General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI lay the blame for the influence of the so-called Tea Party on the MSM including
but not limited to assholes like Tweety, all the Network Anchors and Congressional Correspondents, all the local reporters who tacitly accepted the mantras of the Tea-Party-John-Bircher-KKK as somehow inclusive and part of the so-called (again) Democratic Process. When these racist, misogynist creeps re-raised their ugly heads, those of us who lived through the Fifties and Sixties immediately recognized their policies as those of what used to be described as the Radical Right. We in the Progressive Movement, the REAL Progressive movement, fought against these people on a daily basis through the Post McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Era, and the Vietnam War Era.
"Better Dead Than Red" was the LEAST of what was on their car bumpers. DU rules and good taste prevent me from posting some of the other sayings which adorned their vehicles. They were the most hateful group you could imagine but then, for the most part, they held their tongues in public, although you could read in their eyes and faces exactly what they thought.
But now, they just come out and say whatever they please, and for YEARS, the MSM just blandly reported it in that Chuck Todd-like manner of "this is what was said - I'm not commenting upon its validity or sanity, that is for you to decide." Well it only sabotaged the entire country and if the Democrats had not grown up and learned Solidarity at the last moment, we would be in REALLY HORRIFYING trouble, not just the major-league trouble that we are in now.
All along so many of us were screaming that they were the rebranded Birchers, the Klansmen without the hoods, the willing executioners. And so few listened. And you know what? It will happen again in another Cycle.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... the President's "negotiating partner".
Unbelievable.
BumRushDaShow
(129,458 posts)was the first shot in a war against what little gains in equality have occurred in America. There are many liberal wealthy who rightly choose to spend money helping others versus buying media outlets to get our message out there to the masses like the RW thugs, but there needs to be more of them willing to step up to the plate to provide a megaphone.
calimary
(81,467 posts)This is what started it.
During reagan.
You know, I wish to hell chris matthews would shut the fuck up about his damn book. Every time I see an image of ronald reagan I want to throw up. That's where it all started. The reagan era was where all this SHIT that we're going through now - STARTED. You look at ANYBODY (or some organization) beyond and beneath and behind the upstarts and invariably it'll be somebody who (or organization that) got started during the 80s under the cover reagan provided.
When he came onto the national scene I feared he was the most dangerous man in America because of the nice soft gentle warm-fuzzy and presumably "harmless" way he could sell these shit concepts to a gullible, unsuspecting public.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)plenty of folks on the left call Reagan a "liberal" and say that he wouldn't fit in the GOP today, but I really don't know about that. To me, he would fit in perfectly within today's GOP because in addition to doing away with the Fairness Doctrine and waging a war, he was the chief architect of trickle-down economics. In fact, he even went after the Black Panther Party once he saw it was gaining influence. It's no wonder why most of today's Republicans worship the guy.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)The RW may be evil, but they do know how to get things done, even if it takes decades.
Triana
(22,666 posts)Dangerous extremists like Cruz ought to be shunned by the media. Instead, they are given major platforms upon which to spew their dangerous rhetoric to the masses. The media adores Citizens United because they're making BILLIONS in profits off of it.
They are absolutely - along with their goddamned lazy, disingenuous false equivalency arguments - to blame.
A million times this.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)rebirth by 'reaching across the aisle' to them, preaching bipartisanship as the prime objective rather than the good of the nation.
The calm legitimizing responses to Republican extremism came from Congress and from the White House as well as from the media.
PCIntern
(25,584 posts)QC
(26,371 posts)ellenrr
(3,864 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)There is a thread somewhere here at DU, I think..or maybe a link to elsewhere, expressing the opinion that the real downfall began with Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre. I saw this before I realized that TODAY is the 40th anniversary of that day. Nixon's paranoia, and 'birth' of Roger Ailes. etc..
Marr
(20,317 posts)As news stories, that is.
Ten hate radio fans get together and staple tea bags to their hats, and it's HUGE NEWS that all the corporate outlets must cover and promote. They ignored OWS until it was literally spilling over into their own lots.
Whisp
(24,096 posts)whoever is backing the teaparty either has big stakes in media or has big friends in media.
This is no accident, that's for sure - how these vile things sprouted almost overnight.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)The police and the FBI. The police engaged in a nation wide coordinated attack on Occupy. This was no coincidence.
Occupy was criticizing the Wall Street criminals, they had to be silenced.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)... which have given them thousands of hours of free false advertising.
Hamlette
(15,412 posts)The Birchers were the nut jobs when I was young. They were well funded by Koch daddy (and others). Birchers are best known for anti-communism but they were also small government, low taxes, Christian values, personal freedom, (translation: don't give my money to blacks or other low lifes) just like the TP today. They had a pretty good hold on the GOP (and the Mormon church) in the 50s and 60s.
Finally there was an "Emperor's New Clothes" moment led by Buckley. The "moderates" in the GOP, by which I mean the group that would have just tortured dirty hippies, not killed them, led the crusade to purge the GOP of the JBS.
Maybe it will happen again.
(Yes, I know the JBS is still around but not influential, prolly just morphed into the TP. When they lost their signature issue, communism and the ending of the cold war, they were neutered. Maybe when the ACA becomes widely accepted and that issue goes away, the TP will slither off too.)
Here's hoping.
(I had to look the JBS up on Wiki because I was young and all I remember is my mom would not buy a certain brand of bread because it somehow profited the JBS or its founder who I remembered as Welsh. Looking for the name of the bread I went to Wiki and learned it was a "Koch enterprise" just as the TP is today. Couldn't find the name of the bread)
ewagner
(18,964 posts)One of my first bosses in politics told me that compromise in government was an absolute necessity...
except
NEVER, he said, "NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU COMPROMISE WITH EVIL OR IGNORANCE!"
He said to call them what they were even if it cost your job...because evil and ignorance cannot be tolerated in the public sphere.
washnwmn
(28 posts)While working at a small newspaper, I learned early that the big advertisers, the regular advertisers got the attention, stories, and mentions, and that's the way it's played, in TV, radio and where ever possible. So any issue that can be turned into a major commercial event, you know they're going to milk it for all they can get and for as long as they can, from Michael Jackson's death to Congressional gridlock.
Which is why I generally recommend checking out stories on the web, and alternative TV networks. After a while you really question MSM and where they're coming from, it's easier to filter the nonsense, or just change the channel.
1 more helpful fact: advertising exists not to inform, not to be cute, not to be truthful or honest, but simply to sell you something. Even kids get it once you inform them, and are not wanting everything they see advertised.
LoisB
(7,231 posts)polynomial
(750 posts)Its a deep connection to money, MSNBC with anchors like Andrea Mitchell who is the wife of former Federal Reserve chairman Allen Greenspan the primer money master that created the trillions in the basic deficit. Imagine being the wife of this guy and knowing the trillion dollar deals that transpired over the decades besides knowing the insider trading on Wall Street.
Besides Bloomberg should have icons like McDonalds yellow golden arches, Bloomberg should be green arches. He is just loving it. Cannot understand how New Yorkers can be so stupid to let this guy be mayor he makes something like six billion in royalties annually for stock market special operations. Bloomberg supports the daily trading sharks. Yikes.
Then you have sister channel CNBC business with stock bonds money bloated twenty four seven. Especially Rick Santelli is an editor for the CNBC Business News network. He is also credited with being a catalyst in the early formation of the Tea Party movement via a statement he made on February 19, 2009. Do a Google to wiki this guy is political ugly. He reminds me of that puppet Alf from another planet.
What surprises me is why they are not revealed to the public a lot more. I just love when Chuck Todd goes into that conversation about making sausage. Pretty sure many of you have heard the expression about a political scenario where the politics was making sausage. Talk about messaging to his party followers in secret code all the while messaging the political calculus to those who they want to.
Rex
(65,616 posts)to go on to ruin the economy and then gives them a bonus check! If only we had a real M$M that was unbiased toward their paymasters. SIGH.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)An absolute failure.
Something has to be done about it. This is a crisis.
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)WE are what is being sold.
Many of us are obsessed with MSM and MSM coverage of events but it is like watching a football game as narrated by the other team's cheerleaders. More of us should turn it off and let the MSM continue to die the slow death it has been pursuing since the advent of the internet and social media.
The one-to-many model is dead! Long live news aggregation! (many-to-many)
malaise
(269,157 posts)Rec
lostincalifornia
(3,639 posts)within the tea party movement.
Contrast that to when george wallace was running. They did their job and reported his actual views on race.
An example was the free pass ron paul got. Even Bill Maher gave him one, until paul was on his show, and told him that the Civil War should never have never happened. His argument was that slavery would have dealt with itself, and didn't need a war. I remember watching that show, and Maher looking shocked because he did not realize ron paul's actual mindset. He was following all those wonderful talking points that the superficial media loves to repeat without further background into the real views of who they are covering
The MSM is as responsible for the Iraq war as the bush administration was
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)in general: mature, white, male.
OWS got slammed by the same dynamics -- the young people in OWS are NOT the audience for cable news.
Another truism of American media that screws us -- liberals will watch conservative shows but conservatives will not watch liberal shows (which is why almost none exist). That makes conservative-leaning shows the one size fits all solution to dwindling media revenue. Even Jon Stewart is basically a show about watching Fox News obsessively.
PCIntern
(25,584 posts)Fox is the Circus of "Bread and Circuses".