Media timidity is partially a class thing....

[Jade Fox]

The mainstream media is deeply mired in Middle Class reality where nothing
truly bad, embarrassing or evil happens. In Middle Class reality it is simply
not nice to make people too uncomfortable, so all news stories must be neutralized
to make them fit this unspoken world view. The MSM waits for someone else
to be the one to grant legitimacy to a story that is "out of the mainstream"
before reporting the story seriously. Often this agenda hides under the
justification of behaving "proffessionally", another code word for Middle Class
behavior.

Ironically, a big part of the sucess of the FOX channel is their willingness, for
all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong values, to break the rules of
Middle Class blandness. Right-wing radio hacks have made a cliche' of being
outraged, but again, it works in part because it breaks the rules of Middle Class
behavior. It "feels" like you are finally hearing the truth, even if it is a crock.

[ananda]

1. interesting

IOKIYAR to break middle class niceness and blandness, but only to ridicule or attack Dems and liberals.

Sue

[Jade Fox]

The MSM is learning from FOX etc.....

and, unfortunately, imitating their values as well.

[patrice]

2. All in a "regulatory" climate that has demonstrated its desire to reverse

its own decisions, whenever it wants to, no "stare decisis" in the Law, anything can change whenever . . .

. . . .

You are so right about the Middle Class environment; I taught public high school for about 10 years.

[kaitykaity]

3. Read the Crispin interview with Buzzflash

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/02/int05009.html

and then come back. He talks about this from another
angle you might find interesting.

The media brought "out of the mainstream" stories about
Clinton in without any problem at all. They were not timid
about reporting every sordid sorry and often untrue allegation
against Clinton. Starr could leak something and it'd be
in the MSM the next day, even if it wasn't true.

[Jade Fox]

7. That is very good...

I can't resist posting these two paragraphs, which address the phenomenon
of Right-wing projection:


Mark Crispin Miller: Inept and hypocritical they are indeed, but what this scandal tells us is way
more profound. As I've argued both in Cruel and Unusual and "A Patriot Act," there's a big
difference between hypocrisy and projectivity. Hypocrisy means "dissimulation" pure and simple. A
hypocrite does one thing privately while playing a very different role in public. Insofar as he's
capable of happiness, he's happy just to live such a divided life. What he does not need is to have
some demon-figure(s) onto whom he can relentlessly project those aspects of himself that he
unconsciously detests. This is the animus that drives the Bushevik movement--more than greed,
more than oil, more than imperialism. The movement is, ultimately, pathological. Which explains its
compulsive hatefulness. Every time the Bushevik vents his spleen against "the liberals," he's actually
referring to himself. "The liberals," he insists, are lying, bitter diehards, who would do anything to
stay in power; they steal elections; they are "a coalition of the wild-eyed"; and on it goes forever. If
the movement weren't relentlessly projective, it would just disappear. They have to stay on the
attack against the demon, which they can never finally kill, because that demon is inside them.

So this episode is not anomalous. Guckert/Gannon is no oddity, but just another fine example of
projective nastiness. He's by no means the only gay homophobe in this movement, which appears
to be the work primarily of closet cases. There are others who have not been outed, but should be.
The rest of us should be taking this quite seriously, not just because it might enable a political
advantage, but because it cuts right to the heart of what this Christo-fascist movement's all about.

[skids]

4. The trick to FAUX...

...is that while they are "outraged" they always put their audience on the "good guy" side of the issue. More than that, they take care to pick mostly the fights where they are assured eventual victory. So though their audience gets the impression of seeing "unfiltered" reality, they can keep their sense of security because at the end of the broadcast, they believe they are in the right, and they believe they are winning.

[Jade Fox]

5. excellent points n/t

[patrice]

6. And they "FEEL GOOD!" about it. n/t

[starroute]

8. The working class has been scrubbed from tv almost entirely

It used to be that there were always a couple of working class sitcoms around, from The Honeymooners to Roseanne. These days, I don't think there are any.

One of my kids was remarking recently on the fact that they keep making new Scooby Doo cartoons but have never made any new Flintstones cartoons, even though the Flintstones are still part of the popular mythos. I said, "Yeah, that's because the Flintstones are working class, and you'd never see that on tv these days."

It's not just tv, though. Somebody posted figures here the other day showing that (based on median incomes) the middle class is considered to start at an annual income of $30,000. But according to something posted just today, the poverty line is currently close to $20,000 for a family of four -- and in many parts of the country, you can't even start to cover basic housing and food with less than $30,000.

So we've reached a position where the gap between poverty and the middle class is too narrow to slide a knife into. In other words, there is *no* lower class any more. It's been defined out of existence. This may be one reason why people who are barely lower middle class are willing to support tax cuts that only help the wealthy. They don't know how marginal they really are.

If we could just redefine the lower class back into existence as covering blue collar and lower tier white collar workers -- maybe family incomes from $25,000 to $50,000? -- and develop a sense of class solidarity among them, we might be able to rally some effective opposition to this "ownership society" crapola. But trying to convince people that the *average* American is now lower middle class is going to take some doing.

[Jade Fox]

9. A touchy subject that I am somewhat reluctant to bring up...

about class refers to your last two paragraphs:

I believe the main reason lower/working class Americans support Bush's
tax cuts, and other things he does, is that in exchange he has given
them what I call Cheap Patriotism--that is patriotism not based on good
feelings about your country, but bad feelings about other countries/races/
religions. Cheap Patiotism is, I believe, a substitute for self-esteem.
It is adored by those who get little cultural encouragment for feeling
good about themselves, and lack the ablility and opportunity to develop
self-esteem. People are able to position themselves clearly as good guys
because the have been given clear and simplistic bads guys in opposition.
When your stuck in a life where you are barely getting by, and see no
real hope for change, Cheap Patriotism is a powerful drug--one that can
blind you from seeing what is right in front of your face,

As to Ownership Society crap, I think Bushco has succeeded in convincing
working class Americans that he is planning to include them too. He's
given no specifics other than codes words of course, but he's sailing off of
mis-directed good feelings he's garnered with his "War On Terror". I'm not
sure the working class wants to be defined as such, or is looking for
solidarity with their class. They seem to prefer the illusion that Bush is gonna
let them in to the country club.

Its interesting you should mention "Roseanne". I was just reading some-
thing (John Powers book 'Sore Winners') that mentioned it as the last
working class sitcom we've seen. Now we have "Blue Collar TV", where
working class people enact the worst sterotypes about themselves with
none of the consciousness (or humor) of a great sitcom like "Roseanne".