I haven’t posted anything by Keith Olbermann for a while, but this rant of his on the debt compromise is really good:
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11 Comments
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I’ve been trying to explain some of what he covered to people for some time now, but no one seems to want to hear it.
Think anything will get done by “the 12?” Doubt it.
According to Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight, most of the cuts are back loaded. Everything hinges on next year’s election.
God help us.
And, of course, Olbermann’s message goes out to all those people who can afford cable, or the internet, to see it. Just so, Jon Stewart’s show is available only to those who can already afford a few luxuries.
Fox is broadcast: it can be picked up in major markets without cable. But, that also means that Fox is all the packages. I’ve not had cable, so I don’t know if Comedy Central is in all packages these days. But I remember when it wouldn’t have been.
The difference is small: most people have cable. Most have something more than the basic package, I assume. But I suspect that this small difference is still important. Nearly everyone can watch Fox. Not quiet so for the other stations.
Luckily, anyone can go to a library and read this blog. No cable required.
In fact, I don’t have cable.
Or get it on the computer, here and elsewhere. I haven’t watched TV since 1962. My baseball is on the computer.
Fair enough. Now, think of most people you have not as your close friends, but as your acquaintances. How do they spend their free moment here, moment there? With the TV running?
That would be my acquaintances too. Even some of my friends. They outnumber the people I know like me. So, my observation, though anecdotal, suggests that maybe, just maybe, most people don’t bother to do things like go to the library to read a blog or hang out at a friends to watch the cable commentators?
One of the dearest Profs I had, Alan Clugston, used to refer to the “Alan Clugston Principle of Laziness”: everyone will avoid any thing that seems like work whenever possible.
Most people are lazy.
I’m sorry, but complaining about cable or internet being too big a part of the new media is kind of like complaining that no one sells typewriters or that you can’t find a pay phone anymore.
Other than that, I agree with the sentiment here, even if I do still find KO pompous and overly salivated.
I’m not really trying to complain about new media.
I’m trying to complain that the extreme right has voices is on a broadcast network that has national penetration (and often doesn’t need cable to receive), but the most vocal people on the left (KO) are on cable networks that don’t have such penetration.
And people do tend to do what’s easy. If turning on Fox is easier then turning on a station which is an anodyne of Fox, but which requires cable, maybe even a more expensive version of cable, then you’re going to get more people listening to Fox. It’s not a complaint about “new media”: broadcast networks are pretty established at this point. It’s a complaint about how there’s no anodyne to Fox playing in the same arena as Fox.
Thanks for the clarification, TD. Actually Fox News is on cable (not broadcast TV), but from what I understand, it’s on lower tiers than other cable channels. Fox TV is of course a broadcast channel, but that’s a separate broadcast entity than FNC.
A little over the top, don’t you think? Which makes it hard to hear the facts through the rhetoric.
Olbermann dramatizes and amplifies the extreme left point of view in the same way Limbaugh dramatizes and amplifies the extreme right. And they are both doing us all a disservice. Both sides are inflaming a minority of crazies. When we let that minority control the microphone, we lose the ability to agree on anything.
Most Republicans are like most Democrats – and most independents. EVERYONE wants to save our country from spiraling to destruction. We disagree on the causes, and we disagree on the solutions, but we are in unanimous agreement about the problems themselves. And while Olbermann is correct that the extreme right is FAR better organized than the left, just creating an equally extreme counterattack is not the only answer – and certainly not the best one.
What we need to do is to cut the extremists as much out of the loop as possible because they are all fanatics and fanatics cannot agree on ANYTHING. Until there is a SIGNIFICANT MAJORITY that is unified in agreement and can put changes and representatives in place to execute that agreement, we will remain mired. I wish I had the right list of suggested actions to make that happen, but I don’t – yet. Anyone that has good ideas, now is the time to come forward with them because we are indeed running OUT of time and politics as usual will get us all killed.
A significant majority wants taxes raised to take care of Bush’s debt. 72%. Once money starts into our government, we can fund education (very important to liberals) We can begin to reinstate things that have been cut. The Bush tax cuts expire on January 1st, 2013. I constantly contact my representatives to express my opinion that this must be done. Many of the rich see this is as the way to correct our country. Warren Buffett made another trip to the White House. He has expressed his opinion as being positive in letting the tax cuts expire. I think the statistics are that Bush’s War Games would have been paid off four years ago without the tax cuts. Plain and simple. In other words, we are at war with the Kock brothers and their Tea Party.
You get the government you deserve!