A Deficit of Dignity

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/opinion/a-deficit-of-dignity.html?smid=re-share&_r=0

While I wish this piece spent more time showing the general disrespect from both sides, I believe it captures the serious issue that is infecting Politics today. I think this whole time in politics is indicative in general of the vitriol that has festered for decades. Politicians realized that the most active voters were the most angry, so they decided that insulting, degrading, and generally disrespecting each other was the best way to get ahead. Both sides are guilty of this (Bush Jr took a whole lot of crap from the left, so please don't think this is specific to Obama) and all sides should be ashamed of how they have cultivated the Political Arena.

MSNBC and Fox are both champions of this new idea, and both do their best to cultivate their prospective bases to FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT against "The Other" (a vague shadow monster that can take on any shape or form depending on what is needed at the time). Demonizing the Rich, the Poor, Minorities, White People, Christmas, Muslims, anyone who isn't "Us". Divide and conquer is a tried and true technique, and when turned inward, it becomes super effective.

It is my hope that one day, positive composure can regain a foothold in the body politic, but until it is found to be effective on any serious scale, I don't see that happening anytime soon

 

Valid point, in my wise and generally correct opinion.

Over my adult life, the last 25 or so years, it seems that folks, left and right, have descended into not challenging ideas but rather attacking the person.

Now, are any of us above it? Of course not.

As for our elected officials, should they be above it? Yes.

But insults sell. Insults are sexy. Much easier to tear apart the person than to come up with a valid rebuttal.

 

Surprise, surprise.

Even though I think the children of politicians should be off limits, whether their last names be Obama or Palin, the LW media firestorm over this tempest in a teacup reveals a much, much larger problem with a media that goes ape (*)(*)(*)(*) over the petty insults of Elizabeth Lauten while completely ignoring the arrogance, insults and deceit of Jonathan Gruber who, along with his "progressive" cohorts, exploited "the stupidity of the American voter" to perpetrate their ObamaCare fraud on the unwashed benighted masses in this country:

 

I'm not disagreeing with this point. Their is definitely an imbalance in the media over what kind of coverage is considered 'hot'. I don't even really consider it news anymore, as it is more about entertainment and ratings then it is about accurately informing the people.

Both situations were abhorrent and should have had equal coverage, unfortunately in this day and age, it's about what sells.

 

I'm endeavoring to chuck my partisanship and general brainwashing as much as I can. Quite refreshing! Once again I'm trying my best to give both sides the opportunity to show me their merit, one issue at a time. I've already become embarrassed by a few of my adamant positional errors (mostly economic in nature), after getting my head out of my partisan ass and trying to objectively examine other than "my side". I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to obtain a less stressful mental outlook on life and clean out some ideological nonsense from their perspectives.

 

It's nothing new though. Stuff like this is probably inevitable. I guess that I, as a conservative, could say this thing could get better if people were taught some (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*) manners, but then things like this was common even in the 18th century, when people supposedly had more manners. That opposing sides will throw insults at eachother is a part of democracy, as an unavoidable side-effect. There's nothing very special about Obama in this regard. Everyone will get insulted no matter if they're right or left, and they'll get insulted by all the means avaible to the insulters. That he has ties to kenya merely opens up different kinds of insults to be thrown. All people are different, and therefore there are different insults avaible to insult them. Obama couldn't be called a redneck that Bush could be, because he wasn't from the south, just as bush couldn't be called a muslim because he doesn't have anything to do with kenya.

 

This particular problem is about ideology and agenda, not "what sells", Cubed. That's why a petty insult directed at Obama's two daughters gets more coverage than the insults that Jonathan Gruber, et al, leveled at hundreds of millions of Americans when they deceived the entire country to pass a law that profoundly effects every one of our lives.

As we all know and has been stated repeatedly in the past, an informed citizenry and electorate is a vital component of any republic. When the Fourth Estate deliberately keeps the public uninformed in order to promote and advance its ideological consensus, it is committing an offense far worse than journalistic malpractice - it is undermining our republic.

 

Overall I agree but you forgot CNN

 

I disagree. Money is what make the world go around now. Agendas and Ideology are tailored to that. Ratings are key to the Medias side of this. If economic information and policy got as much attention as tabloid style news, that would be what they focus on. But it doesn't. People tune out, especially when when every second news story is portrayed as 'THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU'LL HEAR TODAY' or 'IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AND WE WILL TELL WHY NEXT'.

I mean, if a guy spent a week screaming in your ear with a bullhorn, and then three quarters of the way through that week suddenly dropped the formula for eternal youth before going back to the screaming, would you really hear it? You may hear bits and pieces, but your ear drum would be so destroyed, and your mind so fuzzed by the constant noise that nothing important would get through.

I fully agree that an informed citizenry is absolutely vital to the success of a country. The more informed people are, the better off everyone is. Unfortunately the information age has brought a new problem in the over saturation of information. There is so much, that it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't (especially with how good the truth massagers have become in obfuscating lies within truth). Humanity is becoming desensitized to information and that is creating a world full of mindless zombies, glued to their phones, forgetting that discerning truth from lie is the one ability we need to hold onto more then all else.

heh I find they spend more time trying to 'stay in the middle' that they are rendering themselves meaningless.

Also Jeff Zucker is basically dismantling any 'Journalistic Integrity' that place ever had.

 

Eyeroll worthy Op-ed in the OP. Now that the internet, Fox News and talk radio have formed the slightest nonleft toehold in discourse and media over the last 15 years, suddenly after decades of media bias and leftist poo flinging unanswered, now that there is the slightest poo flung in return in instances such as the totally NOT noteworthy "Lauten travesty," we are supposed to "play nice." You won't find such Op-eds in the NYT when a Republican is in the WH... ever. Wonder why?

After nearly being made irrelevant in the latter 50 years of the 20th century, the nonleft began the same rabble-rousing that the left had used so productively, and NOW, it's a newsworthy whinge? Spare me. The left set the poo genie out of the bottle and now that the nonleft does it too, it ain't going back in. There is no equivalency here, none. It was so bad in the 80s against Reagan, and then later against GWB, that I turned off MSM entirely (and I'm not a Republican). NOW, though, the inconvenient elephant in the room net has arisen and NOW we need to "clean up the act, respect the office." <snort>

Screw that. The left made its bed for 50 years, enjoy the emerging bedbugs, and they are just getting well-bred and bloodthirsty. There is only so much patience in reasonable people for being casually called racists, misogynists, homophobes, religious fanatics, flat earthers, privileged rich, over policy disagreements for decades, and the net is bringing all that home to roost. Good, it's time for the left to enjoy some of its own foul medicine. Get back to me after 40+ years of it, then maybe there will be a valid point.

 

Why exactly should the Lauten kerfuffle have had anywhere near as much coverage as Gruber's crowing over helping to engineer perhaps the most gargantuan swindle of the American taxpayer in history?

 

What you and cube miss is that it is the character of the individual which is responsible for mistaken beliefs.

A person doesn't take on crazy beliefs such as abortion is okay, drugs are okay, or that it's okay to have 10 billion dollars in your bank account while the guy over there has nothing, unless they have psychological issues which keep them from seeing reality.

And not only is the personality (character) of the person at fault for these things, but more maladjusted characters (personalities) are attracted to the philosophy which is connected with liberalism and less maladjusted characters (personalities) are attracted to the philosophy which is connected with conservatism.

People get attacked personally because it IS personal. Idiotic political beliefs don't exist in a vacuum. They live where they live because of the character or lack of character in the people who hold those beliefs. Some ways to make it personal are more loving than others though, that's for sure.

The best way to reform a person from being a liberal is to point out his dishonesty and his fear. The best way to reform a conservative is to point out his greed.

 

Cubed isn't even worth talking to if he thinks he can equate the Obama daughters' thing with the Gruber thing.

Cubed is obviously intelligent, but he has some of the dumbest beliefs I've ever seen. That is remarkable. I'd bet 500 bucks he's a doper.

 

?? I didn't say that at all. I was pointing out that the vitriol in Politics has gone beyond policy and ideological notions and become almost tabloid in nature.

....What? I don't even understand how that relates to the media, and general Political discourse. What person are you talking about?

I don't think you quite got where I was coming from. I wasn't trying to make a comparison between those 2 specific things, they were just brought up by another poster who wished to inject them into the conversation. Both were abhorrent, but for different reasons. Well, not all that different, but the impact of each is wildly lopsided, and not in favor of the current level of coverage.

 

I disagree, and my major in college was media and I've worked in the communications industry for years, so I can speak to this issue from first-hand experience and knowledge.

Money has always made the world go around. What you're overlooking is the human factor here. Most of us who enter/entered this line of work tend to be Lefties and that's reflected in the staffs that run and work in the MSM. Most of us are also aware of the power that we possess and how we can influence people's thinking in accordance with our own ideology and agenda. Naturally, as an extension of this, it is going to effect what stories editorial staffs choose to publish/broadcast and which ones they choose to omit. As Mollie Hemmingway pointed out, the Lauten-Gruber case is a classic and typical example of this.

While I agree that the overwhelming amount of information that we are subjected to by a wide variety of communications media has an enormous influence on us on both a conscious and unconscious level (Marshall McLuhan explored this in his seminal work Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, which was required reading for media students in my day), human beings have also shown that they have a remarkable ability to adapt and thrive in changing media and communications environments. For all the BS we are fed, people are also able to access more accurate information than they have ever been able to obtain in the past. The Internet has expanded and democratized our access to information in a way that was scarcely conceivable to previous generations and our ancestors. As with most technologies, it is a double-edged sword. It's how you use it that determines whether or not it will be a constructive or destructive tool and influence in our lives.

 

The problem cubed hasn't to do with money. If it had to do with money why aren't all of them following the lead of FOX News which gets better rating in the same time slots than any two of it's alphabet soup competitors and sometimes any three? As far as respect if you want respect you give it. If the left wants my respect and I doubt they do they can quit calling everyone to the right of FDR a fasict or a racist or worse. And please note this isn't recent. It's been going on since the 60's and frankly we on the right are sick and tired of their campaigns by character assassination especially when so much of it smacks of projection or worse is based on a wholly fictional version history

 

Who the hell do you think you're kdding?

You did so all the same.

 

True. Their will always be an element of bias when dealing with Humans. That is a great example of it and being here has really opened my eyes to the lack of a level playing field.

That said, when something catches the publics attention, and drives up ratings, it won't matter which side of the isle it benefits. No news station is going to sit and watch a major story that is taken up by everyone else, and be left in the dirt. Even Fox and MSNBC give lipservice to the opposing side when it's sitting on their chest slapping them in the face.

This also makes me wonder why the field attracts those on the left and not from the right? I'm not in the industry so I don't know, but you are, so perhaps you can explain why? Lack of interest? Closed minded people not wanting others to come in and change things? I'm honestly interested.

I agree, that humanity in general is extremely adaptive. The one thing I notice is that as information expands, so does misinformation. Giving everyone a Mic (so to speak) may increase the amount of information, but it requires a serious interest to be able to wade through the BS to get to the nuggets of truth. It's honestly why I started posting here in the first place, because the general posting atmosphere was blatantly right wing. I new I was in a bubble and needed an opposing side because I needed to learn more.

Unfortunately too many people prefer to be in a self-fulfilling bubble that tells them what they want to hear and reinforces what they believe. It's one reason why I look back at the journalists of yesteryear and wish that we had the same integrity and standards that they did. We have been inundated with so much horrible stuff (that always happened, but we just never knew about it) that our line of 'what's acceptable' and 'what isn't' has moved a great deal.

 

If you look at the Network news numbers, Fox doesn't even touch them. Fox gets 2 million people, where as NBC gets about 10.
The problem is that we have created labels for things. Then people say things that used to fall under that label, and then bristle when given that label because of the negative connotations.

Sorry, i misread your post. I think their is more then enough time on multiple 24 hour news channels to give 2 stories showing horrible crap coverage. Trying to rank what's 'better or worse' doesn't work, because neither are related other then that those who said the things are stupid.

Alright. As I said above, its an apples to oranges comparison with the only related feature being the stupidity of the speaker.

 

It shouldn't, yet these cases which are both similar and profoundly different at the same time serve as an excellent study in how ideological biases effect the MSM's choices of what to cover and what to shove down the memory hole. It goes to show that the busy "progressive' bees in the MSM are only interested in serving themselves and their ideological co-travelers instead of the public.

And thank God for that, eh? As Jonathan Gruber has openly stated and Barack Obama has implied, the American people are a bunch of ignoramuses who need these "progressive" geniuses to think and do what's best for them, because we are incapable of doing that for ourselves. We're Hopeless and helpless, ya know...

 

Sure it does, for anyone who is reasonably conversant with the subject matter.

Not so. They are also both instances of injustice, but one is a flea's fart in a hurricane compared to the other.

 

This case has proven your assumptions wrong, hasn't it? You have to realize that the people in these editorial departments decide what information we are going to receive and what information they are going to withhold from us. In other words, they're deciding "what sells" - what we want to buy - for us. We do not have a choice or a say in this matter.

It's this dictatorial arrangement that controls people's access to information that makes the emergence of the Internet so profoundly unique and important. In the case of the Internet, WE decide what information we are going to access and receive - that decision isn't made for us.

That's a good question, and I don't have one simple answer to it. The closest I can get to one is that this field has a tendency to attract young liberal arts majors who are both idealistic and driven to change the world in what they perceive as a positive direction. Conservatives tend to be less idealistic and less inclined to change the world, so I think that explains a lot of it. However, I think the cultural and political climate in this country and the rise of conservative publications and mass media outlets is changing that. Now, you see more conservatives and libertarians bringing their own idealism and desire for change to the communications industry.

I agree, and I think I can say I joined this community for the same reasons. I am a former "progressive" turned libertarian-conservative, but I still like hearing what my former comrades have to say.

Besides, it gets boring agreeing with everyone who shares your own views, and as you pointed out, you can learn a thing or two now and then from the people who don't think the same way as yourself.

 

Ah the left doesn't like being ridiculed. Man up and take it.

 

Not really. What one person finds important doesn't equate to another person. Subjectivity and all that.

In terms of impact for the future, your correct.

True, they can try and decide, but until it Actually sells, it doesn't' matter what they decide. Look at the month of August of this year. Huge stories on Hamas Isreal War, Foley executed, the US Airstrikes on ISIS all Swept away by the death of Robin Williams. Important stories that matter a great deal more in the grand scheme of things, yet 1 actors death sweeps that all aside because people care more about that then any world politics.

I think your half right here. We may have more access to information, but a great many people actively need someone to tell them what is right or wrong. They look to people they trust to explain things they don't (or won't) understand. These are the self-same people who vote which makes it difficult to elect officials who actually have the peoples best interests at heart because Everyone is trying to get the publics attention (left and right publications). Look at the Drudge Report and Daily Kaos (sp?). Both are specifically targeting a certain demographic (if on ether side). Neither bothers to hide it's bias yet both are extremely popular to their audience. People like echo chambers because they don't want to go outside of their box, even on the internet.

I am glad to see that, if only to have opposing ideas rather then echo chambers. It's interesting that the young and idealistic would see the media as something requiring change, whereas to many it's bias is so clear. One would think they would see it as well...? (reminds me of this board, where I see so many conservatives lamenting as to how left-wing it is, yet personally I feel it to be a majority right wing board. But that could be my own bias talking as well )

Oh? Interesting. What prompted the shift?

Learning and growing as individuals. That should always be the ultimate goal. Which is why I've never understood why Progressive is such a dirty word (or only applied to left leaning types).

 

wise words imo