Thursday, November 06, 2008

Krugman is Kool, But...

There is a great read by Paul Krugman today. he states that the Monster Years are over. I have thought of this a lot over the past few years and I hope the following is a coherent encapsulation of many and various trains of thoughts I have had. In my not-too humble opinion, the cultural war against mon sters has posted a small victory this past election, but....for years, I have never understood why the Monstrous Ideas spouted as truth by ninnies and feebs was given any serious thought at all. As a child, I would visit downtown Cleveland with my grandmother and be amazed at how streetcorner preachers ranting about the upcoming "end of the world as we know it" could generate some listeners, but how most reasonable people shook their heads and walked away, paying it no more attention. why, when teaching evolution was challenged as a source of the violence of Columbine, or when 3 presidentail candidates stated they did not believe it, there was not more of a shrug and dismissal of fools who said something like that, still amazes me. just that DeLay was not exiscerated by the news and was not an embarrassment followed by recall to his District lets me know the fool quotient in his District.

Just yesterday I had breakfast with a man from Houston who said now America is in for problems because we now have a President who will deal with terroroists rather than a strong leader like Bush who will slap them down all the time. I reminded him that Clinton bombed Al Qeada sites and wanted to bomb more until Lewinski, as he was then accused of "wag the dog" by very serious people. his rejoinder was that at least Bush bombed the Iraqis who funded and housed Al Qeada and that Rush just spoke of that yesterday. People still get information from fools and tools and do not think or read critically. there is not much of a broad opinion and fact palate among people, or time taken to develop one as they strive to achieve the american dream. or in the recession, pay for housing.

maybe it is time for progressives to realize that the victory over monsters is short-lived if there are still a preponderance of propagandists out there speaking foolish things in large markets, that the work of debunking fools still needs to be continuously done. I will use Houston as an example. Basic cable in a few motels I have stayed in on business has no MSNBC, but 4 Fox channels. Air America or NovaM is not heard, but Rush, Medved, Beck et al are omnipresent. In North Texas, at one time, you had America Freedom Network and the America Family Network as radio choices once you drove west of Amarillo. If there are no choices, people will still think monsters are real serious people.

one of the problems is who can fund a choice for Truth to Power, as hate sells. And deprogramming the message of propagandists takes time and money. In a short-term profit-driven world, even Sacramento could not support progressive radio, let alone North Texas. This is where the culture war against monsters needs to happen.I want no short-term pyrrhic victories, but there needs to be more public discourse, more Truth in the public air waves. Maybe PBS can start to be non-biased again. But I feel there needs to be more in the mass market for people to hear. my problem is how do you start that? In my hometown of Sacramento, what does it take to start an AM radio station, willing to generate living wages and small profits and how can funding be obtained?

rojo

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