Part 2 Why we vote against ourselves?

Part 2 of Why Americans Vote Against Their Own Interests

In Part 1, we discussed how the development of fundamentalism as a growth industry caused it to radically revamp its teachings of old. And how this made it attractive to the rich and powerful (justifying their position in society) and business (helping convince rank and file Americans that facts either didn’t matter or weren’t true).

Today we will take on the dumbing-down and of American journalism and its swerve to become a tool or the radical right wing.

Sinking Journalism

Beginning with the Nixon White House, the radical right has continuously attacked the press as part of its march to power. This was partly an effort to simply recalibrate the scales – moving the center of American philosophical thought to mid-stream conservatism, where the Radical Right didn’t seem so radical. It was also an attempt to discredit the press and thus reality. And more recently, part of this has been to make the press partisan. Several factors contributed to our modern partisan press.

The attack on the press has been long-lived, aggressive, and from many directions (political, commercial, and religious entities have all attacked the press). And the press, weary of this attack began to slowly crumble in a number of ways. Bit by bit, it found itself adding tag lines to articles to express outlandish or unsupportable propositions, so as not to be accused of bias. From here, it became less willing to investigate, much less report on, the factual realities necessary to sort out claims and counter-claims. This, of course, left more and more people on their own, needed to make decisions based on personal judgment and the pronouncements of the authority figures in their lives, rather than an understanding of facts and a dispassionate analysis of what those facts would portend.

This shift has occurred subtly, and for quite some time was denied by the press itself – both collectively in public, and by its membership in private. However, this shift was and is very real, and reinforces the American public’s inability to rational decisions.

As the news organizations began to view themselves as media (rather than press), they developed a need for eyeballs. Its first goal was no longer news, but volume and profitability – an idea that has been repeated hailed by all sort of leaders as good and inevitable. However, the ideal was lost, that the press had a higher calling than other profitable enterprises. And with this loss came a reduction in editorial standards.

Media should be entertaining and uncontroversial. It should take one’s mind off of the everyday stresses and strains of life – not force one to consider how to better live their life. Media is not art, nor press, nor anything else that is noble Media often caters to that which is most base in mankind – such as ourselves apart from other, who we look down upon in order feel better about ourselves. And lord knows that today, most American career’s, do not provide the positive sense of self that would limit our need seek these unfortunate forms of self-fulfillment.

The American press did not have to begin catering cravenly to corporate interests. The move toward being media, or entertainment, might have only been accompanied with a reduction of content, and a change of focus to the trivial – like coverage of the girls Spears.

Wall Street and corporate CEOs, however, found a significant financial interest in consolidating and enlarging any form of commercial enterprise – including media organizations. The American press had a number of (political) protections in place against control by hegemony of elitist money or political interests. However, pressures to consolidate news organizations coincided with the desires of certain business and religious leaders to gain political power.

Their drive for political power fit into their larger pattern of enriching themselves off of the work of others – and needing to remove the yoke of government to accomplish this goal. Once again, these interests depended on the denial of facts and reality. So, on the one hand, there were players desiring to profit off the consolidation of news/media resources, and on the others were players who could grant this wish who needed a way to stifle the open sharing of knowledge and reality.

Through the Regan and both Bush administrations, we have seen a constant flow of gifts to those who did or would own media. These gifts took the form of relaxing or even eliminating the long-standing controls that ensured that we had a fair and free press in America. In return, the new owners of media modified the message they broadcast to fit with the needs of religion and business. In most cases, this meant that they ignored, obscured, or misrepresented facts and reality in their ‘news’ reporting. And even this started in small ways.

But it has grown. Several months ago there was a move on the floor of the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against the Vice President. Even if this were not a very serious issue, the political drama that ensued should have been enough to ensure that the event headlined the nightly news and the front pages of every significant newspaper in the country.

In their typical fashion, the Republicans attempted to bottle up this move with parliamentary votes. They typically do this as long as they can on each and every issue that their corporate masters dislike. But, if this effort fails, and they may be held accountable to voters for, being among the minority to vote against a potentially popular issue/bill/maneuver, they will switch their vote so as not to endanger their ‘moderate’ reputation amongst their constituency. Safe voting is a tradition long cherished in D.C., but one that is greatly facilitated by an abetting press.

At the beginning of this impeachment vote, they had hopes that enough democrats would defect so that they could claim that a bi-partisan consensus disapproved of the move to impeach. But apparently they got cold feet, or felt that they could create embarrassment for the Democratic leadership by crossing over. So they began changing their votes to be in favor of impeachment and thereby ensure the passage of this maneuver.

The Democratic leadership (for reasons that most of us can’t understand) was afraid to impeach, and bent the rules of voting so that the leadership could caucus and then the representatives themselves could switch their votes to ensure that debate on the floor was tabled to a committee for ‘further discussion’.

The House started with Democrats on one side of the issue and Republicans on the other, then with no change to the circumstances or resolution, both sides crossed over (en masse) and voted for the other side’s position. The move to impeach was referred to committee, but not without historic political drama.

Again, even if this were a trivial issue, it should have been reported boldly just because crazy our representatives behavior was. But, if you didn’t watch live on C-Span, or pay attention to one of a few progressive blogs, you never heard or saw any coverage of this historic occasion. Not one network, not one significant paper, reported on the activities that occurred that day in the House of Representatives.

Clearly, the word was out: Don’t report on the impeachment issue. Similarly, bad news isn’t reported, and good news is hyped regarding the war in Iraq. Misinformation is reported about the both the victims and relief efforts from hurricane Katrina. The list goes on and on, but most of what is known as the MSM (mainstream media) continues in this fashion, and even taking fight against anyone who points it out.

Paralleling this change has been the rise of the political pundit (PP). The PP represents both a reaction to criticism by the radical right and part of the shift from news to media. What used to be a columnist with a point of view, has become a mouthpiece for pre-determined ‘talking-points’. This individual is occasionally directly (but discretely) on the payroll of some organization or interest group (including parts of the federal government), who want to sell a certain message to the American public. And even when the connection is less direct, there are book contracts, speaking engagements, career opportunities, and surprising high income potential for these individuals. It is exceedingly more lucrative to shill while feigning a base in sound thinking, than to present a position based on sound thinking – without an agenda.

It would be naive to suggest that such shenanigans have never before occurred within the American press. But what we see today far overwhelms any historic examples of misleading the public. In part, this is because the consolidation of ‘media’ has made it so much easier to control the message – keeping everyone on board and under control.

Today’s press is comprised in large degrees of entertainment and fiction masquerading is news. Industry, political elites, and fundamentalist leaders have convinced us to ignore facts take their word for things. To this sick mixture has been an effort to fundamentally control facts themselves, which will be our next post: Thinking Lost