Atrios links to this Media Matters post about the day of service on 9/11, where they find a bunch of stupid wingers (Gateway Pundit, Pam Geller, somebody at Fox Nation*, Weasel Zippers and, of course, El Rushbo) calling Obama a socialist because he asked us to serve soup at a kitchen instead of shop.
My questions: is it worth even paying attention to those blogs? Are they influential enough to bother? Does what they say trickle down to Fox News and then into major media outlets?
In other words, I wonder if energy spent calling out the fringe-y, absolutely predictable “Obama can do no right” critics just empowers them. Should they be treated like trolls and simply ignored, or does shining a light on them help further discredit them?
Just to be clear: I think Media Matters does a great job, I think Geller and others say is despicable, and I don’t think there’s anything to fear by calling them out. I’m asking a question of practical politics: I’m pretty sure that pissing off liberals puts some gas in Geller and Rush’s tank, so is it worth calling them out over every issue? I just don’t pay that much attention to right-wing blogs, so I don’t know how these bloggers rank and what influence they have in the general media environment.
____________
[*] My understanding is that anyone can post at Fox Nation — it’s not an official Fox News vehicle. Correct me if I’m wrong.
cleek
those people are all professional trolls, and absolutely loony to boot.
still, call them out. the more people know about what powers the GOP, the better, IMO.
Steve
I think it is the height of arrogance to presume that right-wing sources are so irrelevant that they can simply be ignored, yet left-wing sources are so critical to the national discourse that they can “empower” right-wing sources merely by mentioning them.
If liberals haven’t realized by now the flaws in the “just ignore them” philosophy, I’m not sure what it would take. Rush Limbaugh does not enjoy the power and influence he currently holds because he got linked a lot by Media Matters; it works the other way around, actually. We pretty much tried ignoring Rush and his ilk during the Clinton years, and not only did our strategy fail, but we are still debunking right-wing memes about Clinton to this day. Hey, did you hear Clinton would have lost if Ross Perot hadn’t been in the race?
When my 5-year-old doesn’t like what I’m saying she tries to ignore me. Let me suggest a slightly more grown-up strategy: it’s seldom wrong to be punching up. For Media Matters and any left-wing source you can think of, attacking Rush Limbaugh will always be punching up. Attacking Gateway Pundit is a different issue. The latter really hinges not on whether you would be “empowering” Gateway Pundit by linking to him, but instead on whether you think it is beneficial to fire up your fellow liberals with the idiocy du jour. There are probably arguments on both sides.
geg6
I am of the opinion that it’s never wrong to call out assholes on the right, no matter how useless it may seem. I have seen enough people go from clueless parroting of their shit to actually realizing how they are getting played by these fear/hate mongers to know it’s worthwhile. It’s an incremental thing and doesn’t work with every one, but calmly and with facts to back you up, you can sometimes get people to see the light.
sublime33
I think deriding the vehicle instead of the messenger carries more weight. Referring to Dennis G.’s post below of calling FOX News “Nickolean for those with dementia” carries more punch than “Sean Hannity is a jerk”.
birthmarker
I’ve always felt that the left spends too much time amplifying the right wing’s talking points for them. The time should be spent pushing our own agenda.
jayackroyd
I asked Steve Benen a similar question quite a while ago. There is a very repetitious, even quixotic element to his writing, because the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the contemporary conservative movement seems impervious to criticism.
I asked him how he could keep doing this, and he said that it’s important that the falsehoods and contradictions be documented, and, also, that there was a chance that eventually the traditional media would be embarrassed into reporting on them.
beltane
Those blogs are worth looking at if only so that we may better understand the lack of morality lurking in the Republicans we deal with on a regular basis. However, they are not worth obsessing over, as “Sh*t flinging monkey flings sh*t!” isn’t exactly news. In some ways, the same can be said for David Brooks and ilk, who are also professional trolls but of a higher calibre.
ppcli
This is worth recording because it’s a purer example of the Christ-free version of Christianity infusing the current Republican party. This isn’t government welfare they are opposed to, in this instance: it’s individual, free acts of charity. That, in their opinion, should not be encouraged.
Enlightened Liberal
I don’t know. Though it’s futile as a vehicle to “correct” the likes of Atlas Juggs, it is an effective tool to show reasonable people what these people really believe. For example, a friend got on the Ron Paul bandwagon, until I referred her to Media Matters and similar sites where she could read about what Ron Paul really thinks about Social Security, Medicare, and Jews. She doesn’t post stuff about him anymore, that’s for sure. MM puts the lies of the right on record. That’s a valuable tool to convince the convincable.
mk3872
mistermix:
Why only call out right-wing critic blogs?
Shouldn’t we also throw in FDL & DK as part of that crowd and ignore them, too?
Culture of Truth
Absolutely! Here’s why – this is true face of the radical right, and progressives should hang these views like an albatross around the necks of Romney, Perry and Bachmann or force them spend their days disavowing them. Is Mitt Romney responsible for what Pam Geller writes? No? Too damm bad. I want them to address this crap or sow division among the lunatics and those who want to pander to them with getting too close. Or let ordinary Americans what Rick Perry and the other crazies really stand for. I want to see Jon Huntsmann waste his energy having to approve or disapprove every psycho thing out of Rush Limbaugh’s mouth, I want to see Mitt Romney looking haggard, wondering every morning what bizzare thing he will have to answer for today, Perry flummoxed when confronted with yet another statement by a fringe pundit, Bachmann unable to keep up with every day’s new offically crazy talking point, until all their campaigns founder on the rocks of wingnuttery or the shoals of a divided base.
NonyNony
Media Matters is a great source for archiving what these guys say. Just “ignoring” them makes it a lot easier for them to go back and scrub out the stupid when something like the shootings in Norway occur. The fringe is almost always more of a driver for shit like that than the mainstream – and always has been (see Tim McVeigh and his interest in the “Turner Diaries” for an example, or, for that matter, the Norway shooter and his manifesto).
But I want to say something about this:
There is something to be said about this. Pissing off liberals certainly makes these guys happy. Which is why there is pretty much only ONE correct response to their shit: Mockery. Constant and incessant mockery. Do not take them seriously. Do not argue against them. Mock them. Make fun of them. And not in a “
Michael MooreRush Limbaugh is fat” kind of way, but with a brutal mocking of their ideas. Roy Edroso’s column for the Village Voice (or, sometimes, the work at Sadly No!) is the appropriate way to respond to these right-wing bottom-feeding professional trolls.They enjoy pissing off liberals. Don’t let them piss you off. Turn their idiocy back on them and laugh. It’s the only response that doesn’t give them any satisfaction.
beltane
@ppcli:The concept of Caritas used to be at the moral center of Christianity until the followers of Blingee Jeebus came along. These folks are to Christianity what margarine is to butter: an unhealthy substitute that kind of misses the point.
Morbo
I’m confused. Isn’t it the conservative position that we should not have the government involved in charity but to leave it to the individual? This suggestion seems like it should be right up their alley. What gives?
bkny
frankly, i wish mm would devote more resources to a daily call-out of the failure of msnbc/cnn to do their job challenging the lies of their political spokesmodels.
everybody knows foxnews is unreliable and there are no minds that will be changed by constantly highlighting it. instead i would just focus on the stoopid — like the fox reporter standing in toxic goo and reporting on the taste…
Robert McClelland
It does matter. The Republican party and the whole of the right needs to be defined by these crackpots. Paying attention to moderate conservatives is what is actually counter productive.
Dennis SGMM
The RW blogs do have an influence. I’m not sure how many of them you need to read because they, like the lefty blogs, usually treat with the topic du jour.
It would be more interesting to determine the point(s) of origination of RW emails. An old Navy buddy turned winger is a furiously active email forwarder and I find it hard to believe that all of those emails are simply originated by different wingers. Many of the emails are far more vitriolic and far fetched than anything that you’ll find in most RW blogs. The events of the past couple of years have convinced me that the wingers take their cues and get their talking points more from the email network than they do from blogs.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
The problem with treating these folks like trolls is that unlike your garden variety start-up trolls, they already have been fed. They’re not only fed, but they have a support structure that makes them impossible to ignore already. Once they not only have a captive audience, but an audience which actively supports them rather than watches them like a sideshow freakshow, then ‘ignore’ is not an option. Like others said, it just gives them the lack of transparency to scrub their flubs as well as work under the surface and influence the crazies under the radar.
Once you get on the level of ‘trolls’ like most of these folks, the cold shoulder ceases to be a punishment and instead becomes tacit acceptance.
Morbo
Bah, stupid çialis in blockquote.
Napoleon
@jayackroyd:
Weirdly it is the worst and the best thing about his writing. It often drives me crazy, but I love it when he does things like always refer to Palin as “former 1/2 term gov.” which I wish more on the left would do.
jibeaux
Well, I donât know that we have to call them out every single year. We know that every single year around 9/11 theyâre going to mock the idea of a day of service as soshulism. I say go tutor a kid in science or something for 9/11, itâs a twofer.
Odie Hugh Manatee
The right specializes in finding the next poster child for ‘everything that is wrong with the left’, usually using someone who up to that moment was unknown (Graeme Frost anyone?). Call every winger asshole out. Make them the poster children for everything that is wrong with the right.
It’s why they do it to us, it’s to deflect attention from themselves and their twisted supporters.
Napoleon
@Culture of Truth:
This
Zifnab
Clowns exist to be laughed at. I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong by publicizing their asshattery.
That said, a follow-up “What are you doing for the day of service” or “Here are some links to follow if you want to get involved” never hurts, and kicks off the thread on a positive note.
Sam Houston
I think Media Matter should keep doing it because it’s their thing, if ya know what I mean. But otherwise, yes, don’t feed the trolls; there are more egregious offenses to document.
Culture of Truth
Challenged the media too. Work the ref.
Every time a crazy wingnut statement is documented, at the end should be appended “Will the right wing media ask Mitt Romney about this?”
singfoom
Someone has to catalogue the bullshit they spew. Media Matters is probably more relevant than this blog. Of course, we’re all just assholes spewing opinionated bullshit on the internet.
geg6
@Napoleon:
Much more effective if the msm would pick those memes than those of us on the left. Virtually all lefties are already convinced that the Palins, Bachmanns, and Perrys of the world are just grifters. We need the mainstream to pick up a clue.
Brazilian Rascal
Persona anecdote here. After leaving journalism college and going through some rough personal times, I was all gung-ho on the “he said/she said” centrist view of journalism and ready to find merit, forcibly if need be, on many utterly loony conservative pundits foreign and domestic for the sake of “balance”. It was the information I got from watchdog blogs big and small about the Coulters, Malkins and Limbaughs that helped me get an actual perspective.
So as far as I know, we have a moral duty to at least make sure that kind of falsehood and venom is countered somewhere, just in case someone is looking for a bit of clarification or confirmation. It’s likely the only tool we have, to gradually peel away people or make them marginally aware of the inadequacy of their holy cows.
Litlebritdifrnt
As I and many others have said before if Obama is for it then they will of course be agin it. Doesn’t matter what IT is, even things that they have strenuously supported in the past. (See payroll tax cut). I think we could solve all our problems if POTUS would give a national address to introduce several new initiatives 1) Announce a national ban on chain saw juggling. 2) Introduce civil and criminal penalties for drinking bleach. 3) Appoint FLOTUS to launch a “don’t hit yourself on the head with a hammer” campaign. You get the idea.
With the 27 percenters gone the 2012 election should be a doddle.
Bruce S
I think it’s valuable for MM to call out Geller and Limbaugh – although Gateway Pundit and some of the others might be better ignored. But Geller and Limbaugh have strong connections to the right-wing movement – with Limbaugh driving much of the message. Documenting their offenses serves a useful purpose.
mk3872: “Shouldnât we also throw in FDL & DK as part of that crowd and ignore them, too?”
Since, along with the rest of relatively normal Americans, I ignore Jane Hamsher – as opposed to allowing her to drive me into hysterical tangents like some here – I guess I agree with that “ignore” piece. What’s problematic about this comment is the commissar mentality where “we also throw Daily Kos” into the “crowd” of implacable enemies Limbaugh and Geller, because he tends to criticize Obama from the left. I don’t read Kos because it’s tedious and not useful to me, but this ideological cleansing of liberal ranks is creepy. It a fatwah mentality that’s as bad as the purism it pretends to criticize. Actually, in this context – KOS=Limbaugh – it’s even worse.
General Stuck
Speaking about punching wingnuts, I hope and suspect this article is correct, and what some of us have been predicting after the post labor day unofficial start to a POTUS election the following year.
The wingnuts have been baiting themselves with anti New Deal rhetoric and politicking, and have even modified their standard party position of tax cuts for everyone, to tax the poor some more and the rich less. And a host of other anti progressive populist blather.
The table is set.
And Of course we will here the usual, “why hasn’t Obama been doing this all along” and the answer to that is he has been, but not as focused as when the campaign officially begins, and the media starts paying more attention from the normal distractions. Timing is half the battle in politics. I read somewhere once.
kd bart
Why bother acknowledging them. The people they’re intended to reach are not going to be persuaded by any argument you present. They’ll only believe Rush and Company because that is who they’ve been told only to believe. Might as well talk to a wall. Don’t give them one bit of publicity or public light.
Culture of Truth
A reporter actually asked Chris Christie if the vigorous hurricane response was teaching moment about the need for big government and he snapped back that no one disputes that the government should protect people.
FlipYrWhig
OT: I’m on Day 5 without electricity in VA. Suuuuuuucks.
jibeaux
@Culture of Truth:
Oh no, no one disputes this. Perish the thought.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce S:
Well, I’m not so sure that DK, FDL, etc. are really criticizing Obama “from the left” in any substantive way. There’s criticism about civil liberties (e.g., most of Greenwald) and economic policy (e.g., most of Krugman) that’s more or less “from the left,” but then there’s also all the stuff about style and optics — essentially that he’s not confrontational enough — and that’s not “left” at all. Left/right is not the same as uncompromising/compromising or vocal/muted.
ETA: And even the civil liberties topics often feel orthogonal to left/right, because they’re more “libertarian” and hence cut across partisan divides.
SW
In the words of old B.F. Skinner. Exercise Extinction.
Sad Iron
Well, let’s test the question–what’s the most important, or meaningful thing said by Rush or someone like Ann Coulter? Considering how much they talk, surely there is at least one good idea or well-argued thought that got coverage, correct? No. Not one. They should be totally ignored because they offer nothing but opinion, and that’s part of the larger problem with our discourse and punditry–left or right. When all you offer is talk and opinion everything is just tautological, nothing else, with no accountability. Ask the same of George Will–is he important? Should we care what he writes or says? Should we feed traffic to the Post everytime he denies that the sun is at the center of the solar system? It would be better to not send traffic there and don’t subscribe. That, for me, is what’s become so tiring about blogs in general–the majority of the posts are “Can you believe what this unknown assface said over at this unread blog? Wow! Let me tell you why that is stupid.” It’s an echo chamber.
singfoom
On a corollary to this, those blogs matter in terms of cataloguing their bullshit, but the real issue is that both of our parties are dedicated to the preservation of the current status quo where we non-rich non-corporation human beings are second tier citizens.
So, keep cataloguing the bullshit, but realize that we need to break out of the whole red team blue team paradigm and change the underlying structure of the system, rather than making sure team blue triumphs over team red.
Both teams have the same corporate donors that have and are killing are fucking country.
Butch
I think the larger waste of time is the progressive expression of shock and delight when someone on the right (Scarborough and Will are examples) actually says something reasonable.
Culture of Truth
@Litlebritdifrnt: When they come out against voluntary civic activity and FEMA, we’re getting dangerously close to “Hit Yourself with a Hammer to Spite Obama Day”
Libby
Not sure there’s a good answer to that question. On the one hand, when you link to them, even in order to mock them, it drives their traffic, which does empower them on some level. On the other hand, their lies shouldn’t be allowed to stand unchallenged and as long as the MSM is determined to treat them as “serious” voices and spread their memes for them, ignoring them altogether won’t make them go away.
But I do agree with the idea that spending too much energy on debunking them to the point where it takes away focus from promoting better ideas of our own, is somewhat counterproductive. Hard to strike a good balance.
cmorenc
At the personal level, something more troubling than how/whether to respond to right-wing pundits is whether/how to respond to people in your own social circle who chain-letter transmit right-wing meme emails. Many of these are plainly the product of amateurish crackpots that aren’t going to influence anyone not already hopelessly in the tinfoil-hat wingnut category themselves, BUT: increasingly, more and more of them appear to be the product of skilled professional propagandists who are lots smoother at conveying plausibly convincing misrepresentations and embedding seductive emotional hooks into messages than the more amateurish crackpots are. These are the ones that I find hard to figure out whether and how to respond to.
Bruce S
FlipYrWhig – I used “left” in a vernacular sense. It really doesn’t make any difference. If you want to nitpick that fine – but it has nothing to do with my revulsion at…well, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Linda Featheringill
Godwin:
[Note that I actually earned a Master’s degree studying this stuff.]
At all stages of the rise and fall of the fascists in Germany, they were very sensitive to public criticism. Often they silenced the critic. When that didn’t work, they told lies to cover their acts. And when that didn’t work, they frequently changed their behavior [maybe not better but at least different].
The key factor here was the number of people publicly criticizing them. If there were too many to effectively silence, those in power felt they had to make some changes.
Which brings me to this: Yes, by all means. Call them out. Loud, and long, and frequently, and publicly.
Loneoak
@Steve:
Echoing Steve, punching up is absolutely necessary and I’m glad that Media Matters does it professionally and straightforwardly. For punching down, I’m really happy we have Sadly, No!. The only attention Gateway Pundit deserves is a photoshopped picture of him on the toilet.
kd bart
FlipYrWhig-After Gloria back in 1985, My Aunt, out in Eastern LI, didn’t have power for over a week.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom:
OK, but, because “changing the underlying structure of the system” is a very long-term endeavor, let’s do what we can in the here and now to guide Team Blue towards doing a modicum of good or even less blatant harm. Concentrating only on the rules of the game runs the risk of taking you out as a player.
Derf
Mrmix is just askin is all. Not like he is concern trolling or anything…..lol.
Stay classy mrmix……pffft.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce S: Yes, I know what you mean, but I don’t want to concede “left” to critics who aren’t really politically “left.”
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: But what does that mean? I mean this honestly, no trolling. I disagree with all of Team Red’s policy prescriptions, can’t stand them.
At the same time, Team Blue is pulling some serious bullshit that really upsets me. (Administration pressure on Schneiderman to accept the bad bad really shitty poor deal when we need to really investigate and take down the banks that were guilty of systemic fraud instead of a pennies on the dollar agreement where they don’t admit guilt).
So, ok, I will support team blue, but I still think it’s a distraction. The current economic team is made of Wall Street people, and until we unwind the bad deals that the financial sector made in CDOs and bad mortgages, our economy will keep going down.
And I find the idea of the current Administration doing what needs to be done in terms of the financial sector very unlikely, since they were big contributors to the campaign in 2008.
So, how does one work towards both goals at the same time?
smedley
On Monday afternoon, for some reason I watched a snippet of CNN. Paul Begala gave a litany of the lies and deceits in Cheney’s new book. Mary Matalin came on and said “There is nothing true about what Paul just said.” Then Wolf comes on and says “We’ll have to leave it at that” and goes to commercial.
We are not going to get anywhere with “truth” or “facts” as long as the segment of the media that pretends to be neutral does not call out the liars.
khead
@ Flip – I can take a few days without power but it is starting to really suck.
kindness
Ignoring the right wingers won’t work. To them, when you ignore their lies, they take that as you agreeing with them.
No, just like censorship, the best way to combat idiots isn’t to sweep them under the rug but to expose them to the bright lights of truth. You have to counter their lies with facts every time. Otherwise you are playing a rigged game they will win. Who wants fascist bastards to be our overlords? Not me.
burnspbesq
@Morbo:
I’m guessing that you’re confused because no one ever explained the loony Right’s ordering rules when principles come into conflict. Hating and opposing anything that The Godless Mooslim Usurper in the White House (And Did I Mention That He’s Not White?) does trumps fidelity to Christian principles (which they don’t really believe in anyway).
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom:
To be honest, I don’t have a good answer to that. Organizers, joiners, and activists like Kay and aimai and others do that kind of work, and I salute them for it.
FlipYrWhig
@khead: It really started to grate on me when I had to shave in the dark before my first day back at the office.
sublime33
I think right wing blogs are not nearly as influential as left wing blogs because left wing blogs were one of the only ways for liberals to get their message out. But do not underestimate the power of e-mail chains with the right. This is what carried the Secret Muslim/Where’s the Birth Certificate/He’s going to remove “God” from American currency/stash your guns/NBC edited out the Pledge of Allegiance to every corner of wingnut America. If anyone you know passes along one of these e-mails that has been obviously forwarded several times, you can bet that 96% are those bordering on the radical right. Most of us consider the source before accepting a story. These folks only judge the emotional quality of the story line.
Twice I had to correct a co-worker who showed me some Obama freedom stealing e-mail. I told her – Let’s go to Google, now type in Obama + FOX News + removing god from currency. If Fox doesn’t carry the story, you know it has to be crap. Because Fox News would not hesitate to run an embarrassing story about Obama if they could remotely back it up.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Poor people only eat on 9/11?
FlipYrWhig
@sublime33:
I always wonder if the people who forward extremist emails are the same people who send credit card information to spammers and phishers. Is email-specific credulity a genetic thing?
Brachiator
What people say about them is largely irrelevant. Critics don’t give these people any power. The people who listen and who believe give them power.
Facts don’t matter to these people.
@singfoom:
What does this mean? Unwind the bad deals. Then what? And instead of “Wall Street people,” who do you suggest instead?
John Weiss
@Litlebritdifrnt: What a wonderful idea! I’ll be chuckling all day. Thanks.
singfoom
@Brachiator: Part of capitalism is that you accept that some businesses will die. The facts are that the big banks are still under capitalized and have lots of toxic assets on their books.
See Bloomberg Wall Street Loans
or read The Big Picture. Barry Ritholtz over at TBP has been writing about this for years. We, the US taxpayer, propped up the financial sector with TBTF. They are even bigger now. They never cleaned up their management or their books. The current idea is that we need to go “Swedish” on the banks, which means nationalizing them, selling off the toxic assets at very low prices and recapitalizing the banks without those toxic assets so they can do the normal work of banks and provide liquidity to normal people.
I would suggest Academics who have backgrounds in job creation studies or in inequality. Alan Krueger wasn’t a bad choice, but Geithner et all are still around.
norbizness
Ignore, ignore, ignore. I’ve been preaching it since 2006, but the cottage industry of pointless fun-making at fucking idiots is too entrenched. The fantasy that one can hang a “bridge too far” crazy idea on a candidate perpetuates this industry, when in fact the dominionist, end-times preachers somebody like Perry cites as influential won’t even bite him in the ass, thanks to the overwhelming need of the MSM to have a competitive Presidential race/gridlock.
Direct your energies elsewhere!
Djur
Media Matters makes a point of tracing the flow of right-wing issues from lunatics and morons like Pam Atlas and Jim Hoft, through low-end media outlets like Fox Nation, on to Fox & Friends, and eventually into the media in general. A good example is the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ — that story was first pushed by Geller and her ilk.
jayackroyd
@geg6:
That is exactly what Steve says he is trying to do.
norbizness
And I still maintain that in terms of actual destructiveness, Blanche Lincoln has wrought more damage than a thousand fringe-bloggers.
You know, I said 2006 in my previous post. I should have said 1996, when I preached ignoring impeachment-obsessed, Jerry Falwell-tape peddlers in AOL political chatrooms. They’re not the sucker at the table, you are.
Stav
I wonder about the value of going solely after right-wing noisemakers. The wingers didn’t make the “liberal media” kowtow to them by going after The Nation, Mother Jones and TNR. They went after the bigs: NYT, WaPO, NPR, the networks and CNN.
Like 20 million other Americans, I listen to NPR pretty regularly and on a pretty regular basis I hear conservative misinformation repeated on their news programs. I rarely if ever see the well-funded MediaMatters devote any space to pointing this out. That’s where the targets and the effectiveness lies: hit the big “mainstream” media over and over until they stop allowing their “balanced” reporting to be one person arguing with facts and the other side just making up their own bromides.
Brachiator
@singfoom:
How does this relate to what you wrote earlier, “unwinding bad deals,” which implies active intervention. And people talk about “capitalism” as though it is some single, simple economic theory. It’s not. And there is also for some the simplistic idea that if left alone, “capitalism” will perfectly realign industries and markets. This has never happened.
Interesting pivot from talking about the “solutions” of capitalism to nationalizing banks. We seem to be past the point of the risk of more bank insolvencies, but in any case there is no chance that the president would propose, or the Congress approve, nationalizing banks. Wouldn’t matter even if someone could show that it is the best solution. Krugman also flogged this idea for a while, but even those countries which tried nationalizing their banks during the current global crisis have not had uniformly good results
Apart from Krueger, do you have anyone in mind, and anyone whose recommendations about “job creation” have had tangible results?
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: I also have a strong sense that finance has become the tail wagging the economic dog, instead of tangible production of goods and services. But one problem with fictional “econominess” like the financial sector is that trying to cut it down and go back to truth could be rather jolting and produce a lot of collateral damage.
Rorgg
I don’t know if that sort of thing generally helps politically, but I called out a couple of RW trolling “friends” on FB last week, and DAMN, it felt good.
singfoom
@Brachiator: Unwinding the bad deals = Making the banks take a haircut on the toxic assets. Maybe it’s nationalization, maybe it’s not, but the fact is that the financial sector is still unhealthy.
How does that square with BOA taking 5 billion from Buffet?
BOA Woes
Woes from the NYTimes
When the national settlement that Tom Miller the Iowa AG has been flogging falls apart, we’ll see multiple suits filed against the banks, to add to all the suits that are out there.
There was systemic fraud and criminal behavior in the financial sector. Until we deal with the bad actors and reform the sector, we’re at risk for another meltdown.
I don’t have anyone specific in mind, but I do know that the revolving door between high finance and our political elites mean that they can’t stop from sharing much of the wall Street worldview.
Elie
@sublime33:
I think Nickolodeon for those with dimentia is truly insulting to the demented. Please lets not do that, ok?
In general, I think that the strategy to give these folks more attention and “hits” on their blogs is a bad idea. No we cannot prevent the craziness completely, but is it good to be an echochamber for their ridiculous taunts, amplifying and “improving” them with the PUMA and windbagger knuckleheads adding their two cents?
Its really difficult to manage this issue but if you listen to the MSM outlets, you hear all the accusations and troll “concerns” echoed there that we read here from some of our distinguished “guests”. I am tired of being played as a launching vehicle for the messages designed to bring down the morale and effectiveness of REAL progressive agenda.
AlphaLiberal
To the original post, good questions. I want to ignore them but then I will go to some right wing whackjob web site, like Althouse, and find they have a vocal following. Plus, they are useful for discrediting the right wing.
But we also need to hold up a better alternative. That’s on us.
My bigger criticism of left wing bloggers is the overuse of sarcasm. It is often lost in print, especially on right wingers. Worse, it involved people frequently restating the right wing argument. Repeating the opposition’s message is not helpful!
Less sarcasm, please. Like it helps!
sublime33
@AlphaLiberal: “My bigger criticism of left wing bloggers is the overuse of sarcasm.”
Sarcasm for the sake of being snotty is pretty useless – just watch any Ann Coulter interview. But sarcasm used alongside humor can be hugely effective. Saturday Night Live probably helped defeat Gerald Ford and it wasn’t because they inundated the masses with fact based critiques on Gerald Ford’s economic policies.
Elie
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, funny thing that reality thing…
It is very difficult to bring about true reform to the financial sector. It is interwoven very tightly to many of our “systems”, making the collateral damage you speak of very likey…its going to take some very shrewd and imaginative thinking to coral these suckers without hurting others….
Sly
Mockery requires very little energy and provides extensive satisfaction, generally making it worth whatever opportunity cost it incurs.
As for winger blog ranks, NRO is probably still at the top though I believe Breitbart’s network will surpass them at some point. Mostly from the psychological appeal to conservatives of perpetual character assassination… Jonah Goldberg just can’t compete with that kind of magic.
The overall problem for winger blogs, at least compared to liberal blogs, is that they’re too focused on niche markets. You won’t get much out of Geller except shrieking diatribes concerning the latest outrage stemming from our toleration of olive-complected foreigners. You won’t get much from RedState other than bad 1776 Cosplay. You won’t get much from Reason other than the latest example of jackbooted tyranny from the Federal government, like recommendations on how much water you should have in your toilet tank.
In other words, there are very few one-stop shops on the internet for all things related to the conservative psychosis, while I find that most liberal blogs dabble in a bit of everything (unless they’re written by someone with a particular expertise or academic background who has decided to start a blog about it). Conservatism is still largely an old media ideology, mostly due to demographic issues, so influential outlets that seep poison into the mainstream are pretty much still radio hosts and print publications.
Sly
@AlphaLiberal:
File that one under “Feature, Not a Bug.”
John Puma
You ask: “Does what they say trickle down to Fox News and then into major media outlets.”
To which I respond: “No more and no less then what is said, repeatedly, on this blog about Perry trickles down to Perry, his campaign, the RNC, the major media outlets and his potential primary voters.”
neff
Regarding Fox Nation, you’re wrong — I’m not sure where the idea came from that Fox Nation is a site like Free Republic where just anybody can post articles (you’re not the only person I’ve seen who thought that), but it’s not. It’s more like a Drudge Report run by Fox News, with links to stuff all over the place and obnoxious inflammatory headlines, but the links and headlines are the work of people working for Rupert. The only thing ordinary users can do is post comments.
Jay B.
@norbizness:
Yeah, there are Simpsons quotes yet to be posted!
Come on norb, you have been beating this dead horse since 2006, but results have kind of proven you wrong. It IS effective to marginalize your enemy — while doing more positive things at the same time! Alinsky was right, but it’s also important to note that mockery is only one of his set of rules. Organization is another. I mean Jesus, the guy who killed 80 young lefties in Norway approvingly quoted one of the freaks you think we should ignore.
Hoft may be a geek at the margins, but what he’s saying is certainly representative of the people who are trying to take over the entire government. By helping fix what the tea party really is, through ample quotation and mockery, they’ve lost a lot of their cachet. Now, of course, we should also put forward an actual agenda of our own too — but that’s too ambitious for the center-right country the Balloonbaggers fervently believe in. Still, it’s worth a shot.
Heliopause
In spite of the confident answers that I presume you’re getting in the comments, this question does not have an obvious or easy answer. Some voices are marginal, ignored, and stay marginal. Some of these nutjobs I would never run across if I didn’t read left-of-center blogs. Then there are people like Limbaugh. I think you have to use your judgement and take it case-by-case.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
The product of the financial sector is credit and liquidity. The challenge is how best to rein in the knaves and fools. And, as always, the GOP is fighting tooth and nail to prevent any kind of reasonable regulation.
RE: We seem to be past the point of the risk of more bank insolvencies
The links and your question deal more with the ongoing illegal and reckless behavior of the banks than with issues of insolvency.
I agree that some of the banks and bankers need to be brought to heel. But there is a separate question of how to best deal with any remaining toxic assets. And this is a separate question from another issue, the fact that many homeowners cannot afford, and may never be able to afford, the houses they are living in.
OK. I see what you mean here. I don’t know what the entire answer might be, but any alternative worldview has to be competent at running banks and managing the financial markets. This is why I admire the practical wisdom of FDR in making Joseph Kennedy the first head of the SEC. He wasn’t looking for a saint, but for someone who understood the financial sector, and the potential for dishonest behavior, and who match wits with bankers in trying to keep the system honest.
norbizness
@Jay B.: Apart from my confusion about what results you’re pointing to and the causal connection between internet snarkery and said results, I defer to your point. I mean, if only we had Photo-shopped Pam Geller’s head onto a straitjacked mental patient sooner, Norway wouldn’t have happened.
Similarly, I wish to go back in time to make fun of KMFDM in the AOL industrial music chatroom so that Columbine doesn’t happen, and light up the BBS boards to make fun of the Turner Diaries so that Oklahoma City doesn’t happen.
Also, my #68 comment was significantly post-dated in moderation.
Niques
@cmorenc: About a year ago I started “replying to all” with my debunking argument, complete with links and quotes. I usually apologized to the sender if I hurt his/her feelings, but that I felt the truth must be pointed out. Often it was “I know this sounds reasonable on the surface, but let me point out . . .”
My close friends started researching the information in their mail before sending it on. They became more aware, and far more careful.
The closed-minded simply removed me from their address book.
I don’t get right wing lies via email anymore.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: Putting forward an agenda is great. Putting forward an agenda and then bitching about how the political world is enacting that agenda too slowly for your liking and should stop doing that… that’s tedious. Putting forward an agenda with an awareness of how that agenda is likely to get parried, warped, and deformed by big institutional players, some of whom might need to be won over even if they’re abhorrent, would be greater.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: It’s also not THAT uncommon for someone to be a political liberal while having made millions in investing — for example, Jon Corzine. I think the critique of the influence of banks and bankers is, like some other critiques, not necessarily on a liberal vs. conservative axis. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be critiqued, I’ll hasten to say.
Culture of Truth
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Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
Makes sense. But I also get the impression that there are some people who deeply resent the fact that any people with a strong Wall Street background hold any position in Treasury or among the White House economic advisers.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: Agreed, and I get a bit squicked-out by the influence of finance myself, but I’m not that interested in litmus tests or in sniffing out who has Goldman ties and whatnot — I’m more concerned with what they do on the job.
ETA: So “Geithner sucks because he doesn’t support Good Policy X” is more interesting than “Geither sucks because he used to be buddy-buddy with New York investment bankers and probably still is.”
singfoom
@Brachiator: No offense taken and none intended I’m sure, but I can’t hell but feeling that directed at me somewhat.
Having someone with a Wall Street background hold a position in Treasury or the WH economic team makes sense. Having knowledge of the field is important to make proper policy suggestions, etc…
My concern is their experience on Wall Street has helped develop their worldview so that Wall Street is the primary concern when it comes to economic matters and not the larger context of our economy. Given the policies that the administration has chosen to pursue in those areas, I conclude they care more about Wall Street than they do about Main Street.
Perhaps this is a mistaken belief, but it’s what I come away with after contemplation of current events and recent administration actions.
Given that, having someone not from that worldview might take a broader approach. I’m sure underwater homeowners could use a 1.2 trillion bail out….
Brachiator
@singfoom:
Nope, I did not mean to include you in this group at all. I was thinking of other posters who have continually and boringly insisted that Obama is a sellout because he put Geithner and other Wall Street types in his cabinet. You reminded me of some of these past posts, but you seemed to have more than just cabinet shuffles in mind.
I agree with you on this. I understand that there was an early emphasis on restoring the stability of financial markets. But I have also suggested in other posts that Treasury, no matter who is there, has too narrow a perspective, and it is not so much that they are Wall Street types, but that many of them are by temperament more concerned with macroeconomic issues.
I mentioned that I would be happy if Obama replaced both the secretaries of Commerce and Labor with people who were more creative and innovative thinkers and who had a broader perspective. And recently, we have seen former Commerce Secretary Locke step down to become the ambassador to China, and a proposed change in the chief White House economic adviser. I take these as hopeful signs.
path
Used to be that the crazy guy spouting off about the end of the world on a street corner was just that. Now he has a blog, we highlight it, publicize it and get outraged by it, while he is just happy to have a larger platform. I don’t see how that is useful.
But the bigger point for me has been noted earlier, and that is how do we get the larger media to call out liars when they lie?
And in my meaningless opinion the real problem is how do we get a consolidated and corporatized media to report that the best thing we could do is break that up?
benintn
What Media Matters and others do, primarily, is flag and highlight the right-wing blogosphere’s actual thinking in such a way that you realize just how extreme, violent, and uncivil it is.
This stuff is really out there. To a nice Evangelical boy like me, I find it shocking that conservatives think and talk like this.
They monitor the right-wing media so I don’t have to. It’s a valuable service.
Halcyan
@Culture of Truth:
I don’t think you can get away with calling the mainstream media the “right wing media”. Faux News, yes. But it’s pretty well documented that most of those who work in media have a left wing bias, as, incidentally, to quote Stephen Colbert, does the truth.
I do think it would be reasonable to call them timid, even cowardly. Lap dogs for the boisterous right wing also has the benefit of being true.
The thing is, we will never get lefties to repeat things that they can’t believe are true.
Unlike the righties.