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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Wouldn't Sunstein's example - of liberals being out of step with their party because they believed that Bush not signing onto the Kyoto was a big mistake, while the Dems in the Senate also voted it down - be a poor one to make considering that the Democratic Senate has not been a liberal/progressive one as a whole, and certainly hasn't reflected the views of it's base in actual passed legislation on the big issues? Haven't we seen this kind of Inside the Beltway Democratic thinking over and over again in their votes and lack of cohesive conviction? As a whole, the Democratic leadership does not reflect the views of liberal America - one just has look at the recent "stay the mistake" lost opportunities over ending the Iraq War, allowing the minority to overwhelm the majority on S-Chip and sending Mukasey toward confirmation. These are not indicative of mainstream Democratic sentiment, as polls have overwhelmingly indicated.
On the other hand, one could easily argue that the GOP leadership and current presidential candidates walk in lockstep with the extremist of their party, as is evidenced in their rubberstamping of the most unpopular president since Nixon (and now topping Nixon).
Fortunately, I don't have to dole out money to read this kind of abuse on my convictions and knowing right from wrong.
We DO try to read (not watch, or listen to much, sorry) a broad spectrum of news and commentary at our house, from the Guardian and NPR to the WSJ and the National Review, and a whole lot in between.
However, whatever Mr Sunstein says, nobody, NOBODY can convince me that what the far-right has done and is doing is honest or beneficial. Talk about parsing info!!! Good god, have any of you actuall READ the National Review? I honestly think most of what passes for not just "commentary" but even "facts" in there is just jaw-droppingly stupid, if not evil at its core. And, no: I'm not over-reacting.
Absolutely, without exception, the information that these cretins would label as "liberal" (how that definition has been reduced and demonized is worth its own book) does not engage in the same vitriolic debasement that the far-right does. Sunstein just can't convince me otherwise.
As for his feeble, "Well, I don't watch him much" "defense" of O-Reilly: Take the el in any direction from that campus sometime, Mr Sunstein. The air might be a bit rich for you, but you'll get used to it.
ps: Well done, editorial intern! Keep up the good work! =)
The problems Sunstein cites all have their genesis in the antiquated traditional media, not the Internet. The Clinton impeachment was in fact ridiculous; but the vast majority of American people rejected it while the traditional media in lockstep had the vapors over a middle-aged man's marital infidelity. Don't like that Rush followers call themselves "dittoheads"? Well blame monopolistic radio ownership then. Karl Rove is a menace? Well, Lee Atwater was much better at it (he didn't lost elections consistently) and he predated the mass Internet.
All the problems with polarization Sunstein cites have been with us for not decades but centuries. What is new is that the center and left for the first time in decades actually have some voice, so things only seem more polarized. And in fact the nation is nowhere near as polarized as Mr. Sunstein says; we are largely in agreement on Iraq, healthcare, the economy. It is simply that a minority opinion gets more airtime and a bigger megaphone, so it seems like internecine squabbling.
The Internet has produced as a percentage of the population the largest group of informed citizens since pre-Revolutionary times - possibly more. The problem is not the message, the messengers, or the new media, but the ownership of old media and lack of true representative democracy.
Even the word "cretin."
It's the only way I can explain how supposedly educated, intelligent, moral people can come to many of the absolutely contradictory beliefs that they do, and put forth the kinds of cynical, purposely misleading (if not downright dishonest) and reductive arguments that they do.
Mourning your abortion while remaining pro-choice, despite the self-knowledge of the difficult choices one has to make is simply NOT equivalent to paying for your sister's or daughter's abortion WHILE VEHEMENTLY PROTESTING OTHERS' RIGHT TO DO THE SAME, AND VOTING AGAINST IT.
Even in that example, Sunstein ignores the hypocrisy and arrogance of the right.
No one thinks about anything. They blog and hit submit. There are no new ideas, there aren't even useful discussions of old ideas. There is just ranting. In the end, the Internet becomes a weapon of tyranny because it leads down a rathole of selfinvolved hate speech.
AMEN.
When conservatives and libertarians write letters on this site - does that make the liberals in here smarter?
I'm assuming so.
To the article's credit, it is acknowledged that NPR is not the left's Fox, but only after saying that common knowledge suggests that this is so. And here's why the left needs to be more radical --- in essence, get itself a Fox news: because in a world where NPR is considered to be as far left as you can get, the "centrist" position between NPR and Fox will, in actuality, be right of center! So, we need more extreme leftism just to pull the center back towards the actual center. I wish I did not live in a world where extreme leftism was necessary in re-centering the center, but I do, and it is. In the America I see today, the left, in being too accommodating (as lefties by definition generally are) so far continue to let the right pull the "center" ever right-ward.
A central problem, Sunstein argues, is that Americans now think of themselves more as consumers than as citizens.
This is an excellent characterization but it has nothing to do with the internet. In fact, internet culture has done a great deal to counteract the monolithic quality of the traditional news media. Whatever view one might take of their politics, there is a general consensus across the American political spectrum that the mainstream media all say the same thing, whether or not it has any basis in fact. (And that the right-wing noise machine, or the right-thinking patriots of Fox News and its ilk if you want to be fair and balanced, all says its own, and different, same thing.)
So why didn't the interviewer ask Sunstein to explain his particular focus on the internet?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
