I have a suggestion for President Obama. Times are hard. We’re winding down one war and ratcheting up another. Terrorist cells may be closeted on the domestic front as well. Everyone knows that corporations and insurance companies are that unsayable word in the woodpile and need extermination forthwith.
Let’s back up on that one … corporations. Just exactly which of all the dire and disastrous corporations whose tentacles are inching ever more rapidly along the hallowed halls and portals of Congress and our democracy is the worst?
Short answer? The media. The media is the biggest collective whorehouse corporation of them all, because not only does the media control the government, it also controls us. It forms our opinions and cleverly seduces us into thinking we believe something that we really know is a crock of it, but we believe it because … because it’s the fashion, innit (as they say in Britain)?
I mean, everyone else believes it, so we should too … or do they? And should we?
Around this time last year, Rush Limbaugh was asked by a media group to record his one wish for our then-new President Obama. Rush used his daily broadcast as a platform to utter the infamous line, ‘I hope he fails.’
That’s become the singular wish for this Presidency, and – like a cancer – it’s spread to encompass the Progressive base as well. David Sirota snarks about this man all the time. Mayhill Fowler, a parvenu elevated to the pseudo-sophisticated title of ‘editor’ based on the publication of an off-the-record remark spews hate-filled and poorly written rhetoric. Naomi Klein, who – as a Canadian – has no business weighing in on American politics – is another shill. Ed Schultz and Cenk Uygur weigh in all the time – Schultz even bragging in public how he schooled Robert Gibbs, the Press Secretary, telling him he was ‘full of shit.’ Nice one, Ed. Classy. Keith Olbermann regularly bashes the President. Dylan Ratigan shouts down anyone even giving marginal support.
Bill Maher refers to Obama as ‘Barry’ and is making a staple part of his latest stand-up tour an eternal wail about Obama being worse than Cheney.
Who ARE these people?
Have we regressed to the point that, like spoiled adolescents who haven’t received instant gratification, we follow the fashionable lead of people who work for a corporation, who’s sole ethos is ego- and ratings-driven?
The most laughable of all is the Queen Mother, herself, Arianna Huffington – former ueber Rightwing neocon and anti-immigration supporter (rich, that one), Damascenely and serenely converted to the Progressive cause … for a quick buck and a flash on the screen. She’s the self-appointed voice of the suffering middle-class. Isn’t that kinda like Hitler making himself a spokesman for Israel?
A few months back, prior to the President making a decision on Afghanistan, Huffington jumped the gun and demanded that Joe Biden resign to lead a grassroots revolt against Obama’s policies and wrest the White House from him in 2012.
She’s at it again, with one of her bloggers:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-bower/an-open-letter-to-secreta_b_432274.html
Our second President, John Adams, suffered a great deal at the hands of an irresponsible press, goaded from behind by no less than his own Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson. (OK, Jefferson was one of my heroes and the founder of my alma mater, but that doesn’t mean he was above a bit of political skullduggery, himself – he WAS a politician, after all.
In response to all these shenanigans, Adams passed The Alien and Sedition Act, which, effectively, amounted to a curtailment of that most precious of amendments, the First one. Freedom of Speech.
So shamed was he at having to do so, Adams never enforced this act and, to this day, it hasn’t been enforced.
What Huffington is doing and what she’s promoting, more and more, on that site and beyond, is pure sedition – openly undermining the workings of a Presidential Administration with a view to bringing it down and causing chaos.
It’s still a federal offense.
I say, it’s time for a test case.
It’s a fantasy, but I’d pay money I didn’t have to see her served with a sentence, stripped of her naturalised citizenship and her feta cheesed ass thrown on a non-stop flight back to Athens, with her papers stamped: Seditionist/Deported.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
You all remember Obama’s meeting with the GOP clowns and what a riveting, real TV it was? Well, on Sunday, on “This Week”, we were treated to 20 minutes of the most dishonest hot mess of TV I have seen in a while. Picture Roger Ailes, George Will, Zsa Zsa Huffington, and Paul Krugman in a round table headed up with “I would rather be chatting up celebrities” Barbara Walters. Roger Ailes trying to claim that Faux News is a real news organization and not a propaganda tool for the right, Zsa Zsa pretending that her blog had nothing to do with the misinformation out there (or admiring her own blond highlights…hard to tell), Will doing his patrician (nice word for “I got mine, f**k the rest of you) pompous act in his sleep, and Krugman making some valid points, but not being honest about his own politically tone-deaf rhetoric. And all headed up by Barbara, who looked bored. Instead of must see TV, it was “WTF?” T.V.
Thank you, bit! Mr. Toad looked particularly red faced that day…
I had just watched it before reading your comment. Worked out good. 🙂
There are people who follow and then there are people who think. The people who follow would rather have their food cut into small pieces and half chewed, than bother with the task of having to cut it and chew it themselves. For them, seeing someone on their TV screens or ranting on a blog, printed in a newspaper or magazine is enough to convince them that it must be true. These are also the same people who will buy things advertised on the telli and vote like their friends and neighbours to fit in. I call them lazy.
People who think will not take the words of critics, pundits and loathsome talking heads as gospel because we know better. We are aware of their end games and agendas, we research and refute their lies, we are beyond being fooled.
I have a strong aversion to being told what to listen to in music, which films to watch or not watch, which clothes I should wear to be trendy, the hairstyle, make up and skin care I just must use to be accepted as beautiful, who to like and who to hate. I gag when I see “Self Help” books, written by a bunch of people who seem convinced that they know me better than I know myself. This constant pushing of ideas by people who have a medium to reach many of us, when the people who are doing the pushing have the same or even less knowledge of the subject, has always made this Bull see red and I basically take no notice.
It might not be earth-shattering but it’s the way I fight back at these clowns taking advantage of their position to invade the privacy of our homes with their constant twaddle. My other defense which works even better, is to leave my TV turned off unless there is something on which I really want to watch. Yesterday was the first time I tuned into CNN in about 4 months, the last time was for another speech by your President.
I praise the “Mute” and the “On/Off” buttons, they have brought a tranquil peace of mind to my life and leave me with an option which is the right of each of us, the right to control our own thoughts.
Being a foreigner here on an American blog, I must disagree with your premise that we have no business voicing our opinions about your government or your politics.
Americans have absolutely no reserve about criticizing the leaders or the people of other countries, whether they actually have any real knowledge or not, and as a member/citizen of the world, I have every right to say how I feel. Your country has after all stuck it’s far reaching nose into the business of other countries for decades and if it is something which might affect me or my many American friends, then I will continue to express how I feel. Minding my own business is something I heard from many on Huff over the years, I don’t expect to hear it here.
Very good post. The left is creating a de facto eco chamber like the right. The big difference is the left’s echo chamber is centered around the progressive saints like Maher, Arianna, the MSNBC pundits and progressive columnists who can say nothing wrong even though none of them has a clue how government works. They create the purist group think and ignore political reality. The right supports Republicans and creates group think around them but even their right wing saints are more well regarded than the party.
The fact is both chambers are dishonest, use hyperbole, use personal attacks and have their own agendas. The bottom line is both are destroying this country by adding to the political gridlock.
Like I said below foreign nationals like yourself have every write to express your opinions but I don’t favor foreign ownership of US media.
You know how I feel about slimy Murdoch, the Brits feel the same about his sleazy rags like “The Sun” and “News of the World” over there. Everything the man touches is slimy with his greed and lack of ethics, why he was allowed free range to create his cesspool in America, is still something which irks me too. I’m hoping to read any day about a criminal violation which might see his organization, slide further back into the stinking gutters he first climbed out of, I hope it’s soon.
Spot On Marion, I just read the PuffHo article and comments.
I’m sort of at a loss for words. What a load of crap is about all I can say these days about their atrociously negative propaganda.
If it came down to it I’d have to vote that Fox has more honesty and transparency as to what they’re agenda is than PuffHo.
I don’t like being fooled.
Being aware of the right’s manipulation of their base with propaganda, I thought it was fair to assume there was propaganda in disguise for our side too.
PuffHo and bill Maher both need to be called out along with Fox.
Even Jon Stewart took up the cry that Obama used teleprompters in an elementary school classroom, which wasn’t true but reported as though it was, and he ridiculed Obama at length. If he’d fact checked he would have found that Obama said he used them for a speech given to faculty and officials, but not for talking with the kids, however the prompters were still in view.
Jon bashes the President sometimes, but usually for something he actually did, not a fabricated talking point.
The problem with television news is that real reporters don’t want to be actors — and people who want to to be famous on camera aren’t really interested in being reporters.
Media talking heads are all about their own fame and image. When we have a president who genuinely is brilliant, trying to outsmart him makes people resort to all kinds of foolishness. Which we get served up to us every day as noooz.
The one bright spot on the scene is Rachel Maddow. Rachel lives in MA, commutes to work, lives apart from the media cocktail circuit, and has a genuine passion for politics. She knows how to tell the truth and make it interesting. She knows how to expose a lie and do it respectfully. She is a rare commodity. We need many more like her.
And this is undoubtedly one of the many reasons Rachel has been successful:
She knows what she is talking about. Jeeze, what a concept!
Hey I grew up not far from Castro Valley. Good going for what is a smaller town in the bay area. My neice went there. I am going to ask if she knew her.
boom, thanks for the info, I didn’t know that she had a Doctorate in Philosophy…wow.
…in politics no less…
And she is a Rhodes Scholar
I’m impressed.
The girl is smart and down to earth. Loved Tracy Ullman’s take on her.
Rachel is incredibly impressive. She is in a class by herself on television. The rest of them all just seem like variations of the same sort of robot.
I wonder what other broadcasters think of her. I would be trying so hard to emulate her if I were an aspiring journalist.
nellie,
The other broadcasters are so rapped up in themselves, I doubt they even notice.
Rachel, I like immensely, and Jon Stewart, who really does understand satire and does it without offending. His rip-off of Keith Olbermann last week was well-deserved and brilliant, and he even tempered it at the end with an admonition that Olbermann was really too good to resort to the ad hominem stuff he’d been spouting. The next night, Olbermann actually admitted as much and apologised. But even then, the Progressive base was hitting on Stewart, because in his criticism of Olbermann, THEY perceived Stewart to be taking up for Scott Brown. He wasn’t; he was just pointing out where Olbermann was wrong in his criticism of Brown and why. Olbermann accepted it.
I loved that exchange between Stewart and Olbermann. It was brilliant on both sides.
I enjoyed their back and forth also, Keith was over the top and doesn’t need to try and act like Jon.
I watch both of them religiously.
Jon really helped me keep my sanity through much of the last year.
I’m so tired of the freakin American MSM it’s not silly…it has become a popularity contest on who can be the most contrarian.
If Obama or anyone in his administration says or does one thing, they say he’s wrong, convene a panel of half wit pundits, discuss ad nauseum why he’s wrong and what he should do or not do, basically beat the horse to death and then replay it two hours later, because apparently there is nothing else in this world that has happened that is more important than their opinion on this particular situation.
This is why I started to watch the BBC News and reading foreign newspapers online, thanks Kalima…they seem far more “fair and balanced” then what we are getting here in the US, which is nothing more than a pile of you know what steaming in the cold air.
Chet Huntley
David Brinkley
Walter Cronkite
Peter Jennings
David Bloom
Each would be incredibly disheartened by what has happened to his profession.
boom – Terribly so…Diane Sawyer so far has been pretty even keeled in her reporting.
I loved David Bloom. Just think, had we not gone to war in Iraq, he might still be alive.
I’ve not watched Diane since she has taken over.
And, I neglected The PBSNewshour and NPR. Both organizations ask tough, challenging questions. What impresses me the most is I can’t determine who, what, or how the journalists believe. Which, by the way, is the way it is supposed to be; unbiased reporting.
Marion, another very on-target article, well done.
When we talk about the MSM we are talking about the propaganda arms of major corporations. There is not one major news broadcaster that is an independent entity…the way it used to be…when we had a Free Press to protect The People as the Founders of this nation envisioned.
So we have lost what The Founders saw as our fourth branch of government and our safety net if the other three branches failed the people. And with the SCOTUS ruling, we have lost our elections now to these corporations.
Pres. Obama was right and those who remain in Congress with principles and respect for democracy had better make damn well sure they lock powerful restrictions on corporations soon or it could be decades or forever until the balance of the SCOTUS changes to overturn the corporate stranglehold on our democracy and society.
Absolutely, AdLib. The loss of the Free Press has been a major factor in the decline of decency and the checks against abuse of power by the elected officials. Giving corporations the power they have been given could doom our way of life in this country. Very frightening. I sure hope there are enough of us to put a stop to this.
This is why I feel it is necessary for those of us that are discontented with the media here should speak out.
I think it’s time that they, along with our representatives, to hear our voices.
If they ignore us, then we should start of movement somehow to get everyone to stop watching for a day or so…maybe then they will notice us.
Can you hear my discontent, too much? 🙂
I like it! That’s what motivates people to get things done!
So what are we going to do? I think there should be a day in which citizens call for a strike on business(big) and buy or watch absolutely nothing. Maybe a week and only deal with local vendors during that week? People are smart enough and resourceful enough to buy ahead and be prepared. Something like that would hit them particularly hard. If only the country would get together and really stand up.
It’s not easy to make the changes that will really have an impact. I cancelled my tv account many years ago. I feel a lot saner, but I don’t think I had any impact on the industry. I tend to shop online from mom and pop businesses, but again, I don’t think it affects Wal*Mart. It’s hard to get enough people joining that kind of action to have an impact.
I know
Sue, what I was thinking was more along the lines of a YouTube video that goes viral, like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGC1mCS4OVo
Debtor Revolt
That is an idea…………keep it handy.
My daughter danced for thirteen years — just like this.
Then sign the petition! 👿 Damn it!
This is Hairyanna’s history, when she perceives a slight, she gets revenge. She tried it with Arnold and I would bet money someone in the DEm party has slighted her. So she is getting even with her best tool, PuffHo. Or it was her plan all along, act like a progressive populist and work behind the scenes with your right wing cronies. Otherwise she would do something with all that mess in her comments section. Someone going to that site for the first time must surely be shocked at the vitriol in the comments section, or the eHarmoney matchups going on between commenters. It is like a high school popularity contest going on over there.
Someone today on HP asked where all the trolls came from, and I replied that it’s their natural habitat 😉
PuffHo! LOL! you cracked me up with that. And I think your post is right on target; however… as one who joyfully takes part in the comments section, I have to say that we are very interested in the articles we post on, no less so than any other posters, but have developed an on-line community that really means a lot to us. It surely means a lot to me. I’m rather isolated due to being jobless and partially handicapped, and that group really sustains me. Also, Sue, I enjoy your posts on PuffHo as well! Thanks. And yes, the vitriol gets pretty bad, mostly tro//-initiated. But it’s sure LIVELY!
Oh no Badger Girl, I am not talking about the friendly back and forth, I too, enjoy that and there are alot of good people over there. There has been some cases of almost stalking going on though and yes there are the “lovers” talking back and forth. My comment on that is “get a room” LOL
I also enjoy your comments, you are a lot nicer than I am……………..
marion,
You sum it up very well, and I agree (except for maybe the “feta cheese” thingy).
Anyone referring to the President as “Barry” is being downright disrespectful; and I used to like Bill Maher. Of course he isn’t the only one, some of the biggest offenders were, and probably still are, found in the “comments” over at HP. Moreover, the behavior reminds me of playground trash talk between Kindergarteners.
I’ve come to the conclusion “these people” talk, whine, and opine for their own benefit (they enjoy hearing themselves babble 24/7). It’s quite the ego trip to hear/see oneself played, rewound and played again. Of course, none of them were elected to the Presidency, none of them has any of the responsibilities of the Office, yet all of them think their unsolicited opinions should be taken seriously. Of course, if any of them had anything credible to offer, maybe someone, somewhere would listen.
Maybe they should have a pity party; then they’d be able to entertain each other.
Great montage of “these people.” Strange how each of them looks so angry; of course that’s what carping all day will do. Eventually it takes its toll.
IMHO, I have caught Ed Shultz sine his spat with Gibbs/WH. He is the one who has changed his tune. I think he is the one that “got schooled.”
Thom Hartman on the other hand-I am having a really hard time listening to him. I turn him off quite often.
Naomi Klein, while born in Canada, holds dual citizenship – both parents were American; or so I understand.
I have some problem with your stance that only Americans should be able to comment on American politics. The US is a behemoth – whatever you all decide to do in an election affects not only you but the rest of the world. If that were not the case, I would be as uninterested in US politics as I am of politics in Botswana. We non-Americans may not be able to vote but I do believe we have a right to comment – perhaps we may even be able to persuade enough of you not to inflict another Bush on the world. I also believe/hope that having non-Americans contributing to this site was part of the intent of PlanetPOV – otherwise it would have been called AmericaPOV. I know you were talking about RW idealogues and/or progressives who have taken to bashing BO but it is only a short leap to insisting that any non-American comment is illegitimate.
I support your concerns and anger towards corporation, media, politicians etc – they are, after all, a global phenomena – but not your misplaced (IMHO) anger towards someone who makes comments on American politics due to their citizneship or lack of it.
Respectfully – Woof
Woof, I agree with you. When I lived up by the line, the politics, commerce and culture were quite intermingled. The pollution that went into lake Superior was the same lake to both of us. The shipping, the logging the fishing…….Never really did see “The Line.”
(How is everything above the line? 😉 )
Freakin’ cold 🙂
I once had a troll tell me I should just shut up about America and go back to Canada where I belong and play with the penguins up there…
…. I kid you not…
There are bloody idiots in every language and they all go by the name troll 🙂 ……. penguins???? That’s as bad as looking to ski in July – har har!
What? You don’t like penguins? 😉
Are there penguins in Canada?
AdLib, check out the post in O/T about the first corp. to declare for election!
I do agree foreign nationals should have free speech rights, not any corporations of course. But foreign nationals should never own any press or media. Of course Murdoch was the first media whore that destroyed the fourth estate.
The Aussies warned the Brits, the Brits warned the Yanks. China next?
I agree that Murdoch is a major source of all that’s wrong with our msm.
Unfortunately due to Murdoch’s success and his outspoken media darlings that make the headlines, ( because of their antics, not the worthiness of their journalism), the rest of the MSM is following suit.
President bashing seems to be the thing these days, it’s the “What’s happening now, what’s next” mentality that draws the people in.
All true, BDM, and our democracy is all the poorer for it!
Jan, you are 100% correct. Hello!
Here’s how much of a business chameleon Murdoch is. In the UK, he owns The Sun (which is like The New York Post on helium) and also The Times of London. Unlike the US, the Brits have a choice of 3 satellite/cable providers: Freeview, Virgin (owned by Branson) and Sky. Sky, undoubtedly is the biggest. Sky News is nothing like Fox in the States. It really IS fair and balanced. And in Italy, Murdoch is viewed as a hero. Sky News there is the bastion of liberalism – really. People are flocking to Sky News as it offers them another viewpoint contrary to Berlusconi.
That’s fascinating, Marion. Is he just trying to fill what he sees as a void in any particular market? I’ve read articles in Sky — and I agree, it’s very fair.
This makes it even harder to understand what he’s doing to media in the U.S.
With you on that. I don’t think any individual’s opinions should be qualified or disqualified based upon nationality.
I have some very strong opinions about what’s going on in a number of countries.
Sometimes, I think those on the outside sometimes have the best perspective on the society of other’s.
The world would have been much poorer without de Tocqueville’s perspective on America.