Last night I spoke with a cousin of mine I hadn’t talked to in a while. When it comes down to specifics, he’s about where I am on most issues — higher marginal rates for the wealthy, universal health care etc. — but he doesn’t read much about politics and gets most of his news from CNN or NPR. He started telling me how he thinks what the United States needs is a third, centrist party, one that isn’t hostile to wealth but which stands up for workers, how it’s bad that we just have a left party and a right party.
I told him that the Democratic party was pretty close to the party he wanted except that it doesn’t stand up much for workers, so that he was in a weird way correct that there was no center party (by, say, the standards of the rest of the western world or in terms of what he was describing as centrist) because even the Democratic party (at the national level) is too corporatist to be considered anything other than right-center (again, by the “center” standards I mentioned earlier). We argued a bit and then he told me he agreed with me on further reflection.
Then we argued a bit about the rule of the very wealthy, with him believing that most are wonderfully altruistic because they give money to charity sometimes. I couldn’t get him to budge on this, mainly, I think, because I overused the word “Galtian”. I can’t stop myself from using blogspeak sometimes.
When I step out into political conversations with people outside of this blog, even with my own family, I feel more and more that they have been wholly and completely propagandized by Tom Friedman/Cokie Roberts/David Brooks both-sides-do-it, both-parties-are-extreme idiocy.
For all the supposed openness, market-place-of-ideas stuff we supposedly have here, we’re not that different than North Korea in some ways.
Update. The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik puts it well:
Policy doesn’t fucking matter any more. Labels do.
Obama’s a business-hating soshulist because he is one, that’s his label.
Tom Levenson
This is so deeply and frustratingly true I don’t know where to begin. One of my good friends is a major player in all kinds of good causes — really a stalwart. And he thinks Brooks is an honest broker (or did, until I started shooting him more stuff).
The great skill that Brooks and the other have is sounding reasonable; if you’re someone who trusts the brand, don’t have knowledge of whatever research the pundit invokes (if they’re into that particular gimmick) and you’re reading outside of your specific area of knowledge — hell, they sound right.
The blogosphere was supposed to act as a corrective to the received wisdom. It is failing.
Trentrunner
It is depressing. Reminds me of my (very intelligent otherwise) mother saying to me after I had just exclaimed aloud at some bubbleheaded pundit on CNN:
“But he wouldn’t be on TV if he didn’t know something!”
Two Headed Porcupine God From Another Dimension
Was going to make clever comment about North Korean leaders’ fashion sense but the fucking change.org/target ad obscures teh comment box and I must type blindly… so sad.
Scott P.
Agree 100%. I have a somewhat-conservative-but-not-crazy friend who argued throughout the Bush administration that Democratic complaints about abuse of power were 100% partisanship and that Democrats did exactly the same but in the other direction.
Comrade Luke
It would be great to read these posts. Unfortunately, the fucking Change.org ad obstructs portions of it so that’s not possible.
Occupy AdSense.
Violet
I couldn’t agree more. It’s hard to talk to people about politics, even if they’re open to it, because most people just seem to be oblivious to what’s really happening.
I had a doctor’s appointment today and the TV in the waiting room was set to CNN. They ran a segment where they interviewed people waiting to see the Liberty Bell about the topic of gerrymandering. All the people they interviewed (at least the ones they showed) didn’t even know what it was. The reporter had to explain it to them.
People are disengaged from the political system so much so that they not only don’t vote very often, they don’t even understand how the process works. That’s why “My team good! Your team bad!” tactics can work so easily. Just get enough voters on your “team” and you’re good to go.
joeyess
My sole purpose in life is to fuck with DougJ.
Yeah, Brooks is still a douche.
Cain
My parents are in the same boat.. they like David Brooks and Thomas Friedman and so forth. They like Tom because of his pro-India stance. They get irritated wtih me when I tell them these guys are all a bunch of assholes. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word assholes around them. :-)
burnspbesq
The House came up 23 votes short of the two-thirds needed to approve a balanced-budget amendment.
redshirt
I have found that some folks defer to authority internally, and they view the News as an authority. A subset of these folks view the computer as a source of authority, and thus will click on a pop up informing them that their system is at risk.
JGabriel
DougJ:
I’m not sure “Galtian” is blogspeak, but — if you need them — “Randian”, “Objectivist”, and “Selfish Bullying Greedy Evil Asshole Bastards (word order optional)” are all suitable synonyms, though the last might be a little unwieldly for casual conversation.
.
Quicksand
@Tom Levenson:
One down, 299,999,999 to go!
shep
Try telling them about the Progressive Caucus. Certainly no one is hearing about them from Tom Friedman/Cokie Roberts/David Brooks, or anyone else for that matter.
Davis X. Machina
Fewer people eating grass, though. Got to give us that. And more natural fibres.
burnspbesq
Holy fuck.
The kid auditioned for his first-choice college yesterday.
He got accepted today.
Happy happy joy joy!
Woodrowfan
I find the same thing. They know the Republicans are right wing, so therefore the Democrats MUST be left-wing! It only makes sense! (heavy sigh)
stinkwrinkle
Agreed, which I why I LOL when leftbloggers drop scorn on the notion of the US as a center-right nation. Admittedly, I am a leftist, but to me, it sure looks like most of the people align with one of the two center-right parties….
gnomedad
Both parties have shortcomings. One party is insane.
JGabriel
@burnspbesq:
Fine. Sucks that it was even that close, but whatever. The House GOP got its BBA vote, and that satisfies that section of last summer’s debt ceiling compromise.
.
Tom Levenson
@burnspbesq: Awesome!
Jebediah
@burnspbesq:
Congratulations!
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@burnspbesq:
Jesus fuck, that close?
Cris (without an H)
I find that “altruist” argument pretty frustrating too, particularly because I always see it trotted out as a smokescreen cover for bad corporate behavior. You start criticizing the monopolistic practices of Microsoft or the way Wal-Mart treats its workers, and you get this “but Bill Gates / the Waltons give so much of that money away to good causes.” And yes, they do; Target is able to put more money in the pockets of local non-profits than any other donor, simply by virtue of their size. So, if a portion of revenue goes to good causes, that makes whatever practices that generated that revenue okay.
Svensker
@burnspbesq:
Congratulations! It’s a big step. So many emotions involved. But yay!
pragmatism
i’d submit that this is s.o.p. for sane conservatives. however, they realize that any 3rd party will just be the gop reheated.
@JGabriel: i go with “missing the empathy chip”.
Napoleon
@Trentrunner:
“But he wouldn’t be on TV if he didn’t know something!”
She is right, just look at Snookie.
TooManyJens
@stinkwrinkle:
Yes, but they don’t want center-right policies — at least, not economic policies. The right wing’s most monumental achievement of the last 30 or so years was convincing the citizenry that politicians and activists who advocate for the policies they want are America-hating commies who want to take all their money and give it to lazy black and brown people.
JGabriel
@stinkwrinkle:
Fixed for accuracy. The modern GOP is a far-right party roughly analogous to the Italian Fascist party or Spain’s Franco and only looks even remotely centrist if you’re comparing it to the Nazis.
.
62across
@JGabriel:
If you settled on the order “Greedy Evil Bullying Asshole Bastards (who are) Selfish”, GEBABS could work in casual conversation.
Nutella
Yeah, I know. I’m always hearing people say that Democrats in general and Obama in particular are on the far left and therefore need to be pulled towards the sensible center.
When I maintain that the Obama is center-right they are shocked and most of them won’t listen to any analysis of where the ‘center’ is: I say it’s where the 50th percentile of the population stands on the issues.
They’ve all heard so much about Democrat vs Republican = left vs right that they can’t let it go.
Calouste
@stinkwrinkle:
Which party is the second center-right party besides the Democrats?
Tractarian
And, sure enough, here’s the headline:
Never mind that 261 House members said “Yes” and only 165 said “No”.
Oh well. At least this “minority rules” scenario is explicitly Constitutional, unlike the filibuster.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
And back to the original post, again, it seems to come down to one simple thing:
Policy doesn’t fucking matter any more. Labels do.
Even in cases like this, problem is that, for all intents and purposes, folks like Brooks, Friendman, et. al. are “Very Serious People” as designated by their peers and the political establishment. Tell someone of a policy, they’ll be all for it. But once they find out a Very Serious Person tut-tutted it for some specious reason, BOOM, it’s hippie bullshit. Even if you confront someone with reasons said specious reason is specious, you won’t fucking sway them because you can’t be a serious person and disagree with another serious person. And since Brooks is VERY serious, you must be super unserious and thus easily ignored.
It’s all about fucking labels and brands.
ornery
Imagine the reaction I get when I try to explain that Liberalism is not actually leftist (which is communism).
It’s almost like the media controls minds with moving colors on a box or something.
Jenny
Newt ties Mitten in New Hampshire poll
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/11/18/poll-gingrich-romney-in-dead-heat-in-n-h/
This is so tantalizing, yet I’m afraid to get my hopes only to be dashed again, when he crashes.
Still, Romney struggling in his own back yard versus Tiffany’s biggest customer is, as they say in Cuban, delicious.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Tom Levenson:
Wait, what, you mean that we are now allowed to shoot people for thinking that Brooks is an honest broker? Damm, OWS has had more of an impact than I ever expected in my wildest dreams. Why didn’t somebody tell me this sooner!
Are they to be given the whole last meal treatment first, or just up against the nearest wall with a blindfold and a cigarette?
burnspbesq
@Tom Levenson:
@ Jebediah:
Thanks.
I wonder if having a kid in school in Seattle means I have to start rooting for the Mariners and the Seachickens.
mamayaga
Hear, hear. My mother, who is a lifelong liberal, still looked on WaPo as a liberal paper until I pointed out to her how extremely neocon their editorial policy is. She ended up cancelling her subscription. My sister, also quite lib, was echoing some mainstream garbage about how effective Perry was was governor because he cut state spending. She hadn’t even considered the human cost of those cuts, and had accepted uncritically that “cutting spending” was the sine qua non of an effective governor.
A BIG part of this problem is NPR — it is trusted way too much by people who otherwise tend to progressive beliefs. Ever since the Bush admin terrorised them into political submission they have been flaky at best. But even my kids — who were raised right, goddammit — think I’m just being a goofy old hippie when I tell them NPR stands for Nice Polite Republicans.
JGabriel
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
(Chortles.)
.
Michael
Note too that a lot of the “charities” the 1% donate to are propaganda mills. Richard Mellon Scaife didn’t just get a tax break for funding the Spectator, he also got Clinton impeached. Pete Peterson gets to destroy Social Security on the taxpayer dime, the Koch brothers get to destroy the EPA, and so on.
Zifnab
I think that’s a bit extreme. We aren’t seeing mass arrests of bloggers and high profile public executions of dissidents and traitors. We’re seeing intelligent people drowned out by propaganda and bullshit.
There’s a difference between losing the media war (which the left has been doing admirably since Nixon) and operating under the yoke of political oppression.
Folks like Bobo get a phenomenal amount of exposure. It’s not a terrible shock that they’ve had a big effect. Lots of bad ideas and lazy thinkers get big megaphones. But – god bless the internet – there are a variety of broad, established communities of people with reasonable ideas who aren’t complete idiots and have their own soap boxes to speak from. You have to go digging for good information, but it exists. And you can bring that kind of info back to your cousin and win him over, even if you don’t win him over 100% of the time on everything.
What you’re encountering is a person’s reluctance to change. Your cousin isn’t going to break with every personal opinion over one phone call. Keep talking to him. Keep giving him information. If a rabid breast-beating Republican like John Cole can come around, your tote-bagging Broderite cousin isn’t going to be lost to the Villager cult forever.
David in NY
When, as a young lawyer a few decades ago, I was to argue my first appeal in New York, I was counseled by an experienced attorney to “just answer their questions as if you were talking to your senile uncle.” Little did he know the difficulty I have in dealing with my uncles, senile or not.
In any event, I think the key here may be to deal with one’s senile uncles as if they were judges — don’t fight, don’t commit contempt of court, answer their questions if any, and most of all, just explain. This is very hard. Better if one has not had too much holiday “cheer” and perhaps less satisfying than calling them the assholes that they often are. But for effectiveness, adopting an air of earnest sincerity just explaining your position probably works best.
And furthermore, never expect to “win” an argument. It’s never been done. The most you can hope for is that, the next time they read Friedman, or Brooks, they may suddenly imagine that they’ve discovered some flaws in their reasoning. Hope that they won’t even be thinking of you because people are fondest of the ideas they think they’ve invented themselves. Remember: baby steps.
Also, I like to listen to Dar Williams’ “Christians and Pagans” and try to make it work out like that.
Nutella
@mamayaga:
Oh, jeez, yes. So many people think NPR is all starry-eyed leftists, too. I can’t stand to listen to it anymore since it’s swung so far right.
schrodinger's cat
I have had the same experience. They also think that Washington Post is liberal as is the MSM. I have been somewhat successful in changing Mr schrodinger’s cat outlook. Working on some of my friends who are ”independent”, voted for Bush for the first time then Kerry and then Obama. One thing though nobody seems to like MoU they think he is a pompous ass.
Rick Massimo
People like the sound of the word “centrist,” because if you’re not up on the right-wing takeover of Washington and those who write about it, you make the utterly reasonable assumption that if you’re in the “center,” it means so many people agree with your positions that they will easily and quickly pass into law. But as has been pointed out many times before, the real center and the Washington center are very different places – the Washington center is roughly Joe Lieberman, who doesn’t actually believe in anything that anyone wants.
When non-Washingtonians say they want “centrism,” what they mean is “I want people in Washington to cut the shit and get the simple stuff that everyone agrees with done.” They don’t pay enough attention to realize that the purveyors of that shit are all on one side, and those people don’t want the stuff that everyone wants.
Steve
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik: In 1995 the Balanced Budget Amendment got over 300 votes in the House, although I seem to remember the current version has extra crazy mixed in. So actually they’re making whatever the opposite of progress is.
DougJ
@Zifnab:
I think the propaganda here is as effective as that of North Korea, it’s just distributed in a less heavy-handed way. More honey, less vinegar.
Rathskeller
@Comrade Luke: I also cannot read this post, either on the front page or as individual article. this looks awful
schrodinger's cat
@DougJ: You see far right nutjobs on your TV but I don’t think I have ever seen Naom Chomsky for example, even on C-SPAN.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
You know, Doug, if you’re going to feature more of my comments like this, I might have to tone down my cursing in the future.
…
…Nah.
Cris (without an H)
¡Azúcar!
Zifnab
@mamayaga:
NPR is all over the map. It’s really hard listening to them do multi-part critical pieces on the realities of global warming, when CNN is running “It snowed in Boston – does that make Al Gore fat?”, and conclude that NPR is really some stealth conservative outfit. It’s really hard flipping the dial to AM and listening to some shock jock scream about Democrats coming to eat your baby and not feel my Overton Window slip a little.
When NPR is orders of magnitude more liberal than every other station on my dial, I can’t blame anyone for concluding its a liberal network. That doesn’t mean NPR couldn’t be more liberal. But it would be nice to have something to the left to compare it to.
David in NY
@Tractarian:
I consider that a really big difference.
schrodinger's cat
I have actually heard the opposite that he is a Goldman Sachs loving, Wall Street sympathizer.
Brachiator
Big difference from being propagandized and not being able at any time to get access to, or to express, an idea at odds with that of your rulers.
Big difference. HUGE.
I recall a friend who visited the former Soviet Union with an arts group. He later learned that some of the people he met with had their homes bugged, in part just because my friend, a Westerner, met with them. Others were imprisoned, for their own good, for a time.
Here is the thing. A lot of average folk want to become wealthy, or at least a lot better off than they are now. Some Balloon Juicers appear to believe that having wealth or seeking wealth automatically makes you an asshole. To be a worker is to be a humble schmo who needs the gummit to take care of you from the evil Galtian overlords (crap, I can’t stay away from Juicespeak either), and throw a little stimulus your way now and again.
It’s one thing to talk about ways to improve the system. It’s something else to perhaps give someone the feeling that they are chumps because they don’t share your views about the inherent vileness of the wealthy, even if there is evidence for your beliefs.
Zifnab
@DougJ: Yeah, but it’s free market propaganda. Everyone tries to buy in and the message can get really garbled. FOX News will stay on message. But the broadcast networks and the other cable news orgs are all over the map, depending on who is paying, the time of day, whatever is polling well, and the current management’s pet peeve.
It’s just too mercenary to really be called propaganda properly.
schrodinger's cat
@Jenny:
Or wicked good, as they say in New England
Cris (without an H)
@schrodinger’s cat: But to Zifnab’s point, my local public radio carries Alternative Radio, which features Chomsky (among other very radical voices) on a regular basis, and they aren’t being silenced by jack-booted thugs.
(If your Public Radio station doesn’t carry AR, mention it next time you call in your pledge. The program is free. Can’t say that about Car Talk.)
Steve
@Brachiator:
Please name one Juicer who appears to hold these beliefs. There’s enough crazy people here that it should be really easy to identify someone who believes anything.
kindness
Doug’s cousin is an idiot.
burnspbesq
@Zifnab:
Air America, 2004-2010. Proximate cause of death: Chapter 7 bankruptcy due to lack of advertiser revenue. Contributing cause of death: boring beyond belief.
TooManyJens
@Steve: “Do some Balloon Juicers believe that having wealth or seeking wealth automatically makes you an asshole? Opinions differ!”
gogol's wife
@Two Headed Porcupine God From Another Dimension:
Yes, can someone please do something about that?
Nutella
@Zifnab:
Media is the same as political parties these days. You’ve got a choice of center-right (NPR) or far right (most of the rest).
And then NPR is often nowhere at all as Jay Rosen likes to point out.
Jebediah
@burnspbesq:
Pretty sure the only requirement is rooting for the kid’s school’s teams. I am not sure if that persists after graduation, but either way I am pretty sure you are safe as far as the pro teams are concerned…
Cris (without an H)
I know we all are big Al Franken fans because he’s smart and votes the right way, but god I fucking hated his radio show.
David in NY
Not unless s/he’s ten or under. IMHO, loyalties are fixed by about then.
Baud
This is where you would lose me in a conversation. Who cares where the Democratic Party falls on the world political spectrum? It’s not relevant to people’s daily lives. You’re the one who introduced labels into the conversation by trying to classify Dems as “center” or “left.”
bobbo
Absolutely agree and it’s terribly frustrating. Seems most people live at a very high level of generality about this stuff, so if they read the NYT op-ed or listen to NPR they think they are well informed. Both sides do it. David Brooks is a centrist and he likes Obama. I bought a Ford because they didn’t take a bailout. 47% don’t pay taxes. Some say global warming is real; others disagree.
If I even try to get into the details with them, I know I come off as a holier-than-thou know-it-all. They don’t like to hear what some fat guy once called the “inconvenient truth.”
Jebediah
@gogol’s wife:
It’s making me nuts! If I want to read Tom’s comment at #1 I guess i will have to copy and paste it out from under the ad…
Tom Hilton
That’s sort of the point I’ve made before, in the context of that ideological ID poll: voting behavior tends to be more tribal than policy-based.
Not sure that’s a new thing, though; I think it’s probably always been the case to some degree.
Hoodie
Yeah, I have a colleague that I’ve repeatedly talked off the Brooks/Friedman ledge over the past few years, but this behavior is still reflexive with him. I think it has to do with a couple of American cultural bias, a tendency to be insufferable moralizers and make everything into a morality play and a lack of self-reflection that means that they inevitably end up being the good guys in these morality plays. Brooks and his ilk cop a narrative in which their centrism is always a higher moral calling that can be arrived by way of simplistic, lazy metaphor,namely, picking a position between two points. When exercised in an environment where some political players are blatant extremists and/or liars, this behavior can be toxic.
Nutella
@Tom Hilton:
Yes but the funny thing is the tribal memberships have stayed the same while the policies and positions of each tribe have changed drastically. Most of the tribal members don’t notice anything but their familiar label.
burnspbesq
@Jebediah:
There aren’t any.
http://www.cornish.edu/
His high school doesn’t have any, either.
http://www.ocsarts.net/
TooManyJens
@Cris (without an H): I hated all the Air America shows I heard. Even Mike Malloy, who I had liked on WLS, I couldn’t listen to for more than 10 minutes on Air America. I don’t know what it was.
Cris (without an H)
But it is. If you talk about how our political spectrum falls compared to other countries, you introduce the concept that there’s a broader spectrum at all. We get all focused on sugar-or-plain, so it’s worth saying “you know in France they eat ice cream from a little bowl.”
Mark
@mamayaga:
THIS THIS THIS THIS one thousand times over!
I got my mom and my girlfriend to listen closely to NPR and now they see what Republican horseshit it is. No NPR in the car anymore, just Pacifica or music.
Cris (without an H)
@burnspbesq: Then you’re obligated to look down your nose at UW for wasting their resources on college athletics.
burnspbesq
@Mark:
I would stick knitting needles in my ears and destroy my eardrums before I would listen to a steady diet of KPCC. Ye gods and little fishes, it’s awful.
FlipYrWhig
@Rick Massimo:
Yup. This is also why so many politicians talk up their “bipartisanship.” People in the blogosphere hate that: “No one cares about who voted for things,” they say, “they just care that they got something done!” Exactly. When people say they like “bipartisan” efforts, they don’t mean a particular mix of parties, they mean both sides knocking off the bullshit and meeting in the middle.
schrodinger's cat
@burnspbesq: Congratulations! You must be proud.
gnomedad
@David in NY:
A thousand times this. The idea that I can make headway with a winger by thinking of just the right thing to say is like alcoholism to me. Every day I have to make a new commitment to abstain. Resist fuming about how they will believe they’ve “won”. They have to hit bottom before they will seek help.
shano
It does not matter what party we have or who we vote into office. The system itself is corrupt, and anyone who gains power in the system will eventually be corrupted. No doubt about that with human nature and all.
so, the system must be changed. The question is, how does one get these politicians to vote against their own financial interests? This is what OWS seeks to accomplish. It will not be easy.
Gad, I listened to NPR in my car last night. What a load of crappola. They have earned their name “Nice Polite Republicans”.. yep, the media sucks.
Time to build and support our own media outlets and let these bastards know what they are doing is hurting the nation and the world.
Cris (without an H)
Are you kidding? Do you remember how long the one-line fix to the Reply link took?
Joel
Did policy ever really matter? Other than those that were designed to oppress certain groups of people, I can’t think of much popular interest in most of our nation’s substantial policies.
dr. luba
@burnspbesq: I used to listen to Air America–when I could get it on the radio. The local AA station’s signal is weak beyond belief. And AM.
Loved Al Franken and Rachel. Hartmann, too. Some of the other stuff–not so much. Ed Schultz (not an AA jock, but carried by my station) trying too hard to be the Limbaugh of the left, with the same attention to detail that Rush possesses (i.e. not so much). Others just shrieking (I’m looking at you Randi).
1310 is still “progressive talk,” but too much sports coverage and solid handyman/finance shows on the weekend, when I’m most likely to listen. And “paid programming”!
DougJ
@Zifnab:
May have to be a category.
burnspbesq
@Cris (without an H):
Not so fast there. Given the well-known correlation between athletic success, especially football success, and alumni giving, it’s pretty certain that those resources aren’t wasted. The obsession with football is remarkable: even given all of its success in basketball and lacrosse (and seven NCAA championships in other sports), there are Duke alums that won’t give unless the school throws sick amounts of money at trying to rehabilitate the football program.
David in NY
I think my son (who got arrested yesterday) feels a little like my wife and I are “Brooksian” at time, even though, by God, she worked for actual card-carrying Commies in her day. When he is not being pissy about something, however, he is very persuasive.
Cris (without an H)
Don’t forget John’s tag lecture.
shortstop
@schrodinger’s cat: When would he have time for TV? He’s overscheduled hiding under so many conservatives’ beds.
Baud
@Cris (without an H):
And so what? The problem Doug is addressing is that people whose policy views are consistent with the Democratic Party’s agenda aren’t willing to actually look at the Democratic Party because of media noise suggesting that the Party is something different than it is. That fact that France eats their ice cream from little bowls may be interesting, but it doesn’t inform anyone how that relates to anything in this country.
Wannabe Speechwriter
From the conversations I’ve had, the real reason why people buy into the “both sides do it too” bs is because people want to believe most people (even those you disagree with) are good people. No one has a monopoly on the truth-not me or Obama or Paul Krugman-and engaging others and finding common ground just feels better than mocking someone for being an idiot.
This to me is why people like David Brooks are so effective. They don’t yell at the top of their lungs. Instead, they come across as scholarly and academic. By throwing words like “upset Hamiltonian” in a conversation, you appear to be someone who knows what your talking about. It’s psyops-they’ve got into so many people’s heads. How we get them out-I don’t know…
TooManyJens
@Cris (without an H):
Somebody call Cole’s mom.
mamayaga
@TooManyJens: I think I only listened to Air America once, so I’m arguing from a pathetically limited sample, but what I hated about it was that it was just like right-wing talk radio, but taking the lefty viewpoint. What I mean by that was the host talked over and interrupted her guest and went on long self-absorbed tangents about whatever bee was in her bonnet that day, which had little or nothing to do with the topic the guest was there to discuss. Then she did the same with people who called in. Not what I would recognize as a meaningful discussion.
trollhattan
From the Both Sides Do It files, here’s the soporific yet “reasonable” David Gergen, on the presidential race:
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/#ixzz1e6AxO7cs
Unsaid by Mr. Gergen: Democrats have to point out reality; Republicans have to make shit up.
r€nato
@burnspbesq: boring? really? Sam Seder wasn’t boring. Rachel Maddow wasn’t boring. Al Franken wasn’t boring. Randi Rhodes wasn’t boring (obnoxious, yes).
I would submit that the primary cause for the death of Air America was demographic differences in how righties consume media vs. lefties.
Zifnab
@David in NY:
You know, I think the Communist Party could really make a comeback in America today, if only because no one on the right would react any more strongly against it than they already do every moderate centrist Democrat.
Hell, the Nazis could make a comeback too. I could totally see some guy goose stepping down main street with his buddies, while two FOX News viewers looked on.
“Oh my god, he’s a real life Nazi.”
“Psh! Who isn’t?”
Rihilism
Aaaarrrrrgh! This is why I step away from the intertubes on occasion because I’m exposed to information that most of the population seems to have no interest in acquiring (i.e., David Brooks is a tool, Friedman is a tool, and here is example after example of lies, distortions, half-truths, pure boneheaded ignorance couched in semi-informed “science-lite” language, and frequently out of their depth “analysis”, and, dear reader, if you bothered to read past the seemingly reasonable tone you’d realize that these two (among many) don’t deserve any sort of forum (I’m looking at you, Charlie Fucking Rose) within which to purvey their crappy wares.)…
It’s frustrating, often infuriating, and I wish I had an answer as to how we get rid of these blights on humanity. Then there’s CNN and Politico (more often than not, the NYT). More garbage. More nonsense. More distortion. More stupidity and ignorance…
Sometimes I just need to step away and pretend that I don’t know these things (especially when talking to someone who hasn’t bothered to inform themselves) or else I feel I risk going insane…
trollhattan
@burnspbesq:
My sister went to Cornish and became a hippie, so you have that to look forward to! Also, too, congratulations! And you’ll still be able to root for the Bulls, or whoever. Do not under any curcumstances utter: “Thunder.”
TooManyJens
Even having stated that I hated Air America shows, I’d still love to see more liberals doing the talk radio format. I wouldn’t listen to it as a radio station per se, but would totally download the podcasts. As it is, I consume about three hours a day’s worth of liberal talk/news by subscribing to the Rachel Maddow podcast and Blacking It Up.
Liberals can do good news/talk. AA just wasn’t it (IMO).
Mark
@Zifnab: When I woke up the day after the 2004 election and NPR was presenting Bush’s re-election as a fait accompli instead of the greatest possible tragedy, I knew they weren’t on my side. I basically went from a 50-hour a week listener to 0.
I’ve given them a chance here and there in the last seven years, but they can’t hold back on repeating Republican opinions verbatim or playing he-said/she-said. I popped them up in August 2009 and got to hear an interviewer tell Sen. Bob Menendez that the problem with health care reform was that he hadn’t messaged it properly. Hell of a thing for someone who’s responsible as a reporter for messaging to complain about.
NPR has soft heads and zero moral compass.
Ruckus
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
So, Mad Men is a documentary?
No wonder it has the feel of reality. (maybe you had to be alive in the 50-60’s)
AA+ Bonds
If he argued for the virtue of the extremely wealthy from their charitable contributions, he simply believes in their virtue as a matter of faith, likely because he fantasizes that he will one day stand among them
AA+ Bonds
@TooManyJens:
I honestly don’t think liberals can handle confrontational radio for some reason, every single show I’ve ever heard gets a bunch of call-ins from wavery bitter-sounding old women who drone on about “perspectives”
AA+ Bonds
Mainly liberals get their dose of righteous anger from leftists, such as the self-described socialist Jon Stewart, or me
AA+ Bonds
Mainly liberals get their dose of righteous anger from leftists, such as the self-described s*ci*l*st Jon Stewart, or me
Satanicpanic
There was some good stuff on Air America. But I liked Jerry Springer and that nutty guy (Leon? Lionel?) that was on at like 1 am though, so maybe I’m not representative.
harlana
well, my sister, who is ten years older, seems to be turning into a hippie, so there’s that
joeyess
Why? Shut up, that’s why.
harlana
nobody listens to Stephanie Miller?!
ruemara
@burnspbesq: CONGRATS! And good luck on the payments.
harlana
the labels are falling off
Cris (without an H)
David Horowitz assures me this will happen regardless of which college you choose
joeyess
@trollhattan:
That is a perfectly worded sentence.
jl
My family seems to be split into teabaggers and strident social democrats, and then the old commies, so I come to this here blog for a dose of moderation and civil behavior.
Life is not fair, and you can’t choose your family.
I have a pet theory that I entertain from time to time, and that is there is a strain of US political thought that breeds a contemptuous and self righteous attitude towards government. I figure it has something to do with the myth of the US self made person, a fantastical notion of US history where there were no class conflicts or interests, no big bankers or mercantile, or class agricultural or manufacturing interests (Edit: forgot real estate projectors and land speculators), just rugged individualists who started out in the boondocks with a shovel and hatchet and gun, and by gummit, goterdone, and built a little paradise.
When I meet a self identified/advertized and committed moderate or independent, I figure there is a 30 percent chance I am dealing with a narcissistic self righteous person who, through excessive self assurance that his or her various and random vague notions of what is reasonable are true, has never taken the trouble to think very much or find out about stuff very much.
Not all independents or moderates or like that. But that is my estimate from political door knocking, registration drives and random daily water cooler, happy hour and party interactions.
joeyess
@jl:
Or, as George Steinbeck so eloquently put it:
joeyess
jesus h christ on popsiclestick. I used the soshulism word… can someone please get me out of the moderators detention hall?
thanks.
harlana
Charlie Pierce has been a weekly guest on her show for at least a year now
ruemara
@harlana: I listen to Steph and Randi. I loved Air America, mostly for Franken and saved his podcasts for a while before sadly consigning them to the digital bin. Then I sent him a donation. I used to try Malloy, but he’s too…slightly nuts for me. Adored Hartmann, until I saw how much he buys into his own views, attacks on the left, rolls on the right. He’s still a great person to listen to, but I’ve learned to check his work. And NPR in the car makes me apoplectic sometimes. I’d rather listen to music, because I just want to wring these people’s necks.
Brachiator
@harlana:
I love Stephanie Miller. And I’ve heard that her show beats conservative talk shows in some markets. I don’t know what her own show does in the Los Angeles Market, but here is something that puts the station that runs her show into perspective (KTLK).
KFI is the station that carries Rush Limbaugh. One hopeful sign is the fact that in the LA market, Rush is less popular than the local shows on KFI (e.g. Bill Handel and others), and the station had no qualms about dropping Dr Laura when she was no longer attracting listeners.
By the way, people should listen to KPCC, locally or over the net, especially Air Talk and Patt Morrison. Public radio 89.3.
joeyess
@harlana:
I do. Love me some Mama and the Mooks.
taylormattd
Doug, this post is EXACTLY why all left bloggers are stupid fucking assholes.
Just stupid fucking assholes.
They are engaged in a 365-24-7 circle-jerk, talking to themselves over and over, decreeing from on-high that IF-ONLY-BULLYPULPIT-MORE-AND-BETTER-DEMOCRATS-NO-CAVING that then, all would be fixed.
Again, fucking stupid.
They endlessly bitch, moan, niggle, and read tea-leaves about the latest statement from Pelosi or the White House. And they do this (1) without any acknowledgment of what the people of this country actually believe (including, per your example, those who are very liberal) about politics and the parties; and (2) with no acknowledgment that nothing will change in this country until the media at large is no longer completely republican in all facets.
Satanicpanic
@jl: I never trust anyone who says they are an independent. It either means they’re a crank whose views are too wierd to fit into any party, like my friend who thinks we never walked on the moon OR they think they’re just too smart for the rest of us. I’d rather be around a declared Republican, at least I know they’re not trying to put one over on me.
Linnaeus
@Satanicpanic:
I have a couple of friends who are like this. They’re “independents”, they say “the left and right are both wrong” but somehow usually end up voting for Republicans. Funny, that.
Keith G
@burnspbesq: Fantastic.
What is your son’s field or instrument?
Brachiator
@Satanicpanic:
Damn straight!
Wait a minute. I’m an independent. I favor crazy shit like gay marriage, progressive taxation, and universal health care (but not necessarily single payer). I believe that global warming is true, that creationism is bullbucky, and that all anti-vaccine people and most “organic food is the holy solution to all problem” advocates are ignorant morans.
I might think that I am smarter than the rest of you, though, mainly because I can spell the word “weird.”
jl
@taylormattd: Yes, you are completely correct. I agree with everything you say, 100 percent. Absolutely. Damn straight honky dory toodle di doo.
Mike in NC
Not surprising. I have family in NH and have spent enough time there to understand that if Granite Staters hate anything, it’s a pandering phony like Willard M. Romney.
But Newt is a disgusting piece of work in his own right.
singfoom
@taylormattd: Your rational fact laden post has convinced me never to listen to a “left blogger asshole” again.
Cheers!
Cris (without an H)
I don’t distrust them, I just don’t believe them. When I called myself an independent, it basically meant “I vote Democrat but can’t admit to myself that I’m predictable.” I doubt I’m unique.
taylormattd
@singfoom: I think perhaps you have confused the term “rational” with “calm”.
Oh, and Cheeeerrrssss!!!!!!!!
WereBear (itouch)
“Liberals” are not aware of how reliable sources have fallen In the mud and can’t get up.
They can’t believe the Evening News lies when it’s not refusing to cover something. They like Thomas Friedman because he tells them things they didn’t know. They love NPR.
I start discussing what is really going on and I sound like a raving loon.
The actual truth is so far from their experience, so different from the nation they grew up in, so bizarre and difficult to believe, that something terrible has to happen to someone they know before it sinks in.
karen marie
@shep: They’re not talking about the Progressive Caucus’s budget proposal either (PDF).
(Just pretend the whole thing from “Here are some” on down is in block quote. I can never remember the magic code for making things with paragraph breaks fall within one block quote.)
burnspbesq
@Keith G:
Dance.
FlipYrWhig
@jl:
This was dramatically reinforced by the Cold War, where the propaganda tells us that behind the Iron Curtain the government regiments everything and enforces extremely rigid conformity. But in The Free World, we have individuality, you see. The government doesn’t tell us what to do.
And that is _tenacious_: if The Government tells you what to do, you’ve just woken up in a communo-Muslimo-fascist state.
Um, except for abortion, because, like, Jesus.
Omnes Omnibus
@karen marie: You talked me into it. Now let’s just get me elected to Congress.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: Like Rahm? Oh, and congrats to the kid; I am sure he is very pleased and you are very, and deservedly, proud.
FlipYrWhig
@Cris (without an H):
Yeppers. When you say you’re an independent, you’re saying that you think things through; you use common sense; you don’t just do what you’re supposed to do or think what you’re supposed to think; you’re not a knee-jerk partisan. People are very proud to think that of themselves. Usually it’s bullshit.
karen marie
@@Zifnab: The problem is that NPR is commonly understood to be “left,” even though it’s not, as it gives cover to some really rotten rightwing ideas and provides a forum for rightwing lies, shoving the opinions of listeners ever rightward.
Satanicpanic
@Brachiator: Damn it, I was hoping no one would notice that! I can’t spell weird. Or the word peices, or is it pieces? Fvck!
gogol's wife
@Cris (without an H):
Unfortunately I do. And how long it took for Pam Anderson’s bizarre body shape to disappear (although that one I could ignore since at least it didn’t bulge into the text space).
Satanicpanic
@Cris (without an H): Well yeah. That and if you say Democrat or Republican you are pretty much admitting to either being a self-righteous nerd(D) or an asshole (R).
karen marie
@Hoodie:
Also the fact that Brooks is everywhere. It’s not enough that he’s occupying real estate in the NYT, but he pollutes the airwaves on NPR, PBS and the Sunday chat shows.
bemused
I liked Franken’s show. He always had on great guests. Sam Seder was a favorite of mine. I live in radio wasteland, MPR and the rest crappy rightwing stations so getting satellite radio was heaven sent for me. I had never heard Thom Hartmann, Randi or Rachel before that. I still listen to Randi, the girl does her homework, Thom and Stephanie is a morning routine.
Omnes Omnibus
@bemused: Talk radio has never appealed to me. I always thought that it was the politics of it, but I gave AA a try when it started and realized that the format just leaves me cold.
Mark
@burnspbesq: KPFA – Democracy Now is fine, as is the Al-Jazeera news. Otherwise I’m 100% classic rock.
El Cid
@Cris (without an H): David Horowitz is permanently frightened that other people are just as likely to fall for the things he fell for.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: Nah, David Horowitz is just an asshole.
John N
@Baud: I think the idea behind this is that, as a party, we’ve already “compromised” away from more left views that exist elsewhere, hence making the Democrats seem more “centrist.” A truly left party would be advocating things that are different than the Democrats, and it is important that people understand how moderated the views of American liberals generally already are. In other words, we’ve already compromised, now the GOP must meet us in the middle to produce a truly “centrist” result.
Omnes Omnibus
@John N: Ther eis a wing of the Democrats who would be Social Democrats in in Europe. It just isn’t the majority of the party, more’s the pity.
El Cid
@Omnes Omnibus: No, he’s both. That’s the whole storyline. He is permanently raging that the very nature of the college and liberal political experience pushes people toward doing terrible things such as, you know, becoming a doctrinaire Marxist radical who got directly involved with the Black Panthers and then once sucked into a particular situation watch as one of his female friends is killed in a financial dispute.
Well, that’s not quite how he says it directly, but it’s the experience which shamed him, and every panicked and bitter warning he issues is predicated upon the notion that this could happen to anyone. Especially anyone, that is, born to Jewish Communist Stalinist parents of New York, and growing up in the 1960s.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: Alright, saying he just an asshole was selling him short. How about in the spirit of compromise and good feeling we agree to call him a chicken-shit asshole?
Cain
@jl:
More likely from the dearth of right wing movies like Cobra in the 80s. Try watching any of the action movies from the 80s and you’ll understand what I mean. Bunker mentality, do it alone cowboy etc etc.
All Ronald Reagan has influenced a lot of things and this is one of them.
gnomedad
@El Cid:
It’s also quite profitable.
Splitting Image
The best solution (for me anyway) is to try to break the habit of referring to any political problem in terms of “left”, “centre” and “right”. Once you’ve broken the habit of calling both environmental activists and the auto workers unions that oppose them as left-wing, and calling both committed Christians and the Ayn Rand groupies who oppose them as right-wing, you are well on the road to recovery.
As for other people, start telling them one by one that you will quit listening to anything they say unless they can rephrase it in a way that doesn’t involve the words “left” and “right”. One of the benefits of this is that David Brooks will no longer rule your life. Tell people right to their faces that “left” and “right” have no meaning in politics and don’t hesitate to call them idiots if they persist in using them.
Once you have removed the left-right dichotomy from the conversation it’s a lot easier to talk about things as they actually are. It doesn’t really do a lot of good to complain about how “the media” distorts a political argument when you are using the same words that are causing the distortion in the first place.
karen marie
@jl: It’s the myth of The Wild West.
karen marie
@Satanicpanic: More often, I find, it’s because they think it gives them some kind of plausible deniability. I have an acquaintance I used to try to talk politics with but she was a rightwing crank, claimed to be “independent” and swore she never watched Fox News. It beggared belief.
@Satanicpanic: I was proud to identify as a Democrat until the last couple years, was always registered as a Democrat. I’m still doggedly proud to be a Democrat but I’ve changed my registration to “unaffiliated” so that my vote will be considered desirable.
OzoneR
Americans have no principles except to increase their own personal wealth at any cost.
It’s that simple. You can’t be a radical, or a partisan, because that implies you have principles. Americans have no principles.
Gretchen D
@Scott P.: I just had to move the whole page to the left and stretch it out to the right because the ads on the left keep getting bigger and bigger – it’s a conspiracy!
xian
@Two Headed Porcupine God From Another Dimension: has Cole acknowledged that the ad is breaking his blog?
xian
@Zifnab: that’s why it’s nice having KPFA in the Bay Area. A station that is frequently to the left of me!
xian
@Steve: Brachiator deals in hyperbole and projection, not facts or empirical evidence.
xian
and while i’m complaining. this whole sockulism thing. is it really true that spammers are stil trying to get ads for “see Alice” onto this blog? does that string of characters really need a preemptive ban, FYWP?