NPA.
June 21, 2017
On this date, the Dems are once again in Deep Thought and Analysis because their handsome JFK style boy Jon Ossoff just lost the special election to a female Rep. I think I have an idea why...the Democrats don't seem to have a clue. But...
The NPA party is growing.
I want this to read like an open letter to both the Democratic and Republican Party leaders. I'm the one you want. NPA. You know what that means--No Party Affiliation. It says it right on my Voter I.D. It's always said that, from the time I was 18 and got the right to vote. I'm not a nut job with a gun. I did this right after the Vietnam War ended, and I was already beginning to smell a big, dead evil smell in politics. Yeah, the Republicans are the warmongers, right? But who accelerated this mess? Who was more heavily invested in the messaging? Was it, hmmm...LBJ? But at least he had the decency to show the results of his decisions on his face (another sag for every boy killed) and chose not to run again in acknowledgement of his hubris and mistakes. That was my first interest in politics, fueled by fear for my family members and friends. My first husband had a Vietnam draft number that missed, my brother, mercifully, missed the entire show.
So, when I got the form to apply for Voter Registration, I hesitated at the box that asked me to pick a Party, with a big "P". I considered writing in the Dems--most of my family had been Dems, Union people, hip 60s generation college grads, Catholics tired of the authoritarian ideas of the Church. My mother just didn't want to go through the horrors of pregnancy a 6th, 7th, 8th time (she didn't). That sounds terrible: I should explain: as a rule-following Catholic my mother got pregnant at 19, soon after her marriage, and then every 14-16 months for the next 6 years. It was wearing on her health, even at that young age. There was no spacing like modern parents have the luxury of today, and there were consequences that I will keep private for my mother's sake. There are other things about women's health and pregnancy politicians seem to ignore, for some sort of fake family support (which apparently doesn't include decent financial/ insurance support.)
Uhh, for myself? My first health insurance policy, at 21 (I was full-time employed and married) did not include maternity. My insurance (via employment as a teacher) came through that big supporter of family, the Catholic Diocese of ____. Let me say this again: IT DID NOT COVER MATERNITY--I don't mean maternity leave--I mean ANY expense incurred due to the birth of a child. No doctor's visits, Well-care, ultrasounds, no coverage in the hospital, no hospital stay, no obstetrician's fees, no drugs, no neonatal vitamins, nothing, nada. I had to save up for 6 years to pay for the $3000 plus dollars I would need to have a baby. (That was @ one- fourth of my yearly salary). And that was just if nothing went wrong--and I had natural childbirth, which I did. So I saved the 3K and was blessed !! that nothing went wrong. I'll let you sort out how I avoided pregnancy for 6 years with my mother's genes.
But, back to politics, something wasn't right on both sides. (Turns out my parents switched parties with Reagan). Not me. I heard you could just write, "No Party", in that little blank: it made tons of sense to me at the time, but I was a little worried about what would happen. Would it somehow affect my ability to vote?
When I got my card I was sort of relieved: it said "NPA" in that little blank. (I had been afraid that State of Florida was going to tell me something like I'd invalidated my form by doing this, so I was happy to get anything back). I hardly knew anyone who did this, and so had no one to walk me through what would happen. Lots of people just plain didn't believe me. I got this a lot: " Oh, you're a Democrat, come on. " I think they thought they could tell by the way I dressed or something. My Rock 'N' Roll taste? Maybe some of the positions I took, although they may not have noticed I was playing Devil's Advocate.
It turns out it did in fact impact my ability to vote, however. Here in Florida I've never, ever been able to vote in a primary. this used to anger me, but now I just think it's the price I've paid for being true blue to myself and outside the two major systems, and good riddance. However, it's the strong party people who have always informed me I had zero right to be disgruntled. Imagine.
It's true that on some high profile issues I tend to have the same views as the Democrats historically: health care, (I'm for single-payer--are the Dems? Some people think so, I'm skeptical) women's and abortion/birth control rights, for example. I have an occupation that tends Dem. I have friends who try to convince me I'm messing up politics by not signing up with the Dems. I've voted for politicians all over the spectrum: Republicans, Dems, Greens, Libertarians. No Tea Partiers, though. I do tend to go Dem more often. I campaigned for Obama--1st time in years, since the time I stumped for a Rep.
But lately I can feel the parties closing in on me. They want to know what I'm thinking. I get 5 to 15 e-mail solicitations a day, mostly these days from the desperate ones, the Dems (I used to get them from both, but I think the Reps gave up on me somewhere, maybe the Obama campaign, maybe some petition I signed? So, I'm going to write this down once, to answer your party questions about what I'm thinking politically--my pie in the sky attempt to get you to stop bothering me every five minutes. If you parties want my support you should immediately rethink these things ! I will start with the most irritating:
- Signing Birthday, Thank You, and Anniversary Cards for Your Politician (name here):
If ever there was a tone deaf, asinine, echo-chambered, self-absorbed, who
gives a flying fig, means of acertaining my support, this is it. This is definitely
gives a flying fig, means of acertaining my support, this is it. This is definitely
a Dem thing--so cute and cuddly and personalizing, such happy solicitations. Look,
you may know Your Politician (name here) well enough, may be adoring enough,
to celebrate his/her birthday, anniversary, christening, plum pulled out of a pie.
But. Not. Me. You are My Time Waster.
This is supposed to be your job. And your family members e-mailing me
doesn't soften me up. Keep your partying in the office, because you have
no respect for my time. This means you Al F.
no respect for my time. This means you Al F.
- Screaming Hysterical Subject Lines In E-Mails:
I.E.--Obamacare Fails! Trumpcare Wins! Planned Parenthood Defunded!
OSSOFF LOSES! (this two weeks before the election has been held).
Hmm. Advertising 101, get the reader's ATTENTION.
Hmm. Advertising 101, get the reader's ATTENTION.
Tuned it all out, sorry. I think my hearing's been damaged.
- Slanted, Biased Stories in the News.
Contrary to the popular opinion of writers of media, (both sides) we can tell. Stop
embarrassing yourselves. Stop planting stories pro or con.
- The Addiction, Yours, To Money.
Politics and Money have fit together hand in glove since the big-bang, or "Let There
Be Light". But for the love of all things sacred stop being so obviously
greedy! Those 5 to 15 e-mails for me almost always have a donation button
to push. And the election is over! I consider myself politically active, but
I am not going to give any of you one penny, because---because--
I am not going to give any of you one penny, because---because--
I think it's time for an intervention. You don't need all that money.
And don't say it's okay cos all the other kids do it...You have a substance
problem. Citizens United doesn't matter if none of us cares about the money.
- We Never Really See Your Platforms. That's all I need to see.
- Tell Your Politicians To Do Their Jobs. Like Show Up To Vote For Stuff. Read Bills. State Their Positions Clearly.
- Find Some Means to Really Talk To Your Constituents: a two-way platform.
- There's this Existential Idea. It's about Modern Man paralyzed from Too Much Info. TAI.
- Assuming Everyone You Write to Agrees With You.
- Assuming Everyone You Write to Loves You Unconditionally, and your dumbest idea.
- Just Throw It All Away. Forget Everything You Think You Know. We have.
Glad I picked No Party Affiliation. Don't plan to change it. Now More Than Ever. And I know what to do with a Spam button.
*************************
July 2: I just finished watching some of the Netflix documentaries on the 80's. Does that make my stomach hurt to have that kind of civility again. As much as I disagreed with Reagan's scare tactics then, he would be welcome as a voice of reason now. Remember when it was considered gauche to call your opponents names (there was this understanding of a thing called the ad hominem argument).
"My esteemed colleague from Nebraska.." was the classic way old timey politicians used to address one another.
July 17: I read a New Yorker piece by a fiction writer I like, George Saunders, who kinda went on assignment into Trump rallies all over the US to take the temperature and try to analyze what is happening. He says up front he's liberal, but I think he managed to be fairly objective and write what he saw. One recurring phenomenon: when he talked to individuals seriously about their beliefs and what was fair, people on both sides, the Pro-Trump rally supporters and the Anti-Trump protesters, mostly sounded like ordinary, thoughtful people with unsurprising compassion for the other side, etc, etc. But in the frenzied crowd, they acted insane, yelling horrible things, carrying terrible signs, being borderline threatening.
His main method of discussing the issues was to try to attach them as much as possible to reality. For example, with those against Obamacare, he'd say--do you have it yourself, have you had any problems with it? Very few had a personal grievance, or even someone else's story, it was just some vague theory they were repeating. Some were people who spent a time in government lines for various things, who made all sorts of assumptions about the others in line with them. "They were illegal immigrants!" "Wow, that's something! So, how could you tell that?" No answer. Two veterans, both Mexican Americans, on opposite sides, were trying to prove they were the more patriotic one. Yelling nasty comments at each other in an absurd and frightening way.
He gave real scenarios to several immigration cases to some BUILD_A_WALL supporters, and when asked to judge how to handle a real life case, like a girl who was brought to the US by her parents at age 3, who couldn't find work or afford college, who ended up in jail because she used her mother's SS card to get a job--there was sympathy. Usually everyone asked.."are they good people?" The same dynamic happened with the protesters, like a masked kid who Saunders asked, if you want to stop police brutality, do you think what you are doing is helping or hurting the situation? The kid admitted, probably not helping, but ten minutes later was back to his shenanigans. GS has this sort of non threatening, bland appearance that makes him seem nonjudgmental, so he seems to get people to open up their feelings to him--a tack maybe some professional journalists could learn.
What I got from this is perhaps realizing this was all just an American show, people from all sorts of points of view venting and displacing their anxiety. but they will all go home, calm down, and be the docile citizens they've always been, and closer to the opposition's views than it appears.
Sept 8: It just occurred to me. Probably the party leaders couldn't care less about me and my party affiliations. I think they think they can cook the books and manipulate things enough that my vote doesn't mean shit to them.
June 3, 2018: 18 months into the Donald fiasco. Will we survive it? I'm so sick of him, the media, the bias, everything to do with Washington, D.C. Still staunchly NPA, but I'm so happy to see the Washington insiders dropping like RAID sprayed flies...this was the outcome I was hoping for with DT, even though I couldn't stomach voting for such a gross person. But waiting out his term is excruciating--he couldn't possibly be re-elected, right? RIGHT? Some people think so, and I read a long extended article in the Washington Post about my beloved Mississippi River valley and what people are thinking there--lots of scrambled feelings, lots of well-deserved media hatred. Boy, do they hate Congress! ))
Been watching some interesting debates online: Jordan Peterson--prof of U of Toronto, controversial for having used the phrase "Enforced Monogamy", Stephen Fry,--the magnificent actor, writer and thinker, Michelle Goldberg, a young hipster journalist from the New York Times who loves liberal jargon and expects the audience to feel as she does. Other discussions were with a Harvard prof ( I think?) named Steven Pinker. Peterson can really suck you in, boy, but after watching several hours of his talk, and acknowledging how others have jumped to conclusions about his ideas that are unfortunately drawn from hard- to- reach crevices in Academia--not necessarily difficult, but just ideas that need specialized knowledge and a bit of digging--I've decided he's a bit of an intellectual crackpot who is not entirely honest about his intentions.
The "enforced monogamy", BTW, is an idea from anthropology: its essence is to point out that historically, human societies have become less violent during periods of socially enforced monogamy, with a nod for the cure to our uncivilized little incel weirdos who have recently popped up in the news via the U of Toronto/Santa Barbara killings. Now, JP can argue all he wants that he's just using intellectual/academic concepts to explain human behavior, but it seems a tad convenient to me that these ideas placate his very specific audience--yes, those same angry young misogynist males plus some of his actual college students and various other online listeners, two of which are good, rational friends of mine, who go gooey for him, and even more importantly, support him by buying his books and paying him actual money directly via Patreon.
Even less pretty is the fact that he has incited these young men (and maybe a few ladies) to pay more by implying that his job is under threat at U of Toronto, something the university itself says is patently false. My son has looked askance at his presence for yet another reason--his peddling of some sort of personality test quackery that sounds pretty fishy to me. There's something about the mix of his ideas that just seems off-- claims of "classical Liberalism"and Jungian psychology mixed with all this hierarchy and winner/loser dichotomies, and anti-Marxist, anti-political correctness--too testostrone-y and straw man for me. He's being labeled "alt-right" due to his cult of personality followers (that he claims he doesn't encourage), which may not be entirely fair, but something doesn't jive with some of his hyperbole. He's not as logical as he claims to be--and often gets angry when challenged. I do agree with his tenets about taking personal responsibility for your life and avoiding lapsing into victimhood.
Michelle Goldberg, was debating from the supposedly opposite side--BTW, the topic was Political Correctness, or to be more debate proper, Pro/Con this statement: "What you call Political Correctness, I call Progress." Michelle took the pro side, but mostly managed to talk about the patriarchy and feminism and white privilege and all that sort of thing. I thought her argument and her partner's (some black prof I can't remember who talked a lot about racism) was the weakest of the group. The best was Stephen Fry, who appealed to the middle by saying essentially all this over the top name-calling on both the left and right needs to stop to avoid the implosion of modern civility.
Stephen Fry is pretty well established as a liberal, but he is a sensible one who detests PC culture and calls out his own side for what he sees going on on college campuses these days. He's my favorite--one that uses civilized debate language the old fashioned way, doesn't use ad hominem arguments, doesn't pull out esoteric tangents to show off, even though he is obviously well-read, and mainly is sympathetic, and sympatico. He also has an interview show, like Peterson, and they both interviewed to promote the ideas of Steven Pinker, whose field of expertise is The Enlightenment. He has this amazingly optimistic theory that he backs up with real data, unlike JP, who seems to want us to believe him because we are in his thrall like the Ancient Mariner....
Pinker's latest book is called Enlightenment Now, and attempts to establish a counter to all the apocalyptic cries that civilization is over, end-times are near, etc. He just uses plain facts. Over the centuries, the conditions of mankind has vastly improved. We live longer. We have eradicated many deadly diseases. Wars are less frequent. Violence is down, crime has decreased. Murder has decreased. What we call poverty now was vastly worse in the past. Women's lives are much improved. He doesn't say things are perfect, but he does make the argument that we continue on an upward trajectory of increasing the betterment of humanity. The implication is that the enlightenment, its scientific and egalitarian ideas, have been a smashing success and continue to be upheld, if sometimes imperfectly, in modern culture. I like that thought, although I haven't read the actual book, and probably won't since I think I got its point. Donald, watch out! We're not going to be dragged back to the Dark Ages!
Which brings me to a new book I am actually reading: my old buddy Steve Almond of My Life In Heavy Metal fame. He is a really interesting thinker--not in a box, like I like, although skewing moderately liberal. (Heheh, I was surprised to see, when I was adjusting some privacy settings on my FB page that they have decided I am a political moderate. Success!!!Anyway, Steve, another Steve! Has a new book out, non-fiction--he writes both--called, "Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to My Country?" which is, of course, about the 2017-18 election of Donald Trump, and all the fine pieces that have lead up to it. His insights are unexpected, and rather amazing, frankly. A few things I kinda knew--the source of the housing bubble, various recessions, corrections , Citizens United, the polarization of politics, etc. But this part just stopped me in my tracks --or got me off my butt to write! Because it was one of the Reagan era changes I didn't know about...the gutting of the "Fairness Doctrine."
What is The Fairness Doctrine? Well, I'm old enough to have experienced its impact--unfortunately my children haven't. It's one of the key pieces to how we got here to this bank and shoal of time. So...
In the old days, anytime a politician was given free air-time, on either the radio or TV, the media was sworn to give his opponent, or the opposing idea, equal time. It was to keep media from taking sides on something that was considered a public commodity that couldn't be owned--the American airwaves. I remember this--and probably the most obvious example of this was during campaign seasons, debates, and political party conventions.
Well, seems Ronnie Raygun, did it again. It wasn't just deregulation, like the airlines, his shilling for the Republicans against his natural beliefs on things like abortion. He gutted the Fairness Doctrine.
It is not a coincidence that it was during Reagan's administration that I first heard of a DJ called Rush Limbaugh. In the early 80s I knew about him because I had a late night job, delivering newspapers--or, my ex did, and I helped him. We filled the paper boxes in particular neighborhoods of St. Pete, which was a lot of driving and listening to late night radio. Rush. He wasn't so crazy and full of venom then--he was actually interesting to listen to--before he had dittoheads. His show wasn't even that political. But it wasn't much later that he moved to daytime AM--apparently this was a thing that went through the nation. The Fairness Doctrine was revoked, or whatever you call it, and it was now fair game to hire DJs with extreme points of view--no need for balance anymore! And A.M. radio, that had been steadily losing listeners for over a decade, suddenly got a new lifeline--crazy right wing DJs--filled a missing hole, and across the nation became very popular, then powerful.
Isn't this all starting to make sense? It was also about that time that on FM, you started to get the shock jocks: Howard Stern's id was free (Ken tells me he was less controversial as a Rock DJ in DC, and his recent interview with David Letterman confirms this). Locally we had, first, Ron & Ron, a stand-up comedian added to the popular FM Rock station's morning drive who did twisted jokes and talked a lot about thong bikinis, the hot-dog girls who wore them on the Redneck Riviera, Mons Venus and other strip clubs. Then, even grosser, we got Bubba-the LoveSponge--all these, including Howard eventually flew high into syndicated territory, but then imploded. (Ron Diaz's kid was at our school for a bit, and he had lost all his weight-lifting physique by then). But before that we got cable TV without regulation like the networks--Showtime and HBO and-------Fox News. Now you really see where this lack of Fairness Doctrine is going, and that ironic, in-your-face slogan, "Fair and Balanced." The dominoes just all fell.
Nov 10, 2018:
The political things that happened this week:
*************************
July 2: I just finished watching some of the Netflix documentaries on the 80's. Does that make my stomach hurt to have that kind of civility again. As much as I disagreed with Reagan's scare tactics then, he would be welcome as a voice of reason now. Remember when it was considered gauche to call your opponents names (there was this understanding of a thing called the ad hominem argument).
"My esteemed colleague from Nebraska.." was the classic way old timey politicians used to address one another.
July 17: I read a New Yorker piece by a fiction writer I like, George Saunders, who kinda went on assignment into Trump rallies all over the US to take the temperature and try to analyze what is happening. He says up front he's liberal, but I think he managed to be fairly objective and write what he saw. One recurring phenomenon: when he talked to individuals seriously about their beliefs and what was fair, people on both sides, the Pro-Trump rally supporters and the Anti-Trump protesters, mostly sounded like ordinary, thoughtful people with unsurprising compassion for the other side, etc, etc. But in the frenzied crowd, they acted insane, yelling horrible things, carrying terrible signs, being borderline threatening.
His main method of discussing the issues was to try to attach them as much as possible to reality. For example, with those against Obamacare, he'd say--do you have it yourself, have you had any problems with it? Very few had a personal grievance, or even someone else's story, it was just some vague theory they were repeating. Some were people who spent a time in government lines for various things, who made all sorts of assumptions about the others in line with them. "They were illegal immigrants!" "Wow, that's something! So, how could you tell that?" No answer. Two veterans, both Mexican Americans, on opposite sides, were trying to prove they were the more patriotic one. Yelling nasty comments at each other in an absurd and frightening way.
He gave real scenarios to several immigration cases to some BUILD_A_WALL supporters, and when asked to judge how to handle a real life case, like a girl who was brought to the US by her parents at age 3, who couldn't find work or afford college, who ended up in jail because she used her mother's SS card to get a job--there was sympathy. Usually everyone asked.."are they good people?" The same dynamic happened with the protesters, like a masked kid who Saunders asked, if you want to stop police brutality, do you think what you are doing is helping or hurting the situation? The kid admitted, probably not helping, but ten minutes later was back to his shenanigans. GS has this sort of non threatening, bland appearance that makes him seem nonjudgmental, so he seems to get people to open up their feelings to him--a tack maybe some professional journalists could learn.
What I got from this is perhaps realizing this was all just an American show, people from all sorts of points of view venting and displacing their anxiety. but they will all go home, calm down, and be the docile citizens they've always been, and closer to the opposition's views than it appears.
Sept 8: It just occurred to me. Probably the party leaders couldn't care less about me and my party affiliations. I think they think they can cook the books and manipulate things enough that my vote doesn't mean shit to them.
June 3, 2018: 18 months into the Donald fiasco. Will we survive it? I'm so sick of him, the media, the bias, everything to do with Washington, D.C. Still staunchly NPA, but I'm so happy to see the Washington insiders dropping like RAID sprayed flies...this was the outcome I was hoping for with DT, even though I couldn't stomach voting for such a gross person. But waiting out his term is excruciating--he couldn't possibly be re-elected, right? RIGHT? Some people think so, and I read a long extended article in the Washington Post about my beloved Mississippi River valley and what people are thinking there--lots of scrambled feelings, lots of well-deserved media hatred. Boy, do they hate Congress! ))
Been watching some interesting debates online: Jordan Peterson--prof of U of Toronto, controversial for having used the phrase "Enforced Monogamy", Stephen Fry,--the magnificent actor, writer and thinker, Michelle Goldberg, a young hipster journalist from the New York Times who loves liberal jargon and expects the audience to feel as she does. Other discussions were with a Harvard prof ( I think?) named Steven Pinker. Peterson can really suck you in, boy, but after watching several hours of his talk, and acknowledging how others have jumped to conclusions about his ideas that are unfortunately drawn from hard- to- reach crevices in Academia--not necessarily difficult, but just ideas that need specialized knowledge and a bit of digging--I've decided he's a bit of an intellectual crackpot who is not entirely honest about his intentions.
The "enforced monogamy", BTW, is an idea from anthropology: its essence is to point out that historically, human societies have become less violent during periods of socially enforced monogamy, with a nod for the cure to our uncivilized little incel weirdos who have recently popped up in the news via the U of Toronto/Santa Barbara killings. Now, JP can argue all he wants that he's just using intellectual/academic concepts to explain human behavior, but it seems a tad convenient to me that these ideas placate his very specific audience--yes, those same angry young misogynist males plus some of his actual college students and various other online listeners, two of which are good, rational friends of mine, who go gooey for him, and even more importantly, support him by buying his books and paying him actual money directly via Patreon.
Even less pretty is the fact that he has incited these young men (and maybe a few ladies) to pay more by implying that his job is under threat at U of Toronto, something the university itself says is patently false. My son has looked askance at his presence for yet another reason--his peddling of some sort of personality test quackery that sounds pretty fishy to me. There's something about the mix of his ideas that just seems off-- claims of "classical Liberalism"and Jungian psychology mixed with all this hierarchy and winner/loser dichotomies, and anti-Marxist, anti-political correctness--too testostrone-y and straw man for me. He's being labeled "alt-right" due to his cult of personality followers (that he claims he doesn't encourage), which may not be entirely fair, but something doesn't jive with some of his hyperbole. He's not as logical as he claims to be--and often gets angry when challenged. I do agree with his tenets about taking personal responsibility for your life and avoiding lapsing into victimhood.
Michelle Goldberg, was debating from the supposedly opposite side--BTW, the topic was Political Correctness, or to be more debate proper, Pro/Con this statement: "What you call Political Correctness, I call Progress." Michelle took the pro side, but mostly managed to talk about the patriarchy and feminism and white privilege and all that sort of thing. I thought her argument and her partner's (some black prof I can't remember who talked a lot about racism) was the weakest of the group. The best was Stephen Fry, who appealed to the middle by saying essentially all this over the top name-calling on both the left and right needs to stop to avoid the implosion of modern civility.
Stephen Fry is pretty well established as a liberal, but he is a sensible one who detests PC culture and calls out his own side for what he sees going on on college campuses these days. He's my favorite--one that uses civilized debate language the old fashioned way, doesn't use ad hominem arguments, doesn't pull out esoteric tangents to show off, even though he is obviously well-read, and mainly is sympathetic, and sympatico. He also has an interview show, like Peterson, and they both interviewed to promote the ideas of Steven Pinker, whose field of expertise is The Enlightenment. He has this amazingly optimistic theory that he backs up with real data, unlike JP, who seems to want us to believe him because we are in his thrall like the Ancient Mariner....
Pinker's latest book is called Enlightenment Now, and attempts to establish a counter to all the apocalyptic cries that civilization is over, end-times are near, etc. He just uses plain facts. Over the centuries, the conditions of mankind has vastly improved. We live longer. We have eradicated many deadly diseases. Wars are less frequent. Violence is down, crime has decreased. Murder has decreased. What we call poverty now was vastly worse in the past. Women's lives are much improved. He doesn't say things are perfect, but he does make the argument that we continue on an upward trajectory of increasing the betterment of humanity. The implication is that the enlightenment, its scientific and egalitarian ideas, have been a smashing success and continue to be upheld, if sometimes imperfectly, in modern culture. I like that thought, although I haven't read the actual book, and probably won't since I think I got its point. Donald, watch out! We're not going to be dragged back to the Dark Ages!
Which brings me to a new book I am actually reading: my old buddy Steve Almond of My Life In Heavy Metal fame. He is a really interesting thinker--not in a box, like I like, although skewing moderately liberal. (Heheh, I was surprised to see, when I was adjusting some privacy settings on my FB page that they have decided I am a political moderate. Success!!!Anyway, Steve, another Steve! Has a new book out, non-fiction--he writes both--called, "Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to My Country?" which is, of course, about the 2017-18 election of Donald Trump, and all the fine pieces that have lead up to it. His insights are unexpected, and rather amazing, frankly. A few things I kinda knew--the source of the housing bubble, various recessions, corrections , Citizens United, the polarization of politics, etc. But this part just stopped me in my tracks --or got me off my butt to write! Because it was one of the Reagan era changes I didn't know about...the gutting of the "Fairness Doctrine."
What is The Fairness Doctrine? Well, I'm old enough to have experienced its impact--unfortunately my children haven't. It's one of the key pieces to how we got here to this bank and shoal of time. So...
In the old days, anytime a politician was given free air-time, on either the radio or TV, the media was sworn to give his opponent, or the opposing idea, equal time. It was to keep media from taking sides on something that was considered a public commodity that couldn't be owned--the American airwaves. I remember this--and probably the most obvious example of this was during campaign seasons, debates, and political party conventions.
Well, seems Ronnie Raygun, did it again. It wasn't just deregulation, like the airlines, his shilling for the Republicans against his natural beliefs on things like abortion. He gutted the Fairness Doctrine.
It is not a coincidence that it was during Reagan's administration that I first heard of a DJ called Rush Limbaugh. In the early 80s I knew about him because I had a late night job, delivering newspapers--or, my ex did, and I helped him. We filled the paper boxes in particular neighborhoods of St. Pete, which was a lot of driving and listening to late night radio. Rush. He wasn't so crazy and full of venom then--he was actually interesting to listen to--before he had dittoheads. His show wasn't even that political. But it wasn't much later that he moved to daytime AM--apparently this was a thing that went through the nation. The Fairness Doctrine was revoked, or whatever you call it, and it was now fair game to hire DJs with extreme points of view--no need for balance anymore! And A.M. radio, that had been steadily losing listeners for over a decade, suddenly got a new lifeline--crazy right wing DJs--filled a missing hole, and across the nation became very popular, then powerful.
Isn't this all starting to make sense? It was also about that time that on FM, you started to get the shock jocks: Howard Stern's id was free (Ken tells me he was less controversial as a Rock DJ in DC, and his recent interview with David Letterman confirms this). Locally we had, first, Ron & Ron, a stand-up comedian added to the popular FM Rock station's morning drive who did twisted jokes and talked a lot about thong bikinis, the hot-dog girls who wore them on the Redneck Riviera, Mons Venus and other strip clubs. Then, even grosser, we got Bubba-the LoveSponge--all these, including Howard eventually flew high into syndicated territory, but then imploded. (Ron Diaz's kid was at our school for a bit, and he had lost all his weight-lifting physique by then). But before that we got cable TV without regulation like the networks--Showtime and HBO and-------Fox News. Now you really see where this lack of Fairness Doctrine is going, and that ironic, in-your-face slogan, "Fair and Balanced." The dominoes just all fell.
Nov 10, 2018:
The political things that happened this week:
- Regardless of whether you want to argue the metaphoric accuracy of a wave, the Dems won all over the nation in races they shouldn't have. And there were races that were close, even if the Dems lost them, that were surprising
- Lots of new women in office!
- Progressive amendments won all over, including Minimum Wage hikes, taxes imposed on corporations to fight homelessness, overturning felony voting rights' restrictions (go FL!), ecc., ecc....
- Okay Donald's party won a few lousy Senate races and governorships. This time.
- Despite his speeches about how his side won, Baby Donald's real feelings are showing when he got critical questions at one of his rare press conferences, so he decided to go full Stalinist and revoke the offending press critic's press pass in the White House pool, and had his minions accuse him of assaulting a female intern...the irony glares like a highly polished mirror.
- FL does good again by challenging its gerrymandered, tight races with recounts, for two important positions especially: Governor and Senator.
- Trump finally fires Sessions, leaving the Russian probe vulnerable. This continues our unstable state, but maybe his opposition has this? Probably the probe has enough depth that firing one isn't gonna stop it, and there are already stories being published about how Trump's replacement won't pass muster and may need to recuse himself too, for ties to the original Pres campaign.
- Trump is criticizing Macron this morning on the way to his trip to France, saying Macron's comments that Europe should build its own army,(Excuse me but isn't this what the Donald wanted about a half a year ago when he disrupted our alliances? Oh, no, he just wants Europe to pay us for use of our troops, how very Trump-like a solution..) possibly in the wake of problems with China and Russia, and the unstable nature of The present USA. Makes sense to me.
- Fox News has thrown out a few feelers of allowing some of its on-air talent to criticize the Baby-Man. they must be thinking about the future, and what Fox News will need to morph into once all its unhealthy baby-boomers inevitably die off.
- It's probably over boys. But the next two years will be stomach tightening until all settles. Go USA!
