keep_left
keep_left's JournalRegarding social media (an excerpt from another post)...
https://democraticunderground.com/100216677624#post17That's why chuds get so angry about being deplatformed for their TOS violations. It's so much easier to blast your ill-informed opinions all over social media, which you did nothing to build, than to do the actual work of creating your own site. That is probably the key to the appeal of social media for the "wreckers": minimum effort, maximum chaos.
I think what the OP is getting at is correct, but they are seeing it with rose-colored glasses.
There was terrible racism and sexism back then. Of course, one need not even mention the treatment of LGBT people--doctors considered homosexuality a "disease". But one thing that was different was that the pronouns "we" and "us" still existed. The country hadn't gone down the road of the Thatcher aphorism "there is no such thing as society". And the US was able to accomplish great things like the Apollo Program. There was a great deal of hope because of everything from the Great Society to the JFK mental health initiatives. Of course, by the early '70s, most of that had fallen apart.
There is a totally-overlooked book that discusses a lot of these issues in its first chapters: Is The American Dream Killing You? by Paul Stiles. It's almost certainly out of print, but it should be available at most libraries. It's worth a read.
Oh, yeah, they're out there. You find them more on the internet...
...than you do in real life. So they have their extremist Reddit groups, and before that, their websites. Social media really turned things up to 11, because you don't have to drive traffic to a website like you did in the late '90s; there's now millions, maybe more, browsing social media and looking for the latest way to be extreme. It acts like an extremism amplifier. EWTN is sort of the diving board into the pool of extremism within Catholicism.
Many radtrads look at it like a competition to be the most extreme. The younger ultra-radtrads absolutely hate EWTN for being...too liberal. From there, they move on to (Ir)-Relevant Radio, then to Ave Maria Radio, and on to various online-only programming, and then they search out local radtrad Latin Mass "societies". Most large cities have them. Cradle Catholics--who are generally averse to radtradism--often call them "Lexus Masses" because many of the parishioners are quite well-off and commute in from the suburbs to a usually little-used former geographical parish that has been repurposed into a Latin-Mass-only church. The priest comes in on Sunday, says a couple radtrad Masses, and then locks the place up until next week.
The latest thing with the radtrads is to leave Catholicism for Eastern Orthodoxy (e.g. Rod Dreher), and if that's not traddy or "based" enough, they join ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia).
Unfortunately, it is a position held unapologetically by radtrad Catholic...
...radio, TV, and internet sources. And I should say, not even the ultra-radtrad types (the ones obsessed with Latin Masses and women wearing mantillas). Even "mainstream" radtrad and conservative Catholic outfits like EWTN and (Ir)-Relevant Radio push a hard anti-contraception line 24/7. They have even invented their own thought-terminating clichés, like "the contraceptive mentality" and "being open to life".
You may be right that the random "normie" on the street would think these people insane, but that doesn't seem to dissuade the zealots running EWTN (or their audience).
LOL, "Sunday Talking About Stuff Show"...
...that's been one of Tom Tomorrow's best memes for years now. "Fred's Typical Ohio Diner" is also a nice touch; we've all seen way too much coverage of the "I'm economically anxious--definitely NOT a bigot--Ohio diner voter" demographic.
Her book isn't just doing badly, it's a total flop.
Apparently she's done enough to piss off the Drumpf fans and Q idiots that they won't give her the time of day. That's not too surprising since she's a Never Trumper (which itself is not surprising considering the things Trump said about her father). But it appears that all the usual "think" tanks that inflate conservative book sales with bulk buys are taking a pass on Meghan's memoir. They're a little too cucked by the possible blowback from Drumpf supporters to risk it.
About 20 years ago, "The Nation" did a story about this.
It was called "Why the Left Gives Too Little To Too Many" or something like that. The writer basically said we're using the paltry number of think tanks we do have to solve specific problems (child hunger, etc.) rather than equipping them to do battle with the lavishly-funded institutions run by billionaire sugar daddies. For God's sake (pun intended), even the Catholic radtrads have their own K Street outfit, a "think" tank/"Church" run by Opus Dei!
The most obvious solution would be for the labor unions to pool their financial resources and then play the long game. We need people to oppose the talking heads that are always available to the news shows from outfits like Heritage, AEI, etc.
Gaetz' tweet is chock full of alt-right MRA/PUA memes. RooshV shit.
All of it. I'm surprised he didn't put in the obligatory swipe at "purple-haired HR SJW lesbos blah blah blah", but I guess he ran out of characters. Or maybe he's just saving that for the next tweetstorm. This is the kind of crap you saw on Reddit or RooshV's "Return of Kings" (now defunct) just a couple of years ago. It's now mainstreamed enough that our political "leaders" tweet it out like it's accepted discourse, because at least for those who agree with him, it is.
Yes, EWTN as well as their low-rent versions like Ave Maria Radio...
...are some of the worst garbage I've ever heard, especially when it comes to their "news" programming. Their listeners would be better served by living in a cave without access to any news at all. They would truly be better informed if they did so.
These POS networks are funded by reactionary "businessmen" like Tom Monaghan (Domino's Pizza founder). There was an ill-fated network in the late '90s called "CatholicFamilyRadio" that got a few of those billionaires together to bankroll a national rollout of their brand. They claimed they would topple people like Rush Limbaugh and get everyone listening to far-right Catholic radio. They cheaped out on the "talent", hiring a bunch of third-stringers like Dan Lungren and Al Kresta (a Catholic Limbaugh clone). The programming was so awful that they were out of business in a year and a half, burning through something like $150 million.
Their "news" division. Raymond Arroyo, in particular, who is the news director and the anchor...
...for The World Over. His guests are always from right-wing "think" tanks or the most reactionary Church officials. I have never seen as much as a single exception. Their other news programs are almost as bad as TWO; these include a nightly news program (which recently had an unexplained departure of many staff members), a copycat version of The View, and a weekly show obsessed with abortion and the "contraceptive mentality", whatever that is.
Pretty much every program on EWTN is reactionary in one way or another; whether they're pushing Latin Mass nonsense or school vouchers, there's always something bad. There is very little that is not objectionable on EWTN. There's always a subtext.
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