The Daily Placebo

Worth the once over

2005-10-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172518,00.html

Work in Progress

2005-04-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

I have an interview to be conducted before I finish my religious piece. However, I came across this editorial in a local paper and thought I'd just post it for the time being. I've kept the author anonymous.

Political right demonizes Christians who dissent too

As a lifelong Christian, I bitterly resent being labeled as against people of faith merely because I disagree with some positions taken by other Americans - Christian and non-Christian - on several issues. I resent being demonized.
I am pained by the uncharitable tone in which U.S. Sen. Bill Frist and the Christian right have framed debate. Never in my 50 years have I been made to feel as though many fellow countrymen considered me as an enemy, instead of a dissenting member of the body politic.
Abraham Lincoln quoted Jesus: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." While divisive tactics may achieve short-term goals, I beg them to consider their long-term damage to the country.

God's Politics

2005-04-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

I am currently writing a piece on the face of religion, particulary Christianity after reading God's Politics by Jim Wallis. I thought it would be best if I set out some of my own personal notes as a precursor for the piece. As well, I thought I should give some praise for the ways in which Wallis' book does such an excellent job at dispelling the myths and claims of religion within the political spectrum. Below I've listed some specific passages and sidenotes that I felt best captured the book:

"In a political and media culture that squeezes everything into only two options of Left and Right, religious people must refuse the ideological categorization and actually build bridges between people of goodwill in both liberal and conservative camps." (7)

"Someday, a smart Democrat will figure out how both pro-choice and pro-life people could join together in concrete measures to dramatically reduce the abortion rate by focusing on teen pregnancy, adoption reform, and real support of low-income women." (11)

"The religious Right's grip on public debates about values has been driving in part by a media that continues to give airtime to the loudest religious voices, rather than the most representative, leaving millions of Christians and other people of faith without a say in the values debate." (18)

"In the end, private faith becomes a merely cultural religion providing the assurance of righteousness for people just like us." (34)

"The religious Right is still an important voter base for the Republican Party, but the political discussion is now more often about how the party can keep its conservative evangelical base by appeasing it with symbols and rhetocial commitments." (64)

"Conventional wisdom suggests that the antidote to religious fundamentalism is more secularism. But that is a very big mistake. The best response to bad religion is better religion, not secularism." (66)

"Secular fundamentalists make a fundamental mistake. They believe that the separation of church and state ought to mean the separation of faith from public life." (70)

"The political Left and Right continue to war with each other, but the truth is that these false ideological choices themselves have run their course and become dysfunctional." (76)

"President Abraham Lincoln, unlike most American presidents, pushed the nation to look at its own sins in a time of crisis, to dig deep into our spiritual traditions and ask whether we are on God's side, rather than the other way around." (97)

"Patriotism means loving your country and its best ideals, enough even to oppose it when it is grievously wrong" (109)

"Instead of being embarrassed by the revelation that the chief justification for preemptive war was false, the Bush administration acted as if it didn't matter" (112)

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more"-Isiah 2:4

"Perhaps of special concern for Christians is the President's increasingly religious language to justify American war and domination. Do we really believe that America and George W. Bush have been divinely appointed to root out evil in the world?" (119)

"For when the White House waxes theological, its theology will be viewed as representative of the church" (141)

"We should always remember that (Bush) is Commander in Chief, not theologian in chief"-Richard Land, Southern Baptist Convention

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. It's easy to villify the enemy and claim that we are on the side of God and good. But repentance is better."-Thomas Jefferson

"A pacifism that objects to war without having answers to the very real threats of horrific violence...isn't very helpful in today's world." (159)

"In the War on Terrorism-the myth of redemptive violence is again being used to try to prove to us how violence can save us" (167)

"The American occupation of Iraq now costs about $1 billion per week. Yet American religious leaders cannot succeed in getting our government to approve $5 billion for child care over five years." (193)

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is a nation approaching death."- MLK, jr.

"We should remind ourselves that 'love thy neighbor' is not advice: it is a command."-Bono

"The cost of five days of war in Iraq would have eliminated illiteracy worldwide." (200)

"Micah is right; Rumsfeld is wrong."-anonymous major general in British Army

"Wealthy Christians talk about the poor but have no friends who are poor. So they merely speculate on the reasons for their condition, often placing the blame on the poor themselves." (211)

"Poverty will not be overcome, or even significantly reduced, until the debate over poverty is set free from its ideological captivity." (223)

"What is liberal or conservative would be replaced by what's right and what works. It is a solution-based approach to overcoming poverty, not a blame-based debate." (225)

"Affluence often helps to mask moral and spiritual poverty." (237)

"Military spending ballooned to $420 billion, well beyond the biggest military budgets at the height of the Cold War. However, most of the increases are not directed toward counteracting new threats from terrorism, but for weapons systems that are guaranteed to leave no defense contractor behind." (242)

"According to our Christian ethic, we're supposed to love God, love each other, and help take care of our poor."-Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama

"People hate this kind of talk. Raw truth is never popular."-Amos 5:10

"These politicians who utters the words of religion and faith, yet who supported the exclusion of the poor, deserve to be called hypocrites." (248)

"When President Bush informed the nation that remaining in Iraq next year will cost $87 billion, many of those who will actually pay that bill were unable to watch. They had already been put to bed by their parents."-David Firestone

"According to the Census Bureau, the number of people in poverty increased by 3 million from 2001 to 2003 and is now 35.9 million people in 7.6 million families, including 12.9 million children." (250)

"While incomes rose in the Bush years, most of the gain has been limited to the wealthy. After adjusting for inflation, median after the tax family income dropped 3.3% from 2000 to 2002."-Business Week

"The 3 richest people in the world control more wealth than all 600 million people in the world's poorest countries." (279)

"Left-wing political correctness, which now includes a rigid litmus test of being pro-choice on abortion, really breaks down here. And the conventional liberal political wisdom that conservatives on abortion are conservatives on everything else is just plain wrong." (297)

"The Democrats could affirm that they are still the pro-choice party but then also say what most Americans instinctively believe: that the abortion rate in America is much too high for a good and healthy society that respects both women and children." (299)

"Cynicism really comes out of despair, but the antidote to cynicism is not optimism, but action. And action is finally born out of hope." (363)

"One thing I've learn after many years of social activism is that you have to learn to enjoy the world while you're busy trying to change it." (365)

Political Placebo

2005-04-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
-Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan

Our choices and traditions as Americans, that which defines the distinct capabilities of our democratic institution are a remarkable achievement never to be taken lightly. The words of our forefathers proclaimed this to be a land built upon the pillars of truth and unequaled strength to ensure the purest pursuit of one's own happiness. For as much as we may have stumbled, collectively we have thrived.
Over 228 years building with one another through strife and struggle has erected a solid wall that protects and harbors together our deeply coveted ideals. However, much like the needle-sized hole in a dam, our walls have visibly and emotionally portrayed our vulnerabilities. Following the results of both local and national election levels lately, pundits have been quick to cradle the new concept of a divided America. Specifically, television, as a source of political information, is fostering an environment that relies on information designed solely to keep the public’s political awareness at a minimum. In turn, partisanship overrides an objective look at politics, and caters to particular political ideals.
Unfortunately, the pallbearers from both sides of the political landscape hold the heaviest burdens. Filmmaker and liberal advocate Michael Moore was quick to refer to the red states siding with President Bush in the 2004 Presidential election as being constituents inhabiting "Jesus Land". Never to be outshined, opposing partisan voices lent a hand in labeling our Democrat-leaning states, or our blue states as "The United States of Canada". Not to dismiss actions, but Moore and the extreme voices from both sides of the political argument have their own agendas intertwined within their works. Rarely is the attempt made to broadcast their opinions under a veil of objectivity.
Instead, the ever so omnipresent network news anchors have already filled that position. Many of our network anchors have spent years hiding their political bias behind the guise and false pretense of network objectivity. The role of the network anchor has quietly diminished from the head source of information to no more than head cheerleader. Experts in the media field refer to such silent bias as “advocacy journalism”. More specifically, such journalism arises from the invisible driving force of bias delivering today’s news. Many media members may present the facade of being an objective source for information, but their notion of working toward the common good takes a back seat to being behind the advocacy of the cause. Too often, these individuals are after the common good only as long as it fits their definition.
The hard truth in the matter is that objectivity is not the big-ticket item a primetime slot needs to put people in front of their television screens. It does sound like a crazed notion to those that grew up with the familiarity of steadfast network figures such as Walter Cronkite. The reality these people fail to recognize is that the media relies unevenly moreso than ever before upon money, and their finances stem directly from their ratings. The financial numbers speak for themselves in the discordance between unbiased political information and the effects produced within the electorate. As detailed in separate studies by both the Brennan Center and Annenberg Public Policy Institute, over $350 million is usually spent on political issues ads over a typical 20-month period. Of those advertisements, more than 60 percent of them are categorized as “attack ads” due to their disputatious nature. Such findings reveal that little public knowledge is being factored into the televised political scenario.
Equally discordant results stem from the 1996 Telecommunications Act, designed in part to grant free public access for political figures. However, the law fails to uphold the accessible nature of the information being presented within the very same industry. The $70 billion dollars worth of public airwaves that our broadcasters steer within the political climate in turn allows for a total 0 free hours for candidates. More specifically, money circumvents the televised political argument within the arena of public thought because finances override objectivity. As for the media heads, over $4 million dollars is allocated per year to have TV broadcasters and the National Association of Broadcasters lobby for specific issues and causes. Our news outlets, originally intended as a tool of objective information, have been led astray. Implications abound, the nature of the televised political argument is rooted in the money spent to reach out to constituents.
In the summer of 2004, the Pew Research Center examined the polarized state of media news networks and their viewers. Amongst their findings, Pew noted the large discrepancy in network preferences between opposing political parties. Fox News Channel held a 41 to 29 percent difference in Republican versus Democrat demographic. Equally, CNN showed a 44 percent Democrat finding as compared to 25 percent of their viewers identifying themselves as Republican. Such findings indicate a distorted political perspective within the electorate as to obtaining news. Our network allegiance is becoming an emblem broadcasting our party identification. Such implications all but eradicate the roots of objectivity when separate networks cater to a designated and purposefully skewed agenda. The networks don't want the wrinkled brows that might question their motives at the end of the broadcast, so they present carefully crafted information on the television screen. In turn, partisan audiences increase ratings because they are getting the information they want rather than the complete story that would best facilitate a public discussion of matters or inform the public honestly.
Others have tried to explain such trends, but few have come as close to detailing the crisis in our newsrooms better than Bernard Goldberg. With over thirty plus years of working in the CBS newsroom, Goldberg has picked up a thing or two about what moves our flow of daily information behind the television screen. Often it assumed that Goldberg hails from the right-wing school of thought within politics because of his testimony against network politics. However, he derives this background info from an objective stance. Goldberg describes himself as a product of old-school liberal thought that differs from the current mold of our political system. In truth, Goldberg’s objective is to reach anyone with an open mind, regardless of his or her political allegiances, in an attempt to challenge and enlighten their own perspectives.
In his New York Times bestseller, Bias, Goldberg details the ghost of skewed objectivity that permeates our newsrooms. Specifically, Goldberg goes to great lengths to point out that the root of the media problem in our country falls within the desire of the people running the show to aid the public before fully informing it. The truth often falls victim to the politically correct nature of our newsmakers who cast stories in different lights based upon the specific scenarios involved in the case.
In Bias, Goldberg manages to accurately detail the distinctive design behind televised newscasts. He notes the reliance on political labels, conservative and liberal, to influence specific opinions on the matter. Goldberg points to such instances as news correspondents being more likely to distinctly point out the conservative politician before their audience versus identifying the liberal member in the same manner. Such a maneuver may go unnoticed on the surface, but it acts to reinforce a slanted perspective. The American dependency on labels stacks people, especially politicians, into two major political piles. This lack of variance within the televised political climate produces a rift that can hamper viewers from understanding or accepting any vantage point considered politically oppositional to their own. If an audience is inclined to favor one side of an issue, then the newsmakers are already acting to filter out the view of the politician by classifying said politician opinion into a distinct category. Goldberg argues specifically that placing the conservative nametag on a politician before allowing for open discourse automatically discounts their opinion into a set partisan camp. The viewer, more often inclined to side with a liberal perspective in the cases Goldberg analyzed, receives the opinion under a different light. Goldberg claims that the loss of objectivity may seem minor on the surface, but the fact that a different perspective can’t get the same treatment dissolves any chance of a truly open discourse in the matter.
With the media treatment of a divided America circulating throughout the channels, a new set of ideals must emerge to counter the numbing effects. Individuals such as Bernard Goldberg recommend ways by which the networks can police themselves. However, such theories rely too unevenly upon the networks taking the initiative to clean up the mess. The best chance for freedom and the objectivity of thought resides where it has always belonged, in the minds of the audience. Ultimately, the refinement of such ideals stems directly from educating the individual to achieve complete objectivity. Education stems directly from our own will, not the words of those that own the primetime lineup. Our network heads are equally entitled to their opinions, yet they are not the sages they often attempt to portray themselves as in the political arena.
One such countermovement has arrived in the advent of bloggers to offer point of views that differ from the constraints of the typical newscast. The perspectives of bloggers adhere to a code of judgment, supported by facts and untouched by finances that help to free the reigns of media dominance upon this country. Internet bloggers help to keep political perspectives both simultaneously fresh and in balance. The most current example of the blogger movement came in the CBS 60 Minutes II report with Dan Rather last August. The CBS report centered upon supposedly forged documents that discredited President Bush’s military service. However, many were skeptical of the documents being presented as evidence to back up the CBS report. Eventually, bloggers were quick to come for the forefront of public skepticism behind the CBS report and cause a firestorm that garner the attention of both the network in question and the rest of the electorate. The blogger movement subsequently resulted in an eventual admission of error by the network.
Nationally syndicated radio show host and author of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That is Changing Your World, Hugh Hewitt, makes the claim that blogging is altering the political landscape in ways our culture has never before experienced. “The flood is not just coming, but has begun,” Hewitt states ever so matter-of-factly in referencing the revolution moving the Internet up the social awareness scale. Central to Hewitt’s case is the attention blogging is garnering amongst the media elite. No longer allowed a free range to roam, the networks now have to counter the gauntlet of cyberspace voices that can easily act to disclaim any of their findings. Blogs, Hewitt points out, have become the means by which citizens can shape the political behavior behind the networks. The past election proved such a point through the jump in voter turnout numbers. Hewitt correlates this connection with the activation of a new source of information that blogging provides to the average political consumer. The flow of free information on the Internet strays from the shadow of big media, allowing a new form of personal dissection that the networks too often overlooked.
As well, privately owned and operated websites such as Factcheck.org have come to the front of political information sources. Run through grants out of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Institute, the website concentrates strictly on setting the matters straight in politics. Visitors to the site are encouraged to send any information that they may have received or heard of and let the experts do the research to check the validity of such claims. Soon enough, the nonpartisan organization then releases a distinctly unique press release that uncovers the entire truth behind the claims. This past election year kept the website extremely busy validating and discrediting any and all political claims that may have spread throughout the electorate. The purpose behind such websites is not solely rooted in debunking the plague of false information spreading out over the airwaves; rather, it is to accurately judge the material being dispersed by an objective source.
George Orwell once explained, “All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome”. In his revolutionary text, 1984, Orwell parallels the rise of powerful communication resources to manipulate the truth to fit the powers that be in society. Though Orwell’s text, written in 1949, does not stand as an exact replica of America today, it does forewarn of the consequences behind the tyranny of power.
One of Orwell’s most compelling literary tools used in 1984 was the concepts of doublespeak and doublethink. Orwell coined the phrase as a means of delving into the caustic relationship between fact and fiction for both society and the individual. Defined, the two concepts are the ability to hold two contradicting thoughts within the mind, yet to speak and think in line with the voice of the majority. Orwell detailed this loss of independent thought as a means of portraying the disintegration of an objective point of view. Individuals within the larger society relied unevenly upon larger sources to distinguish truth within their lives. The consequences in turn produced a society unable to disseminate truth if it happened to contradict the things they were being told. Interpretation of Orwell’s text can therefore argue that if truth can be circumvented in the name of partisan advocacy, than perhaps so too can a totalitarian system of thought replace free minds through a gradual process.
The desired result is not necessarily to change the political landscape to fit a one size fits all mentality. Rather, it is to open up the doorways to allow the freedom of thought. Many of the qualities and values that so called red and blue states want are very similar in this country. Hard work, accountability, and the striving together for the attainment of the common good all play a critical role in uniting us as one. Our methodologies are different, yet our goal remains the same. The mythmakers rely upon the networks to continue molding their own half-truths to keep the voters in line, but we are capable of forming a valid point of view based on that which we alone hold as true. Ultimately, the networks will have to accept a new form of behavior if they wish to stay atop the political pile. Partisan catering and limited discourse can only maintain a certain shelf life before the public will rise up and turn off the television.
As Abraham Lincoln forewarned, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time”. Indeed, the revolution has arrived at the doorstep.