing media, the electoral college, etc. and we’re in pretty bad shape.
I’m willing to listen to suggestions of some more effective form of action, but I’m screening out naysaying and criticl theory for now.
November 29, 2009 at 2:04 am
Democracy and the two party system are in place and better alternatives have not really been suggested, and in any case are not in prospect.
November 29, 2009 at 6:03 am
“If only our little father czar knew of our troubles, then he could help us”
I remember a documentary on Stalinist Russia were a Siberian woman said almost verbatim just that re: the gulags. She was certain if Stalin knew what was going on in the East he would intervene to stop it. This was disturbing to me–I always figured in a dictatorship a least people would understand who was fucking them.
November 29, 2009 at 7:02 pm
You’re a moron Horation. You need to read. I’ve explained myself here and elsewhere, but your form of political action is repeating the same old shit to people until they quit listening. You are responding to voices in your head.
You have suggested no alternative. No one even knows any more what your opinions are.
November 29, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Neither changing voting criteria or eliminating voting is in your power or mine. Talking about redesigning the system from the bottom up is just talk. I’ve always been talking about what can be done here and now from where I (and my few readers) are.
I do write about philosophy, but when I write about politics I leave philosophy pretty much out of it. I don’t understand your infatuation with the is-ought distinction.
November 29, 2009 at 11:53 pm
John, I’ve had a comment in moderation here for about 2 days. Are you aware of it, or did it slip into limbo somehow?
November 30, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Martin, it’s in limbo. It might have got lost in a big batch. Sorry.
November 30, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Education requirements favor Republicans and rightwingers. This is what Hans Spakovsky is all about. The winger vote is concentrated between the 10th percentile and the 90th percentile. The most winger group is college graduates without advanced degrees.
November 30, 2009 at 4:30 pm
This strikes me as akin to debating a sack of drunken parrots raised in a college dormitory wing reserved for philosophy and poly sci students. I’ll pass. While I’m passing though, I’ll mention that Glenn Beck is certainly not sincere.
I know what you mean. I find it about equally as rewarding as posting on CT.
No decent people will come here now, so it’s just me and the parrots. Open left is worth doing, and possibly Brad DeLong.
November 30, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Horation, Abb1, you each need to find a different home. Neither of you do anything here but repeat the same slogans you repeat everywhere else. I grant that you disagree with me, but not that you heven know what I think. Horation in particular has made multiple inaccurate statement.
November 30, 2009 at 5:28 pm
🙂
November 30, 2009 at 5:34 pm
🙂
November 30, 2009 at 5:38 pm
🙂
November 30, 2009 at 6:12 pm
What’d I do? What slogans?
November 30, 2009 at 6:21 pm
You and Horatio were getting started again, and I was being proactive.
I prefer commentators whose responses to my posts are keyed to my posts, which they have read. I do not want to host someone else’s ideas unless I find them interesting.
In other words, I’m exactly like Crooked Timber except that I bring the hammer down a little quicker.
November 30, 2009 at 6:34 pm
🙂
December 1, 2009 at 12:28 am
John, unless he’s using another pseud or you deleted it, abb1 is not in this thread until you mentioned him. Possibly you are mistaking him for someone else?
In any case, it looks like you’re blocking horatiox. That alone will probably take care of most of your problems, I think.
December 1, 2009 at 4:13 am
You and I have gone ’round and ’round on this a few times, but I want to take another crack at it, with a disclaimer up front: The phenomenon you describe certainly exists and is certainly important and worth noting. But it’s not as dominant a factor as you make it out to be. This, by my reckoning, is a bit of hyperbole:
Under present management, things will never improve much.
In fact, change is demonstrably possible. “Under present management,” things have deteriorated a great deal.
I think it’s entirely possible for the media to become as bad as it was in, say 1975. And I think that would be a great, great thing.
I’ve seen you acknowledge the change in the media, but I don’t think you’ve satisfactorily explained the reasons for that change. Yes, yes, malefactors of great wealth play a significant role, but the current train wreck is primarily a product of political action – grassroots right-wing activity given a huge boost by Reagan.
This can work in the other direction, too. Note this judiciously phrased gripe from a media watcher:
http://mediactive.com/2009/11/01/wall-street-journal-news-pages-starting-to-show-a-right-wing-world-view/
And note the response to this complaint (or complaints like it):
http://blogs.wsj.com/styleandsubstance/2009/11/30/vol-22-no-11/
One of the huge problems with the “liberal media” myth of the 50s, 60s and 70s is that it got repeated so often that liberals started to believe it. It took decades of steady pressure to move the media to where it is now. It’ll take something like that to ameliorate the current mess – though unlike you and CharleyCarp, I think the Internet has a large role to play.
December 1, 2009 at 6:04 am
🙂
December 1, 2009 at 2:17 pm
I’m more optimistic about the internet than Charlie is, but I don’t expect it to be enough. It doesn’t reach the ambient voter, which is the one who kills us. (The “independent” undecided between Palin and Kucinich. That guy).
As far as “gradual change”, I’m not sure that the net movement during the last 5 years (the period when liberal internet media criticism has become a factor) has even been in the right direction. During this period Kristol was hired, Jonah Goldberg Was hired, Ross Douthat was hired, Michael Gerson was hired, CNN moved in the Fox direction, ABC moved in the Fox direction, and Murdoch bouth the WSJ (and opinion is starting to appear in WSJ news stories). New atrocities appear every day. Ombudspersons still blow off criticism.
Against this, Ezra Klein was hired, MSNBC took a slight center-left turn (while still keeping Scarborough, Tweety, the Alter, Feinman, and Chuck Todd), and Joe Klein started mixing some OK stuff in with his slimy inside baseball silliness. The reasons for a change as small as that don’t require a lot of puzzlement.
Along with the change in the media was a change in the malefactors. COming out of WWII and continuing for maybe 25 years, the big money people were working with the Democrats. In the early and mid 70s that changed permanently. Low taxes, deregulation, free trade, and union-busting became big money’s goal. The new right arose during the same period, but that wasn’t the cause.
Left media criticism has been full speed ahead for decades, and we still have a vigorous left outside the Democratic Party (2-5% of the electorate) and even though they put on big demonstrations, their pressure is ignored.
A decision was made to respond to one kind of pressure and not the other, and I’m pretty sure that advertiser pressure was the key. (Ait America just reported that they had plenty of listeners but few advertisers. No surprise).
December 1, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Incidentally, the inheritance tax issue may have a special importance for media. A number of newspapers are still family owned, so they have an inheritance crisis every generation. Newspaper publishing companies are the real “small family farms” you’re always hearing about. The “death tax” really only touches a few people, but they’re very important people. The Republicans got a lot of cheap support just by loudly publicizing their sincere position on an issue.
The publisher of the Seattle Times explicitly gave the inheritance tax as his reason for supporting Bush one year. That’s a factor for tthe Post and the Times too.
There are different kinds of pressure that pop up when media go public and when family members try to monetize their shares.
December 1, 2009 at 5:52 pm
🙂
December 1, 2009 at 11:42 pm
We’re still in a very early stage of liberal anger at the media – and I’m really proposing a program more than making a prediction that my program will be adopted. My prediction, such as it is, is that people getting visibly pissed off makes a big cumulative difference. When Sulzberger has to sweat out liberal anger and ostracism when he goes out in public, he’ll respond. When Keller has to spend half his day on the phone with liberals, he’ll wince the next time he sees a story that treats liberals unfairly. Right now, I suspect, the phones and demonstraters are still concentrated on the Right.
A decision was made to respond to one kind of pressure and not the other
You incorrectly suggest that there are two types of pressure – liberal and conservative. In fact, there are two types of pressure – robust and wimpy. And yes, one kind was ignored.
A polite remonstrance from the left – “media criticism” – isn’t the same thing as the frothing rage on the right. (I do realize, though, that my example in 34 is properly characterized as media criticism.)
December 3, 2009 at 6:54 am
John,
I think I agree with your main post and with your suggestion that change will happen until people on the left starts winning primaries.
I have thought for a while that the way out is through local or state politics. I believe the energies of activists should be spent trying to win local elections.
That is guaranteed to make uncomfortable the
comfortable.
By the way, and off-topic:
Anybody here has read any of the following
books:
+ Epistemics and Economics: A critique of economic doctrines, G.L.S Shackle
+ Limits to Capital, David Harvey
+ The Economics of Global Turbulence, Robert Brenner
The first book I saw it recommended by John Gray in his review of Animal Spirits in the London Review of Books.
The last two books were mentioned favorably in the diary “The Intellectual Situation” in the latest issue of N+1.
December 3, 2009 at 9:59 am
I haven’t read any of those, but they sound interesting. If you do read them, and if John does not object, maybe make a comment telling us what you thought? Or do you have your own blog?
December 4, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Dylan, I’ll be taking a look at those books in the next couple of months.
December 5, 2009 at 9:30 am
Martin,
I don’t have a blog. I am more a bit of a lurker.
John,
I already ordered the books.
Here is the comment of John Gray in LRB on Epistemics and Economics (unfortunately
I couldn’t include the comments from N+1
Magazine about the two other books because it requires a subscription to get the online content).
“The hegemony of Positivism in economics obscured Keynes’s scepticism about probabilistic knowledge, his most important contribution to the discipline. G.L.S. Shackle set Keynes’s argument out systematically in his neglected masterpiece Epistemics and Economics: A Critique of Economic Doctrines (1972). Shackle is probably the only significant economist to have been influenced both by Keynes and by his arch-rival, F.A. Hayek. He knew both of them well, but argued that neither had digested the full implications for economics of our ignorance of the future. Hayek said that governments could never know enough to plan the economy successfully – a claim vindicated by the miserable record of central planning in Communist countries. At the same time, he attributed near omniscience to markets, and never doubted that if left to its own devices the economy would liquidate mistaken investments and return to equilibrium. Against this, Keynes had shown that there is no market mechanism that ensures revival; economic contraction can be self-reinforcing, and only government action can then create a way out.
Shackle took Keynes’s argument a step further, and showed that no economic policy can ensure economic stability indefinitely. ‘Keynesian’ policies are no exception to this rule. Deficit financing and monetary expansion may have worked well in the conditions that existed after the Second World War. It is not clear that they will be so effective today, when globalisation has brought a freedom of capital movements that did not exist then. The lesson of Shackle is that we must be resourceful in devising new remedies, while not losing sight of the fact that none of them works for long.”
December 6, 2009 at 8:51 am
Some questions that I’d like to see tackled and would try to contribute to:
1) Exactly how much of our current financial system is actually necessary to the “real economy”?
2) How much is not necessary but may be desirable within certain parameters, and what are the parameters and how do we maintain them?
,
3) How much is superfluous or counterproductive?
4) How do we separate these components? Glass/Steigal was a start, but many aspects of the current problem, like the involvement of insurance companies or the corruption of ratings agencies, would not have been captured by G/S.
5) Is it possible to reconstruct what is essential from the bottom-up?
December 16, 2009 at 9:08 pm
you are right on about the highly educated thing, the meritocracy rewards cowardice -you get to Harvard and do well to a large degree by never taking risks and never getting out of line with the prof. Not too much different in grad school.