Running on Bullshit
Andrew Breitbart, appearing on Fox News, 02/23/10. (images: Fox)
Reader Supported News | Perspective
n the 1976 film Network, Howard Beale explains why on the previous evening's broadcast he had announced that he would commit public suicide on the air: "Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit ... So I don't have any bullshit left, just ran out of it, you see."
That is not a concern for what passes as our modern media because bullshit comes with a golden microphone and silver-framed teleprompter. Bring your own pooper-scooper.
The media narrative of the Shirley Sherrod event began with, "racist discovered at NAACP," then promptly shifted to, "oops, my bad," and then to, "what's wrong with this White House and why is the President afraid of FOX?"
On Wednesday's ABC Nightline Cynthia McFadden introduced a segment about the kerfuffle Andrew Breitbart had stirred up. Kerfuffle? That sounds so harmless.
The NY Times ran an editorial that began: "The Obama Administration has been shamed by its rush to judgment," and ended by noting that this time, Glenn Beck was right.
Howard Kurtz gave cover to FOX and Breitbart by glossing over the whole incident and ending with, "Still, one fact is indisputable. It was Vilsack, not Breitbart, who kicked Sherrod out of her job."
Rachel Maddow on MSNBC chided the White House for continually falling for these FOX News stunts, and Keith Olbermann interrupted his vacation for a Special Comment on the whole Sherrod affair and lectured Obama about standing up to the right-wing FOX noise machine.
Let's be blunt here, the media is not interested in journalism or news or context or factual reportage; it is interested in what sells - and that my friends, is bullshit.
CNN is a slogan generating "news" organization. "Keeping them honest" is the term most often used while uttering the phrase "both sides do it," as protection against accusations of being part of the "liberal media."
MSNBC has positioned itself as the anti-FOX with its so-called "liberal/progressive" evening lineup that punches back at the propaganda of FOX. It is Keith versus Bill-O and Rachel versus Hannity or whomever she can snark and giggle at. It is the World Wrestling Federation of "I know I am but what are you!"
In other words - bullshit. Lethal repugnant odious, but oh so shiny bullshit.
It is time to re-read Gene Lyons' "Fools For Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater." It is time to remind ourselves that the NY Times and Washington Post were cheerleaders for war with Iraq and Afghanistan. The networks quivered in near orgasm over the chance to embed with troops and roll across the desert in glorious full battle-rattle. The "media" attacked Michael Hastings over his reporting on Gen. McChrystal and whined about the need for friendly access to the military, and at the same time complained that BP restricted their ability to cover the Gulf oil disaster. BP was being mean!
The truth is, had BP oil been used as a lubricant for a celebrity sex scandal, the media would have broken through the security lines and rushed the bedroom for photographs. But of course, the oil was only used to lubricate the screwing of America, so nothing to see here - move along.
Our "media news" outlets are nothing more than carnival barkers and hucksters. They are the last real manufacturer left in this country. They manufacture sensationalistic fear while selling conformity to the great, unwashed American consumer. They sell tribalism and all the products that go with it.
In other words - bullshit.
The Sherrod affair was never about racism. It was blowback for attacks on the Tea Party - that manufactured coalition of hate and anger supported by conservative corporate largesse - just like that other media creation - Sarah Palin.
All the media did was yell: Fight! Fight! Someone called someone else a racist and then someone else showed that the other someone was a racist too and both sides do it so - we're just keeping them honest. See?
Breitbart won the prize his kind desires most - headlines and media profile.
MSNBC and FOX got to punch and blame each other, so that's a win.
The American people lost. They lost an opportunity to have an honest discussion about people and racism, about institutional racism, about the progress and redemption of race in our society. But at least they were entertained for a while. And isn't that what it's all about, really, a little entertainment between job losses and military suicides and the 100 bank failures so far this year and oh yeah, having to talk about that scary race thing?
One night Howard Beale ran out of bullshit. Howard Beale is a fictional character.
So is our modern media.
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Comments
"Pure" chicken shit.
Doing one's job well, even very well with compassion and understanding does not make one a hero. Police are not heroic because they are police; soldiers are not heroic because they are solders, teachers are not heroic because they are teachers. They are just people doing their jobs. Let's stop labeling people heroic until they do something truly extraordinary, not simply very well. Once everyone becomes a hero, no one ever again can truly be a hero.
BUT MRS SHARROD OVERCAME WHATEVER BAD FEELINGS SHE HAD IN REGARD TO WHITE PEOPLE, AND WORKED HARD TO HELP WHITE POOR FARMERS KEEP THEIR FARMS. THAT CERTAINLY DOES MAKE HER A HERO.
MRS. SHERROD WAS A WAY TO ACCOMPLISH THAT. THE FACT THAT SHE WAS FIRED IN SUCH AN ASININE WAY ANGERED MANY BLACK PEOPLE--WHITE TOO! BUT THE BLACK PEOPLE MAY BE SO DISILLUSIONED THAT THEY DECIDE TO STAY HOME ON ELECTION DAY. fOR ROVE.....MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
So look carefully when you see a lot of the BS being hurled. There is method to their madness. Confuse people, make them angry. divide and conquer. Pay attention, don't be sheep, and for god's sake turn OFF Limbaugh, Beck and Fox.
I think there are many more heroes than the BS media gives us, but we have to think for ourselves and pick them out and understand why we believe they are heroes.
You have your definition of heroic, I guess, which maybe means superhuman, I don't know. But heroes are not what the media has sold to us as heroes. They are people in our own communities working to do good things.
We know her now. She IS a hero and a living legend despite the crotchety JD. All hail Shirley Sherrod, AMERICAN HERO.
Back in the early 1980s a friend was asked to serve on her local library board. She was a writer and book collector and was glad to be involved till the bulk of the board was replaced by local businessmen who insisted on quarterly growth of all services offered by the library. The employees were required to issue more cards, get more books, videos and records checked out every 90 days. What was not required of them was to improve the quality of the collection.
A service intended to enhance the public's life experience ought not to be considered an opportunity to make a profit while cutting back costs.
Rachel Maddow recently took a near feckless trip to Afghanistan to cover a war that, like the Iraq War, has been thoroughly sanitized by all the infotainment outlets. Can't make the same mistake they made with Vietnam I'm told. You won't see them mingling with Iraqi refugees or talking about those crazy Zionists any time soon either.
All to often, Rachel and Keith waste time whining with feigned indignation about some fart Fox takes when they could be reporting about our American government's double-standard "war on terror," among other Orwellian things.
Just saying.
Next we reform the educational system. From now on to teach high school, you must have an actual degree. not just the education M.A.. It must be a degree in history, science, math, physics etc..., in order to teach those specific subjects. Stop putting the P.E. teachers in charge of U.S. history. Then we will stop producing the far too many boneheads we do, a commodity America leads the world in by 3 furlongs. It is no contest at all at this point. We are wasting our youth. We are stupid.
Until we raise our own standards...until we quit merely retreating into our own cozy little self-interest groups and turning our backs on everything we don't seem to like, we're doomed to the result this kind of coverage leaves us with. Democracy is threatened not necessarily by the beliefs and policies of the body politic (results and standards of living are threatened to be sure, but not democracy itself), but by the dumbing down of our own standards...the regression to the mean of simplicity in policy and message...and in the hysterical message machinery that seeks nothing more than the quest for power and its myriad benefits for those pulling the strings.
Its nobody's fault but our own. The media is merely a reflection of ourselves.
Better to read! Take on info much faster! There are these sites, and they lead to BOOKS by unstoppable authors who offer pages and pages of references.
Try "Family of Secrets", or "Crossing the Rubicon" - both real page turners. (Type "- used" for your search) You'll find where the bullshit originates and WHY.
the great thing about not having TV is that it really does send a frantic mood into one's brain, and I don't need that. The world is better with books and music and internet. No one has to watch. And they shouldn't.
Yes it is a great and informative book. I read recently that someone purchased the movie rights and a film will be coming out in a year or so. Also check out his second book, "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth About Global Corruption."
Rich
The reason these two classes of commentator are not equivalent is because Olbermann and Maddow state the actual facts before they comment. When they discover an error, they correct it on the air. On the other hand O'Rielly, Hannity and their fellows on the right do not. Most of the time what the assert to be facts are not facts, they are commentary disguised as and asserted to be "fact," and they never apologize for and almost never acknowledge their errors, let alone correct them.
The failure was in the persons and institutions who are there to see fair play, from the President down. As a result we are all ALL tainted by this sad affair.
mikemadha
It is NOT A SPILL, and I tell every newsperson I hear using it from NPR to Rachael Maddow to stop using this BP created term of diminishing consequences.
IT IS A CATASTROPHE to the people of the Gulf states, some of whom have lost their entire livelihood, retirement and many of whom supply us with the formerly riches of that once fabulous seabed of food wealth. We need only to 'try' and imagine what 100,000 gallons of raw oil would look like in our own neighborhood...
IT IS NOT A SPILL and I want responsible news media and this administration to call it what it is. IT IS A NATIONAL DISASTER, as is our media and sense how to determine what is really important.
Slow down Olberman -- we're all pissed off.
This was covered on Olberman's show a day or two later. BUT NOBODY ELSE HAS MENTIONED AN IMPORTANT FACT LIKE THIS. RACHEL ROCKS Thank god some scientists turned BP down
who were early targets for extermination or deportation? Intellectuals, that's who. Purge the universities, the media, etc. and any other group opposed to the revolution. I find it interesting that the right wing including Pain, Rush, Beck, Teapartyers and their main mouthpiece, Fox, show a real penchant for anti-intellectualism . This, to me is the most frightening aspect of the far right. Purge the intellectuals and they'll control the country. Scary?
I pulled the plug on my cable over a decade ago. I haven't heard any of these clowns say a word since then. Neither Democrats, Republicans or the corporations they serve can impact my consciousness through the boob tube.
Liberate yourselves from bullshit campaigns of all flavors and stripes, pull the cable out of the wall and set yourself free from the propaganda machine.
Whether it's the Republicans, Democrats or Coca Cola, its nothing but propaganda and noise, intended to get you to do things that aren't good for you, but would benefit someone in power.
Pull your cable and forget about those clowns. Freedom from propaganda is just a walk across the living room, folks.
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