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Category Archives: Television

Glorifying War For Ratings and Profits

August 17, 2012

We act out fantasies as children about the glory of war that we garner from video games, TV and movies we see in our youth.  Too many of us never really learn that the fantasy doesn’t match the reality.

Which one will play the suicide bomber?

 

If you haven’t caught it yet, NBC has started airing it’s new reality TV show “Stars Earn Stripes”.  It consists of would-be and has-been celebrities who are paired up with “military and law enforcement veterans” who bring to TV a farce they attempt to justify by saying it honors  “the individuals that have sacrificed so much for all of us”, or so says co-host, Former NATO commander General Wesley Clark.  This “honor” is simply an honoraria in the amount of $100,000 that the C-class celebrities get to donate to the military-related charity of their choice.  I’m sure they are all sufficiently rewarded for their own efforts, along with the opportunity of displaying some ego-centered moxie for viewers.  Then of course there are the millions NBC will make from its commercial advertisers.

Kids grown up re-enacting childhood war fantasies on NBC’s new reality TV show, “Stars Earn Stripes”

I have seen and felt the death and destruction of war in Vietnam and I am sickened at the thought that celebrities from TV and sports venues can presume to honor combat veterans by participating in choreographed situations that supposedly simulate real life missions.  I am equally saddened that those military personnel who have shared my war time experiences, who were paired up with these actors, are part of a facade that continues to sell war to a naive public who also have no deep understanding about the devastating nature of war.

If anyone really wants to honor those who “sacrifice so much for all of us” they can begin with opposing the continued build up of the military-industrial complex in this country that makes millions for the  corporate war profiteers while those sent to the slaughter get a ceremonial flag at their funeral or an artificial body part to replace the one that the real bullets and explosives of war created a need for.

It’s unsettling for me to watch and listen to TV personality and former Dancing With The Stars co-host Samantha Harris, decked out in fashionable mauve denim khakis, a blue tank top and black mud boots, as she barks out instructions in drill sergeant fashion to the participants and later tell two of the celebrities about what they going to be facing

Samantha Harris barking instructions to players in NBC’s “Stars Earn Stripes”

“You’re about to experience first hand live fire during a mission and experience what these gentlemen do every single day.  How does that make you feel?”, she asks boxer Laila Ali and former TV superman Dean Cain   Surely the military experts who are assigned to Ali and Cain have to be chuckling under their breath about how there is any similarity to what is being played out for the cameras here and what they have undergone while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What you will see I’m sure in NBC’s latest commercial venture is an assortment of camera angles that will repeat over and over the awesome display of explosives and yelling screaming participants as noisy helicopters and heavy equipment inundate the sound system to replicate real battlefield scenes.  There may be real panic on the players faces as they come at safely protected distances from the destructive forces of mortars, napalm, Semtex and C4 explosives.

  

The celebrity heros have to face the terrorizing threat from an empty guard tower and paper target gunmen

What they and the rest of the viewing audience won’t see is the awful destruction that occurs when weapons of war make contact with real people and the communities they live in.  The graphic displays we see in modern cinema of bodies exploding  are horrifying but we know in reality that people don’t really die from these action scenes.  We are not traumatized from stunts where no one really gets hurt and where life resumes to normal when filming ends.

Even the news clips we may see on network television of bodies and injured people from war’s devastation are but distant and brief visuals that fade rapidly when the commercial breaks quickly change our focus to the latest drug remedy for our pathetic conditions or remind us that its time to buy the back-to-school supplies and fashion for kids whose greatest trauma experience is losing power to their I-pads.

March 2012 : Afghan mother and her two children killed in an earlier US strike. (Photo: Pakistan Defense)

                                 Real victims of war

 

Those “true heroes” that NBC claims are at the heart of their televised program are victims of murders and mutilations that they are not only recipients of but who have, under fire or duress, exacted on innocent civilians, many of them women and children.  Very few of these men and women walk away and erase the memory of this insane and inhumane life they have lived through.  In fact, it was just revealed today that “thirty-eight soldiers killed themselves in July, the worst month for suicides since the Army began releasing figures in 2009, according to Pentagon officials.”  Only the most pathological individual who has experienced this horror would feel very little lasting impact after watching their buddies head blown off from a grenade launcher round or realize the precision air strike from a Black Hawk helicopter had just wiped out a classroom full of kids.

The civilian hawks who tout these wars and the entrepreneurs who promote video games of war carnage share the mentality of the producers who create the likes of something called “Stars Earn Stripes”.  They hold unrealistically shallow views of war’s “glory” because they have to do something to allow for the fact that they were never a part of the real thing, by fate or choice.  Ticker tape parades and awarding medals for bravery are well-intentioned but fail to address the real needs of men and women who have made great sacrifices that they will be expected to endure for the rest of their lives; that is for those lucky enough to make it back home.

Now I’m not saying that General Clark and the real military and law enforcement players in this TV “reality” show don’t feel, somewhere in their hearts, that this serves a higher good for the men and women who serve.  And in some respects, when that $100,000 check comes into play for combat veterans who would be without resources to provide for their needs that resulted from their sacrifices, that money will serve a real need.

But underlying all of this is the cavalier approach by commercial interests to expose viewers to this seriously flawed view of war.  There is and always will be far more losers than winners when the awesome power of war machines are let loose on defenseless civilians.  Those service personnel who engaged in combat and survived it are likely to develop emotional traumas that may well have latent effects on them and their family’s lives and could have social and economic consequences that affect us as a nation for years to come.

  

When fantasy imitates reality

 

Those too far removed from this however see war as something unwanted but inevitable, so why not profit from it.  Perhaps the people at NBC think it is better to exploit the appeal some have for pyrotechnics by wrapping it up in the flag and enact some faux military bravado than spending their vast fortune on ways to ameliorate the causes of war.  They are after all an entertainment industry and I’m sure the P.T. Barnum mindset that says “give them want they want” allows them to overlook that such exploitation will only enable future generations to disregard the awful destruction we have now incorporated into our world view as “leaders of the free world”.

 

RELATED ARTICLES

NBC’s War for Fun and Profit 

NBC’s New “War-Musement” TV Show, Panned by Nobel Peace Laureates, Veterans, and Others

Posted by in Television Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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All in Favor of Megyn Kelly Getting Peppered-Sprayed, Raise Your Hands

November 26, 2011

 

 

In a conversation with Bill O’Reilly about the pepper spraying incident at UC Davis, FOX’s Megyn Kelly and O’Reilly pretty much down-played the incident with Kelly calling it a “food derivative”.

 

O’Reilly:  Pepper Spray.  That just burns your eyes, right?

Kelly: Right, it’s like an actual derivative of pepper.  It’s a food product essentially, but a lot of experts are looking at that and saying “is that the real deal, has it been diluted because ….

O’Reilly: Yeah, they should have had more of a reaction.

 

Typical FOX tripe.  Yes, pepper spray comes from natural peppers but you don’t stick them in your eye.  Apple Juice is high in acid content but you don’t extract the acid to consume it by itself.  Tobacco is also a natural product but we all know what the surgeon general says about that leafy plant.

 

Stephanie Queen’s post over at HumorOutcast.com that first alerted me to this imbecility informs us that “the active ingredient in pepper spray is oleoresin capsicum (OC), a natural oil found in many types of hot peppers including cayenne peppers, and experts say that an amount as small as one milligram can cause blisters and a severe reaction could lead to neurological problems as well.”  We’re assuming Stephanie is referring to real experts and not the kind that Megyn Kelly conjures up.

Who are those “experts” that Ms. Kelly is referring to?  The boys down in accounting who still can’t figure out why she’s paid an exorbitant amount of money as an air-head pretending to be a news commentator?  FOX commentators are always slipping in such lame qualifiers to support their pretentious perceptions, declaring often that “people say” this or that to go along with the message FOX wants its viewers to accept.

But the proof is in the pudding as they say.  Perhaps Megyn and O’Reilly would be willing to show their viewers just how harmless this “food product” can be.   They may need a little encouragement to test their hypothesis so Nick Douglas over at his Slacatory blog has put out an on-line petition for people to sign that would prompt the blond FOX ditz and the loud-mouth O’Reilly to confirm their suspicions.  You can find the petition here.

I doubt there will ever be enough signatures to convince the FOX celebrities to participate in a demonstration to show us all how innocuous they intimate pepper spray is.  The people that work at that network are never liable for their insanity.  Why should they be?  They appeal to an audience that is equally simple-minded and to them this is their reality.

Posted by in Humor, Journalism/Media, Television Tags: , , , , , , ,

4 comments

I Hate Bleepin’ Censorship

July 9, 2011


My good friend Donna Cavanagh enjoys a good “Frazier” re-run on the Hallmark network but takes offense at being treated like a child as it airs on this “family friendly” channel.

Recently, the Hallmark channel had a Frasier marathon.  I love that show. It just never ceases to make me giggle. The same is true for the Golden Girls which also airs on the channel.  As I was watching the Frasier episodes, I noticed that certain words were being bleeped out or edited out  including the words ass, hooker and maybe butt—about that one, I am not sure.

Anyway, at first I thought I imagined the bleeping. I couldn’t figure out why these words would be considered “bleepable”.  After a few more words didn’t make the Hallmark cut, I really became curious, so I emailed the network .  In truth, I was pretty rude. This is what I said:

May I ask why you feel it necessary to cut out some words from your broadcast of Frasier? What kind of prudish people work at your channel or worse, what kind of prudish people watch your channel, that you feel this is necessary…?

This is what they sent back:

Crown Media Networks is committed to family friendly programming. Our Standards & Practices (“S&P” – the things that are or are not acceptable for a particular network) are very conservative.  There are words and phrases commonly used on other cable channels and broadcast networks that Hallmark Channel’s S&P guidelines deem unacceptable.

Okay, this is what is wrong with that statement and why I need to rant. First, this is censorship at its worst. Family Friendly, my ass – oops, my BLEEP. Worse than censorship, this is hypocritical censorship. The Hallmark channel broadcast Frasier at various times of the day. The show is filled with sexual content; yet, the word ass, as in pain in the ass, got them upset. If they are so FAMILY FRIENDLY they wouldn’t be broadcasting this show at all.  Frasier episodes are filled with sexual dialogue and sexual situations that depict mostly casual sex – not married-people sex. And let’s face it: if family entertainment advocates had their way, we would only see married-people sex or no sex at all on TV.  If “bad” language sends up the red flag to the Hallmark people why not one-night-stand sex?

The same goes for the airing of Golden Girls. Anyone who has ever watched that show knows sex and orgasms are the primary topics of discussion over cheesecake. I don’t ever remember hearing any bleeping when the “Girls” graphically reminisced about their sexual escapades.  Again, why are these conversations not subject to the same censorship?

So, what exactly are Hallmark’s guidelines?  I assume it’s to set a high moral standing as long as that standing does not interfere with revenue dollars. To be honest, I am lashing out at Hallmark here because I hate anything to do with censorship, and I hate groups that advocate censorship with words like Family Friendly. To me, Family Friendly are the two “F” words we might all fear in the censorship game.

Here is an idea: You want to protect your children:  Be parents. Change the bleepin’channel or take the bleepin’TV out of your kids’ bleepin’ rooms so that they can’t watch the bleepin’ shows that are deemed by some ultra-conservative watch groups as amoral or sexually explicit. It upsets me to no end that a cable channel has been duped into thinking that censorship is the right way to go.

Perhaps, Hallmark cards, which is part of the same corporation, should be banned from retail outlets because–let’s face it– their Shoebox Greetings, while incredibly funny, can get a little crass. Maybe retail outlets should adopt the strategy of the now extinct video stores and place the less family friendly cards in a back room out of view of the general population. God knows what would happen if small children happened upon one of those more adult cards.  The words or images might be seared into their innocent brains and their lives will no doubt take a 180-degree turn away from purity rings and toward sexual promiscuity. Yes, it will be Sodom and Gomorrah all over again, and it will be all Hallmark’s fault. Isn’t that ironic?

Donna’s work has been published in More.com, SOP.org, Divine Caroline and First magazine and local and national newspapers as well. This year, her first two humor books were published. Life On the Off Ramp is a collection of her earlier humor columns and Reality: Fantasy’s Evil Twin is a look at the contrast between how we imagine relationships to be and how they truly are.

Posted by in Television Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

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Unplugged: Back to the Past – Partially

June 18, 2011

Some of you might have noticed I haven’t  published anything in about a week.  There’s a reason for that.

I’ve just recently experienced a time from my youth when there was only one television and one phone in the house.  Following a dispute over an amount on my Charter Communication bundling bill for the 4th consecutive month since I signed up with them in March, I cut myself off from the world of electronics.  It occurred by  happenstance after I by-passed calling them yet another time to haggle once again with their billing department.  This last time I merely submitted payment for everything but the $40 that was in dispute.

Last Monday I get a recorded call in the late evening informing me I need to call their billing department on “a very important matter”.  I ignore it because I am fed up with them anyway and despise Charter above everything else in my life at this point in time.  The next morning I get up and I find they have disconnected my TV and Internet service for failing to pay the full amount.  They obviously leave the phone line running so I can call to find out what’s going on.  So when I do, I tell them to make it official and unsubscribe me completely.

As usual the poor lady on the other end of the line who is not fully aware of my short awful history with her company, tries to console me and asks if she can lower some rates to keep me as a customer.  I ask, “Why?  So we can dispute that next month?”  I tell her its’ nothing personal but along with having issues every month with the awful TV picture image I was getting, that their entire customer service system is dysfunctional beyond belief and I was not going to be won over.

So, I found myself without TV, Internet services or a phone land line for several days.  I had left my cell phone at the part-time job I have so my wife and I were literally down to her one cell phone as the only means of being in contact with “the outside world” the day I bid farewell to my nightmare.   It was eery at first and the silence without the sound of a TV going or activity on the computers was deafening.

My wife and I talked a lot more than we had in a while and I read much more than I normally would.  I had already signed up with a bundling service with Verizon FIOS but they would not be able to install their system until Friday, three days away.  Would we have withdrawals before that time came?

Actually, after two days of nothing but our cell phones, we rather enjoyed it.  We began recalling how this is the way we were raised.  The only time the old black & white TV was on in our house when I was a kid was from 6-9pm during the week and Saturday morning’s for cartoons.  For the most part TV’s and telephones were secondary in our social lives because I was usually linking up with friends in the neighborhood and finding some activity to do with them outside until we were whistled home by my dad, who used the two-fingers-in-the-mouth style whistle for reaching us two blocks down the road.

Both my wife and I began to realize that we were really not entertained that much by what is on the tube these days.  For what little TV we wanted to watch I could buy one of the new digital antennas to pick up “free” TV signals and we could buy a dvd player to watch movies.  The cell phones we had would work just fine for us as far as communicating with friends or businesses, so, we decided to make a small life-style change.  Instead of the bundled package of Verizon’s that came with TV, phone and Internet, we opted for internet service only.  It would serve much of our needs for news and other information we thought relevant.

We’d of course have to call everyone close to us to inform them that they could now only reach us by our cell phones or e-mail accounts and would no longer be able to plan on using our homes for big televised events like the Super Bowl or the World Series.  My experience with the digital antenna I went out and bought yesterday has already underscored the fact that air wave signals are not all that reliable as they were when local TV network airwaves were pretty much the only signals flying through the air back then.

It really feels good to be free from the hassles and demands that technology can bring with it and the cost savings are a ton better.  However, the Samsung Blue-Ray DVD compact player I bought does allow me to hook up to a myriad of services for movies and music that I can connect with off of the wireless router for our computers.  But after an attempt to do the so-called “easy step connections” for some of these services (which turned out to be anything but easy) I think I’ll just leave the TV alone and wink at it occasionally as I pass through the room on my way to read the daily newspaper I’m subscribed to.

If I get the time and am in the mood, I might toy with the bells and whistles on the compact disc player but then I’m really not feeling compelled to rush this, and neither is my wife.  In fact, we may just skip down to the town square here in Denton this evening and watch a lot of the free entertainment there as the Juneteenth holiday comes up.  We may in fact discover a whole ‘nother world we haven’t seen in quite some time.

Posted by in History, Our crazy and wonderful world, Television Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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Ben Stein: Master Jurist?

May 21, 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, or DSK as he is known in France, may have acted too hastily in selecting his attorney to defend him against criminal charges of “oral sexual conduct and anal sexual conduct with another person by forcible compulsion” as it was stated in the official complaint.

Ben Stein, the pretentious lawyer turned actor turned amateur economist has interjected in this highly publicized ordeal and provided commentary for DSK’s defense that one would surely think originated from late night comics.  Stein allows that “it’s possible indeed, maybe even likely, that[DSK] is guilty as the prosecutors charged”, BUT lets look at some likely scenarios by Stein as someone who thinks Darwin’s theories led to the Nazi holocaust.

Stein: If he is such a womanizer and violent guy with women, why didn’t he ever get charged until now? If he has a long history of sexual abuse, how can it have remained no more than gossip this long? France is a nation of vicious political rivalries. Why didn’t his opponents get him years ago?  

Logical Response: DSK’s a billionaire.  Money often persuades people not to take legal action against powerful people and further jeopardizing their own future careers:  CASE IN POINT – “In Paris this week, a young journalist named Tristane Banon spoke up to say she had been sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn in 2002 when she interviewed him. He attacked her like “a rutting chimp,” she says, describing how he wrestled her to the floor, undoing her bra and trying to pull her blue jeans off before she managed to flee. Her mother dissuaded her from filing suit at the time, because there had not been an actual rape and public opinion would have sided with the great man.”  SOURCE 

Stein: In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category? Maybe Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty but if so, he is one of a kind, and criminals are not usually one of a kind.

Logical Response: Right.  Upper income, highly educated types are rarely criminals.  I guess people like Ken Lay and Andy Fastow of ENRON fame, Bernie Madoff,Jack Abramoff, Richard Scrushy, Jeffery Skilling and Bernard Ebbers were just two-bit thugs robbing little old ladies’ purses on the street.

But if you want to get specific and declare that there are no ECONOMISTS who have committed violent crimes you might want to see the list below that Jon Stewart presented on his Daily Show Thursday evening (run timer to 3:00)

Richard Nyamwange – Former ESU Business Professor sentenced to state prison for sexual assault

*Robert Von Der Ohe – Former Rockford College Economics Professor who plead guilty to sexual abuse

*Robert Maubouche – Retired French Economist who worked at the World Bank convicted of sexually assaulting – wait for it – a housekeeper.

Then there are those guilty of crimes that regrettably have connections in high places where they can evade the long arm of the law.  Executives at AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley through this country into an economic tailspin that lost millions there homes and their jobs for elaborate fraud and theft schemes yet not one of them will see a jail cell.  SOURCE

Stein: The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn “forced” the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He’s a short fat old man. They were in a hotel with people passing by the room constantly, if it’s anything like the many hotels I am in. How did he intimidate her in that situation? And if he was so intimidating, why did she immediately feel un-intimidated enough to alert the authorities as to her story?

Logical Response: Perhaps the element of surprise is enough to distract a young foreign immigrant who has unintentionally in her duties as house a hotel maid walked in on others not bent upon raping her.  And hey, DSK ain’t that much older than me and when the adrenaline gets flowing in my veins I can wrestle a smaller frightened chicken to the floor, especially if I haven’t eaten in three days.  And do people really pass by luxury suites constantly – at lunch time, when the assault occurred?  And lastly, unlike other women who have been assaulted by DSK, this housekeeper had only her dignity to defend, not a lucrative career in the IMF or politics.  Nothing that a billionaire can use here to intimidate this woman.  And does Stein think all women who may be intimidated are incapable of reporting such crimes against them so quickly?  What law course was that absolute theory under?

Stein: Did the prosecutors really convince a judge that he was a flight risk when he was getting on a flight he had booked long beforehand? What kind of high-pressure escape plan is that? How is it a sudden flight move to get on a flight booked maybe months ago?

Logical Response: Just a sneaking hunch that prosecutors made based on the hotel staff’s testimony that he appeared rushed as he checked out, was caught on a plane bound for France instead of Berlin where he had a scheduled appointment with German Chancellor Angela Merkel the next day and was still unshaven as he appeared in his bail request to the judge here.  

Stein: Mr. Strauss-Kahn had surrendered his passport. He had offered to stay in New York City. He is one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Did he really have to be put in Riker’s Island? Couldn’t he have been given home detention with a guard? This is a man with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level, to put it mildly. Was Riker’s Island really the place to put him on the allegations of one human being? Hadn’t he earned slightly better treatment than that? Any why compare him with a certain pedophile from France long ago? That man had confessed to his crime. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has not confessed to anything.

Logical Response: Yes, why should we treat “recognizable people with a lifetime of public service, on a distinguished level” in such an uncivilized manner?  It was an honest mistake that he has made numerous other times it appears and besides, the victims are always of questionable nature.  Especially young African females who are used to being raped and molested from their earliest days as a child. How could he have possibly known that his “amorous actions” would be misinterpreted by such a woman?  How gauche of us to treat a man this way who thinks his capacity in the IMF helping the impoverished of third world nations entails having his way them in his high dollar hotel suites.

Stein: People accuse other people of crimes all of the time. What do we know about the complainant besides that she is a hotel maid? I love and admire hotel maids. They have incredibly hard jobs and they do them uncomplainingly. I am sure she is a fine woman. On the other hand, I have had hotel maids that were complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets from me, stealing money from me, throwing away important papers, stealing medications from me. How do we know that this woman’s word was good enough to put Mr. Strauss-Kahn straight into a horrific jail? Putting a man in Riker’s is serious business. Maybe more than a few minutes of investigation is merited before it’s done.

Logical Response: Those “lunatic” hotel maids that you claim steal your airline tickets, money and medications while throwing away “important papers” were merely cleaning up after your overnight orgy with those high dollar prostitutes male and female.  You should really control yourself when your outof town promoting your hackneyed skills as an intelligent human being.  But still, let’s say this woman is guilty of doing these things to DSK, does that automatically follow that charges of rape are part of this deviant behavior too?

Stein: In this country, we have the presumption of innocence for the accused. Yet there’s my old pal from the Ron Ziegler/ Richard Nixon days, Diane Sawyer, anchor of the ABC Nightly News, assuming that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is guilty. Right off the bat she leads the Monday news by saying that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is in Riker’s… “because one woman stood her ground…” That assumes she’s telling the truth and he’s guilty. No such thing has been proved and it’s unfortunate for ABC to simply assume that an accusation is the same as a conviction. Maybe he’s in jail because one person didn’t tell the truth. I don’t know one way or the other, but I sure know that there has been no conviction yet.

Logical Response: Perhaps unlike you, Sawyer did her background check on this guy and found that he has a history of such deviant behavior and was simply implying that this woman was willing to take her charges to the public arena knowing that people like you would attack her personal character.

Stein: In what possible way is the price of the hotel room relevant except in every way: this is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves, and that’s what it’s all about. A man pays $3,000 a night for a hotel room? He’s got to be guilty of something. Bring out the guillotine.

Logical Response:  Of course it is Ben.  The have-nots always exaggerate their claims about the haves, or as one of your fellow “have” types refers to the rest of as – “small people”.  You might want to allow for the possibility that journalist were just pointing out to what many Tea Party, small-minded people like you presume – that wealthy people are above reproach and should be extolled for their virtues and gifts of job-creation they bestow upon us. How wrong it is for any peon to believe that people of wealth use their money and influence to screw as many people as they can.  Oh, by the way, have you seen the latest report detailing how the income disparity between the haves and have-nots is wider than it has ever been?  Coincidence?

To be fair to Stein, he has often made rational statements that many of us can agree on but you have to wonder when he did if they were those times when hotel maids were not stealing his medications.

RELATED ARTICLE :

Creepy Ben Stein Defends Accused Rapist (http://jobsanger.blogspot.com/)

Posted by in Our crazy and wonderful world, People, Social Discourse, Television Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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They Lie Because They Must

May 1, 2011

Question: Why do Republicans and Tea Partiers Keep on Lying?

A: Because Too Many People Would Rather Believe a Lie Than Admit They Don’t Know.

B: They can’t run on the truth

C: They know most voters are politically ill-informed

D: All of the above

You would pretty much be on the right path if you selected D for your answer.  Sadly though some people believe a lie simply because they choose too.  Orly Taitz and Donald Trump’s “birther” stance is some of the most recent examples of this.  But there actually is a fourth probability that incentivizes and encourages many lies from those on the right.

Now not all Republicans are liars and not all Democrats are immune from fabrications of their own.  Yet the scorecard being kept by fact checkers like PolitiFact.com and FactCheck.org show that right-wing candidates are currently way ahead in the count.

Here is just a recent sampling of the misinformation that goes out to potential voters on conservative broadcast radio and TV.

  1. Jim Martin, the head of 60 Plus, made [an] inaccurate statement in an interview with ABC News claiming that “ending Medicare as we know it happened a year ago in March … when Obamacare passed.”   SOURCE
  2. A viral e-mail has gone out stating that then-Sen. Barack Obama got a law “passed in dead silence” that allowed black farmers to file “unlawful” discrimination claims against the USDA totaling $1.25 billion?   SOURCE
  3. Conservative talk radio host Victoria Taft falsely claims customers will be hit with a  $250 fine if you’re caught leaving an Oregon store with a plastic bag, raising the specter of bag police.   SOURCE
  4. Republican Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos erroneously claims many states, but not Florida, are deficit spending.   SOURCE
  5. Again in Florida, Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando insists that Mickey Mouse was registered to vote in 2008 to justify passing a bill that could suppress the votes of minorities, women and young people.   SOURCE

Politifacts’ “pants-on-fire” rulings have consistently shown that conservative and Republican politicians tell the most egregious stories.  Currently, of the 20 listings in these rulings 18 are on comments made by elected GOP officials or conservative supporters.

 

The taint of believability exists within the minds of hate groups and even rational thinking people who simply want to believe such things without confirming them because it stigmatizes their opponents and increases the odds that elections will swing in their favor.

What happens when lies masquerade as fact is that people with extremist agendas get put in office and create havoc to the political process, often hurting the very people who naively voted for them.  Many in Wisconsin are ready to throw Governor Scott Walker out for killing bargaining rights for public workers; something he never stipulated in his campaign promises.  Also in Wisconsin, state representative Sean Duffy said he supported Medicare/Medicaid in 2010, telling voters “It’s just plain wrong to put our senior’s health and financial security at risk.”  Yet he voted for Ryan’s budget cut proposals that kills Medicare and Medicaid as we now know it.

 

There seems to be a concerted effort by an alliance of corporate friendly and religious fundamentalists who embark on getting themselves elected to public office with such distortions.  Their hope appears to be to re-direct policy that fits their narrower objective and rely on the short memories of the American public and their lack of will beyond a few months to overcome any threat of being removed from office in the next election cycle.

Though there may be some voter blowback in Wisconsin and a few other districts around the country where voters are unhappy with GOP efforts to kill Medicare over the next 10 years, the same cannot be said in those gerrymandered districts where conservatives have large and loyal followings.  There they tend to blindly pull the lever for the GOP regardless of whose in office simply out of a misplaced fear of Democrats and liberals.

Thus, right-wing extremists retain their posts overtime and become a constant threat to undermine the network of social programs that many disenfranchised groups come to rely on like the elderly, children and the disabled.  The country tends to swing conservative when there are tough economic times and when major social reforms like gay marriage appear to pose a threat to the status quo.

Scratch the surface of this discontent though and you will find the backing of corporate funding and a religious fanatical backing that is neither conservative or liberal, main stream religious or anti-theocratic.  The real power in this country, the religiously zealots and wealthy few, benefit from political conflict that they can ascribe bogus notions to while simultaneously touting the virtues of their candidates, who once in office throw off the facade and go after those elements that special interests oppose.

Corporate interests like those that block efforts to regulate financial mismanagement much like what occurred in the years leading up to the collapse of our economy in 2008.  Interests that block regulations that attempt to prevent industrial pollution that contaminate our air and water supplies while destroying the economic livelihoods of small farmers,  businesses and fisherman through takeovers by multi-national corporations.  Interest that want to kill Social Security so all that money can be re-directed to private interests that rely on the volatile swings in the market to secure one’s future, or not.

On the religious extreme you have candidates in nearly every state where efforts are being made piecemeal to roll back the rulings of Roe v. Wade in ways that actually create scenarios that are counter to the ultra conservative view about government over reach.   In Indiana for example the Tea Party candidates supported a bill that would “require doctors to inform women about the risks of abortion, including “the possibility of increased risk of breast cancer following an induced abortion and the natural protective effect of a completed pregnancy in avoiding breast cancer” even though the medical profession has pretty much debunked this view. SOURCE

In Texas, right wing advocates have taken over the Texas Board of Education and thrown out historical accounts that represent our tradition of separation of church and state while allowing the secessionist Jefferson Davis and the hateful Joe McCarthy to stand more favorably in history text books.

The Party that used to tout moral and family values has been taken over by extremists that pay lip service to such things but whose loyalty belongs to people like the Koch Brothers, the American Petroleum Institute and Dobson’s Family Research Council.

Is it any wonder that the one thing that would truly make us competitive in the global market is also one of the areas where corporate and fanatical religious interests are working diligently to undermine – Public Education.  Dumbing down the American voter helps more than hurts these moneyed interests and extreme religious views.  It is a means to a specific end for them.

 

So as we return to the question: Why do Republicans and Tea Partiers Keep on Lying?   It’s all about profits and the Rapture.  Lying may not be ethical but it does make for higher stockholder dividends for many in the investor class and bonus programs for corporate executives while the End-timers dream of the biblical apocalypse is being fulfilled.

Posted by in 2012 Presidential Elections, Budget Crisis, Economy, Education, Journalism/Media, Television Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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Glorifying Dirty Coal: Spikes New Reality Program Overlooks Toxic Threats to Workers and Community

March 8, 2011

 

Coal-mining facility at Thurber, Texas

Image via Wikipedia

 

Spike TV, the cable channel owned by Viacom, who also owns CBS, is promoting a new reality program, COAL, that appears to romanticize the people who work in the nation’s coal mines while overlooking the hazards its’ production poses for the miners, their community and the environment that absorbs the dirty waste product into air and drinking water systems.

It seems odd that a media source not actually owned by Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers would document our nations long relationship with this source of energy without exposing it’s viewers to our continued use of it and it’s impact on public health issues.  That appears to be the case however as I reviewed their promo that was ironically entitled “Learning the Truth About Coal”, a series slated to start on Wednesday, March 30th. Sadly, the entire truth seems absent.

The virtues of coals impact as a reliable source of energy over the years and into the near future are made apparent in this series and its assimilation into many of the products we use and depend on is pointed out too.  But when it comes to pointing out coals downside it stops simply with: “like most fossil fuels, it’s not easy to get to, plus transportation of the fuel is astoundingly difficult.”

This aspect alone has negative consequences for all of us in terms of heavier concentrations of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere.  Will the COAL reality series convey this along with focusing on the rugged and difficult task that workers endure to supply the nation with a product that is claimed to “have a higher total energy content than ALL of the world’s known recoverable oil”?

It appears however that the producers want to focus more on the work force that work in the coal mining process.  Thom Beers, who’s the executive producer for this series, has made similar programs that are popular with American viewers.  His History Channel series, “Ice Road Truckers” and “Ax Men” are the two highest rated shows to ever air on that cable channel while his Discovery Channel program, “Deadliest Catch”, has won rave reviews for critics at the NY Times.  Political policy issues that surround such jobs are absent on these programs but then again none of these earlier reality TV successes have dealt with a topic that is as critical to our future as is the use of fossil fuels, which coal is the most abundant.

The threat that coal’s continued use poses to workers’ health as well as their families and the threat that increased CO2 from coal burning poses to our environment have near and long-term consequences that could hurt economies dramatically.  Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Studies show that coal dust causes pneumoconiosis, bronchitis and emphysema in exposed workers.  The waste products coal production produces include uranium, thorium, and other radioactive and heavy metal by-products along with  toxic metalloids like arsenic.  These toxic elements make their way into the local drinking water supplies and the air we all breathe, creating long-term health issues and drive up health care costs for all Americans.

The newer practice of mountain top removal doesn’t appear to be a topic that will be covered in Spikes “COAL” program either.  In fact the only hazard that this reality TV program will focus on is what life is like for those who work in the deep, dank mines and the safety hazards they face going into them.  Mountaintop removal eliminates many of these safety hazards but creates others for the workers and the nearby communities they live in.  Not only is land reuse nearly impossible but this devastating practice makes it easier for toxic waste to enter water supplies and destroy many animal species.

Once the coal leaves its source and makes its way to the power plants it supplies around the country and other parts of the world, there are serious health hazards that it contributes to at these points.  Toxic waste emitted from coal-fired plants, like Nitrogen Oxide, located relatively close to large population areas have been shown to increase incidences of lung related diseases.

3

Nitrogen Oxide also creates low-level ozone (smog) as well as contributing to the acidification of lakes and streams, killing off many marine life species that local economies depend on.  Mercury is another by-product of spent coal that poses serious health risk for humans and animals.  According to a report from the Environmental Defense Fund:

“Mercury can cause severe nervous system problems in humans and wildlife. Especially vulnerable are developing fetuses, babies and children. Eating fish is one of the primary ways people ingest mercury, which accumulates in the tissues of fish and other animals.”

With these ugly scenarios that develop from our use of coal, I sincerely hope that Spike TV doesn’t nonchalantly ignore them.  If they don’t address these issues directly in their program, which right now doesn’t appear likely, they should be willing to put a disclaimer at the beginning and end of each program that warns viewers about the potential health and environmental hazards that our continued use of coal presents to them.

Those wishing to convey their concerns about how coal is being presented in this Spike reality TV series can contact the show’s producers by linking on to http://www.spike.com/about/feedback/

RESOURCES:

Original Productions

Environmental effects of Coal

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Posted by in Climate Science/Global Warming, Energy, Health Care Reform, Jobs, Television Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

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The American Petroleum Institute and Their Misinformation Ad Campaign

March 6, 2011

Desperate times call for desperate actions and the oil and natural gas industries are desperate – for you to like them, despite the fact they’ve contaminated our environment and benefitted from government largess.

The Best Recurring Villains Are Polite, Civil And Completely Sane

The Oil, Coal and Natural Gas industries are under fire from an awakening public who are finding out that much of what we’ve been told has been fabricated and distorted.  They have scrambled to keep the public off-balance to allay concerns following the BP oil disaster and more recently the contamination of air and water supplies by natural gas drilling using a method called horizontal hydraulic  “fracking”.  To cover their trail following these deadly and costly accidents that have employed their lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute or more familiarly, API, to do an image makeover

In case that API abbreviation might look a little  familiar to some of you, congratulations!  You are clearly paying attention when their ads come on between TV programs umpteen times a day.  API is part of the small print at the bottom of their ads that praise the advantages of oil and natural gas, like this one that boasts about the 9.2 million jobs that their industry provides. The entire small print reads: The Economic Impacts of the Oil and Natural Gas Industries on U.S. Economy: Employment, Labor Income and Valued Added.  PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP Sept. 2009. Sponsored by API

American Petroleum Institute

Image via Wikipedia

 

After noticing this and being the skeptical type that I am, naturally I question the veracity of these claims.  I suspect however that the bulk of the people who bother to watch these ads never give them a second thought.  But for some who do, especially middle-aged males, the attractive forty-something blond female actor dressed up in business attire who presents them is pretty convincing.

We’ve seen her trusting smile in other ads but she is perhaps most familiar to soap opera fans as con-artist Samantha Markham on As The World Turns from 1994 to 1996.   Her real name is Brooke Alexander and besides her stint on ATWT, she was a former beauty queen and like her contemporary, Sarah Palin, also served “in a correspondent capacity” on FOX News just a few short years ago according to her brief bio in Wikipedia.

I had a negative reaction to all of this so, setting out on a google search, I have compiled some facts that you can assimilate with information those API ads promote in order to have a more “fair and balanced” picture of what your you’re being duped into believing.

For instance, that one ad I linked you to earlier that claims the oil and natural gas industries “fuel 9.2 million jobs”.  I suspect they fuel more gas that comes out of their ass than they do the type that heats your home.  This 9.2 million figure first popped up in September of 2009 (read the small print under the ad), yet just 2 months prior to that in their own news release in comments they made before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee they inform us that these industries employ “nearly 1.8 million Americans and supports another 4 million jobs.”  That’s a difference of over 3 million workers.

Does anyone really think that 3 million jobs of any kind have simply materialized in this economic environment since late 2009?  And did you notice – they not only don’t employ 9.2 million AMERICAN workers but 4 million oil and natural gas jobs are positions outside their industry that they say they “support”.  And I would bet from the way they worded this that a lot of those 4 million jobs are not held by Americans in America.

Then there is this bodacious lying ad that twists most of what comes out of Ms. Alexander’s lovely mouth.  It starts off by insisting that “some in Washington want to impose unnecessary taxes on oil and natural gas companies”.  This distortion is followed by actors posing as ordinary people implying that this would create an undue burden on the economy and “send jobs overseas”.  Let me clear up the first part while you control your outrage over the latter part about outsourcing.

No one in Washington has the balls to impose a windfall profits tax on the oil companies like they should, much less suggesting one.  What this add is referring to is the $4 billion a year federal subsidy that our Congress gives away to the oil industry each year.  It’s the lame argument they and their sock puppets in Washington use to discourage eliminating this tax payer funded give-away.  Removing these generous grants, they claim, will be like a tax on them.   This from an industry whose record profits over the last year alone for the top five producers reached close to $75 billion, a total of $951 billion over the last 10 years.

And let’s be clear about one thing and “sending jobs overseas”.  Outsourcing by American corporations has been going on for two decades at least and not because the price of oil was a factor.  Cheaper labor markets are what attract American businesses overseas.  Removing $4 billion a year from the entire oil industry where that amount alone was what BP brought in last year should hardly make a dent in our job situation.  If it does then shame on Big Oil for not helping out in these tough times by taking a tiny hit on their bonuses and shareholder dividend payouts.  That’s obscene to scare American workers with such petty tactics so their own fortunes don’t see any reduction.

The latter part of that ad presumes also that most Americans understand energy policy and what is in their best interest.  If only that were so.  Polls are not a measure of what factual knowledge people have but a measure of what they think they know and what they feel. Though there are polls that show a lot of  “Americans agree: we need to produce more oil and natural gas”, there are also polls that show Americans more strongly favor an energy policy that promotes renewable energy sources and chooses a clean and safe environment over higher fuel prices.

There are 12 other ads that the API has spent a small fortune on to influence the short attention spans of most viewers.  You can view all 14 of them here.  You can be sure too that they are as equally hyped and misleading as the two I have singled out here.  It’s hard for the average consumer and citizen to make informed decisions when bombarded routinely with short, simplistic and misleading ads of this nature.  We all want to believe what’s most appealing to us rather than what’s in our best interest, and that is what the American Petroleum Institute is banking on.

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Posted by in Business/Jobs, Energy, Global politics, Jobs, Television Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Lawrence O’Donnell: Capable of Filling Keith Olbermann’s Time Slot on MSNBC?

January 23, 2011

Will the former U.S. Senate staffer now turned talk show host aptly fill the shoes of the popular Countdown host?

With the news now two days old that Keith Olbermann’s Countdown program was removed from the MSNBC airwaves following Keith’s departure Friday, the studio executives have decided to fill the 8e/7c p.m. time slot with Lawrence O’Donnell’s existing 10e/9c show, “The Last Word”. The Ed Show, hosted by Ed Schultz, will move from its 6e/5c time slot to fill O’Donnel’s old time slot.  Though I would rather have seen a simple move up with Rachel Maddow’s show that always followed Countdown filling Keith’s spot and O’Donnell staying behind Maddow in the earlier hour, I think Lawrence O’Donnell will be successful in holding down this prime time period.

I have yet been able to catch O’Donnell’s nascent program on MSNBC, primarily because he airs at a time that has me struggling to stay awake and remained focus on what the program offers.  Yeah, yeah – I’m getting old but my waking hours haven’t  shortened any since I am usually up by 4am and writing material for my blog.  But I have seen O’Donnell as a guest commentator on Keith’s Countdown program and have watched him comfortably fill Olbermann’s shoes when Keith took some time off.

Lawrence isn’t as flashy and mercurial as Olbermann but he is every bit as liberal; maybe even more so.  In November of last year O’Donnell was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show and identified himself to visiting blogger Glenn Greenwald as a socialist.  “Unlike you, I am not a progressive” he told Greenwald.   “I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the extreme left of you mere liberals, okay?”

O’Donnell’s background in politics makes him a bit more insightful on substantive policy issues within government.   He served as a key legislative aid to the late Senator from Massachusetts, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and later served as his senior advisor before filling the spot as staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works(1992-93).  Later he would become the staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Finance (1993-95).  His literary credentials with writing a book (Deadly Force,1983) and movie and television scripts enables O’Donnell to handle himself well in front of the camera while holding interviews with savvy politicos and celebrities.

 

It may be hard for some die-hard Olbermann-philes like myself to welcome O’Donnell as a Keith’s substitute but I feel certain once we all get past that we’ll recognize that few others could have come in under such circumstances and kept the ship afloat, fighting the good battle that counters right-wing messages coming out of FOX.

Posted by in Television Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Looking Back On Keith’s Olbermann’s Contribution to Progressive Causes

January 23, 2011

Looking beyond his final “good night, and good luck” send off.

I thought at first he was informing us that his “Countdown” program was going to transition into something new and different when Keith Olbermann announced last Thursday night that this was his last telecast.  I grew somewhat shocked when it became clear it was not and that he was indeed leaving MSNBC for good, with no prospects of his progressive views airing again; progressive views that helped many of us make it through the nightmare administration of George W. Bush and his curmudgeon vice-president Dick Cheney.  It also served as a counterbalance for the right wing malignancy being aired on Roger Ailes’ FOX news, what Olbermann himself referred to as “FOX noise”.

Not many of us heard of Keith when he first filled in and later remained to air what was then seen as a humorous take on top stories of the day back in 2003.  But news of him spread like wildfire when he took a hard turn in our direction on August 30, 2006 as he aired his first of many “special commentaries” that would become a mainstay for him for the next few years.  This one was a blistering attack on Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his cavalier approach to the invasion and sustained war in Iraq.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shares a ...

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Olbermann’s words struck at the heart of a man and an administration that had for too long got a pass from the press for sheer arrogance, thus lifting the spirit of liberals and non-liberals alike everywhere.

Within hours the blogosphere was abuzz about the man that gave new hope for sanity’s resurrection in an era when neoconservatives were pushing the limits of moral responsibility.  For me personally I hadn’t been this charged since I heard Howard Dean attack the wrong-headed policies of Bush/Cheney on Meet the Press in 2002 as he also  notified listeners about his candidacy for the 2004 Presidential nomination.

Olbermann’s “Countdown” segment quickly became a broadcast staple for liberals and turned out not to be such a bad move for a faltering MSNBC.  A recent report by the AP noted that “‘Countdown’ became MSNBC’s most popular show. Instantly, a network that had often floundered in seeking a direction molded itself after Olbermann.”       

And as it did  more of us from progressive quarters helped boost those ratings and at times challenged the popular segments of the O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes and others on FOX during that prime time period.

As his popularity grew and his voice challenged the policies and inherent failures that guided the Bush/Cheney White House, the hope that not only Democrats would regain seats in Congress in 2006 but that some of them would be like-minded liberals became like cool running water to an arid progressive landscape.  Olbermann came along and literally pulled many of us out of the doldrums that was so pervasive at the time.  Our voices were being shouted down by the more prominent right wing talking heads on FOX and radio broadcasts like Rush Limbaugh and a rising poster child for the lunatic fringe, Glenn Beck.

I don’t feel remiss at all to say that had Olberman not changed his Countdown segment with a “liberal bias” that many who would finally find the courage to challenge the Bush/Cheney White House might never have advanced as quick as they did.  Surely his  success as a broadcaster would not have reached the level it finally did.

Olberman became part of trio with the other progressives broadcasts of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and Bill Maher’s “Real Time” that pushed the mainstream media into taking a closer look at the message coming from the White House and moving away from the neoconservative viewpoints of conservative commentaries  The support base that evolved from such programs ultimately fired up a grass roots drive that not only garnered wins for Democrats in 2006 but helped pushed their Party in 2008 to some of the biggest majorities in the Senate and House that had not been seen for decades.  The coup de gras was the Presidency recaptured as Barack Obama defeated a lack-luster John McCain and a then unknown, Sarah Palin.

I will miss Keith and his Countdown program.  I must confess there were a few times when I thought he made some tacky remarks but that hardly served to deflect from what was his greater contribution to the national dialogue.  However, when there was a comment that went over the line, as it did when he commented on Louisiana Senator Vitter’s wife’s attire and demeanor in a news clip that had her standing by her unfaithful husband, Olbermann came back the next day saying “there was no justification for such a segment about what a woman, a victim of her husband’s inappropriate behavior was wearing in public… so to Mrs. Vitter and to you, the viewer, I once again apologize.”

I can only count on one hand how many times this occurred with Keith over the years, the apologies that is for faux pas he had made.  Has his adversaries over at FOX made similar conciliatory gestures for many of their gaffes, their are not enough fingers to mark their sins by.

It is still not completely clear what the circumstances were that led to Olbermann’s exit from MSNBC.  There were clearly some tensions between him and management that became exposed last November when he was suspended for violating an NBC policy on campaign contributions; a policy that didn’t seem to be evenly applied to all at the network.  This air of conflict between Keith and his bosses, combined with the weight of losing his mother and father within a short period of time may have influenced his decision to call it quits.

What does appear to be clear to me at least is that his decision to leave was not some temperamental reaction but an honest assessment of who he was, where he was and what he wanted to do.  I believe him when he said that his continued presence there was more a response to the public’s “insistence” that he carry on than his desire to stay.

“There were many occasions, particularly in the last 2½ years, where all that surrounded the show – but never the show itself – was just too much for me,” Olbermann said in his exit statement. “But your support and loyalty and, if I may use the word, insistence, ultimately required that I keep going. My gratitude to you is boundless.”

His exit then is more a reflection of a man being true to himself rather than currying favor with a management whose focus always has their eye on profit margins.  His absence should not be seen by those who rallied to his side in the dark days back in 2006 as an end to what he helped start.  Instead we can thank Mr. Olbermann for being there when we needed him and choose now to sustain that impetus to achieve future progressive gains.

“Good night, and good luck”

Posted by in Television Tags: , , , , , , ,

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