WARNING: PROFANITY
I’m so fucking sick of seeing the media use the “critics on the _____ say this” as a basis for a segment on a show or stupid blog post/column. In our over saturated media universe, you can’t throw a rock without hitting one of these stories. That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Every issue there is can be framed with the “critics say” structure and the “two sides to every story” cop-out. Finding a critic isn’t hard, especially when you have professional critics on speed dial at the cable networks. Since when did every issue have a valid argument on each side, some things are just as they are. When are journalists going to attempt to get at the truth and operate in the real world, instead of some projection of public opinion polls and conventional wisdom? I saw just this morning a poll about public opinions on the constitution, should it be interpreted strictly or not and other similar questions. Remember, the people answering these polls can’t even name our vice president or tell you what year the constitution was adopted, but you want to ask them how it should be implemented. What The Fuck. I don’t give a flying fuck what the ignorant asshole driving the monster truck and flying a confederate flag thinks about the constitution. I don’t even want that asshole thinking about it, to be honest.
A free press is one institution that was seen as important enough to be included in the constitution. I don’t think our founding fathers foresaw a “free” press being owned by huge mega corporations with the power of their money, ownership of the airwaves and even the power to effect economies. The “free” press is no more, with the exception of us non-paid bloggers and a few real journalists that still exist. Beyond that, turn on any one of the 3 major cable networks and watch the absolute slant towards anti-government and pro-business. And now with the “Citizen’s United” decision by the Supreme Court, they have even more direct control over our politicians. They now can destroy any candidate they want and smile while they’re doing it. It may be the reason why Republicans think they can get away with all the crap they are doing…because they can. Our cable media is completely fucked.
Extreme Liberal's Blog 
Word. Welcome to the United States Corporatocracy (a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs/GE/ConAgra).
BTW, this blog rocks my socks.
Right on, Jim!!
I see where the Roberts Supreme Court just ruled in favor of Big Pharma, allowing them to mine data from pharmacies to see what drugs doctors prescribe, then send out sales staff to convince doctors to buy their company’s version of drugs. IOW, steer doctors away from cheaper generics or a competitor’s product! Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said “information is speech” and that, under the 1st Amendment, the government cannot restrict speech because it does not approve of the message. “If pharmaceutical marketing affects treatment decisions,” he said, “it does so because doctors find it persuasive.” The current practice is for pharmaceutical companies to buy records of prescriptions, with the patients’ names deleted, but allowing the prescribing doctor to be left intact.
I’ve had enough with politics. Besides reading this blog and blackwaterdogs I’ll be spending time away from msnbc and other media outlets. Instead I’ll be working more on improving my life and watching tv, reading books, watching movies, etc when it comes to passing my spare time.
I would like to say this much the so called ‘left’ is really shooting themselves in the foot but what else is new? They are pawns of the very propaganda that they spout much like the right. They are two sides of the same coin and see very little past their ideology because they are too blind to see the truth I feel sort of bad for them. I think about that senator that wanted Obama to take out fifteen thousand troops by the end of the year and anything less is a broken promise. What exactly is such a big difference between ten thousand and fifteen thousand troops I might ask and I just realized that many of these guys are throwing in numbers that they know Obama would have a very difficult job in doing.
They also know that this isn’t an easy thing when it comes down to drawing out troops and it has to be done carefully. Well some actually may not realize this but I’m willing to bet that most of them with brains do. What most of this comes down to is pandering and trying to win brownie points from their base. They know they have an election to face in 2012 and many of the dems are doing the very thing that they shouldn’t do which is to stab Obama in the back. This may help them get some boost but its also more likely that it will back fire on them. See the left is mad at Obama and feels betrayed but they forget the Obama supports such as me. They ‘left’ has done everything to demean and criticize Obama supporters calling us Obamabots, etc not realizing that when they do this they lose whatever sympathy that they’ve been looking for. In fact this sort of tactic will have many of us Obama supporters less sympathetic towards their plights then ever. For example I felt bad for Weiner but not really. The guy did a lot to criticize and attack Obama and this made me snicker when I found out about his scandal.
Michael Moore also has done much to warrant my scorn and wish at times the worse for him and his cause when years ago I was supportive and liked what he said. Now not at all and whats more I think the right wasn’t to far from the truth with criticizing him. Does this make me a republican? Not at all but I am far from feeling any desire to see any new movies or reading whatever book he might put out.
Anyway sorry for how long it is. Just had to vent myself.
Ratigan says that Obama is a “terrible choice” (his actual words) saying that Obama is a “panderer”, including speaking tonight to the New York GLBT crowd (Obama has actually done MORE for gays than any president in history. I have been out of the closet since 1965 and do know how things have changed over the years!!). I think Dylan is harboring a hard-on under his desk today as he is on an Obama-bashing roll. Susan Del Percio, Ratigan’s REICH foil every day (and echo chamber at times) will appear on Bill Maher’s show tomorrow night. .
Great comment Jeff. I empathize with most of what you say. The last week or so, I’ve been pretty down on politics myself. I’ve gone through some soul searching about where to go with my activism. I feel like there is a need for someone to step up and offer an alternative to the now completely dysfunctional cable media. I have a few contacts to sources of funding and have been trying to formulate some ideas about how to structure something…it’s still a fantasy and very much just ideas floating around in my head.
Something has to change before 2012!
Thanks for continuing to read this blog. I will keep trying to emphasize the positive and expose the Republicans for who they are. And also to maybe help educate some folks who may have started buying into the media’s bullshit.
One thing that puzzles me about Ratigan is so far I have yet to see this guy do anything for gay rights or anything else for that matter. Much like the other pundits he just goes off but where exactly is anyones guess. He’s like Cenk all style and no substance. Calls people names when they disagree with you and has no problem when attacking republicans. Whats real amusing is when Cenk attacks republicans for attacking Obama when he does pretty much the same thing!
John Aravosis was on MSNBC’s Hardball saying Obama hasn’t gone far enough for the gay community. So I guess having DONE MORE than any president in history for the GLBT community isn’t enough. Gays want full rights RIGHT NOW! Just like it took nearly a century and a half for women to get the right to vote, over a century for black Americans to be free of Jim Crow laws, gays should remember that change in a nation often comes in baby steps, not suddenly. The gay Aravosis is a former Republican and aide to the late Sen. Stevens (R-AK) before he was outed and found his old party mostly hated gay folks.
Cenk Uygur says Obama’s position on Afghanistan is not “progressive” but instead he is “center right” adding that Obama is more right-wing now than when he came into office. So “progressives”, just stay at home next year and see what wonders the GOP will bring us when they control ALL of our federal government.
That sounds very intriguing.
I usually try to focus on the positive myself. But after attending Netroots Nation (it came to my backyard this year), I saw and heard some things that I’ve followed up on since I’ve been back about the role a certain Ms. Hamsher is playing in using the media and the netroots. I wrote about that today.
I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories. But this stuff sticks to high heaven. Folks are being played and its time for us to organize an alternative on the left.
I wanted to add an interesting tidbit I found out about Al Gore. Remember how he was bashing Obama according to the unBIASED media? Well heres an interesting article I found while looking through blackwaterdogs site.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433×693795
Dan Choi, the Korean-American West Point officer who went public with his gay orientation. was on an Obama-bashing roll today on MSNBC. With Choi, there seems to be a lot of “all about me”! I had been out-of-the-closet 16 years before he was even born and have seen much progress in how gays are treated in this nation. Not that we don’t have more progress needed. We still don’t have the ERA giving women full equality, either. In 1965, still living in Chicago, I was kicked out a gay bar because I didn’t keep both hands on top of the bar and was falsely accused by the bartender of “groping” under the bar. At the time, a bar could lose their Illinois liquor license if two men touched in any way, even danced standing apart! Hollywood still didn’t allow homosexuality to be depicted in movies and TV and movie stars like Rock Hudson were forced into sham hetero relationships. Sodomy was still a felony in many states, meaning prison time! Choi thinks he has it rough now. Plus he pursued a FREE education at West Point at taxpayers’ expense surely knowing about DADT when he entered the military in 1999!