All it did was turn off a number who'd come aboard. Not only did it not help their pet causes, it actually hurt those causes because people don't like being force fed.
No one's supposed to notice but circulation is down for The Nation and all the rest (the drop at The Nation is the largest but Katrina appears bound and determined to run that magazine into the ground -- handed the reigns when the magazine had a record readership, she has run off the readership). Listenership and pledges are down for Pacifica.
They never grasped that the audience was something to be respected. Instead, they thought they could control the audience. For an allegedly "grassroots media," they ignored the wishes of their audience and instead attempted to 'prove their power' by treating their audience like subjects to be ordered around.
While the audiences wanted coverage of the illegal war -- from Iraq, from the homefront, war resisters, etc. -- they decided they wanted this or that issue. Then they decided their 'alternative' role was to get the nomination for Barack. Now they're off to elect Barack. And their audience dwindles. It was never their right to try to control their audiences. Their job was to inform. They didn't do their job. And they didn't respect the audience that came on board out of disgust with the Real Media over Iraq. That was the bond between their new HUGE audience and themselves. They betrayed the bond repeatedly and now it's probably broken. They could up their coverage of Iraq tomorrow and it probably wouldn't mater. It's probably too late for them.
No one ever wanted Rush Limbaugh from the left. That's why Air America Radio is going under and has been since before it went on air.
One of the most amazing things we keep hearing on campuses across American is students stating that this has taught them that the excesses of the left are no different than the excesses of the right.
For those of us old enough to have lived through truly political times, it's appalling that the left today blew it without having a damn thing to show for it. The conversation taking place on campuses across the country about the left's excesses is appalling for that reason. In an earlier time, when those comments popped up, it was generally because of the Weather Underground and other elements of armed resistance. You'd hear people say, "Nixon's bombing Vietnam, the Weather Underground's bombing the US." Said with disgust. And they'd groan about the excesses of the left. Regardless of what you think of the Weather Underground (they were a response to the context of their times -- and not a surprising response considering the violence the government was regularly deploying), at least things were being accomplished up to that point. You already had protests and marches, you already had an awareness that went beyond just what was taking place in Vietnam.
None of that's happened today. (There are protests and marches but not on the same scale and there hasn't been a big protest against the illegal war since January of 2007.) College students have already reached the point where they talk about the excesses of the left (and these are left college students) . A movement leader from back then stopped over to talk last week and was asking those who regularly speak to campus groups (C.I., Ava, Kat and Wally) what they'd been hearing on campuses. We all went to that point right away because it's been springing up regularly (and loudly) since April. His comment was, "They blew their wad to elect Barack." Crude but true.
If it's not clear, how about some examples?
We can start with those who did their job. Dennis Bernstein and Nora Barrows-Friedman cover occupied Palestine. That's always been their beat and always will be. They don't treat it like a pet cause. They also managed to cover Iraq (and did so better than any other US radio program). The illegal war and the occupation of Iraq was naturally going to raise awareness of the Palestinians. People were naturally going to make correlations between the two. And Bernstein and Barrows-Friedman were there (on Flashpoints) to assist with that. But they were never ham-fisted. Yes, Dennis can get loud. (He can also drop to a whisper.) That's his radio style. And that's not ham-fisted. Ham-fisted is what too many other programs (include Amy Goodman's crap here though she's far from alone) did. In part, that's because she's too indebted to too many to ever cover that region honestly. So it played out like tantrums where Goody ignored it and ignored and then she was outraged (then?) by some assault (as though assaults don't take place every day in that occupation?) and everything else would fall off the radar.
She had no sense of balance or perspective. Bernstein and Barrows-Friedman do because it's not a topic they pick up only when it's front page news. They work that topic all the time. They knew what they were doing and their audience knew they could trust them. Goody played it like (infamous 'sixties' insult) she was a hitchhiker on the highway of causes.
The Nation did as well. The cover story on the suffering of Egyptian bloggers? Did someone forget the title of the magazine? (The Nation?) Probably when they also forgot the illegal war. They thought they could be a global grasshopper and then, as Katrina vanden Heuvel did on Goody's show, have a meltdown and tantrum when people didn't know all the facts on Putin's attacks on the new Russian oligarchs. Why didn't they know that? Well people like Katrina hadn't used their forums to cover it. But when it was news, it was time to throw a tantrum on radio, TV and online. 2006 was when they finally decided on a 'focus' and that was the 2008 presidential election. That's when they started their take-down of Hillary (as is obvious just by going through the magazine's cover illustrations). Their focus became Barack. And that's all the so-called left has to show for it.
As Winona tells Ethan in Reality Bites, "That's not real much."
And it really isn't.
But some people never aim higher than their shins and yet wonder why they're still standing in the gutter?
Barack is the creation of Panhandle Media and, like his creators, he thinks he can play the American public. Last week, Barack yet again played the race card and hilariously declared he doesn't look like "other presidents." Other presidents? Did we miss the election because we kind of thought the November election hadn't rolled around yet.
The John McCain camp immediately responded (something past opponents should have been doing) and called him out on his craven use of race. Barack immediately tried to deny that he was injecting race into the discussion but he's gone to the well on that one too many times. From Friday's "Iraq snapshot:"
Joseph (Cannonfire) explains, "McCain never said anything about Obama's patriotism or his name, and he certainly never said anything about race. Yet the Obots actually have defended this rhetoric. They applaud their candidate for running against a hallucinated line of attack." Marcia weighed in, "Barack has played the race card non-stop throughout his run. As an African-American, I know what the bi-racial blunder's doing, he's trying to egg up support from the African-American community. He's trying to turn us into his street team. His 'okey doke' and all of that other bull was an attempt back in the primaries. It is the only card he has left to play and it's not going to play in a general election." Silly Barack declared today, "There was nobody there who thought at all that I was trying to inject race in this" because, apparently, none of our presidents have had two ears, two eyes, one mouth and one nose. Is that what Barack's trying to say? Or was he trying to draw attention -- yet again -- to his 'divine' figure? is he running to become the bulimic president? Barack's Cult has trouble with facts so that probably sailed over them.
Josh Micah's Marshy & Hairy Ass Crack tried to play the race card all last week. At one point they were trying to conflate other words with "uppity" and say someone was calling Barack "uppity" and that was racism! Well if they were trying to call Barack "uppity," we tend to think most people could use the term "uppity." Second of all, "uppity" has a long and excessive history at Josh Micah's Marshy & Hairy Ass Crack . . . applied to Hillary. Who knew Hillary was bi-racial! Reality check, "uppity" is an insulting term. It is not a racist term in and of itself. It can be a sexist term when coupled with "woman" but that was nothing for Josh Micah to ponder as he picked at his Marshy & Hairy Ass Crack for months while "uppity" was regularly utilized at his site to describe Hillary.
Unlike his Cult, Barack knew he'd gone too far. He knew his use of false cries of racism throughout the Democratic primaries were already backfiring and creating a backlash among people damn tired of being called "racists" because they don't support a weak and record-less candidate. So the campaign dialed it down a notch, a smidge, and backed off from responding to McCain's announcing he wouldn't let them play the race card on him. [See "THIS JUST IN! HE'S SUCH A CELEBRITY!" and "Sexism got his tongue."]
Realizing the dangers of yet-again playing the race card, Barack immediately tried to walk it back in his public statements offering various explanations. Such as this:
"I was in Union, Mo., which is 98 percent white, a rural conservative, and what I said was what I think everyone knows, which is that I don’t look like I came out of central casting when it comes to presidential candidates."
Central casting? What a drama queen. Sidebar, Joe Biden badly worded a statement in 2007 and the press appointed Barack the 'decider' of whether it was racist or not. Barack let Biden sweat for a bit before pronouncing it non-racist. It had the effect of scaring off a lot of his oppenents and of inflating Barack's already healthy self-love. And today, Barack can make up any lie and have it repeated without question. Take the above quote which The New York Times recycled. Is Union 98% White? Not according to the US census. It took about five seconds to find out that it's 95.9% White. But no one must ever question (or fact check) the Christ-child. At River Daughter, garychapelhill noted the way the Obama campaign tried to spin it to AP ("What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn’t get here after spending decades in Washington," Gibbs said.) and scoffed at the notion that George Washington or Abe Lincoln could be said to have spent "decades in Washington".
It's not been a pretty time for Barack. The bloom went off the rose in February and it's been downhill nonstop ever since. Poor Barack. He really could have used Amy Goodman -- never afraid to fearlessly whore whatever's left of her reputation for Barack -- last week; however, she was on vacation. Which is why audiences got to see the first Asian-American guest in forever on the program. Goody's back at Pravada On The Hudson this week so look for her to sling it like there's no tomorrow.
Barack is their baby and they have the stretch marks to show and then some. It's why they let him do everything they call out in the current White House. Remember all the outrage over Bully Boy using 'linkage' to falsely connect 9-11 and Iraq? It was faux outrage on the part of Panhandle Media. They weren't bothered by the lie, they were bothered that Bully Boy lied. That's become increasingly clear as they not only refuse to call out Barack using the same 'strategy' but they enable him. "McSame." MoveOn's 'contribution' -- repeated by many. Barack says John McCain is four more years of Bully Boy. Uses the names "Bush" and "McCain" in the same sentences. And then wants to pretend he's running some high minded campaign.
John McCain is not George W. Bush. We're not voting for him but find it rather said that the lie is promoted by all the losers of Panhandle Media and their candidate. It was wrong for Bully Boy to falsely link but it's okay for Barack. For them, anything that Barack does is a-okay. We sort of picture Gary Younge rushing to insist he'd drink Barack's toilet water. (We don't doubt that he would.)
As C.I. noted Saturday, McCain's next ad needs to take on this crap:
John McCain: Hello, I'm John McCain. I've been in the US Senate for a number of years and most Americans know me. For some reason, Senator Barack Obama doesn't seem to know me. He keeps linking me to George W. Bush. As most Americans know, I am my own person [McCain would probably say "man"] and it's really strange to hear Senator Obama repeatedly cry that we need to deal with issues while he repeatedly tries to turn me into someone else. Barack Obama, let me introduce myself, I'm John McCain and I'm your opponent. You don't have a record to run on and you seem to think you can refuse to let me run on mine. You seem to think you can trick the American people into believing that George W. Bush is running for re-election and not me. You already wrongly stated in public that the United States has 58 states so maybe you're not up on the Constitution but the way it works is a president can only have two terms. George W. Bush's second term is expiring. I am your opponent. You toss a lot of words around about wanting to deal with issues, then you lie and say I'm a clone or a twin of someone else. The American people are not stupid. Stop insulting them and me. It's 2008, Senator Obama, not 2000 or 2004. If you want 'change, try changing your calendar.
Until McCain confronts him on it publicly, Barack doesn't have to try to run on anything, he just has to keep linking McCain to the Bully Boy -- knowing the whole time that his minions will do the same. And, as a general rule, radio stations receiving your tax dollars via the government should not be allowed to use "McSame" as a 'critique' or 'discussion' of McCain. They are in violation and they can have their licenses pulled because they are not commercial radio and they have to meet a set criteria of standards. Apparently having no case to make for the object of their lust, they think they can falsely link McCain and that it's okay. And that they're performing, get ready for the punchline, 'journalism.'
If you look at the way Hillary won the primaries and had it stolen from her and think, "This is like something the Republicans pulled in 2000!" Or if you think of all the smears against Hillary during the primaries coming from the 'left' that were nothing but recycled right-wing lies from the 90s? You're not mistaken.
There are two reasons for that. Whores don't value honesty. They're all about the money. Panhandle Media has a lot of them in its midst. (Not sex-workers because, look at them, they couldn't pick up a drunk at last call if they needed to in order to make rent.) The second reason is because it's not really the 'left.' It's Arianna and The Daily Toilet Scrubber -- Republicans who swear they've changed but behave exactly the same way. It's LaRouche groupies put on The Nation payroll. Panhandle Media has imploded. And still they beg.
