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Why Mouthing Off Is All the Rage
Jae C. Hong / AP Photo
With everyone on such a short fuse, no Obama Sunday talk marathon is going to calm anyone down.
How horribly uncivil America is becoming! That’s the big space-filling, time-filling newsmagazine and cable talk topic of the moment. Between the homicidal tea parties and the “spontaneous” congressmen, it's time to wheel out Miss Manners (as CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield did on Saturday) to puzzle out all this shocking unrestrained fury that’s suddenly invaded our lives. But why are we all so surprised? American distemper has been a strangely long time coming. Now everyone’s on a short fuse, even female tennis players.
It amazed me in the months after the foreclosure crisis hit and Wall Street’s fecklessness melted everybody’s savings that my new countrymen were so stoic, so seemingly resigned to being shovel ready for the economic dumpster. A few mean things were shouted at AIG managers and such, but where were the pitchfork-wielding hordes charging the Merrill Lynch executive suite to rip out CEO John Thain’s $35,000 commode? How come no break-ins now at Goldman Sachs with burlap sacks to redistribute the first half of this year’s $11.4 billion in bonuses and compensation (up 33 percent from a year earlier)?
Obama is such a rational dude himself, he assumes that a Sunday talk show marathon of cool rationality can prevail over a summer of sulfurous, satanic smoke.
It has been left to Michael Moore, in his usual antic, flawed way, to enact a theatrical liberal insurgency. His new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, which opens Sept. 23 in New York and Los Angeles, ends with the familiar roly-poly figure in the baseball cap cordoning off Wall Street’s most blue-chip institutions in yellow crime scene tape. The scenes in which his cameras watch with a silent family from inside a small doomed house in Miami as the sheriff’s posse advances to repossess it are full of raw suspense. Just as painful is the laid-off worker at a glass company in Chicago, who tells the camera angrily: “This happened because of bad business deals. I don’t make business deals. I make doors and windows.”
Judging by the wildly different grievances offered to TV reporters by the Washington marchers, it wasn’t health care that drove them to take to the streets on Sept. 12. It was a muddled, media-fueled, generalized fury. The achievement of the GOP and its allies in cable, talk radio, and the Internet has been to convert the righteous discontent with joblessness inflicted by financial and managerial malfeasance into rage at the guy in the White House, whose health-care plan is the only thing on the horizon that might actually do those surly marchers some real-world good. (By the way, the ones who have heard of Michael Moore probably hate him and his liberal view of their grievances even more than they hate Obama.)
• Paul Krugman: Reform or Bust (NYT)Franklin D. Roosevelt was fortunate: He didn’t take office until nearly four years after the Wall Street crash, by which time the Republicans’ responsibility for the Depression was taken for granted. It’s Obama’s bad luck that he got elected just as the mayhem of the foreclosures, the banking collapse, and the General Motors disaster was accelerating the surge in unemployment to warp speed.
Obama, the avatar of change, himself recognized as early as July that change might end up provoking more fear than hope. After listing all the woes he had inherited, he told Time’s Karen Tumulty that when “you add that all together” and throw in a big dose of misinformation about cost, “in people’s minds it’s just a big expensive thing that may end up resulting in me paying more taxes.”
Was it the vanity of supreme self-confidence that made Obama underestimate how ruthlessly Republicans would stoke that fear? Or that their media voiceboxes would go after him with the same paranoid fury they spewed at Bill Clinton? Maybe the verbal posies Obama tossed to grumpsters John McCain and Orrin Hatch were just part of Obama’s Gandhian strategy of killing ’em with kindness, but what if he’s naïve enough to imagine that these guys can be persuaded to lend him a hand?
Glenn Beck is Rush redux—Limbaugh with liposuction, partying like it’s still 1993. Foxy cable “news” is talk radio with pictures, birthers are Whitewater conspiracy wonks with sharper forceps, and most of the heads we see talking on TV are cab drivers with microphones instead of Bluetooth headsets, mouthing off while the meter ticks. The biggest change since the Clinton-hating days is the Internet. It helped elect Obama and now it disseminates the venom that threatens to poison his efforts. And Rush is still around, but bigger, richer, and louder, with scores of imitators, respectable networks ready to take him seriously, and Republican politicians dropping incense on his altar.
There was always something of a demagogue about FDR. His patrician background gave him the Wall Street cred to scorch his enemies in that plummy voice: “We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob… They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred…” Obama can’t say something like that. He knows he would come off as an angry black man—and everybody would know he was faking it. He doesn’t welcome hatred, is the truth. He made an admonishing speech to Wall Street last week, but it was a day late and a trillion dollars short. Besides, the summer’s toxic flare over health care has muffled the urgency for financial reform. It doesn’t help that the pencil heads on his own team were participants in the reckless era of unraveling regulation.
Obama is such a rational dude himself, he assumes that a Sunday talk show marathon of cool rationality can prevail over a summer of sulfurous, satanic smoke. But I am afraid that what the 18th-century satirist Jonathan Swift observed still applies: It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
Andrew Young's Revenge
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Introducing Beast Books
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
Politicians Gone Crazy
Tina Brown is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown.
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n--Y--PortmanteauElLamer
Yes totally! however I don't know if many of the people who are being loud actually understand what they are saying. I not sure many people in this country know the difference between socialisum, comunisum, facisum and so on.
Obama is hitler is another one of those things which I just can't get my head around. How does the train of logic go on that one? Obama = bad, Hiterler also = bad ergo Obama = Hitler? thats as far as I understand it.
I think the people who can solve:
When A contains B and C contanins B does A=D
correctly should be more vocal *grinn*
menckenlite
Study logic so that you too, can be as rational as Obama. Narcissism, egotism and arrogance is rational?
NinjaSauce
-- Study logic so that you too, can be as rational as Obama. Narcissism, egotism and arrogance is rational? --
Your statements makes no sense. The first statement doesn't logically follow the next.
Yes, studying logic will make you rational.
No one has argued that narcissism, egotism and arrogance (which are synonyms) is rational. Not only is that a loaded statement, but it is a straw man argument.
@ElLamer
I believe the logic is
Hitler makes good speeches
Obama makes good speeches
.:. Hitler = Obama.
The fallacy is the same, but apparently, that's the argument.
AlanD2
Portmanteau: Uncivil Americans have successfully vented at the following presidents:
Abraham Lincoln
James A. Garfield
William McKinley
John F. Kennedy
Uncivil Americans have not quite so successfully vented at these presidents:
Andrew Jackson
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S Truman
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Hatred and fury have consequences.
I'm sure you're proud of all these venters...
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n--Y--PortmanteauAlanD2
Portmanteau: Instead of getting angry, I would rather people get dedicated to pushing reforms (of whatever kind they deem necessary) through Congress.
Or maybe just vote the bastards out. (But how do you avoid electing new ones?)
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n--Y--nightdragon83BullMoose
Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt along with James Madison and T. Jefferson are the top 4.
Cymatic
Tina - that was a great read.
samobeachguy
Absolutely, vocal is good. It's how we bring about change in a democracy. By using those avenues provided by our constitution to redress and make change happen we al win. Public displays of hatred and vitriol however, just don't get us anywhere.
Veronicaxy
Americans have never been 'civil'?
You need to travel and attempt to 'stand in line' only to find out that other countries do not believe in order and mob rules demand you push and shove to get what you want.
Americans have made a fetish of being civil. The louts in our lives just give us continued motivation
newswoman
Why do you, Tina, call the President a "Dude'? It sounds so disrespectful.
BullMoose
Please yell louder and work yourself up. Put those hormones in your bloodstream, then hopefully have a stroke or heart attack, self induced by your wacky screaming and throwing childish hissy fits.
Any doctor will attest it is not smart for those up in their years to carry on like the psycho Town Howlers.
Lindam11
The fury reminds me of difficult children when they are trying to get someone's goat. If the person doesn't respond, the child just escalates to some frantic level. There is no reasoning with them or pacifying them. They just need to burn the tantrum out, although some children never learn to be reasonable.
ThinkAgain
Maybe the children have gotten wind of the fact that mommy is saying one thing and doing another.
Obama just keeps saying the same old same old same old thing over and over and over. He says they haven't gotten the message out. People could cite his superficial message verbatum. It's the damn bills they don't understand because they don't add up to his message!
Saying one thing and doing another makes reasonable people think you're not trying to reason them you're trying to get them to agree to something you know they won't agree to if you're honest with them.
Cymatic
On the contrary - Obama is very clear and forthcoming. Unlike Cheney & Bush who were the kings of backroom deals. It just so happened that the two oilmen happened to preside over an the greatest era of corporate profit for any industry ever. No bid contracts, an unjustified war that kinda just happened to cut off the competition, a massive increase in oil prices, and riches beyond measure for oilmen and their families. We don't even have the slightest idea about half of what those two were up to, yet the half that we do know about - torture, renditions, manufacturing false evidence for war, warrantless wiretapping - were an offense to any decent person. Yet, somehow Obama comes across as a "say one thing do another" guy?
ThinkAgain
Day1 - Signed an order that there would be no lobbyists in the admin Day2 - There's an exception allowing a lobbyist in the admin
today - The admin is full of lobbyists
That's just one provable example. Need more. That's not the imagination of a paranoid brain.
The only reason you THINK you don't have any idea what Bush/Cheney were up to it's because your paranoid little pea brain is on Kool Aid and is imagining they were up to all sorts of things that they weren't. If you can't tell the difference between your wild political opinions and facts, you deserve your silly little paranoia.
BullMoose
Bush ran his backroom deals with the Black Budget, denied by wacko Repugs and those in on it only.
Bush has killed more Americans than the 9/11 terrorist did, with his ignorant , unecessary foray into Iraq. But Iran sends him their best regards, especially for ridding them of Saddam.
sophia5
"The fury reminds me of difficult children"
Typical condescending Liberal.
Liberals try to present the argument that
these "right wing kooks" are
the uneducated moronic masses of the right wing,
having NO knowledge of the issues.
Of course, all the left wing protesters,
including those who destroy personal property,
are highly "educated" Ivy Leaguers. LOL
They walk around in their Che Guevara T-Shirts
because " it's cool," not realizing the guy was a murderering
Marxist Revolutionary and friends with Castro.
Just look at what that " T-Shirt Hero " had a hand in.
http://www.memorialcubano.org/indexeng.htm
robwriter
Sophia5, typical condescending Whackjob.
Picachu
You are so full of shit. I know lots of liberals, none of whom ever wear Che Guevera T-sheets. Truth of the matter most so-called liberals are centrists, while the right wingnuts are so far to the right as to be off the scale. Like most right wingers you have conjured up an image of somebody who disagrees with you while, at the same time you try to blame the mess we are in on the lefties, at the same time disavowing your responsibility for same mess. You righties have screwed the pooch big time and you are so in denial about it that one can only say "how do you spell cognitive disonance?"
elldeen
More total wingnut Bulls**t.
sophia5
For every "Birther" there is a "Truther."
"you try to blame the mess we are in on the lefties"
Who's blaming the left? Both parties are complicit for the current mess.
Never voted for Bush.
BasPos
Sophie, the truthers are a very small group, and they are eschewed by all other lefties.
mistersong
Most of the Neo Cons and Bush were also Ivy Leaguers, as are many of the Wall street crowd when you get top the upper eschelons. Why you Right Wingers never admit this fact, plain as day right before their very eyes puzzels me. But intelectual consitancy or fact based logic... is not your strong suit. Perhaps you'd like The Birther Lawyer, Orly Taitz to be the Attorney General in the next Republican Administration. That should show those smarty pants Ivy Leaguers who's smart. BUSH was an Ivy Leaguer..so what...what's your point?
newswoman
Those rightwing kooks ARE the uneducated moronic masses who have no knowledge of the issoes! And all left wing people are not Ivy Leaguers.
Typical hyperbole from Sophia5.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
BullMoose
The religious right, spawned from the Oral Majority of Jerry Falwell, currently residing in Tatarus, started all the holier than thou moral values garbage into politics.
They coalesced around the Reagan era, guided by the Lee QAtwater (also residing in Tatarus) version of Jung, and created 'me generation" idealism we still suffer as a nation.
Me,myself, and I. You can find us at Tea Parties, Death Panels discussions, Birther meetings, Focus on the Family shows, and shwo is the key word, for Jesus surely is devoid of their ilk.
Remember Yuppies "He who dies with the most toys wins", and "shop till you drop".
Thanks Greatest Generation, your offspring sure sent this country to hell without the handbasket..
lloydg
Speaking of Miss Manners, I once was a colleague of hers at at the Washington Post Weekend Section--we had adjoining desks--and she was a such a stickler for proper comportment, sometimes annoyingly so, that when she kept a glossy foto of herself on her desk in some sort of Victorian outfit holding up a teacup, in my immaturity I drew mustache on it-- at the urging of coworkers. Of course she went completely batshit. It was, like those Town Hall dustups, a very human moment.
Ritarita
A man
After my own
Heart.
newswoman
I have never seen the rhetoric so hatefilled as it is today against a president.
The reps didn't like Clinton either and they did everything the could to 'get' him, and they did, but didn't call him 'the anti-Christ' or a 'witch doctor' complete with pictures. They seem to think if they have rallies and call him socialist, fascist, HItler, that they will somehow get him out of office! They are scary, and I am very afraid!
ThinkAgain
Bush and Cheney were called Hitler by the far left and war criminals and blamed for actually blowing up the World Trade Towers. Did you miss that?! You should have gone to the far left sites during the Bush years. Todays rhetoric is nothing compared to that. You liberals just had a deaf ear to that, now you're crying like babies when they hate you cultivated is aimed in your direction.
perezp
ThinkAgain
If one accepts your premise- that the hatred spewed at the current administration is merely a tit-for-tat response for excesses of the left during the Bush years- then it would seem to follow that Ms. Brown is correct- there is no actual thought behind all the shouting on either extreme, just an inchoate rage over past slights real and imagined.
I would venture to say though, that when it comes to the comments of elected representatives, working in their official capacities, Republicans seem to me more likely to sound like the ragers of their party than do the Democrats.
Cymatic
The war criminals part - illegally sending citizens to nations to be TORTURED!!! Read about Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, who was a victim of Bush & Cheney's insane policies. Don't you remember Abu Graib, the abuses at Guantanamo, the manufactured evidence to justify a war on false pretenses, and so on? Yeah, they have a lot to be answered for.
As for Hitler comparisons, having warrantless wiretapping for any citizen anywhere, no right to privacy, does indeed smack of Fascism, Communism, or Totalitarianism. In a democracy, the government should not be able to freely invade the privacy of its citizens without any oversight. Torturing people, disappearing people to send them to torture, suspending all rights of prisoners - these also are NOT hallmarks of democracy, they are the hallmarks of a dictatorship, whether it be Communist, Fascist or Totalitarian.
There were actual reasons for those comparisons. Sorry but Obama's wish for poor people of every race, gender, sexual persuasion, religion, to have an equivalent to Medicare isn't something Hitler or Stalin would concern themselves with.
bookmark
Love stories like this..soooo funny! That's what we need--more humor, less anger. Rage,name calling,threats and guns have never solved one problem that I'm aware of...try seeing the light side..it's so much healthier and productive.
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n--Y--PortmanteauWestVillager
Drawn mustaches are funny.
memo02
I notice Mr:Obama have great deal on explain to the people what they need to know, most folks disagree on the direction of this administration and he call them anti-government, finaly and very sad I see how scientific personel now trying to make sure H1N1 vaccine will work, and will see what happens on this week at Europe with the meeting of the G-20 summit on which I believe with this reunion will happen great news or we going to be on the road of our economic destruction on 2011...
Ritarita
Obama's
Rationality will win out
Over the long term-
Because the 70% of Americans
Who AREN'T insane
Are standing behind him.
AlanD2
Ritarita: Unfortunately, it takes only one person from the 30% to change everything.
I hope the Secret Service is really, really, on their toes these days...
Llplo99
same here...there are crazy anti-government people out there.
Cymatic
I agree - I think the Secret Service has never had such a difficult job. The radical Right has demonized Obama to such an extent that it is emboldening violent minded people.
Ritarita
Alan-
I think
You've responded
To enough of my posts
To drop the formality and just
Call me Rita.
I read all of yours-
So I know that you really
Get that keyboard glowing hot.
I'm happy to do my little bit
To save you a few keystrokes-
Since you must have blisters
On your fingertips
By the end of the day.
xRR
AlanD2
Rita: Thanks. It's not really formality - just copy and paste.
That's how I avoid fingertip blisters! :-)
reardongalt
Annnnnnhhhhh! Wrong. Gerry get in here and run your rules analysis algorithm.
newswoman
So true.
periscope
The problem with America (and many other societies) has long been the control of the many by the rich, manipulating few.
America's capitalist system has gone from boom to bust so many times, it's been like an acrobat continuously doing somersaults.
The reason is that our capitalism has been geared to making the rich richer with the welfare of the majority middle-class being an irrelevant by-product.
The Hate-Talk is promoted, indeed funded, by those same greedy few, who use the media (which they own), and government (which they also own) to constantly do their bidding.
Until or unless the American people realize they have been victims of a historic swindle, the Ponzi scheme keeping the rich rich and the middle-class hanging by it's finger-nails will continue.
There was an economist named Hyman Minsky who wrote about all this and predicted our current economic malaise. His prescription was a capitalist economy geared toward building the middle-class - not the rich. Creating incentives for people to improve society and the vast majority, and not just to build vast fortunes for the few.
Minsky is finally being taken seriously, and not a moment too soon.
sophia5
periscope-
Millions of people all over the world are risking their
lives to get to Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela,
while Americans are flooding into Mexico, because
American Capitalism is so awful, so oppressive.
magoo363
Not the Americans themselves, just the jobs.
periscope
Where people are emigrating to proves nothing. The facts are that more and more Americans are going bankrupt because they lost their jobs or their healthcare, and encountered a medical crisis they couldn't pay for.
The American worker has been the most productive in the world for the past three decades, and yet the benefit of most of that has gone to the rich in bigger and bigger incomes, and greater and greater wealth accumulation, while the middle-class is barely able to keep up with inflation.
American capitalism as preached by the Republican Party is predatory and creates incentives for the accumulation of individual wealth, usually at the expense of everyone else. It doesn't work, and if it isn't changed, things will only get worse.
Instead of raising bogus issues like emigration, you'd be wise to read Minsky and see that a humane capitalism is not only possible, but the only kind worth having.
newswoman
That's because they believe the hype we Americans put out. But when they get here, it isn't so easy to fit in. By the way, immigration to this country has fallen off considerably.
sophia5
( " Obama is such a rational dude himself " )
Ask the CBO how rational he is.
When the Right takes a play out of the Left handbook,
organizing and protesting, the Left has a hissy fit.
Are these Town Hallers / Tea Baggers vandalizing
personal property, smashing store front
windows the way Left Protesters have been known to do ?
Still waiting for the Left to do a story about
Left "Organization" SEIU and their PHYSICAL ASSAULT
on a black man Kenneth Gladney who was simply handing out
"Don't Tread On Me Signs" at a St. Louis Town Hall.
Oh that's right. G.E. CEO Jeffrey Immelt works for
the Administration, on Obama's Economic Advisory Board.
No conflict of interest there.
Wouldn't want to show a Left Organization in a bad light.
Imagine the cries of Racism from the left if it were
a conservative organization who assaulted the black man.
It would be a 24/7 MSNBC Extravaganza.
Put away the Obama Blow Up Doll.
BasPos
sophi, projecting today, are we?
newswoman
One leftist nut assaulted a black man, while rightwing nuts have killed MANY abortion workers, Dr. Tiller comes to mind. You rightwingers have been getting so much mileage out of this, it's pathetic. You can't blow one incident out of proportion and then think it is the same as the MANY rightwing assaults. Who do you think you are fooling?
Emeraldgreen
And what is the frigging big deal about him making himself accessible to the public?!?
I am so glad that we have a President that we SEE all of the time!!!!
This is a new day, a new President. This NOT your grandfather's kind of President! He's in touch with the American people.
As for this frenzy...we're still shaming ourselves in front of the world, but let the muck and mire rise. This is their last stand.And then we'll wipe ourselves clean.
periscope
The paranoid fear on the right about Obama says much more about their own mental instability than any overt or untoward political initiatives of his.
Obama is clearly trying to thread a course that will re-build America's domestic economy and international reputation. He is addressing those things that need to be addressed. Corporate greed (especially on Wall St. and the Banks), Afghanistan, Iraq, Missile Defense, Jobs for Americans (the Stimulus), and of course, Healthcare.
His solutions are moderate, reasonable and could eventually bear fruit. But arrayed against him are the greedy Special Interests, their legion of mediawhores, the Monolithic Republican Party, and the thousands of ignorant screamers and haters who are incited by the aforementioned.
The question for America is: Will reason and sanity prevail or will we continue to be manipulated by the insane few, who want more money and power and don't care what the dire consequences for the rest of the nation?
Allguns
Jobs for Americans, your kidding right, I guess with small business' accounting for 45% of the taxes and 55% of the work force and 75% of economic growth(Congressional numbers by the way) that this administration saw fit to give small business' in this country 1 billion dollars out of the Stimulus Bill, and to put that number into perspective they also gave 1 billion to the Census Bureau to conduct the 2010 census, they also allocated 8 billion to community organizations that can't even compare to creating and sustaining a work force, jobs or economic growth.
newswoman
I still think the fear of Pres. Obama is because he is so personable and funny and smart. He draws crowds be cause his speeches are so interesting. Let's face it...he is so likable..and that scares the right.
bloggystyle
It is impossible to carry on an intelligent debate with persons in the midst of an epileptic fit. This is, metaphorically speaking, the problem facing Obama.
Carole65
Good question, periscope. I assume you are also addressing the insane few on the left in your post - you know, the ones who still post paranoid ramblings about President Bush.
Corporate greed has no party affiliation for Congressional and Presidential candidates who accept their donations for campaigns, while looking away.
Maybe reason and sanity will prevail when term limits are set. Maybe reason and sanity will prevail when, as President Obama called for, the posting of a bill for the public, before it gets his signature.
Rep. or Dem., it's all the same. The independent voters will make the difference in who is elected, but there won't be significant change.
periscope
There are always the insane on the left and the right, but the left doesn't have a lunatic like Murdoch and his media empire pushing right-wing myths, lies and distortions 24/7.
The left doesn't own the media (despite this delusion of the right), the corporations do. GE is not a left-wing organization and neither are the media they own.
And the left is invariably not nearly as aggressive in shoving their ideas down people's throats than the right is. Consider the rights love for the Iraq War. How the rich have gotten the biggest tax cuts in the past 25 years, even though their income and wealth have grown geometrically, while the middle-class is barely able to keep up with inflation.
The fact is the right has been a disaster for our country and the world. The left has been largely ineffective, until Obama came along.
And even though he's taking moderate steps to correct huge injustices and problems, it scares the hell out of the right, who are always rabidly irrational.
Carole65
Well, so happy you clarified your position on the insane members of Congress. Your partisan view is noted. It's enlightening to know that the left is rarely aggressive in shoving their ideas down the public's throat. And it is, even to the most casual observer, obvious that the media has never been liberal in its delivery of the news.
I certainly look forward to the President's corrections of the huge injustices incurred during the last administrations.
greenkangaroo
Peri ... talk about irrational!
What makes Murdoch a "lunatic"? Because he owns some media that are right of center and they disagree with your views? Define the word "lunatic" in your context so I can understand you better.
Are you naive enough to believe that Corporations like G.E. are not capable -- for financial or altruistic reasons -- of taking political positions? Where do you think lobbyist's come from?
Regarding your comment that "the left is invariably not nearly as aggressive in shoving their ideas down the people throats than the right is" -- that is simply an unprovable generalization. Besides, I don't think there is anything wrong with people aggressively expressing their opinions (preferably without the name calling).
The rest of your post is more of the same emotional generalizations that support your apparent view that everything about the left is good and everything about the right is bad. Now, THAT seems irrational to me. Do you phrase everything in your world that way so that you don't actually have to THINK about individual issues?
newswoman
I don't understand Independents. Take a stand. You don't vote for the person alone, you vote for the party beliefs as well.
BasPos
The wingnuts are using a boxing technique in which a brute uses all the dirty tricks he can to put off a capable, better boxer's game. If he succeeds and gets him to his level, the brute can dismantle him. If the brute fails he takes a heavy loss. That's where we are now.
Shrub was perfect for the right as he was/is too stupid to set them off their goals. They hated McCain because he was just smart enough to be his own man. Satah was perfect - female, attractive, and dumber than Bush. The wingnuts have had only two real leaders ever, Lincoln and Roosevelt, and they wanted to get rid of them as soon as they could. Reagan was perfect, senile, an actor, and dyed his hair.
There never has been such clarity that these guys have no redeeming qualities. They feed on hate.
penscott
How funny, yet sad. A hate-filled poster complaining about hate.
BasPos
How else to describe a party of hate? As to Roosevelt (Theodore) and Lincoln, their troubles with the larger Republican Party are well-documented. The recent crop of Republican "presidents" are too easy. Eisenhower came to despise the "military-industrial complex."
If you can think of a concerted act of decency from the Republican Party, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.
BullMoose
Teddy Roosevelt was disowned by the monied Repuglicans, who dispised his humanity.
When T.R. created the Food and Drug act, he really pissed them off. But anyone who read the Sinclair Lewis book about the unsanitary practices of the Chicago meatpackers, would have no qualms about governments rol in insuring our food supply is safe, well at least as safe as possible.
We all know, those with a brain, the same outbreaks of salmonella poisonings, and other food borne bacteria. came out of the Bush cutbacks on the budgets of the FDA. Just one of Shrub's idiot acts during his 8 years of destroying this country.
penscott
Tina, you are so right. I share your nostalgia for the Bush years, when the Democratic opposition was calm, moderate, fair, and never descended to the level of name-calling or vulgar insults.
BasPos
snark off
penscott
It must be horrible for someone of your hatred and intolerance to find that not
everyone agrees with you. Stick to Kos and Huffington and MSNBC and you'll feel better.
BasPos
It's not hate. It's disappointment.
MajorDude
In the book, "When the Empire Strikes Out", the author puts forth the following thesis: The United States is repeating the pattern of other past (failed) civilizations.
Great empires go through the following (or some such) stages: the breakout stage, breaking out from a "home" empire; the pioneering stage, expanding itself; the intellectual stage, growth in education; the wealth stage, money-grubbing (my term); and then the decadence stage (self explanatory).
The heroes of the populace are reflective of the stage the empire is in. In the decadent stage the heroes are entertainers and those who have the public eye. Fame is the contemporary virtue of the decadent stage. And - get this - it doesn't matter how you get famous (infamous?), fame itself is the virture.
Technology, of course, with Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and such has made just about everyone who cares to be, famous in there own way. And thus we all feel entitled to hero treatment. And when we don't get the entitlement that we expect we get angry and express it. After all, we're "famous". I fear we just may be a nation of spoiled "famous" people collectively demanding our entitlements.
By the way, the decadent stage is the final stage before the empire implodes and collapses like a shiny apple that's rotten on the inside. All it takes is a little pressure from the outside to accomplish this.
We could be headed for a scary time.
AlanD2
MajorDude: I don't think that America will totally collapse, but I agree that our days as the world's only superpower are numbered. We are certainly sliding back into national mediocrity.
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n--Y--Portmanteaucamfield
I've never seen the situation described more accurately and succinctly than in this piece by Ms. Brown. She's read my mind and written it out in a way that is beyond my humble ability.
The situation today reminds me of the course in propaganda that I took in college 56 years ago. Transference of one's guilt onto the shoulders of one's enemy/opponent is a basic textbook concept of propaganda--and it's no better exemplified than by Ms. Brown when she writes, "The achievement of the GOP and its allies in cable, talk radio, and the Internet has been to convert the righteous discontent with joblessness inflicted by financial and managerial malfeasance into rage at the guy in the White House, whose health-care plan is the only thing on the horizon that might actually do those surly marchers some real-world good."
ThinkAgain
Oh for godssakes, the propaganda being spread here is the idea that only the GOP practices it. Propaganda is nothing more than spinning your own opinions and interpretations as facts. You liberals are great at that.
What about liberals trying to paint all republicans are southern racists? That's not just propaganda, that's trafficking in hate!
BasPos
Tail wags dog. News at 11.
AlanD2
ThinkAgain: We liberals certainly don't claim that all Republicans are Southern racists.
We do claim that most Southern racists are Republicans.
elldeen
I think that the G.O.P., which has been taken over by the far right, is spreading a LOT MORE of their own propaganda than the left has done. Also, not all republicans or racists reside in the southern U.S. So how could you accuse the libs of trying to "paint all republicans" as southern racists?
penscott
Go back and read your class notes. I'm sure they'll describe the dangers of
a charismatic leader, adoring and uncritical followers, and intolerance of any criticism of the Leader.
BasPos
Now you are shilling for glen beck. Obama has a lot of leftie critics.
penscott
BasPos, you undoubtedly think that the mere mention of Glen Beck is a powerful putdown. It isn't. I could say you are shilling for any number of people, whether Obama, or Acorn, or Pelosi, or Murtha, or John Edwards, but
that kind of thing is pointless and stupid.
Try some other approach.
BasPos
pen, I even complimented you later. I'm not really defending Dems as a whole. The fun part is your lumping Obama in with Beck's favorite targets. Cheap shot.
newswoman
You must be talking about St. Ronald Reagan. He was perfect and all Reps talk of him with nostalgia.
Thank you.
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