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"Liberal" voices in America

post #1 of 9
9/19/10 at 1:08pm
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Occasionally during brief windows of time that are available to me I trawl through those old Hitch/Buchanan politics shows that were broadcast during the nineties on C-SPAN. I can love or leave both. Hitchens - before he became infected by the money-uber-alles disease those elites he rubbed shoulders with in the US carried - could always be relied upon to give a fresh perspective on things whereas Buchanan's consistent avowal of free-trade principles (in contradiction to Bush's disgusting brand of corporate socialism and backhanders) and classic conservatism was a welcome change to the GATT/WTO madness of the day and today.

These shows are usually informative and occasionally you come across a real gem. Like this one (from 4:30).

After hearing time and time and time again 24/7/365 on myriad talk shows (especially those on FOX) that the US media is "dominated" by limp-jawed Liberals I literally did a double-take when both Hitch & Buchanan admitted that there was NO Liberal voice in the mid-nineties whatsoever (aside from a handful of very marginalised people) on not just TV but radio also!

Given that we've been hearing this mantra from the likes of Limbaugh and O'Reilly for nearly ten years my only questions can be: when did this foul takeover occur? Was there some kind of beaches-of-Normandyesque full frontal assault by the Left directly after this show?
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post #2 of 9
9/19/10 at 1:21pm
It's not so much the rise of liberal/leftist voices so much as it is the Right framing moderates and traditional news sources like the NY Times as left and liberal.
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post #3 of 9
9/19/10 at 2:42pm
Exactly. It's the idea of the Overton Window - the conservative media (primarily radio, where they've always had a lock) pushes the terms of discourse so far to the right that formerly moderate, non-controversial sources like the NY Times or the network news become suspect as "liberal" to their listeners, and genuine liberalism becomes unacceptably radical. You're seeing it happen again with the Tea Parties monopolizing the political debate - Obama administration policies that mirror things the Nixon administration proposed are now "socialist."
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post #4 of 9
9/19/10 at 3:03pm
We're also talking about a higher level of discourse here - Hitchens and Buchanan might have been saying this stuff back then but wasn't Rush Limbaugh well established at that time with a "only sane voice amongst a sea of liberal media pinheads" shtick?
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post #5 of 9
9/19/10 at 9:50pm
The one thing I'm grateful for in this country politically is that, although the mainstream is some of the most politically apathetic in the western world, unlike in the US when they do bother to think about politics they generally seem to gravitate to the centre rather than the extremes of the political spectrum. There seems to be a general distrust of voices from either the extreme right or the progressive left here and although I'd argue the that same mainstream is probably centre-right generally if anything, that innate distrust of extremes has kept the Murdoch press and it's acolytes at bay to a certain degree.

We still have our political whackjobs, but they're generally thought of as such - a Palin or even a Limbaugh would be hard pressed to gain serious purchase here.

The scary thing is that's changing tho, as the world in general becomes more polarised and mainstream media becomes more extreme and blatant in its agenda to try and shape the political discourse from a right leaning context. So who knows where we'll be in 5-10 years?
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post #6 of 9
9/20/10 at 2:21pm
What I'm wondering is if the left will ever, ever take a page from the right's playbook and do things like: attack institutions to create a defensive movement to the left; appropriate the strengths of the right (i.e. how the right turned John Kerry's war hero past against him, how it appropriated the quality of fiscal responsibility, which it demonstrably isn't), etc.

I mean, why can't the left turn the concept of "family values" and "values voter" against the right? To me, it looks like easy pickins.

On the other hand, I thought Michael Moore made a great point on Bill Maher on Friday, even though Maher dismissed it, which is that the main difference between the Tea Party and the protesters on the left is news absorption. Protests from the left are ignored in droves, while the tea party is called a "widespread movement" in the media, in spite of relatively low numbers. I think this has more to do with the corporate issue than any kind of editorial one.
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post #7 of 9
9/20/10 at 3:33pm
Some of the right-wing techniques backfire, though. Like trying to mock and devalue Kerry's war hero past bit them on the ass when they tried to turn around and make "war hero" the gangplank of McCain's campaign. People saw through the hypocrisy. While there are lots of things I'd like the left to be more aggressive on, I really think that in the long run, not being underhanded and Orwellian is probably better for the left. The Tea Party is the natural outgrowth of that kind of behaviour, and they're now becoming a liability for the right.

I do agree that the media plays a major role in this, but I'm not sure that the solution is dozens more Keith Olbermann types. I think that if you militarize everyone along party lines, the right wins, because their message is "Don't think! Be afraid!" and the left, no matter how angry or douchey its individual members or movements might become, is essentially asking people to be accepting and thoughtful. The former appeals more to militant idiots, so there are more of them, and the people in the middle who might be pursuaded just want to get far away from the noise. That's why Jon Stewart's idea for a "million moderate march" is so brilliant, though I don't know exactly how it's going to work. By his own admission, moderates have shit to do.
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post #8 of 9
9/20/10 at 3:36pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by yt View Post
What I'm wondering is if the left will ever, ever take a page from the right's playbook and do things like: attack institutions to create a defensive movement to the left; appropriate the strengths of the right (i.e. how the right turned John Kerry's war hero past against him, how it appropriated the quality of fiscal responsibility, which it demonstrably isn't), etc.
Whoa whoa whoa, this is the big danger, I think. I don't care how effective it would be for the left, we just can not stoop to that level. That's a big reason I lean towards the politics that I do -- the left doesn't engage in the type of utter character assassination we see against people like Sherry Sherrod. The right embraces these tactics because it knows its ideas are not enough. The left can learn to be more effective without joining America's worst elements down in the mud.
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post #9 of 9
9/20/10 at 4:16pm
Yeah, I wouldn't want to see the left stoop to such bullshit.

I mean Jesus, the entire foundation of my political/overall beliefs is that it's THAT kind of bullshit that has us so fucked in the first place. We don't need more of it, however effective in the short term it may be.

Ultimately, it'd be beautiful if both parties didn't lower themselves to that level and instead encouraged the great unwashed to actually fucking think for a change and consider real, actual debate/ideas.
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