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PCIntern

(25,344 posts)
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 10:09 AM Oct 2013

I lay the blame for the influence of the so-called Tea Party on the MSM including

but not limited to assholes like Tweety, all the Network Anchors and Congressional Correspondents, all the local reporters who tacitly accepted the mantras of the Tea-Party-John-Bircher-KKK as somehow inclusive and part of the so-called (again) Democratic Process. When these racist, misogynist creeps re-raised their ugly heads, those of us who lived through the Fifties and Sixties immediately recognized their policies as those of what used to be described as the Radical Right. We in the Progressive Movement, the REAL Progressive movement, fought against these people on a daily basis through the Post McCarthy Era, the Civil Rights Era, and the Vietnam War Era.

"Better Dead Than Red" was the LEAST of what was on their car bumpers. DU rules and good taste prevent me from posting some of the other sayings which adorned their vehicles. They were the most hateful group you could imagine but then, for the most part, they held their tongues in public, although you could read in their eyes and faces exactly what they thought.

But now, they just come out and say whatever they please, and for YEARS, the MSM just blandly reported it in that Chuck Todd-like manner of "this is what was said - I'm not commenting upon its validity or sanity, that is for you to decide." Well it only sabotaged the entire country and if the Democrats had not grown up and learned Solidarity at the last moment, we would be in REALLY HORRIFYING trouble, not just the major-league trouble that we are in now.

All along so many of us were screaming that they were the rebranded Birchers, the Klansmen without the hoods, the willing executioners. And so few listened. And you know what? It will happen again in another Cycle.

32 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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I lay the blame for the influence of the so-called Tea Party on the MSM including (Original Post) PCIntern Oct 2013 OP
Yep. Just yesterday there was a post here about a Fox talking head calling the Tea Party .... Scuba Oct 2013 #1
The death of the "Fairness Doctrine" BumRushDaShow Oct 2013 #2
BINGO. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. calimary Oct 2013 #14
I've heard Jamaal510 Oct 2013 #22
PLUS A BRAZILLION! nt Enthusiast Oct 2013 #24
And don't think those who worked to kill the FD didn't know what the results would be. Dark n Stormy Knight Oct 2013 #20
You bet. This morning Ted Cruz was ALL OVER the MSM airwaves. Triana Oct 2013 #3
This Saviolo Oct 2013 #13
Me too.......nt Enthusiast Oct 2013 #25
It also did not help that our Party's political leadership reacted to the Bircher Bluenorthwest Oct 2013 #4
Right you are 100%! Nt PCIntern Oct 2013 #5
Very true. Thanks for saying it. n/t QC Oct 2013 #10
yes! lack of backbone. nt ellenrr Oct 2013 #29
Great OP! K & R. freshwest Oct 2013 #6
I remember those times well. pangaia Oct 2013 #7
It's interesting to note how differently the MSM treated Teabaggers vs. OWS. Marr Oct 2013 #8
sounds like big Cahoots to me. Whisp Oct 2013 #9
Not just the media. Enthusiast Oct 2013 #27
I blame Tea Party inluence on talk radio and Fox News ... JEFF9K Oct 2013 #11
The TP would have fizzled out without big bucks from the Koch bros. Think John Birch Society. Hamlette Oct 2013 #12
Compromise with Tea Party? ewagner Oct 2013 #15
It's called pay to play washnwmn Oct 2013 #16
Very well said. Thank you LoisB Oct 2013 #17
There is something to MSNBC polynomial Oct 2013 #18
K&R! Cha Oct 2013 #19
Good point! The M$M enables these dangerous idiots Rex Oct 2013 #21
The US media is an absolute failure. Enthusiast Oct 2013 #23
The MSM is a business. It sells audiences to advertisers; always has. KurtNYC Oct 2013 #30
+1,000 malaise Oct 2013 #26
Absolutely correct. They are so careful not to point out anything that may imply racist attitudes lostincalifornia Oct 2013 #28
They cover the Tea Party because the audience for cable news is KurtNYC Oct 2013 #31
Excellent point... PCIntern Oct 2013 #32
 

Scuba

(53,475 posts)
1. Yep. Just yesterday there was a post here about a Fox talking head calling the Tea Party ....
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 10:15 AM
Oct 2013

... the President's "negotiating partner".

Unbelievable.

BumRushDaShow

(127,298 posts)
2. The death of the "Fairness Doctrine"
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 10:18 AM
Oct 2013

was the first shot in a war against what little gains in equality have occurred in America. There are many liberal wealthy who rightly choose to spend money helping others versus buying media outlets to get our message out there to the masses like the RW thugs, but there needs to be more of them willing to step up to the plate to provide a megaphone.

calimary

(80,693 posts)
14. BINGO. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 12:58 PM
Oct 2013

This is what started it.

During reagan.

You know, I wish to hell chris matthews would shut the fuck up about his damn book. Every time I see an image of ronald reagan I want to throw up. That's where it all started. The reagan era was where all this SHIT that we're going through now - STARTED. You look at ANYBODY (or some organization) beyond and beneath and behind the upstarts and invariably it'll be somebody who (or organization that) got started during the 80s under the cover reagan provided.

When he came onto the national scene I feared he was the most dangerous man in America because of the nice soft gentle warm-fuzzy and presumably "harmless" way he could sell these shit concepts to a gullible, unsuspecting public.

Jamaal510

(10,893 posts)
22. I've heard
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 01:51 AM
Oct 2013

plenty of folks on the left call Reagan a "liberal" and say that he wouldn't fit in the GOP today, but I really don't know about that. To me, he would fit in perfectly within today's GOP because in addition to doing away with the Fairness Doctrine and waging a war, he was the chief architect of trickle-down economics. In fact, he even went after the Black Panther Party once he saw it was gaining influence. It's no wonder why most of today's Republicans worship the guy.

Dark n Stormy Knight

(9,760 posts)
20. And don't think those who worked to kill the FD didn't know what the results would be.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 11:58 PM
Oct 2013

The RW may be evil, but they do know how to get things done, even if it takes decades.

 

Triana

(22,666 posts)
3. You bet. This morning Ted Cruz was ALL OVER the MSM airwaves.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 11:28 AM
Oct 2013

Dangerous extremists like Cruz ought to be shunned by the media. Instead, they are given major platforms upon which to spew their dangerous rhetoric to the masses. The media adores Citizens United because they're making BILLIONS in profits off of it.

They are absolutely - along with their goddamned lazy, disingenuous false equivalency arguments - to blame.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
4. It also did not help that our Party's political leadership reacted to the Bircher
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 11:41 AM
Oct 2013

rebirth by 'reaching across the aisle' to them, preaching bipartisanship as the prime objective rather than the good of the nation.
The calm legitimizing responses to Republican extremism came from Congress and from the White House as well as from the media.

pangaia

(24,324 posts)
7. I remember those times well.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 12:05 PM
Oct 2013

There is a thread somewhere here at DU, I think..or maybe a link to elsewhere, expressing the opinion that the real downfall began with Nixon and the Saturday Night Massacre. I saw this before I realized that TODAY is the 40th anniversary of that day. Nixon's paranoia, and 'birth' of Roger Ailes. etc..

 

Marr

(20,317 posts)
8. It's interesting to note how differently the MSM treated Teabaggers vs. OWS.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 12:19 PM
Oct 2013

As news stories, that is.

Ten hate radio fans get together and staple tea bags to their hats, and it's HUGE NEWS that all the corporate outlets must cover and promote. They ignored OWS until it was literally spilling over into their own lots.

 

Whisp

(24,096 posts)
9. sounds like big Cahoots to me.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 12:23 PM
Oct 2013

whoever is backing the teaparty either has big stakes in media or has big friends in media.

This is no accident, that's for sure - how these vile things sprouted almost overnight.

Enthusiast

(50,983 posts)
27. Not just the media.
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 06:33 AM
Oct 2013

The police and the FBI. The police engaged in a nation wide coordinated attack on Occupy. This was no coincidence.

Occupy was criticizing the Wall Street criminals, they had to be silenced.

JEFF9K

(1,935 posts)
11. I blame Tea Party inluence on talk radio and Fox News ...
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 12:26 PM
Oct 2013

... which have given them thousands of hours of free false advertising.

Hamlette

(15,388 posts)
12. The TP would have fizzled out without big bucks from the Koch bros. Think John Birch Society.
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 12:29 PM
Oct 2013

The Birchers were the nut jobs when I was young. They were well funded by Koch daddy (and others). Birchers are best known for anti-communism but they were also small government, low taxes, Christian values, personal freedom, (translation: don't give my money to blacks or other low lifes) just like the TP today. They had a pretty good hold on the GOP (and the Mormon church) in the 50s and 60s.

Finally there was an "Emperor's New Clothes" moment led by Buckley. The "moderates" in the GOP, by which I mean the group that would have just tortured dirty hippies, not killed them, led the crusade to purge the GOP of the JBS.

Maybe it will happen again.

(Yes, I know the JBS is still around but not influential, prolly just morphed into the TP. When they lost their signature issue, communism and the ending of the cold war, they were neutered. Maybe when the ACA becomes widely accepted and that issue goes away, the TP will slither off too.)


Here's hoping.

(I had to look the JBS up on Wiki because I was young and all I remember is my mom would not buy a certain brand of bread because it somehow profited the JBS or its founder who I remembered as Welsh. Looking for the name of the bread I went to Wiki and learned it was a "Koch enterprise" just as the TP is today. Couldn't find the name of the bread)

ewagner

(18,964 posts)
15. Compromise with Tea Party?
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 01:00 PM
Oct 2013

One of my first bosses in politics told me that compromise in government was an absolute necessity...


except

NEVER, he said, "NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO YOU COMPROMISE WITH EVIL OR IGNORANCE!"

He said to call them what they were even if it cost your job...because evil and ignorance cannot be tolerated in the public sphere.

washnwmn

(28 posts)
16. It's called pay to play
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 01:02 PM
Oct 2013

While working at a small newspaper, I learned early that the big advertisers, the regular advertisers got the attention, stories, and mentions, and that's the way it's played, in TV, radio and where ever possible. So any issue that can be turned into a major commercial event, you know they're going to milk it for all they can get and for as long as they can, from Michael Jackson's death to Congressional gridlock.

Which is why I generally recommend checking out stories on the web, and alternative TV networks. After a while you really question MSM and where they're coming from, it's easier to filter the nonsense, or just change the channel.

1 more helpful fact: advertising exists not to inform, not to be cute, not to be truthful or honest, but simply to sell you something. Even kids get it once you inform them, and are not wanting everything they see advertised.

polynomial

(750 posts)
18. There is something to MSNBC
Sun Oct 20, 2013, 01:09 PM
Oct 2013

It’s a deep connection to money, MSNBC with anchors like Andrea Mitchell who is the wife of former Federal Reserve chairman Allen Greenspan the primer money master that created the trillions in the basic deficit. Imagine being the wife of this guy and knowing the trillion dollar deals that transpired over the decades besides knowing the insider trading on Wall Street.

Besides Bloomberg should have icons like McDonalds yellow golden arches, Bloomberg should be green arches. He is just loving it. Cannot understand how New Yorkers can be so stupid to let this guy be mayor he makes something like six billion in royalties annually for stock market special operations. Bloomberg supports the daily trading sharks. Yikes.

Then you have sister channel CNBC business with stock bonds money bloated twenty four seven. Especially Rick Santelli is an editor for the CNBC Business News network. He is also credited with being a catalyst in the early formation of the Tea Party movement via a statement he made on February 19, 2009. Do a Google to wiki this guy is political ugly. He reminds me of that puppet Alf from another planet.

What surprises me is why they are not revealed to the public a lot more. I just love when Chuck Todd goes into that conversation about making sausage. Pretty sure many of you have heard the expression about a political scenario where the politics was making sausage. Talk about messaging to his party followers in secret code all the while messaging the political calculus to those who they want to.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
21. Good point! The M$M enables these dangerous idiots
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 12:02 AM
Oct 2013

to go on to ruin the economy and then gives them a bonus check! If only we had a real M$M that was unbiased toward their paymasters. SIGH.

Enthusiast

(50,983 posts)
23. The US media is an absolute failure.
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 06:27 AM
Oct 2013

An absolute failure.

Something has to be done about it. This is a crisis.

KurtNYC

(14,549 posts)
30. The MSM is a business. It sells audiences to advertisers; always has.
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 08:17 AM
Oct 2013

WE are what is being sold.

Many of us are obsessed with MSM and MSM coverage of events but it is like watching a football game as narrated by the other team's cheerleaders. More of us should turn it off and let the MSM continue to die the slow death it has been pursuing since the advent of the internet and social media.

The one-to-many model is dead! Long live news aggregation! (many-to-many)

lostincalifornia

(3,639 posts)
28. Absolutely correct. They are so careful not to point out anything that may imply racist attitudes
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 06:36 AM
Oct 2013

within the tea party movement.

Contrast that to when george wallace was running. They did their job and reported his actual views on race.

An example was the free pass ron paul got. Even Bill Maher gave him one, until paul was on his show, and told him that the Civil War should never have never happened. His argument was that slavery would have dealt with itself, and didn't need a war. I remember watching that show, and Maher looking shocked because he did not realize ron paul's actual mindset. He was following all those wonderful talking points that the superficial media loves to repeat without further background into the real views of who they are covering

The MSM is as responsible for the Iraq war as the bush administration was

KurtNYC

(14,549 posts)
31. They cover the Tea Party because the audience for cable news is
Mon Oct 21, 2013, 08:25 AM
Oct 2013

in general: mature, white, male.

OWS got slammed by the same dynamics -- the young people in OWS are NOT the audience for cable news.

Another truism of American media that screws us -- liberals will watch conservative shows but conservatives will not watch liberal shows (which is why almost none exist). That makes conservative-leaning shows the one size fits all solution to dwindling media revenue. Even Jon Stewart is basically a show about watching Fox News obsessively.

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