General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm ready to give up on MSNBC and the lame stream media altogether.
While trying my best to tolerate Chris Matthews this evening on Hardball, I was reminded of the following Will Rogers quote:
"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
Chris Matthews has really become annoying to me lately where I'm finally ready to tune the entire media out. He starts his show this evening with his guests Chuck Todd and Howard Fineman discussing the unanticipated demise of Eric Cantor and what it means. After the usual rehashing from Todd and Howard the same thing that had been bantered about since last evening, Chris Matthews concluded that, he thinks it means that the electorate has anti-incumbant fever and that the politicians have not done enough to get anything done in Washington and all of them had better be concerned.
What Chris and Todd and Howard failed to mention is that one party and one party alone has been responsible for the 'obstructionist fever' which has plagued Washington DC since President Obama took office. I read a post here on DU earlier today, (but can't find it now even though there are several others) which linked to an article, (I believe it was the Washington Post dating back to Jan 2009) that described the GOP meeting that Eric Cantor was instrumental in helping to orchestrate which established the roadmap by which the GOP would seek to make sure that they obstructed every single effort that this President and the Democratic Congress attempted following the 2008 election; to include every bill, every piece of legislation, etc. etc. etc. And they lived up to their plan.
I have been interested in politics since elementary school when we were required to read the newspaper every evening in the 4th grade and be prepare to report on a current event the next day. You didn't always get called upon, but you had to be prepared in case you were, to be able to recite one international newsworthy event, one national event, and one local event. I participated on a debating team in Junior High and in High School.
I cannot recall another period in my lifetime over the past 50 some odd years, a time when our nation was facing a major crisis, (in this case the financial meltdown) and where one candidate had won by a landslide, and the minority party was plotting its comeback on a vision of driving the nation over a cliff. The Dems never behaved like this after they took a beating at the polls.
I'm tired of the lazy ass media with their "both party's are to blame" and "should be worried about an anti-incumbant revolt". Until MSNBC gets some political commentators on their network who are willing to call the spades "a spade" I'll pass on their programming. I hope when historians write about the demise of the main stream media in the future, and I'm sure that they will, I hope that they will be truthful in reporting that the media was too lazy and too busy chasing stardom and book deals to report on the real revolution that was taking place in the post 2008 election era and who the real terrorists were who were trying to destroy this country.
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)They could not have done it if Americans weren't For Sale.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)and they are stalled in the Senate when Senator Reid won't bring them to the floor. We are being bamboozled folks! They are ensuring that the Republicans get the Senate in November. They want that because then they get more viewers who are not for the Republicans and want to get the Senate back. It is all a game to them....unfortunately we are the ones living the real game.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)He never agrees with anybody i ever meet. The beltway bullshit kills me.
vt_native
(484 posts)streaming at : freespeech.org
or majority report w/Sam Seder : Majority.fm
or mikemalloy.com
or, http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)I can't imagine why.
Maddow's talking about the Republican war on the VA as I type.
elleng
(130,902 posts)That's no excuse to dump all of them, ESPECIALLY Rachel, who is brilliant.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)WWW supplies me with far more information then the M$M ever could or even wanted to.
kairos12
(12,861 posts)Contrary1
(12,629 posts)I can read what I want when I want. I don't need to listen to anyone else's outrage. I burned out before Olbermann did.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)KarenS
(4,075 posts)We just got tired of it all. We watch about a half hour of local news & a half hour of national news each evening.
I'm on the internet enough that I see all the big stories.
It's been better not seeing/hearing all the silly debates on every issue.
Peregrine Took
(7,413 posts)He is so strange....weeks on one side then all of sudden he will switch to the EXACT opposite position. Life is too short to follow a moran like him.
babylonsister
(171,065 posts)So start your own, or work to change it.
PS I saw some good programs on msnbc tonight.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Dan Rather, Phil Donahue and Keith Olbermann were fired. Ed Schultz was scheduled to cut viewers. No progressive who goes outside the media plantation meme survives. They may make us feel good, but they never get down to the real issues or they are fired. Many wondered why so-called liberals were interviewing RW guests, giving them airtime. The owners set that up to be sure that progressive listeners will hear than when they tune into their favorite host. It's not accident.
Think who owns the networks, and how they have become a wholly owned venue of big corporations. Matthews and most of his contemporaries got their big break doing what?
Shredding the Democratic POTUS 24/7 to denigrate the Democrats and help get the Gingrich majority voted in that has still not stopped doing us grave harm. They promoted the first Gulf War and the Iraq War. They didn't just report the news, they cheered. They have been caught editing and outright lying about events many times. Or suddenly finding out that the news they had been given to report in advance was glaringly false, like the USSC decision on the ACA. There's no reality there.
For the most part, the anchors or pundits get their job from family or associations and have no qualifications to be there otherwise. That's why all their gaffes and arrogance is excused and they are not fired.
It's nepotism and or cronyism. The only thing they have going for them is their wardrobe and hair style as they are safely cocooned within the monied class. Last time I looked at the figures before they're scrubbed all of them make over $100M a year in salary. That buys a lot of loyalty and silence.
Too many people think that the way their anchors look with their perfect hair and clothes and language, means wisdom, virtue, stability or intelligence. They get their talking points delivered and they repeat them within a very narrow framework that still leads to what their owners want the people to hear.
I quit cable in disgust and horror in mid-2008 watching Palin's KKK rallies. Growing up in the Civil Rights era of the sixties, it was too deja vu.
Was convinced to hook the cables up for the victory speech in Chicago and the inauguration. I also grew up being taught about the same things and being aware since I was in elementary school. And didn't stop being involved in real life politics most of my life. Other than FSTV on occasion, I won't watch anything on cable. Vast wasteland is right...
Squinch
(50,949 posts)ConnorMarc
(653 posts)Couldn't stand the f--kry any more.
Chuck Tood often makes me sake as well.
The rest of the programming is good, until we get to Andrea Mitchell, another establishment centrist, don't watch her show either.
The rest is good, then we get to Chris, who's very entertaining and usually has the issues right, but sometimes goes off the wall, like what you're suggesting tonight.
I watch O'Rellly daily, so I can keep up with the far RW radicals. He's the only one I can tolerate. Used to be able to, and even semi-liked Megahn Kelly, but since she took that spot she's become the female Hannity, aka the worst of the worst.
I watch the media as a gauge to what's going on.
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)Ahahahahahaha! Who knew???
Cable and network news is how they catapult the propaganda.
kimbutgar
(21,148 posts)I was watching my dvr of the Ed show ( love Mr Eric though)and then turned on Tweety. He made this comment about both sides not trying to get things done. I actually caught myself screaming at the TV saying "WTF"! I realized that tweety is one of worst examples of corporate media. Lying for the narrative to fit the corporate agenda. There have been countless evidence of Democrats introducing legislation to help Americans and getting filibustered by the rethugs. Daytime msnbc is hard to watch nowadays. The ratings would go up if they replaced Chris with John Fuglestang. Let Chris go so he can become the resident liberal at CNN or Faux.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)are my top favorites on that channel. I like Ed and Rev. Al's passion, and how they both are straightforward and get to the point quickly. Lawrence O'Donnell and Alex Wagner are also cool. But I think the other shows IMO are meh...Hardball has a bit too much false equivalence like you said. He has on Chuck Todd too much. I used to like The Cycle, but it has gotten so gossipy that I don't tune in as often as I used to. And Rachel's show includes too many unnecessary details in the stories, so it takes almost forever for her to get to her point.
I was pretty upset to hear that Karen Finney's show got cancelled, though. I always looked forward to watching her during weekend afternoons when I'm having brunch and there is nothing else to watch. Her show was underrated and never got too much recognition around DU. Now that she's gone, I don't have much of a reason to watch MSNBC on weekends anymore. Both Steve K.'s and MHP's shows are good, but they air waaaay too early for me; they air at 5AM and 7AM out West. And I damn sure have better things to do than watching LockUp or Caught on Camera.
valerief
(53,235 posts)The_Commonist
(2,518 posts)Those shows do not exist to inform you. They exist to agitate you. That way you walk through your day in a state of anxiety, making you that much more likely to be susceptible to the charms of the advertisers. And not necessarily Tweety's or MSNBC's advertisers, but ANY advertisers. The system wants you to salve the wound of living in a shameful and shameless society by purchasing more crap that you probably don't need anyway. Profits to the 1%. Ideally, you'll put it all on your MoneyCard meaning you're borrowing money you don't have from the 1% to pay for that crap you don't need, and then paying them back with interest.
Tweety, and all those other squawkers, are an important component in the business plan of America Inc. I don't think I've watched any of those kind of "news" shows since Roger Mudd was on Meet the Press, and yet I'm still more informed than all or most of my friends. Maybe I'm more informed BECAUSE I don't watch that crap. Pull the plug. You'll be better off.
Cha
(297,220 posts)The_Commonist
(2,518 posts)There's Hannity/O'Reilly Brainwash and there's the slightly milder Matthews/Scarborough Brainwash (that one's coffee flavored). I know this won't be popular, and might kick in some people's tribal prejudices, but Rachel/Ed Brainwash serves the exact same purpose as the harsher versions. As does the Hartmann/Malloy Brainwash. That purpose is to suck you into the system. Olbermann Brainwash got a little too hot and burned the roofs of people's mouths, so they had to take it off the flame to cool down for a while. I'm sure it will be back in a New and Improved! form before much longer.
While the system certainly likes its cogs well greased and pliable, unthinking and constantly complaining, it knows that not everyone likes the same flavor. Some people like Red and some people like Blue. A few people even like Green. There are a few malcontents that refuse to take their medicine, but they don't really matter, as for the most part they don't have any balance on their MoneyCard.
So yes, they exist to brainwash you. To brainwash you into Left/Right tribalism, the Us/Them divisive dichotomy. It's all to keep the money flowing up to the top in the form of interest payments, and a distraction from the fact that the problem is really Up/Down.
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)I'm going to have to borrow that, I'll pay you back with interest of course
Nationalize the Fed!
Why ISN'T the PUBLIC currency a PUBLIC utility?
The_Commonist
(2,518 posts)...that our money system is privately owned?
randys1
(16,286 posts)And several others are good on msnbc, if we didnt have msnbc we would then be in a real world of shit
Ed is a fake liberal, one Presidents day he was working on tv and complaining that working people had too many days off and he was mad he had to work and we didnt
think about how much he makes, what he does (please dont call it work god dammit)
ed is bullshit, sorry
I know he is good on working people and union stuff, but when it came to him having to work on a day when working people didnt, he cried like a little baby...
I was furious, I called the show and the producer told me to shut up and hung up on me
He is a phony, plain and simple
Response to politicaljunkie41910 (Original post)
Corruption Inc This message was self-deleted by its author.
mike_c
(36,281 posts)Seriously. On rare occasions, like once every few years, I'll turn the TV on in a hotel room, just out of curiosity. I have NEVER lasted more than about half an hour of channel surfing before being absolutely appalled at what passes for "normal" broadcast entertainment in America. It creeps me out to think that I'm probably one of the only people on my block not glued to the tube each night.
My partner, who gave up television five years ago when she moved here, recently said something similar after visiting family in Texas-- first, she too turned on her hotel TV and found its programming asinine, then she remarked that her relatives have a flat screen in just about every room, and they're ALWAYS on when folks are awake. When they come home from somewhere else, the very first thing someone does is turn on the nearest television.
That is addiction to stoopid, right there.