That librul media

~ susie

I agree with Will Pitt: They’re scared. And that cheers me up!

Remember the first stirrings of what came to be termed as the “Tea Party” uprising? Never mind that it was created by powerful conservative corporate entities like the Koch Brothers. Never mind that the “Tea Party” was nothing more or less than the GOP base with a new coat of paint. Never mind that virtually everything they were yelling about was based on lies and deliberate misinformation. Never mind that most of them really didn’t know what they were talking about, and couldn’t spell to save their lives.

Three blivets wreathed in American flags and automatic weapons could stand on a streetcorner with signs reading “Keep Your Damn Government Hands Off My Medicare,” and they would find themselves surrounded by camera crews from CNN, MSNBC and, of course, Fox News. But put 50,000 people a day out on the streets of Madison, put tens of thousands more on the streets in every state in the union, and those same news cameras are suddenly too busy covering the Oscars and Lindsey Lohan’s ongoing crime spree to make an effort at coverage.

Hm.

I wonder why this is? We have a huge story in the making here, rife with old and new politics that cuts across virtually every segment of American life – blue collar workers, unions, protests, Tea Party governors, fleeing Democratic senators, teachers, budget issues, new media, old media, and the power of simple shoe leather – and yet those who represent the protesters in Wisconsin had to fight like wolverines to get just one of their representatives onto the Sunday political talk shows. Just one. As far as the American “news” media is concerned, Wisconsin simply doesn’t exist.

Know what I think?

I think they’re scared.

I think the corporations behind the “news” media are conservatives down to their DNA, but understanding that is a matter of simple logic and observation. They made the “Tea Party” into a legitimate political phenomenon by dint of total-saturation coverage. But now, they are trying to disappear the Wisconsin protests by ignoring them entirely. Is it because they don’t like the idea of workers having the right to collectively bargain? Definitely. Is it because this national action scares the ever-lovin’ crap out of them?

I think absolutely yes.

Keep it up Wisconsin. Keep it up, alternative media. Keep it up, America.

They are scared down to their corporate-owned socks, and as this movement grows, it will be impossible to ignore.

Published by susie

6 thoughts on “That librul media”

  1. It’s deja vu all over again. Or, as Krugman pointed out recently, this is so like the MCM (Mainstream Corporate Media) ignoring the huge anti-Iraq Invasion demos of 2003 that it’s scary. Same tactics, same playbook. Hundreds of thousands in the streets in this country, millions world-wide…and on the MCM??? We were treated like wackos or just irrelevant.

    If it’s not on TeeVee, it’s not real to many people. They think.

    Sadly, for many, it’s true. Recall that most of us did not know about the demonstrations at Bush the Younger’s first inauguration until Michael Moore found video of it and included it in his Fahrenheit 9/11. It was totally ignored by the MCM (that’s why I include the “C” part–that’s what makes the MCM slick and sick. Plus, acronyms usually don’t break apart a work to create the initials, as in “MSM.” “Mainstream” is one word, not two.) Just didn’t happen for anyone watching the Inauguration on TV.

    But, it is so damn similar. Remember the heavy coverage of the doctors’ motorcade across the country to DC, asking that single payer be considered? Maybe, since readers of this blog are pretty tuned in, but from the MCM? But probably not. For most people, it did not happen. It was not part of the debate as performed by the Very Serious People and their Versailles courtiers. Single payer was not in the script, unless to be denigrated as irrelevant.

    It’s a major way of limiting debate in this nation, keeping the Overton Window open only between Right and Far Right. It’s from something I just learned the word for: Agnotology. Here’s the Wiki intro:

    Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. The neologism was coined by Robert N. Proctor,[1][2] a Stanford University professor specializing in the history of science and technology.[3] Its name derives from the Neoclassical Greek word ἄγνωσις, agnōsis, “not knowing” (confer Attic Greek ἄγνωτος “unknown”[4]), and -λογία, -logia.[5] More generally, the term also highlights the increasingly common condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

    A prime example of the deliberate production of ignorance cited by Proctor is the tobacco industry’s conspiracy to manufacture doubt about the cancer risks of tobacco use. Under the banner of science, the industry produced research about everything except tobacco hazards to exploit public uncertainty.[5][6] Some of the root causes for culturally-induced ignorance are media neglect, corporate or governmental secrecy and suppression, document destruction, and myriad forms of inherent or avoidable culturopolitical selectivity, inattention, and forgetfulness.[7]

    Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse forms of knowledge do not “come to be,” or are ignored or delayed. For example, knowledge about plate tectonics was delayed for at least a decade because key evidence was classified military information related to underseas warfare.[5] (My emphasis)

    Given how hard the Powers That Be worked to make single payer anathema, it’s still amazing to me that just before the Big Vote to pass Obama’s Health Insurance Profit Protection Act, polls showed nearly 60% of the public wanted “something like” Medicare for All.

    We need real journalism, we need new broadcasting regulations, we need better politicians, we need public financing of elections, we need honest and accountable voting methods. We need people to rise up and demand our needs and goals be addressed by politicians. Oh, and jobs, jobs, jobs. Fair taxation fairly shared.

    We need what’s happening in Madison to happen everywhere. And soon.

  3. Or maybe it will play out like the Iraq war protests from 2001-2003. The only people who remember there were large numbers of people protesting the damned war around the country seem to be the protesters themselves. No significant media coverage means they couldn’t possibly have happened despite what your lying eyes told you at the time (if you were there).

  4. Many seem to be assuming that the good old t.v. coverage of “news” is the Be-All-And-End-All. Guess what, it’s NOT.

    Television was created to SELL stuff. Success!!!

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