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Thu, Jul. 19th, 2007, 06:26 pm
Fucking scary

Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren't Listening

'To my left, I find a middle-aged Floridian with a neat beard. To my right are two elderly New Yorkers who look and sound like late-era Dorothy Parkers, minus the alcohol poisoning. They live on Park Avenue, they explain in precise Northern tones. "You must live near the UN building," the Floridian says to one of the New York ladies after the entree is served. Yes, she responds, shaking her head wearily. "They should suicide-bomb that place," he says. They all chuckle gently. How did that happen? How do you go from sweet to suicide-bomb in six seconds?'

It's an interesting read and goes into how these hard core conservatives seem to carry some pretty bizarre contradictory ideas.
Current Mood: pissed off
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Fri, Jul. 20th, 2007 01:38 am (UTC)
[info]_yungfuktoi_

I read that piece about a half hour ago and was pretty shocked (even though we are talking about the lowest form of humanity on the planet). The woman at the beach who championed the killing of dissenters was particularly alarming.
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Fri, Jul. 20th, 2007 02:39 am (UTC)
[info]jwilkins

Yeah, I was pretty speechless when I initially read it.

I know you lived in the UK for some time, but were you born and raised there too? I can't figure out what it is that's making it so easy for people raised here to rationalize this type of shit.
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Fri, Jul. 20th, 2007 03:26 am (UTC)
[info]_yungfuktoi_

Yeah, I was.
I think it's simple indocrination in tandem with the inherent principles of concervativism, which appeal to matters of the heart and not the head. It's a set of beliefs that stresses faith and loyalty, concepts which directly oppose logic and fairness. It's gang mentality, pure and simple.
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Fri, Jul. 20th, 2007 03:51 am (UTC)
[info]jwilkins

It goes beyond that. There have been systemic changes that have allowed those forces to fester/grow. Have you heard of the Fairness Doctrine?
(www.commondreams.org/views05/0212-03.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine)

That and cutbacks in educational funding form my prime theory for why things are as broken here as they are.

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Sat, Jul. 21st, 2007 04:32 am (UTC)
[info]_yungfuktoi_

I think the Fairness Doctrine is an interesting angle, but ultimately our news providers in this country receive little or no public funds and as such rely heavily on advertisers for sustanance. The politics of capitolism takes over from there. Any kind of regulations intended to keep the news balanced or fair would be reduced to posturing (remember O'Reilly claims he's balanced because he's condemned the likes of Rev Phelps).
Truth be told, we have no major newspaper, news station or magazine that is not owned by some company angling to exploit us all, and we're one of the only developed nations in the world that does not have publically owned news sources. This is why the entire world was against the war in Iraq from the begining but we were not. The transparency of this problem and the willingness of so many to ignore it is a condition that needs to be seriously examined.
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Tue, Jul. 24th, 2007 07:07 pm (UTC)
[info]jwilkins

That's true (the lack of public funding, except NPR), but as I understand it, that's always been the case and reportage wasn't as bad before the fairness doctrine was repealed.

I do have hopes as far as technology is concerned. Since it's so easy to access news sources in foreign countries I'm hoping that more people will take advantage of this. I'm also hopeful due to people like Kevin Sites (a journalist who wound up reporting independently on Iraq via a blog.) to be more prevalent. Independent people who get tired of being edited through a major media outlet and take advantage of technology to reach a wide audience and give more than a sound bite.
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