Conservative talk radio "clearly damaging America"?

[Wildcard Ky]

Shereads: Check your PM's. I sent you something (completely unrelated to this thread).

 

[shereads]

Re: damaging the country-- well, yes.

I have to put this in the hands of Phil Agre, who runs the Red Rock Eater News Service out of UCLA. It's a listserv.

I had a feeling the Gingriches and the Limbaughs were hurting the country, too, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I heard some oblique and fairly technical criticism from Chjomsky, on semantic and semiotic grounds, but I don't have as thorough a grounding in semantic studies as I ought to have. Then I found this article by Agre. It's long, but it reads right along.

Red Rock Eater Digest
Most Recent Article: Thu, 8 Feb 2001

We are truly staring in the face of madness here, and in a healthy
world nobody would even read such things without having an appropriate
mental health specialist on call. Note, too, that it is not just my
own evil self who is set against truth and justice, but Gore and the
Democrats: the situation is constructed such that advocacy for Gore
and the Democrats (which, you will recall, is not what the "13 myths"
piece was) is ipso facto the opposite of truth and justice. That is
the emotional structure of the rant.

<snip>

Now, it would be one thing if we had simply learned to screen out a
bad attitude. "Oh, you know, they're like that. Just ignore them."
But it's worse than that. In ignoring the awful tone of voice, we
also ignore the howling unreason that boils below it, and that gets
insidiously into our minds through repeated pelting with it. So it's
important that we slow the rhetoric down so that the irrationality
becomes visible for what it is.

Nicely expressed. Thank you for the article.

 

[cantdog]

Well, I remember that era. They're whining, they're crying, do they think we're stupid, get over it. Get over it.

That's the kind of damage I mean. I expected, during the month after the Selection, that there'd be a witch hunt like McCarthy's, not for Commies, but for Libs. "I have a list of more than 450 Liberals and Liberal fellow-travelers in the State Department of the United States!"

That kind of thing.

It was a complete babble period, and the effects are still here. Rush and those guys still sound like that.

But I needed the analysis of that style of talk from someone like Phil to define what exactly it was that these people were doing that was so appalling.

I saved the article and distributed it. But like all such tracts, it didn't have a lot of flash or stickiness. It helped to sort of inoculate me and my circle of friends against the poison.

Glad it helps.



cantdog

 

[rgraham666]

There is a book I read many years ago called Snapping by Flo Conway and Jim Siegleman. It was published just after Jonestown. It was about cults and how they forced their view on their victims.

The term the authours used was information disease.

Basically, the human mind takes in new information in the light of old information. What you already know affects what you can learn. Once enough bad information is lodged in your mind, all new information is bent through the prism of this posion.

I was struck by two case histories they cited.

One, was a former Krishna who stated that while he was in the cult, whenever he left the temple, the outside world looked gray and dark. In Southern California.

The other was a former Moonie who, after he had been seized by the cult, went back to his parent's home to pick up some stuff to give to 'Father'. As they were leaving, his wife (who had also turned) said, "I'm so proud you stood up to your parents that way."

He replied "Those aren't my parents." And he believed it.

It strikes my that much of the far right media is forming and supporting a kind of information disease.

Too many people hear only what these people put out. It has damaged their ability to perceive the world.

This is why they react so emotionally to the simplest difference of opinion, their ability to think has been poisoned.

Not that it wouldn't be possible for the far left to do the same thing.

 

[SeaCat]

As far as I'm concerned there is one thing, and one thing only which is capable of damaging America and that is the loss of the peoples ability to think for themselves. Unfortunately that has happened.
Look at our political campaignes. Rarely do you hear of people watching the debates, (which are few and far between.) Instead they listen to sound bites of them being put out with the "proper" spin by their affiliation be it liberal or conservative. Why should someone go through the effort of thinking when they can have someone else do it for them?
Look at the popularity of people like the Televangilists. The idea that some over paid, ender educated sports figure who has a hard time signing their name might know more about politics than we do. The idea that a person who has raped and killed their way across several states has more rights than the people he victimised because his face is on TV, or he is of a different ethnicity.
I had better quite here before I get my blood boiling even more than it is. I just hope the endangered species of Americans who are capable of thought somehow survives long enough to save the country.

Cat

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

The fundamental why

Why do so many people follow the ramblings of hate-encrusted ideologues? Why are so many tasteless, worthless, entertainmentless movies and television sitcoms still on the air? Why do so many people follow a leader after he lies, lies about lying, admiting to lying, and finally lying about admitting he lied? Why do so many believe that Iraq and Saddam were intimately involved in 9/11? Why do so many not seem to care about the whys of warfare as long as there are more dead people on the other side than us? Why do we respond to all of the political games like dogs on a leash?

The answer is simple: Americans, that is the greater majority of them, are f***ing morons.

Most of us in this great country have the intellect of sea slugs. Most of us will believe anything simple and tailor-made to our preducices no matter what the facts say. Hell, a great majority of the people of this country view science and scientific theories as nothing more than blasphemy and lies. History is regarded with a blind eye and education in general is given such a low priority that privy maintenance is threatening to overtake it. Americans have a disdain for facts, reality, thinking in general, and a thousand other rational logical processes. They want everything to boil down to us vs them ideally with color coding to make it really easy to tell the difference. Look at the Darwin Awards, the modern redos off the Scopes monkey trial, or the fact that a large percentage of Americans believe in guardian angels and a decent portion of them believe they have one.

Basically, the reason that most countries look at our intellects in disdain is because the majority of Americans have no real intellect. It's a sad but true state of affairs. Don't get me wrong, I love my country. But the residents in it need to get off their fat asses and start reading some fucking books. The ones without pictures, ideally.

EDITED TO ADD: In other words, it's not Rush Limbaugh and his drones that are ruining America. Americans are doing that just fine on their owns.

 

[cantdog]

Lucifer, dear, you come out the other end of existential thinking a changed man. Hang in. I'm rooting for you.

We are all dumb house apes, and we can hardly get out of our own way. You can't tell whether to weep or laugh or become angry. Then angry becomes impossible, because although we are beneath contempt, we are all us. These morons are us. You can blush for them, but you cannot repudiate them. Weep and laugh.

And then love.

rg, you have the nub, as you usually do. In your own inimitable way, you remain one of the very clearest thinkers on the board here. I know you feel that your current clarity is limited and bought with pain, but so are we all.

I endorse your post here fully, as I usually can do. Thank you.

cantdog

 

[Guest]

rg, you have the nub, as you usually do. In your own inimitable way, you remain one of the very clearest thinkers on the board here.

Same here. Muchas gracias, rg.

Perdita

 

[rgraham666]

Arigato gozimashita, cant and perdita.

I'm simply trying to follow in the footsteps of my role model. He knew he wasn't wise and spent his whole life trying to become wise.

I hope I can do half as well, and avoid his fate.

 

[rgraham666]

And in regards to Lucifer's post, one of my favourite aphorisms about the U.S. is that it has a mythology, but no history.

Not entirely true, nothing is, but I believe that observation explains a great deal of the thinking processes of the 'right'.

My own feeling is that is because America cut itself off from the world during it's creation. Many of the original colonies were founded by people leaving Europe, and all connections to Europe, behind.

When America as a country was formed, that split became wide.

And like all sealed enviroments, what was contained within has rotted.

This is not completely the case, as many of the posters here prove, but for the 'right' most of the world is an unreal and frightening nightmare, since they know so little about it.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Conservative talk radio "clearly damaging America"?

This is nabbed off the other thread wehre we aere discussing far right radio personalities.

Mike Webb: A self-described liberal talk-show host known for his disdain of the Bush administration called for the death penalty for the president and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for "war crimes," according to an audiotape.

Randi Rhodes: Although... I am Glad that Laura Bush is in the White House... She believes that a child beginning at the very earliest age must be taught (how to respect the servants). What a great job she did with Jenna and the "other one". <snip>

I would say both of these are pretty vituperative. Rhodes is going so far as to skip attacking the person she is mad at and going after his wife & kids. I don't think it gets much more ad hominem than that.

There are people on the left who are conciously trying to become the Rush Limbaugh of the left. So far they are having very little success. I don't really see a difference in the nastiness of the far right & nastiness of the far left.

As noted when I posted this orignailly these quotes come from a simple google search. I have no idea if either exists, much less if they actually said these things. If they do not or did not, I apologize for posting false information. This isn't an area whre I claim any depth of knowledge.

-Colly

Just speaking for myself, reading this stuff gives me the same queasy feeling that listening to right-wing radio does, but then I've noticed that I seem to be missing the rabid kind of personal hatred that would make this stuff entertaining.

I don't like Bush & Cheney et. al., but I really think my hatred (such as it is) is focused on their policies, not their character, and I think I'm not alone in feeling this way.

If left-wing shock radio has failed, it could just very well be that most liberals just aren't entertained by invective and personal attacks. If that's claiming the high ground, then so be it.

But I have noticed that most of the lefty arguments here are focused on policiy, while a good number of conservative arguments, especially when we're talking about Clinton, Hilary, &/or Kerry, are based on the various politicians' character, and that is pretty much exactly how right-wing radio works.

I'll leave you to make of that what you will.

---dr.M.

Edited to add: My idea of liberal talk radio is NPR. They're not flaming lefty, but they are thoughtful and deep, which is all we liberals ask for. NPR has undergone explosive growth in the last 4-6 years and has far outstripped the growth of right-wing radio, so I believe there's hope.

I would also quote Cantdog (I think) who pointed out in a previous post that while not all conservatives are by any means stupid, just about every stupid person I've ever met has been conservative, and there's your audience for Rush and Ann: people who want their political discussions to be simple, black & white, and, unfortunately, usually wrong.

 

[gauchecritic]

Sorry about this. I need something explaining.

Colly and Mab (and others) keep referring to Liberals and then (often in the same sentence) The Far Left.

Am I correct in assuming that these are the same thing? That is to say an American who considers themselves far left are, in European terms so far right that they make Charles Kennedy (Liberal leader over here) look like Margaret Thatcher?

I would really like you to clear this up for me as I'm confused and can't help but laugh when you say 'far left'.

Communist--------------------Liberal----------------------Conservative.

As far as I know all politics in Yankeeland are between Liberal and Conservative (as was pre-20C England) very much right of Liberal as we know it today.

Yours sincerely (politically left of Svenska)

Gauche

 

[dr_mabeuse]

That's a good point, Gauche, because we're largely talking about things that no longer exist.

The way things are in the US now, "liberal" has been equated with "stupid dumbass motherfucker". Now, your far left comprises your flaming stupid dumbass motherfuckers who want to increase government interference into our everyday lives and really fuck things up, while your more moderate liberals are the stupid dumbass motherfuckers who believe that governmenet has a useful role to play in making people's lives better and who might have some reservations about trusting to the innate fairness and goodness of Big Business and the Religious Right.

Just what goivernment's role should be and how it should go about doing this is open to debate--or, rather, used to be open to debate. Now any discussion of same is branded stupid dumbass liberal claptrap and ignored.

A lot of these stupid dumbass motherfuckers think that $390 billion a year is bit much to pay for national offense, and have reservations about the wisdom of trying to make friends and influence people by bombing the holy shit out of them. They have the totally ridiculous idea that some of this money might be spent on helping people with other needs, like food and education and health-care for the sleazy welfare motherfuckers who are draining the life out of the Capitalist system. (It's well know that social programs are a waste of money, while throwing money at the pentagon is Admirable and Patriotic.)

They also think that it might be a good idea if government recognized and responded to people's real-life needs rather than holding the people to standards of Old Testament ethics that are honored more in the breach than in practice, unless you're not wealthy, in which case you get sent to jail.

The radical left, those unbelieavably stupid dumbass backstabbing un-American traitorous motherfuckers who have ever entertained the heresy of common ownership and have heard of things like s*cial*sm or c*mm*nism (sorry, I don't dare spell them out), don't even exist over here anymore, thank God. They were wiped out long ago, thank God and good riddance to them.

To make it easy, when I say 'liberal' I'm talking about those people who would rather trust government than big-business, who believe in values other than the values of the marketplace, and who believe that government can be a force for positive social good.

Just what each of these means and how they are to be practiced is open to debate, but those are the principles.

---Zoot

 

[gauchecritic]

Thanks Mab. I never realised there were so many dumb-ass motherfuckers involved in poitics.

Gauche

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Sorry about this. I need something explaining.

Colly and Mab (and others) keep referring to Liberals and then (often in the same sentence) The Far Left.

Am I correct in assuming that these are the same thing? That is to say an American who considers themselves far left are, in European terms so far right that they make Charles Kennedy (Liberal leader over here) look like Margaret Thatcher?

I would really like you to clear this up for me as I'm confused and can't help but laugh when you say 'far left'.

Communist--------------------Liberal----------------------Conservative.

As far as I know all politics in Yankeeland are between Liberal and Conservative (as was pre-20C England) very much right of Liberal as we know it today.

Yours sincerely (politically left of Svenska)

Gauche

Far Left, Left, Right, Far right, all assume a center exists. It's a continum from some form of totalitarinaism on one extreme to Communisim on the other end of the scale. You arbitrairily plunk down a position that is Center and then you can make judgement calls on wheter a person is left of center, or right of center.

The problem is, the scale is a sliding one and center is a judgement call. I consider myself right of center. Not far right, but defintely to the right. During Clinton's time in office I was pretty much reactionary. During Reagans, I was on the right. My view's haven't changed all that much though. The country has become so polarized politically that my position is now pretty close to centrist or moderately right.

Liberal is a bad word, as Doc noted. But it is only a bad word, in as much as the people in power now are so reactionary. They have carried so many people towards reactionary right, that people who used to be considered left are now radicals.

I don't know how Doc uses the words, but for me Far left & far right are derogotory terms. They represent the extremes, fanatics who can book no dissent or compromise. In the end it's all a matter of perception. To true believers in the Neo-con position I am so far to the left I bleed pink. To real leftists I am so far to the right I might as well be Carl Rove.

The moderate or centrist position contnues to shrink as the extremists on the right push for Theocracy and the extremists on the left for communism. As the radicals & reactonaries harden their positions and look less and less to compromise, you find yourself in the position of being labled the enemy if you don't adopt all of thier ideas. It is quickly reaching the point in my case where I am the enemy to both left & right. Since I favor women's reproductive rights I might as well be Lenin to the people on the far right. Since I favor a strong military, I might as well be Hitler to those on the far left.

Conservatives have almost become extinct. There is a herd mentality to modern U.S. politics and the charge to the extreme right has left very few of us who are merely conservative and not Neo-con. The GOP, our conservative party has sold its soul to the fundamentalist Christians. If you are an old school conservative, you are an outsider, looking in.

-Colly

 

[shereads]

We are all dumb house apes, and we can hardly get out of our own way.

Are house apes a step up the evolutionary ladder from knuckle-draggers?

These morons are us. You can blush for them, but you cannot repudiate them.

Most of my political anger is directed at myself - at "us" - for being aware and involved but not dedicated to achieving change. We write to our congressmen and do what we can - but not really all that we can. The only people who can make that claim are the tiny percentage of people whose lives are focused on the political world to the same extent that the rest of us focus on our jobs, our homes, our personal goals.

Most of the people I'm close to are politically aware, and we're activists in comparison to the majority of voters. But I've been personally acquainted with only one person who chose a life of public service, at significant personal risk and expense. It's not only thankless to fight unpopular fights; it engenders anger and envy and the occasional death threat. His particular cause is the environment, a singularly frustrating cause in Florida ("land of the midnight bulldozers") and he wins a significant battle maybe once every dozen years. The victories are not only compromised, but they are nearly always temporary.

It's worse than thankless to care deeply about causes that are in opposition to the will of the wealthy and influential. The only reward is knowing you did what you could and believed it was right.

My friend says, "Decisions are made by the people who show up." For most people, it's asking a lot just to show up at the polls; forget showing up in front of a newspaper every day. A few of us are informed enough and concerned enough that we feel compelled to get involved in discussions like this, and to be armed with information. But face it, if that's all we do, we're getting a free ride from the ones who make real sacrifices.

 

[KarenAM]

I see myself as part of the embattled center. I have left-leaning views, like socialized, universal health care for children and mandatory vaccinations, as well as heavily centralized public health. And I have right-leaning views, like small government whenever possible, especially in issues of morality, and fiscal responsibility.

The trouble is that both the left and the right have abandoned me and my principles. I liked much of Clinton's economic work but was appalled at his lack of integrity and blatant influence peddling. I admired H.W. Bush's fairly pragmiatic foreign policy, until he abandoned the Iraqis to Saddam and demonstrated that he really was out of touch with the average American. I found Reagan charismatic until he sold out the conservatives to the Christian right wing.

I felt abandoned by the left in general when feminism became about hating men and policing sex to the satisfaction of its lunatic fringe, and when it became clear to me that to be "liberal" meant you had to embrace the utter idiocy of Marxist thought, which has little if any value in the real world. I felt abandoned by the right when being "conservative" meant massive budget deficits and unquestioning obedience to theocrats.

And what are the neo-cons? I don't think they even fit the spectrum of left and right. They are dangerous religious fanatics who are happily sacrificing this country for their dreams of a big government that enslaves the world for their mad dreams of glory.

So here I am, everybody's enemy because I won't do or think what I'm told to do and think; sort of like those guys who signed those pieces of paper... what were they called?

Oh yeah... The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

 

[SlickTony]

I quit listening to NPR when during a pledge drive one of their fundraisers actually said that anyone who listened to NPR without sending them money was no different than someone stealing newspapers out of a newspaper machine. For some reason that bugged me, you know?

I heard that argument on my local station, and it pissed me off too, which was one reason that I decided not to give them any money this year. That and the fact that

1. My cat had a $700 operation which I am still paying off
2. They've stopped giving you little goodies for pledging.
3. Over the 7 years that I've been listening to my local station, they have gotten rid of three programs I liked, one by one.
   [/list=1]
   
   However, I don't hold NPR or even Stereo 90 responsible for the maunderings of the diamond-encrusted Ponte Vedristas* who never had to make a payment plan for anything or make do with a slender budget who volunteer during the pledge drive and say sillyass stuff like that.
   
   *Ponte Vedra is a posh little town in St. Johns County, to the south of Jax Beach. The residents of beachfront property blocking up public access paths to the beach with strategic plantings, so as to prevent the hoi polloi from getting to the water is the reason why Jacksonville Beach is so damn crowded--ordinary St. Johns County folk coming up because they can't get to the beach in their own 'hood, but that's another story.
   
   I have never wished Bush or any of his cronies dead, although I will admit to hoping that when John Ashcroft had his gallbladder operation, his pain would be managed badly, but I guess all you other dumbass motherfuckers can figure out my reasoning behind that.
   
   I'm off to an impromptu cookoff, gotta go.

 

[shereads]

Does anyone remember the Simpsons episode where Homer made a huge pledge to public television to get one of their tote bags?

When he couldn't pay, he was chased through town and threatened with violence by Mister Rogers, Big Bird and Betty White. To escape, he had to leave the country by becoming a Christian missionary on an island in the South Pacific.

Native: "Mister Homer, if God is all-powerful, why does He care if we worship Him?"

Homer: "Well, that's because God is both powerful and insecure - like Barbra Streisand...That James Brolin has been a rock!"

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I see myself as part of the embattled center. I have left-leaning views, like socialized, universal health care for children and mandatory vaccinations, as well as heavily centralized public health. And I have right-leaning views, like small government whenever possible, especially in issues of morality, and fiscal responsibility.

The trouble is that both the left and the right have abandoned me and my principles. I liked much of Clinton's economic work but was appalled at his lack of integrity and blatant influence peddling. I admired H.W. Bush's fairly pragmiatic foreign policy, until he abandoned the Iraqis to Saddam and demonstrated that he really was out of touch with the average American. I found Reagan charismatic until he sold out the conservatives to the Christian right wing.

I felt abandoned by the left in general when feminism became about hating men and policing sex to the satisfaction of its lunatic fringe, and when it became clear to me that to be "liberal" meant you had to embrace the utter idiocy of Marxist thought, which has little if any value in the real world. I felt abandoned by the right when being "conservative" meant massive budget deficits and unquestioning obedience to theocrats.

And what are the neo-cons? I don't think they even fit the spectrum of left and right. They are dangerous religious fanatics who are happily sacrificing this country for their dreams of a big government that enslaves the world for their mad dreams of glory.

So here I am, everybody's enemy because I won't do or think what I'm told to do and think; sort of like those guys who signed those pieces of paper... what were they called?

Oh yeah... The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Great post Karen. It's very difficult to be a moderate. The biggest problem with political thought processes today is that they try to pigeon hole all of us into one of two categories: Liberal or Conservative, or Dem or Repub.

Over time, the perceived definition of each has changed. The fanatics at each end of the spectrum probably have as much to do with that change as any other group. Both sides claim to welcome diversity and differing opinions, yet try to throw everyone into one of two categories. How can there be true diversity when there's only two categories? How can we claim to value differing opinions when there's only two categories?

My political philosiphies are quite simple, I believe in personal freedom no matter what the issue.

freedom for a woman to choose.

freedom of law abiding citizens to own guns.

freedom to burn a flag.

freedom for everyone to have the same chance, regardless of race, religion, sexuality or anything else.

freedom from a heavy tax burden and an obtrusive government.

Freedom to keep religion out of my government.

I expect my government to protect my freedom.

I believe in the death penalty. What gives you the right to continue with your life when you chose to end theirs?

Does all this make me a Liberal or a Conservative? According to our system, I must be one of the two. Like Karen, I sometimes feel abandoned by both sides. I'll just continue on with voting for the person that most closely matches my personal views on the issues regardless of what party affiliation they claim.

The number of people in the middle is slowly growing and starting to be heard. Ironically, the loudest complaints about them come from their own party. Dems get upset with Zell Miller, and Repubs get upset with John McCain.

Talk about throwing the current system into complete chaos........A McCain/Miller ticket.