calimary
calimary's JournalFunny, it's THEM exploiting the "politics of envy."
With teachers, police, firefighters, nurses, and other public employees, the bad guys have FOR YEARS been repeating an "us versus them" them along the lines of "THEY have nice fat pensions. And YOU don't. But YOU'RE paying for them."
This is something I've been finding in my reading, A LOT, lately.
We have to understand the bad guys' mentality and their motivation, and the whole psychology of it and how they're crafting this stuff that millions of teabagger-types are swallowing whole. This has built them a BIGTIME advantage because it's all paying off now. We HAVE TO understand this, and find a way to turn it around, or at least turn it back on the bad guys.
I liked him sometimes but felt I could never really trust him.
He came from CNBC and as such, he was completely steeped in 24/7 corporate/Wall Street culture. That's an awfully big bunch of Gordion Knots from which to disengage, and they sure buttered his bread for a long time (and who would his friends be, and who would he hang out with, and whose cocktail parties would he be invited to and who would he go out for drinks and dinner with?) I was never sure he was not still a wholly-owned subsidiary. Like that little camera-cupcake Erin whatever-her-name-is on CNN who came from CNBC, to replace Eliot Spitzer and only served to keep the ratings in the cable news basement. Her inquisitional and oppositional questioning of people in the Occupy movement betrayed who still owned/owns her.
Glad to hear Martin Bashir's gaining from it. Wish they'd give him a two-hour show! He's utterly BRILLIANT!
True. Now, the next question is - are our people gonna do anything about this?
Anybody gonna learn from this? ANYBODY on our side gonna learn from this and do something different?
Or are our party leaders just gonna keep clinging to the notion that "but, but, but, the American People will SEE! They'll see what's going on and they'll KNOW..."
NO, YOU IDIOTS, NO THEY WON'T! Not as long as they're nonstop carpet-bombed with the messaging from the other side.
The 64 BILLION dollar question is - what do we do about it????????
Me too, Samantha. I don't watch Pox Noise any more than I buy books by crooks.
That was one from the post-Watergate era - "don't buy books by crooks."
I don't believe in rewarding or reinforcing bad behavior, I don't patronize TV or cable channels, or radio stations or networks, or manufacturers that I know support people or concepts I find objectionable. I don't buy anything manufactured by the koch brothers. I don't watch Pox, and I don't listen to stations here in L.A. that run CONservative talk.
One time I had an email war with the programming department at KABC TalkRadio. I'd written a comment in one of their "Contact Us" blanks, complained about the wall-to-wall CONservative spew and asserted that there was nothing they offered that I was the least bit interested in listening to. Someone in the office there responded to me, questioning why I hadn't been able to find anything worth listening to - and encouraged me to check out the great variety of different ideas articulated by their most excellent hosts on their airwaves! "You might find it really interesting!" No, I'm sorry. I don't find it "interesting" in the least! I don't find my blood pressure going up and the idea of screaming in fury at my radio "interesting" in the least! NOR is it "compelling" radio. Not when it makes my skin crawl, my teeth grind, and the bile rise up in the depth of my stomach. Whoever this poor idiot was, he or she wouldn't give up. Tried over a couple more emails to get me to sign up as a KABC subscriber and get all their great emails every day about the daily on-air exploits of all their wonderful hosts like larry elder and that-guy-whose-name-rhymes-with-Vanity, and al rantel and all these other lovely individuals spewing CONservative crap. People I wouldn't tune in for - if my life depended on it.
I stood my ground (in language their types can understand). I refused the repeated invitations to sign up. I continued to insist that KABC TalkRadio offered NOTHING to a listener like me, and until it started offering liberal and progressive talk show hosts, I had no interest in tuning in there. The person pressing the case for KABC finally gave up.
KABC TalkRadio used to have Michael Jackson on there - NOT the strange pop superstar. The erudite, classy, incredibly well-informed, and enviably well-connected talk show host. He'd be on from 9am to noon Monday through Friday. He was on it - on every local AND national story, with all kinds of great and relevant newsmaker guests who were as brilliant and sophisticated and discerning as he was. You always learned something, and there was never this sense of snark or food-fight or name-calling. He made you smarter, week after week. He ELEVATED the level of discourse. Now we have sewer rats running all over the radio landscape, and no one hires Michael Jackson or anyone like him anymore. No one seems interested in class acts anymore. He used to be king of the talk show airwaves here in L.A. A HUGE loss and debasement of the public discourse especially with the crap and the bullies and the louts and loudmouths and smug CONS with their snark and gloating and superiority complexes and nonstop hate. Just a freakin' wasteland. KABC's ratings are in the toilet. And they've been in the toilet for years. They can't compete with KFI, which is the other big AM talker, and of course, it's loaded with wall-to-wall CONS too, including limbaugh.
It's just a disgrace. Nauseating! And in the second-largest market in the country no less. You'd think in a market the size of L.A. there'd be plenty of anything you wanted. Not so. One shitty little nothing-station with nothing in terms of signal strength, where you can hear Randi Rhodes and Stephanie Miller. And that's about it. It's a wasteland here, radio-wise.
No kidding.
Sounds like there's a few of us who've had this problem now. Good riddance.
I'm enjoying the fact that nobody comes on with long series of posts complaining and nitpicking and criticizing and poking holes in everything supportive that I've posted about Obama, anymore! I feel almost as though I've been liberated on my own page. I used to post something and then I'd cringe - "oh, brother, here it comes..." and sure enough, there he'd be. Within an hour or two, he'd be there sounding off with four and five posts featuring long paragraphs about how Obama's fucked and didn't do this and didn't do that and I'd say - but he's the first and ONLY President EVER - to state flat-out his support for marriage equality (my former friend is gay), and he had nothing good whatsoever to say about this! All he could do was complain that it wasn't good enough, it didn't go far enough, it wasn't soon enough, it was all bullshit, and blah-blah-blah without end.
It's kind of a big thing with me. I totally and even dictatorially reserve the right to have ONLY what I agree with and approve of, politically-speaking, on MY page. It's MY page, dammit. And if I feel like deleting somebody's snark-ass comments or dump-on-Obama post, I damn well do it. I was absolutely excoriated by this former friend who just reamed me a new one "some liberal you are, insisting on First Amendment protections but you deny me MY First Amendment rights (to post my shit and my bile and my advancing-cynical-bitterness-as-I-get-older and anything else contrarian that I feel like posting on YOUR page). Well, sorry. Guess so, then. It's MY page. I will have exclusively what I MYSELF want - on MY page. I don't go spewing on anybody else's page, especially about politics. I never went over to his page to make my various assertions or pick fights with him or find fault any of with his stated opinions. I confine my political opinions to MY page. For Pete's sake, it's not like there isn't plenty of other stuff to post about!
Screw 'em. And, I'm terribly sorry, but there's no blanket First Amendment privileges about other people's political posts on MY page. If I see something I don't like or that I disagree with, I delete it. Done. It's GONE. Tough shit if that offends the delicate sensibilities of the person who posts it. And if that person complains and/or insists on continuing and ignoring my requests to keep it civil and don't post stuff I don't agree with or lambaste my views and I find their posts continuing to be personally distasteful, OUT THEY GO, TOO. I'm just done with all of this. The people who know me and who truly are my friends all respect my wishes. That includes some conservative-leaning people I know. And those who don't - don't need to be my Facebook friends. OR my friends, period, if they're gonna be that way.
Life's just too damn short to put up with that crap.
Don't feel bad about it. I did for a few moments and then promptly got over it. Especially as it became a relief again, to be able to post and not have that annoying inevitable haranguing nuisance always following (as my former friend put it - "you pop up, I pop off"
. And I don't miss it.
You even have to ask?
Yes they did. All just so they could make Obama look bad.
And they called our side "sore losermen." SHEESH.
That's a pretty astounding test you were given.
Sheesh. It did indeed telegraph a very obvious bias.
I find that true in every poll or survey I've taken - when the question "do you think America is on the right track or veering off in the wrong direction?" What I take from that is - the survey-takers are going to link the answer to that directly to the leadership in the White House. There is never a follow-up question asking why one would answer the way one does.
For example, my first instinct would indeed be to answer that question with "veering off on the wrong track." HOWEVER, I recognize that as being sorted into "country's off on the wrong track because Obama's fucking it up somehow." AND I DO NOT AGREE! That's NOT why I think the country's lurched off in the wrong direction. It's the CONS and the other extremists, foremost of which are the fucking teabaggers. I guarantee you - the poll-takers and interpreters will see that "wrong direction" answer and automatically assume, AND score it as "it's because of Obama."
EVERY TIME you find yourself invited to take a public opinion poll, keep in mind that you are thus being offered a chance to weigh in and let your voice influence the metric they're building. I got called by a Gallup phone poll one time. I jumped at the chance! Each single survey respondent in that one is viewed as representative of the thinking of 50-thousand others.
ALWAYS - CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!! As Mad-Eye Moody always warned Harry Potter. VERY wise words-to-the-wise.
You ALWAYS have to think, or TRY to think, like the enemy does. You ALWAYS have to think, or try to think, how those interpreting all the data (or the details or the inputs or whatevers) do.
ALWAYS try to out-think them, or think one or two or three steps ahead of them. Try to guess what they're really aiming for, what their motivation is, what they're looking for, what will ring their chimes. Like - if I'm not sure a poll or a survey is objective, then I'll try to make sure to avoid giving them input that they can interpret to benefit their bias. Sometimes they're looking for support or acclamation to buttress the conclusions they're already expecting to put forward in the end.
There's always some underlying reason or motivation. There's always some agenda. There's always some axe to grind.
I hate it, but that's what things have become.
Yeah, I had that too.
Recounted here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=777011
He insisted on spewing any old bitter crap and venom and anger and just blind viciousness - and I finally had enough. But he beat me to it and unfriended me first, before I could unfriend him.
I was patient. At first I let him vent. But he kept doing it and kept doing it and it just kept getting more and more negative and contrarian - all under the category of - "oh they're BOTH fucked, oh they're ALL bad, everybody's shitty blah-blah-blah..."
I posted a general notice (paraphrasing) - ATTENTION: We're in campaign season now. I post things here that I believe in, and I confine them to MY page. Any other posts I find that are disagreeable or go against my views will not be appreciated or tolerated, and if they're bad enough, I will delete them. I don't go posting my views on anyone else's page. I keep them on MY page. This is MY page. I will allow what I want on MY page. If you disagree or don't like it, rip me a new one on YOUR page. And I won't interfere. But MY page is MY page and I will only have posted on MY page what I wish to have posted on MY page.
And whaddya know, FIRST thing up there after this was him, complaining that "you liberals always carry on about the First Amendment and then you have a fit when somebody else posts something different."
Well, FINE, my friend. But I was very clear at the outset. If I don't like it, it WILL NOT last long on my page. Because it's MY page. And I determine what's on MY page.
And he just hated that. Wanted the privilege of poking holes in EVERYTHING I said, EVERY point I made, EVERY post I posted. EVERY view I expressed. Always found something wrong with it, always found fault with it, always with the cynicism and bitterness. I asked him personally several times to stop. He refused. "You pop up, I pop off." I issued the general alert a second time, too. He just refused to play ball. So I started deleting his posts. He HATED that and really let me have it. I deleted those as well. Life's just too short. Then, finally, there was this post that excoriated me yet again for hypocrisy regarding the First Amendment, and his parting words were: Enjoy Siberia."
So I spent a couple of moments insulted and upset, and then I realized that his multiple-posted harangues were going to be permanently missing. And that he actually did me a favor! Now, I post stuff and nobody shows up to be snarky and poke holes in my statements or links, or complain or criticize or insult me, or find fault with me or what I said, or pick my posts apart - in a broad and very angry spectrum of ways. Life's too short! I just don't need it! Even from someone I was friends with for more than 40 years and who I supported and stood by when he was going through all kinds of mess with his gay soon-to-be-ex-lover. And he's a FORMER friend now. So be it.
And finally, I thought - "okay, my friend. You go pout and condemn me and post how awful and hypocritical I am - on YOUR OWN page all you want. And you have fun with your 22 friends. I will enjoy Siberia - with my 2780-some-odd friends. On MY page."
I apologize. It brought out the bitch in me, although I tried very hard to keep that out of my posts and try to be as objective as possible, and never hostile like he was. Btw - he told me to go post on that stupid fucking Democratic Underground where they all had their heads up their asses if I didn't want people taking issue with my posts on Facebook.
So I'm doing THAT, TOO!!!!!!!
Don't let it get you down. The problems are far more theirs than yours.
Thank God for that, that it's summer and only the wonks are paying any attention.
EVEN SO: we can't afford too much of that - because the PERCEPTION of what is - is what's critical here. It doesn't matter in the least - what you are. It's what people THINK you are. And we just can't afford too much of that. We can't afford for that kind of wording to sink in ANYWHERE - especially within our own ranks. Hell, after Wisconsin, many of us are already dispirited enough.
You CAN'T be seen or perceived as being on defense.
You CAN'T be seen or perceived as negotiating from a position of weakness. DEAR GOD NO!!!!
You CAN'T be seen or perceived in that a-little-too-uncomfortably-familiar "Democrats in disarray" cliche.
It's the OTHER side you want to have - looking like Alfred E. Newman and the Keystone Kops. You do NOT want that image sticking to your side.
Oh I understand. I just hate seeing words like that being used - by ANYBODY - describing
our side in Campaign 2012. That's fucking TERRIFYING!
I remember feeling deeply gratified several months ago after romney was having a very rough primary season, and santorum was awarded the win in Iowa and all that - and somebody on camera mentioned that romney's campaign is "collapsing." And I thought - GOOD. EXCELLENT word choice. That's the kind of wording we need to see and hear, attached to the romney machine. The more we see and hear descriptions like that, the more that image is likely to sink in and take root, and then the perception BECOMES the reality.
I fucking HATE seeing it happen to our President!
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHome country: USA
Current location: Oregon
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 81,507
