The following excerpt analyzes Fox News' bogus claim to fairly and accurately report news. Fox News, I think, makes a mockery of journalism. It is a shame that channel is allowed to stink up our airwaves.
Summary: Despite its repeated insistence that its coverage is "fair and balanced" and its invitation to viewers to "say 'no' to biased media," Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with "tea party" protests across the country, which the channel has described as primarily a response to President Obama's fiscal policies. Media Matters has compiled an analysis of Fox News' promotion of these events...
While discussing the April 15 protests on his April 6 program, Glenn Beck suggested that viewers could "[c]elebrate with Fox News" by either attending a protest or watching it on Fox News. Beck stated that in addition to himself, hosts Neil Cavuto, Greta Van Susteren, and Sean Hannity would be "live" at different protests. While Beck spoke, on-screen text labeled those protests as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties."
TaxDayTeaParty.com lists Fox News contributors Michelle Malkin and Tammy Bruce as "Tea Party Sponsors." The sponsors section also lists American Solutions for Winning the Future, whose general chairman is Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich. Gingrich filmed a video "invitation" to attend the April 15 protests. According to TaxDayTeaParty.com, "Gingrich will be a featured speaker" at the April 15 protest in New York City.
Tea-party organizers have used the planned attendance of the Fox News hosts to promote their protests. For instance, the Sacramento Tea Party website uses Cavuto's image at the top of its home page...
The website AtlantaTeaParty.net states of Sean Hannity's appearance at its Atlanta protest...
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Glenn Beck Gets Ready To Tea Bag
BY Matthew Filipowicz
April 14, 2009
Well, Americans, our day is almost here! As you know April 15th is National Tea Party Day! Or if you want to go by it's full title, it's Fox News Channel presents a Freedom Works Production based on the short rant of Rick Santelli of Tax Day Tea Parties starring Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity and the Fox News Dancers.
And of all the teabaggers, none is more hyped up and ready to be dipped than Mr. Glenn Beck...
As others have noted, Glenn is getting harder and harder to satirize. I mean really, is it that far off to imagine him dressing up in a tea bag? This is the same man who just in the last week has pretended to be President Obama dousing a man in gasoline. He had an actor pretend to be Thomas Paine to promote the Fox News teabagging. Hell, a man fainted on his set, and people thought it was just part of the act. You know, Glenn being Glenn. And this is just in the last week!
Oh, and he's going on a stand up comedy tour. I've seen his act, and it's pretty good. However, it is a bit of a Jeff Foxworthy "you might be a redneck" rip off. See, Glenn goes on stage and says things like...
"If you randomly burst into tears at highly inopportune moments, like a four year old who hasn't had his nap... you might be a Glenn Beck."
"If instead of canned goods, your fallout shelter is full of unsold copies of A Christmas Sweater... you might be a Glenn Beck."
"If you're constantly using words you don't know the meaning of... like socialist, communist, fascist, and populist... you might be a Glenn Beck."
April 14, 2009
Well, Americans, our day is almost here! As you know April 15th is National Tea Party Day! Or if you want to go by it's full title, it's Fox News Channel presents a Freedom Works Production based on the short rant of Rick Santelli of Tax Day Tea Parties starring Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity and the Fox News Dancers.
And of all the teabaggers, none is more hyped up and ready to be dipped than Mr. Glenn Beck...
As others have noted, Glenn is getting harder and harder to satirize. I mean really, is it that far off to imagine him dressing up in a tea bag? This is the same man who just in the last week has pretended to be President Obama dousing a man in gasoline. He had an actor pretend to be Thomas Paine to promote the Fox News teabagging. Hell, a man fainted on his set, and people thought it was just part of the act. You know, Glenn being Glenn. And this is just in the last week!
Oh, and he's going on a stand up comedy tour. I've seen his act, and it's pretty good. However, it is a bit of a Jeff Foxworthy "you might be a redneck" rip off. See, Glenn goes on stage and says things like...
"If you randomly burst into tears at highly inopportune moments, like a four year old who hasn't had his nap... you might be a Glenn Beck."
"If instead of canned goods, your fallout shelter is full of unsold copies of A Christmas Sweater... you might be a Glenn Beck."
"If you're constantly using words you don't know the meaning of... like socialist, communist, fascist, and populist... you might be a Glenn Beck."
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A False Distinction
by Alan Wolfe (from The New Republic)
13.04.2009
On a recent trip to the Twin Cities to give a lecture, I was invited to write something by the editors of Contexts, a snappy journal associated with the American Sociological Association designed to bring sociological knowledge to the informed reading public. The magazine runs a feature called "One Thing I Know." Tell us one thing you know, the editors asked.
Accepting their invitation, the one thing I claimed to know is that there is no such thing as a distinction between "classical" and "modern" liberalism. I felt I needed to say as much because everywhere I go, the moment I tell people that I have written a book about liberalism, I am invariably asked which of the two I mean. Classical liberalism, my interlocutors patiently explain to me, is that wonderful notion of the free market elucidated by Adam Smith that worships the idea of freedom. The modern version, by contrast, is committed to expansion of the state and, if taken to its logical conclusion, leads to slavery. One must choose one or the other. There really is no such thing, therefore, as modern liberalism. If you opt for the market, you are a libertarian. If you choose government, you are a socialist or, in more recent times, a fascist.
I try to explain to people that in my book I reject any such distinction and argue instead for the existence of a continuous liberal understanding that includes both Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. But so foreign is this idea to them that they stare at me in utter disbelief. How could I have possibly written a book on liberalism, I can almost hear them thinking, when this guy doesn't know a thing about it?
The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy. To me, perhaps because so little of the means of production lies under my control, this is a remarkably uninteresting subject. I think of the whole question of governmental intervention as a matter of technique.
Sometimes the market does pretty well and it pays to rely on it. Sometimes it runs into very rough patches and then you need government to regulate it and correct its course. No matters of deep philosophy or religious meaning are at stake when we discuss such matters. A society simply does what it has to do.
When instead we do discuss human purpose and the meaning of life, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes are on the same side. Both of them possessed an expansive sense of what we are put on this earth to accomplish. Both were on the side of enlightenment. Both were optimists who believed in progress but were dubious about grand schemes that claimed to know all the answers. For Smith, mercantilism was the enemy of human liberty. For Keynes, monopolies were. It makes perfect sense for an eighteenth century thinker to conclude that humanity would flourish under the market. For a twentieth century thinker committed to the same ideal, government was an essential tool to the same end.
The liberal tradition is about far more than questions of economics, as important as those questions are. Modern liberalism did not start with the New Deal and end with The War on Poverty. What my critics call modern liberalism is instead the logical and sociological outcome of classical liberalism. That is why Adam Smith is a liberal and twentieth century libertarians such as Hayek are not. The latter seek to straighten out the crooked timber of humanity by forcing everyone into a mold established by the market. We know what Keynes thought of such an idea. I am certain that Smith, had he seen what contemporary Smithians are about, would have agreed with him.
13.04.2009
On a recent trip to the Twin Cities to give a lecture, I was invited to write something by the editors of Contexts, a snappy journal associated with the American Sociological Association designed to bring sociological knowledge to the informed reading public. The magazine runs a feature called "One Thing I Know." Tell us one thing you know, the editors asked.
Accepting their invitation, the one thing I claimed to know is that there is no such thing as a distinction between "classical" and "modern" liberalism. I felt I needed to say as much because everywhere I go, the moment I tell people that I have written a book about liberalism, I am invariably asked which of the two I mean. Classical liberalism, my interlocutors patiently explain to me, is that wonderful notion of the free market elucidated by Adam Smith that worships the idea of freedom. The modern version, by contrast, is committed to expansion of the state and, if taken to its logical conclusion, leads to slavery. One must choose one or the other. There really is no such thing, therefore, as modern liberalism. If you opt for the market, you are a libertarian. If you choose government, you are a socialist or, in more recent times, a fascist.
I try to explain to people that in my book I reject any such distinction and argue instead for the existence of a continuous liberal understanding that includes both Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. But so foreign is this idea to them that they stare at me in utter disbelief. How could I have possibly written a book on liberalism, I can almost hear them thinking, when this guy doesn't know a thing about it?
The idea that liberalism comes in two forms assumes that the most fundamental question facing mankind is how much government intervenes into the economy. To me, perhaps because so little of the means of production lies under my control, this is a remarkably uninteresting subject. I think of the whole question of governmental intervention as a matter of technique.
Sometimes the market does pretty well and it pays to rely on it. Sometimes it runs into very rough patches and then you need government to regulate it and correct its course. No matters of deep philosophy or religious meaning are at stake when we discuss such matters. A society simply does what it has to do.
When instead we do discuss human purpose and the meaning of life, Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes are on the same side. Both of them possessed an expansive sense of what we are put on this earth to accomplish. Both were on the side of enlightenment. Both were optimists who believed in progress but were dubious about grand schemes that claimed to know all the answers. For Smith, mercantilism was the enemy of human liberty. For Keynes, monopolies were. It makes perfect sense for an eighteenth century thinker to conclude that humanity would flourish under the market. For a twentieth century thinker committed to the same ideal, government was an essential tool to the same end.
The liberal tradition is about far more than questions of economics, as important as those questions are. Modern liberalism did not start with the New Deal and end with The War on Poverty. What my critics call modern liberalism is instead the logical and sociological outcome of classical liberalism. That is why Adam Smith is a liberal and twentieth century libertarians such as Hayek are not. The latter seek to straighten out the crooked timber of humanity by forcing everyone into a mold established by the market. We know what Keynes thought of such an idea. I am certain that Smith, had he seen what contemporary Smithians are about, would have agreed with him.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Republican Looney Tunes
REPUBLICANS TURN TO "SOCIALISTS" BECAUSE 'LIBERALS" HAS LOST ITS PUNCH. IT'S STILL THE SAME OLD BRAIN-DEAD CLAPTRAP.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 12, 2009
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.
Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.
But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.
Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.
But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?
Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff — but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.
Speaking of Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials. But while it’s new to have a talk-radio host in that role, ferocious party discipline has been the norm since the 1990s, when Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, became known as “The Hammer” in part because of the way he took political retribution on opponents.
Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.
Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.
But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.
So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run — but it’s bad for the country.
For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless.
But as I said, the G.O.P. remains one of America’s great parties, and events could still put that party back in power. We can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 12, 2009
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.
Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.
Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.
One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.
But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.
Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.
But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?
Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff — but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.
Speaking of Mr. Limbaugh: the most impressive thing about his role right now is the fealty he is able to demand from the rest of the right. The abject apologies he has extracted from Republican politicians who briefly dared to criticize him have been right out of Stalinist show trials. But while it’s new to have a talk-radio host in that role, ferocious party discipline has been the norm since the 1990s, when Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, became known as “The Hammer” in part because of the way he took political retribution on opponents.
Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.
Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.
But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.
So what’s the implication of the fact that Republicans are refusing to grow up, the fact that they are still behaving the same way they did when history seemed to be on their side? I’d say that it’s good for Democrats, at least in the short run — but it’s bad for the country.
For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless.
But as I said, the G.O.P. remains one of America’s great parties, and events could still put that party back in power. We can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Republican Book Burning
It seems that the Republicans are organizing "tea parties" in which they are planning book burnings. Is this UNBELIEVABLE or what?
Tea Party Insanity: "Burn The Books!" (VIDEO)
Tea Party Insanity: "Burn The Books!" (VIDEO)
The Obamaphobes
The salivating, slobbering, racist, Obamaphobes are running around like ants on an anthill, their rhetoric getting sillier and sillier, darker and darker in their desperation. Just like ants on a disturbed anthill, they all look and act the same.
Republican Irresponsibility
Glenn Beck and The Consequences of Crazy Talk
Bob Cesca, 04.08.2009
Political Author, Blogger, and New Media Producer
Broadcasters like Beck ought to take responsibility for some of their more incendiary remarks -- remarks which appear to be ginning up the darker, uglier, fanatical tendencies in an already militaristic, jingoistic, reactionary audience.
Bob Cesca, 04.08.2009
Political Author, Blogger, and New Media Producer
Broadcasters like Beck ought to take responsibility for some of their more incendiary remarks -- remarks which appear to be ginning up the darker, uglier, fanatical tendencies in an already militaristic, jingoistic, reactionary audience.
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