In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.
The religious right is motivated by the suspicion that someone, somewhere,
is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.
He turns out to be... a rubber Halloween costume.
Yet last week newspapers were uncritically printing press releases about how these jokers had found Bigfoot, had DNA, and so forth. It just goes to show you what kind of press we have here in America -- stenographers. Useless stenographers. You could replace pretty much every reporter in the American media with a tape recorder operated by a trained monkey without any difference in the quality of the "reporting".
-- Badtux the Media Penguin
Ground rules: Comments that consist solely of insults, fact-free talking points, are off-topic, or simply spam the same argument over and over will be deleted. The penguin is the only one allowed to be an ass here. All viewpoints, however, are welcomed, even if I disagree vehemently with you.
WARNING: You are entitled to create your own arguments, but you are NOT entitled to create your own facts. If you spew scientific denialism, or insist that the sky is purple, or otherwise insist that your made-up universe of pink unicorns and cotton candy trees is "real", well -- expect the banhammer.
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i'm still trying to figure out if "Sasquatch" is Bigfoot's name, or if that's the name of his species
ReplyDeleteAnd monkeys are more fun to watch! I mean, who doesn't laugh when they see a monkey?
ReplyDeleteNot even good steno-pool types at that; I bet none of them knows shorthand!
ReplyDeleteIt's easy to blame the press. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's a soft target.
ReplyDeleteIt goes like this (I know because that's what I do for a living): deputy editor goes to chief editor and says "boss, CNN is running a story about some redneck who caught Bigfoot." Editor: "and did they?"
Dep.: "No. It's a bullshit story".
Ed. "So why are you bothering me with it?"
Dep.: "Because the competition are already running it, or will in 4.53 minutes. And it'll have a gazillion of clicks."
Ed.: "And if we don't run it, management will want to know why missed million of clicks".
Dep.: "Precisely".
Ed.: "So you want me to lower the standards of our publication and run this drivel?"
Dep. "Don't see we have much choice, boss".
Ed. "Guess we don't. I hate this job. Run it under one of fake writers".
Been there, done that, watched the movie, got the T-shirt.
The publix wants this garbage. In this day and age, you are measured *by the hour*. They know precisely how many people watched what you wrote, how long they did so, and where they went afterwards. You don't deliver, you get a serious talk after two weeks. Two weeks more, and it's resume-updating time. The media doesn't lead: it runs with what it perceives to be the wind.
But I'm proud to say this time, my corner of the net was left clean. When they came to me with this last weekend, I told them I can report it as a hoax and run ahead of the newscycle, but I wouldn't report it as a bona fide story - because, in one week's time, our rag will be able to proudly note you can't find the word "Bigfoot" in its archives. It worked. This time.
Yossi, here in the United States it goes like this:
ReplyDeleteKarl Rove to aide: "Run an ad saying that my opponent, a pig farmer, has carnal relations with his livestock."
Aide (shocked): "We can't do that! It's not true!"
Rove: "So? I want to see him on live TV saying that he's not a pigfucker."
Fox News: "This just in: GWB claims that his opponent John Kerry has carnal relations with pigs! Is this true? Turn now to our panel discussion with Sean Hammity, Bill O'Really, and Limpwrist Liberal"
CNN: "Did John Kerry have carnal relations with pigs? Next on Lou Dobbs!"
MSNBC: "Next up, a representative of the U.S. Humane Society talking about why carnal relations with pigs is animal abuse."
And then the next day:
Fox News: "Did John Kerry have carnal relations with a pig? Here we have representatives from GWB's campaign and from the Kerry campaign to tell both sides of the story!"
...
and so on, and so forth.
There is no trash too taudry, no accusation too lurid, for the U.S. press to run with. Because, as you say, it's all about profit. And profit is on the side of the Republicans, dumbing down the public discourse until we might as well be living in the former Soviet Union for as much use as our press is to us.
You'll notice, BTW, that I posted nothing on the Bigfoot thing until it was proven a hoax...
- Badtux the News Penguin
Gah. I feel that by even continuing to comment on this, we lessen the sum of human knowledge. The name of the creature generates more hits.
ReplyDeleteThe same political schtick works over here as well. A politician will often come up with an accusation he - and everyone else - knows to be untrue, someone will print it, and it'll take over the newscycle. Our country, however, is somewhat more advanced than yours and hardly bothers anymore with the facade of politics. The oligarchy of the 18 Families is more brazen by the day. I used to think people will do something once the invisible strings become visible. They don't, unfortunately.
At least one of the oligarchs - though not of the 18, yet - was openly buying votes. He was caught at it, said he didn't know it wasn't the done thing, got a slap on the wrist - and was interrogated again a few weeks back for some more vote buying. He said this proves the police harasses him. He went up in the polls.
BTW, wasn't the pig-fucking trick an actual one used by LBJ?
Yeah, the "pigfucker" incident supposedly was LBJ.
ReplyDeleteAs for the notion of people actually doing something, that only happens when a large percentage of people are living lives of real desperation. And generally what they do isn't very nice. People who live comfortable lives don't do anything because, well, they're comfortable, so why should they do anything?
The last time we had real change here in the United States was in the 1930's, when the only alternative to liberal reforms was a Communist revolution because half the country was starving to death in the streets while farmers destroyed crops to "drive up prices". Starving to death while there's plenty of food just out of reach doesn't sit lightly on most folks, and if FDR hadn't immediately created programs to deal with that situation, the results would have made the Russian Revolution look like a picnic. Since then... nope, Americans have been too comfortable to care. As, apparently, is the case with Israelis today, from what you're saying.
Well, you had the sixties. Granted, it was not exactly flowers and wine - well, there were some flowers... - a popular movement did put an end to legal segregation disenfranchisement.
ReplyDeleteWe, on the other hand, spent the sixties singing military hymns, shooting and crying (lit. yorim vebochim, the cynical collective name given to memoirs of soldiers who wrote how hard it was to be an occupier who had to gun people down), and, of course, becoming a little Sparta on the Jordan.
The whole "people are equal" thing never really caught on, and the defeat of 1967 (which, strategically, is what it was) just got all of Judaism's demons out of the bottle. But that's another story.
The 60's resulted in no real changes in America, a buncha youngsters got high, did nothing of any real importance, and went on to vote Ronald Reagan into office (yes, Reagan got an overwhelming majority of the Baby Boomer vote).
ReplyDeleteDesegregation started in the late 1940's with President Truman's desegregation of the U.S. military, and continued because segregation was bad for business (black people's money is green just like everybody else's) and no longer needed in order to provide cheap labor for the plantations of the South due to widespread mechanization of cotton farming. In short, desegregation came about because of the mercantilistic instincts of the U.S. ruling class. Eliminating segregation did not fundamentally change the political or economic system of the United States and besides the process was pretty much completed by 1965 when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and had nothing to do with "flower power" and all that which happened afterwards.
Reminds me also of the protests against the Vietnam War. In the end these did not accomplish much. The main reason the war lost popularity was because of lies by politicians and the fact that it was horrifically expensive, not because of any protests. Yet the former protesters still proudly state they were responsible for the U.S. leaving Vietnam, when what they were, in the end, was a circus sideshow of no importance at all.
I stand by my statement of the 1930's as the last time there was any fundamental change in the U.S. political and economic system. Everything since then has been just one long attempt to undo those changes, an attempt which culminates with the current U.S. government.
- Badtux the History Penguin