Addicted to fake outrage - Sirota

[Mass]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/12/EDMU15SUFP.DTL

Addicted to fake outrage


I'm not sure if it's because we're strung out on "Lost" episodes, or if it's because we're still suffering from a post-9/11 stress disorder that makes us crave "breaking news" alerts, or if it's because the economy has turned us into distraction junkies. But one thing is painfully obvious after Michael Phelps' marijuana "scandal" erupted last week: Our society is addicted to fake outrage - and to break our dependence, we're going to need far more potent medicine than the herb Phelps was smoking.

...

America is a place where you can destroy millions of lives as a Wall Street executive and still get invited for photo-ops at the White House; a land where the everyman icon - Joe Sixpack - is named for his love of shotgunning two quarts of beer at holiday gatherings; a "shining city on a hill" where presidential candidates' previous abuse of alcohol and cocaine is portrayed as positive proof of grittiness and character. And yet, somehow, Phelps is the evildoer of the hour because he went to a party and took a hit off someone's bong.

As with most explosions of fake outrage, the Phelps affair asks us to feign anger at something we know is commonplace. A nation of tabloid readers is apoplectic that Brad and Jen divorced, even though one out of every two American marriages ends the same way. A country fetishizing "family values" goes ballistic over the immorality of Paris Hilton's sex tape ... and then keeps spending billions on pornography. And now we're expected to be indignant about a 23-year-old kid smoking weed, even though studies show that roughly half of us have done the same thing; most of us think pot should be legal in some form; and many of us regularly devour far more toxic substances than marijuana (nicotine, alcohol, reality TV, etc.).

So, in the interest of a little taboo candor, I'm just going to throw editorial caution to the wind and write what lots of us thought - but were afraid to say - when we heard about Phelps. Ready? Here goes: America's drug policy is idiotic.

Doctors can hand out morphine to anyone for anything beyond a headache, but they can't prescribe marijuana to terminal cancer patients. Madison Avenue encourages a population plagued by heart disease to choke down as many artery-clogging Big Macs and Dunkin' Donuts as it can, but it's illegal to consume cannabis, "a weed that has been known to kill approximately no one," as even the archconservative Colorado Springs Gazette admitted in its editorial slamming Phelps. Indeed, it would be perfectly acceptable - even artistically admirable in some quarters - if I told you that I drank myself into a blind stupor while writing this column, but it would be considered "outrageous" if I told you I was instead smoking a joint (FYI - I wasn't doing either).

...
Creators Syndicate Inc. David Sirota is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future. Find his blog at OpenLeft.com or e-mail him at [e-mail]

[Occam Bandage]

1. In other news, Sirota addicted to false outrage.

[chill_wind]

4. You didn't even read it, did you?

eom

[Occam Bandage]

6. I did. I just found his declaration of someone else's "false outrage" amusing.

The man makes his living on false outrage; for him to complain that our society is addicted to it is like Rush Limbaugh complaining that there's too much knee-jerk partisanship out there.

Though I do have to give him credit. A hardcore progressive with a strong liberal audience saying that our attitude towards recreational drugs is skewed? That's almost as brave as he suggests it is.

[chill_wind]

10. I like Sirota a lot. There's been nothing fake about his

progressive credentials and issues over these years, IMHO.

[Mass]

5. Read the article. For once, Sirota is right on track.

[chill_wind]

2. K & R Sirota.

[chill_wind]

3. self- edit

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Excellent article

K&R

[Hieronymus]

8. Sirota is right on the money.

[laststeamtrain]

9. K & R. n/t

[bvar22]

11. Once again, Sirota NAILS IT !

I guess if you are a "Centrist", you wouldn't have much love for Sirota.



"Centrism"....because it is soooo EASY!
You don't have to STAND for ANYTHING, and get to insult those who do!
:woohoo:

[SidneyCarton]

12. Ideological Extremism... Because my point of view is the only one that could possibly be right!

Myopic self-centered navel-gazing... because it is sooo easy!

You just parrot the same shop-worn talking points, and insult anyone who has a different point of view!

[bvar22]

13. Centrism....

..for those who are proud to be Half-Republican !

[bvar22]

14. Centrism....

..for those who are proud to be Half-Republican !

[SidneyCarton]

15. The further left you go...

The closer you get to the mindset of the extreme right. In the end the extremes of both sides bend together. Fascists and Bolsheviks are both totalitarians, they just use different terminologies to justify their policies.

So, as I am half republican, will you only want to shoot half of me?

[bvar22]

16. No, I am not willing to shoot 1/2 of you.

I would merely encourage you to search you soul, and find an ISSUE for which you are willing to take a STAND.....something you are unwilling to compromise.


I don't even know ANY Bolsheviks or Communists, so trying to paint me or anyone from the Liberal Wing of the Democratic Party as an extremist is laughable. I am actually very "Centrist" on the issues in that I agree with the majority of Americans (Democrats and Republicans) when they are polled on The Issues.

In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you'd think would be gospel to a real Democratic Party:

1. 65 percent (of ALL Americans, Democrats AND Republicans) say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone -- even if it means raising taxes.

2. 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed "social conservatives").

3. 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush's tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.

4. 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

5. 77 percent believe the country should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment.

6. 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.

7. 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of "disaffected" voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because "it keeps costs down."

http://alternet.org/story/29788/

8. Over 63% oppose the War on the Iraqi People.

9. 92% of ALL Americans support TRANSPARENT, VERIFIABLE elections!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x446445

[Two Americas]

19. not an argument

Accusing anyone to the Left of you of being a "totalitarian" is not an argument, it is red-baiting.

Representing conservative ideas as moderate, and as halfway between two imaginary terrible poles is not an argument that defends those ideas.

[SidneyCarton]

20. Two, do me a favor...

Switch to decaf, you'll live longer and you might actually be less combative over asinine crap.

Everyone to the left of me is not "totalitarian" but go far enough left and you get pretty totalitarian, wouldn't you say? And bashing moderates who aren't sufficiently "liberal" for one's taste is arguing for a degree of lockstep conformity, isn't it?

Politics is a continuum, left and right are subjective depending on where you sit. To you and the other poster, I must seem three
steps from Fascism. The picture is different from where I stand. But being that you have repeatedly proven yourself incapable of considering any point of view that does not at least mostly conform to your own, I don't expect you to understand that.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Pot calls kettle combative

Not the worst of your opinions I have read but close.

[Two Americas]

23. ok

I am not the least bit angry or hostile. I reject your speculation and insinuations about the messenger here, in lieu of responding to the message.

Left and right have nothing to do with "totalitarian" that I can see. You would need to support that assertion. Of course, if we define every instance of totalitarianism as "far right" or "far left" then yes, under those circumstances we have set up a self-proving "truth." But that does not mean that it accurately describes anything about reality.

I see absolutely no evidence that "politics is a continuum."

I do not see moderates being bashed because they are not sufficiently "liberal" for anyone's taste.

You need to support and defend those various assertions rather than merely asking us to take them at face value. Your entire argument exists within your premises and assumptions here. Once we accept your assertions without questioning them, then yes your assertions are "true." But you have not successfully demonstrated the validity of your assertions.

Even if it were true that politics were a continuum and that there is great danger at either end of this imaginary continuum, and that all speakers can be plotted somehow on this continuum, how is that a response to what the other posters have said here? Are the readers to merely get the hint, and suspect that anyone who disagrees with you may be near the end of the continuum and therefore to be dismisses and to support and accept your point of view?

So even if your assertions were correct, your argument still does not succeed, and is merely a debate tactic; an ad hominem attack on anyone who disagrees with you. Since they are, or may be, at some point on your continuum, therefore their ideas should be dismissed and yours should be embraced.

You have not made your case.

[dcindian]

22. No not buying it.

Center is not center but in spelling alone. Therefore moving left does not always equal moving right.

[ddeclue]

17. I'm outraged by all the fake outrage...

Seriously though fake outrage has been around a very long time though, much longer than 9/11 or even the O.J. verdict... I think you can trace its roots back to the 1970's and television news investigations that came about with 60 Minutes, 20/20 and similar programs and television day time talk shows that discussed various issues of the day.

The key feature of "fake outrage" is the heavy handed "black and white" treatment of the subject when most people really see a lot of shades of grey in real life.

This ultimately led to the "television movie of the week" without which the Lifetime Movie Network and WE would have nothing to show all day long - most of their "movies" are based on some scandal or contrived outrage that came up that has long since been forgotten. Without them Vallerie Bertinelli and Jacylyn Smith would have had to find real jobs after One Day at A Time and Charlie's Angels went off the air.

:rofl:

[tigereye]

18. I couldn't agree more - we love to lambaste people with one hand

and praise crap on the other.