these are just my fears...
Sep. 9th, 2008 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerfrom the Huffington Post
"Stop saying that!" my wife says to me. But this is not a high school football game and I'm not a cheerleader with a bad attitude. This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin' lose this thing. Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.
Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We're coming off the worst eight years in our country's history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R's have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we're going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That's not odd as a difference of opinion, that's logically and mathematically queer.
It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. ...
So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. ... And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage... one side can lie and get away with it.
And that is what bothers me so much. I listen to fairly liberal to moderate mainstream media outlets (NPR, Washington Post, C-SPAN). And no one is really, seriously challenging the lies coming out of the GOP. I've heard roundtable after panel show, and the preponderance of speakers are Republicans or faux-disinterested Republican/conservative speakers, and they parrot the GOP line. And the moderators, who are supposed to be JOURNALISTS, do nothing to challenge them with the facts.
I'm not asking for special treatment. All these media outlets were all over the anti-Obama stories, continuing to broadcast allegations that had been rebutted in a political version of "teach the controversy". But none of them are pursuing Gov. Palin's lies, and Sen. McCain's lies, in anything like close to the same way they dogged Obama with Rev. Wright, the 'is he Muslim?' nonstory, the 'is his wife not patriotic enough?' nonstory and other BS.
If the press continues to pass on its responsibility as the conservator of truth in the US political system, they are betraying a trust that gives them the status they enjoy.
"Stop saying that!" my wife says to me. But this is not a high school football game and I'm not a cheerleader with a bad attitude. This is an election and as things stand now, we're gonna frickin' lose this thing. Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.
Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We're coming off the worst eight years in our country's history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R's have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we're going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That's not odd as a difference of opinion, that's logically and mathematically queer.
It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. ...
So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It's the press. There is no more fourth estate. ... And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that's the 51% advantage... one side can lie and get away with it.
And that is what bothers me so much. I listen to fairly liberal to moderate mainstream media outlets (NPR, Washington Post, C-SPAN). And no one is really, seriously challenging the lies coming out of the GOP. I've heard roundtable after panel show, and the preponderance of speakers are Republicans or faux-disinterested Republican/conservative speakers, and they parrot the GOP line. And the moderators, who are supposed to be JOURNALISTS, do nothing to challenge them with the facts.
I'm not asking for special treatment. All these media outlets were all over the anti-Obama stories, continuing to broadcast allegations that had been rebutted in a political version of "teach the controversy". But none of them are pursuing Gov. Palin's lies, and Sen. McCain's lies, in anything like close to the same way they dogged Obama with Rev. Wright, the 'is he Muslim?' nonstory, the 'is his wife not patriotic enough?' nonstory and other BS.
If the press continues to pass on its responsibility as the conservator of truth in the US political system, they are betraying a trust that gives them the status they enjoy.
anger is understandable, but perspective is also necessary
Date: 2008-09-09 05:32 pm (UTC)The problem is, I think, that the GOP has successfully spent most of the post-Vietnam period selling the idea that Democrats are weak, Republicans are strong, that government is bad, that Taxes Are the Bad Government Stealing Your Money, but that a huge military is essential, and using it as often as possible to kick other countries is a sign of strength.
In fact, I think that the domestic politics and the foreign policy of the GOP are closely linked, and both are centered on a sort of jingoistic chest-thumping that plays *really* well to peoples' worst instincts. No one likes a bully, but many, many people, deep down inside, would like to *be* that bully, able to push everyone around, "kick ass", and solve every problem that they come across with violence and aggression. Even some of the most liberal, free-thinking people I know have said to me at one time or another, frustrated by jobs or bad drivers or ignorant political debaters, "I'd like to just vaporise them" or somethign of the sort. And the GOP taps into that innate longing to use force, to resort to violence, or the political equivalent--mudslinging, invective, character assassination, contempt. And having tapped into it, they build on it, encourage it, urge their supporters to dehumanise those who disagree with them. And once you've dehumanised those who disagree with you, you no longer listen to them; you ignore everything they have to say. And, frustrated by your ignoring them, they follow the same path. The GOP has been ripping the country apart and destroying the normal give and take of political debate with lies, verbal violence, and hatred until we have gotten tot eh point where people simply don't talk to each other, they scream at each other, and they don't listen to each other because they are too invested in supporting their own position as if it were part of their identity.
To me, Obama represents one (last?) chance to go beyond that, to actually engage everyone in a real dialogue, to change the system that has developed. And of course the GOP is fighting that tooth and nail, trying to force the Obama campaign to adopt heir own tactics.
However. I think you are wildly inflating Obama by saying he is on a par with FDR, TR, MLK, and JFK. He has come nowhere close to achieving what any of those you mention had done at this point in his career. Even Kennedy, when he ran for president, was a decorated war veteran who had served as a federal representative for six years and a senator for seven. Obama may end up in that pantheon in time, but I think it undercuts the credibility of support for him to deify him to this extent now.