So, I’m at the gym, which is the only place I watch TV, and as I’m walking out, I see on CNN, a big headline
Obama, Hitler and Stalin
I have no idea what the hell they were talking about and I didn’t stick around to find out, but as anyone with any sense or media training knows, if you stick those three names together people will start to associate the three no matter what you say.
I suspect it was probably some right wing idiot saying “Obama is just like Hitler and Stalin” and CNN deciding “hey, let’s discuss that.”
Are CNNs producers stupid, or evil? No wonder Americans believe so many lies. They are fed propaganda every day.
Sean Paul Kelley
Fuck it, man. I want to be free again. How the fuck do I get out of here?
anon2525
Are CNNs producers stupid, or evil?
Evil (but, really, can’t they be both?).
To repeat what I said in your earlier post about “what is wrong with journalism today” (your description: their obsession with “balance”, instead of telling the truth), corporate media has an agenda that they portray as “news.” foxnews isn’t the only one that does this. Dean Baker documents almost daily the economic and political pretenses behind many “news” articles, mostly from the outlets wapo, nytimes, and npr, but also time, wsj, usatoday, and more that I don’t remember.
What we need are reliable internet filters (experts in various disciplines) who can look at the corporate media from a position of expertise and point out the misrepresentations and bias. This is happening with the various web logs, of course, but finding them and learning who can be relied on is a long process in which we all become our own news editors, along with our other job(s).
Tom Hickey
Some nutcase TP’ers in rural Iowa but up a billboard with a of Obama between pictures of Hitler and Lenin, with the titles, National Socialism, Democrat Socialism, and Marxists Socialism. Must be nutcase Rep. Stephen King’s district. The local Dems are overjoyed it is getting good publicity and showing what bunch of nutcases the TP’ers really are. This kind of antic is sure to scare the shit out of people n the center. The Republicans running for office will be in the position of either repudiating it and turning off their base, agreeing with it and alienating the center, or running away from it and looking like the jerks they are.
Tom Hickey
SPK, “uck it, man. I want to be free again. How the fuck do I get out of here?”
Hey, hit the road again and make it a very long trip to saner places. This country is losing its marbles.
KZK
It’s about a Republican Billboard that went up in Iowa, that has Photos of Hitler, Obama, and Stalin, with captions above each: “National Socialist”, “Democrat Socialist”, “Marxist Socialist”.
KZK
Not seeing the previous comment I made. I suspect a word filter.
atcooper
At some point, folks have got to be skeptical. Thank god I’ve developed a sense of humor about it all.
Mandos
We’re talking about a country where Orly Taitz can get on TV as something other than an SNL skit.
anon2525
…“Democrat Socialist”…
So, they still haven’t mastered elementary English grammar, either.
Bernard
oh i get it. this is the new world order. no sense at all, the loonies run the asylum.
all that collateral damage.
lambert strether
Good thing CNN isn’t enabling this.
Quiddity
I know about the Hitler/Obama/Lenin “message” (as noted in comments above), but Stalin is a new one. Stalin has been largely absent from the Tea Party set of villain-icons. I wonder why? Maybe Stalin isn’t seen as Marxist as Lenin, and the right love to use the Marxist label whenever they can.
Pepe
I’m actually disinclined to care, or at least, disinclined to fight the lies. I mean, if Obama was an ally sure, but, you know.
Lori
The problem with the media today is that truth has no intrinsic value. And while that seems rather an ordinary observation, it is, in point of fact, a very big deal. Truth has no value to our media. In fact, a lot of journalist would probably deny that such a thing as truth exists. The only thing that has value in contemporary media is presenting two opposing viewpoints – whether there is a shred of truth or not to either side.
I once had a detective tell me that he took the victim’s side of the story and the perp’s side of the story, and figured the truth was right down the middle somewhere. Now, why would you do that? The victim probably has no reason to lie, and the perp has every reason to lie. Yet, it in his mind, both people were as likely to be dishonest though one of them was a predator, and the other wasn’t.
anon2525
Truth has no value to our media.
True enough. Propagandists don’t get paid to tell the truth.
In fact, a lot of journalist would probably deny that such a thing as truth exists.
Or, they will avoid confrontation by saying that the truth is hard to discover (“so we’ll present opposing viewpoints”)
The only thing that has value in contemporary media is presenting two opposing viewpoints – whether there is a shred of truth or not to either side.
It is certainly not the case that the only thing that has value to them is presenting opposing viewpoints. Corporate media outlets routinely present as “news” the received viewpoint instead of the truth, especially if the truth would contradict the received viewpoint.
Also, the Sinclair principle operates in many of these “news” articles: It is difficult to get someone to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. The reporter and his editor can’t see the truth because their salaries depends on their not seeing it. Later, when this is sometimes eventually acknowledged, they will claim that “no one could have known” because “everyone believed” that the received viewpoint was the truth.
lambert strether
You can’t beat something with nothing.
Say what you will about the billboard, the message is clear. The Big O and the Ds have no message as clear, and they haven’t delivered for their nominal voters anyhow, while competing unsuccessfully for the hearts and minds of the real constituents of both legacy parties, the banksters and the rentiers. A party with a survival instinct like that is ripe for extinction.
John B.
what is interesting lambert is that really both parties are ripe for extinction, but the forces on them are coming from different places. Sure, I get your point about the Dems, but the Rethugs are barely in a better position. What keeps them afloat is native stupidity and media collusion as is noted above as well as big money corporate bribery. Both are recipes for disaster and the center cannot hold. We are headed for a big fall..apres moi, le deluge, and all that…
Mandos
Pepe: But people associate Obama with the American liberal left whether you like it or not, so the Hitler/Stalin thing is intended to smear more than just Obama.
Pepe
@Mandos: I agree, but that still doesn’t mean I have to give a crap about (or defend) him.
Bernard
all the democrats do is delay the inevitable. drag out the eventual collapse the Republicans started. Like the Democrats aren’t helping to screw the “poor.” the Democrats just dance around the issues, while the Republican go straight for the “kill.”
it’s time to end the drama/kabuki.
Lori
Pepe,
I defend socialism but no Obama. I’m going to a very simple definition of socialism nowadays, since people seem to have confused political systems with economic systems. Socialist policies are policies that benefit ordinary people. When people tell me Obama is a socialist, I ask them what he’s done for average Americans. This is a head scratcher and frequently, they’ll resort to the “secret socialist” point of view.
We live in a nation where even the majority of the college grads couldn’t get through the first round of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader. It’s really pathetic.
lambert strether
John B — It doesn’t matter which of ’em goes first, the Ds or the Rs, so long as one of ’em does.
David
The legacy parties will be gone once Nehemiah Scudder gets elected.
lambert strether
Unless, of course, he already has been…
Cloud
If This Goes On— reference for the win.
America of today is far less likely to deal with its crisis of capitalism peacefully, sensibly or democratically than Germany of the 1920s ever was.
anon2525
To repeat what I said in your earlier post about “what is wrong with journalism today” (your description: their obsession with “balance”, instead of telling the truth), corporate media has an agenda that they portray as “news.” foxnews isn’t the only one that does this. Dean Baker documents almost daily the economic and political pretenses behind many “news” articles, mostly from the outlets wapo, nytimes, and npr, but also time, wsj, usatoday, and more that I don’t remember.
Another data point — Krugman made essentially the same observation today:
chicago dyke
expecting modern day amurkin teevee to be anything other than evil and stupid is like expecting a boiled egg to produce a living dinosaur if you pour milk and butter on it. teevee is propaganda and mind control, and nothing more, *always.* even the “good” and “smart” shows/newsbunnies/whatever. just turn it off. i don’t go to a gym (like i have the $ for that, hah) but i do take my iPod everywhere, and plug in my earphones. i can’t escape teevee; it’s in the grocery store, on the bus, in the rooms of the people i care for at work… but i sure as fuck don’t have to look or listen. remember that simpson’s ep? where lisa and paul anka make a song about how to kill giant monsters made out of commercials? “just don’t look, just don’t look…” that’s my mantra.