Many Are Culled
Robert Reich puts into sober prose what J M Kunstler has been harping on now for yonks: ain't gonna be no stinkin' recovery.
To be honest, the most discouraging thing about the past half-year is not the Obama team's struggle for a somewhat more equitable version of the previous status quo (as little as I agree, I understand how a responsible executive needs to hew to incremental change.) No, what has me smacking my gob in dismay is the moronic cheerleading for the way things were, for their version of reality, by putative guardians of the commonweal. I refer to our now hopelessly compromised press.
I know, I know, few more than I have harped more on the age-old connection between the vested interests (i.e. advertisers) and our daily journals of news and opinion. And I've said here a couple times previous that what we are witnessing in that department is nothing new, only, because of the digital transformation, more obvious. But Jesus Farking Christ, a glance at the NYT will show it is still fluffing Manhattan real estate. Listening to NPR news (which I do very rarely--for reasons outlined here) will often reward you with the phrase extreme interrogation techniques, which some critics label "torture". (Ira Glass, you smug prick, quit your job now.)
Being away in far northern Vermont in the days before the Fourth, and because the radio gave the only news I could get, I gave a concentrated ear to Spalin's resignation speech that Friday, via NPR, and was utterly appalled that none of the All Things Considered personalities (two reporters and an anchor whose names will be familiar to all who listen regularly to that waste of time) could bring themselves to say what was bleedingly obvious, that we were being treated to an open-air nervous breakdown.
Now in fairness to the show, it played extended clips from that ga-ga address, and the anchor edged as close as she could to saying the "crazy" word, but neither of the political reporters could bring themselves to mention anything other than it was unexpected, that her life and family had been upended this last year, that it had something to do with 2012, that it was a game changer. Honestly, it was no better than the drippingly dumb AP story of a couple days later, in which everything looked upside for that foxy challenger.
Now, Sully sees something like conspiracy in the MSM's refusal to tag Spalin as the ding-dong belle she is. (For my money, the Anonymous Liberal had the best take on the dreary affair.) I see it somewhat differently. Spalin is only the most recent, extreme, worst, and very likely last product of a senile system gone to ground, the SUV of GOP politics.
I should not have to point out that a very large system had a lot invested in the SUV, and so clung to it far past its time in the sun. I think the MSM is sticking with Spalin this summer to show that what it does still matters, that the mojo still works, that the recovery will be V shaped, when it won't, it won't.
To be honest, the most discouraging thing about the past half-year is not the Obama team's struggle for a somewhat more equitable version of the previous status quo (as little as I agree, I understand how a responsible executive needs to hew to incremental change.) No, what has me smacking my gob in dismay is the moronic cheerleading for the way things were, for their version of reality, by putative guardians of the commonweal. I refer to our now hopelessly compromised press.
I know, I know, few more than I have harped more on the age-old connection between the vested interests (i.e. advertisers) and our daily journals of news and opinion. And I've said here a couple times previous that what we are witnessing in that department is nothing new, only, because of the digital transformation, more obvious. But Jesus Farking Christ, a glance at the NYT will show it is still fluffing Manhattan real estate. Listening to NPR news (which I do very rarely--for reasons outlined here) will often reward you with the phrase extreme interrogation techniques, which some critics label "torture". (Ira Glass, you smug prick, quit your job now.)
Being away in far northern Vermont in the days before the Fourth, and because the radio gave the only news I could get, I gave a concentrated ear to Spalin's resignation speech that Friday, via NPR, and was utterly appalled that none of the All Things Considered personalities (two reporters and an anchor whose names will be familiar to all who listen regularly to that waste of time) could bring themselves to say what was bleedingly obvious, that we were being treated to an open-air nervous breakdown.
Now in fairness to the show, it played extended clips from that ga-ga address, and the anchor edged as close as she could to saying the "crazy" word, but neither of the political reporters could bring themselves to mention anything other than it was unexpected, that her life and family had been upended this last year, that it had something to do with 2012, that it was a game changer. Honestly, it was no better than the drippingly dumb AP story of a couple days later, in which everything looked upside for that foxy challenger.
Now, Sully sees something like conspiracy in the MSM's refusal to tag Spalin as the ding-dong belle she is. (For my money, the Anonymous Liberal had the best take on the dreary affair.) I see it somewhat differently. Spalin is only the most recent, extreme, worst, and very likely last product of a senile system gone to ground, the SUV of GOP politics.
I should not have to point out that a very large system had a lot invested in the SUV, and so clung to it far past its time in the sun. I think the MSM is sticking with Spalin this summer to show that what it does still matters, that the mojo still works, that the recovery will be V shaped, when it won't, it won't.
posted by Will Divide at 4:04 AM
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