where to start picking apart the recent manufactured "controversy" about an NPR exec calling the tea party racist and xenophobic? the same video hitman that slimed ACORN with an "undercover" chop job supposedly got the goods on the NPR exec, proving the network has a "liberal bias." from today's USA today:
"NPR says it has placed Ronald Schiller on administrative leave, after a secretly taped video released today shows the advertising executive denigrating Tea Party supporters and calling them 'racist.'
Among other things, Schiller also said the news outlet 'would be better off in the long run without federal funding.' He says several times that he is giving his personal views." USATODAY.com
in the first place, this dude is an advertising exec, not the president or CEO, so as pertains to matters of policy he has no power -- giving his "personal views" only.
in the second, what the fuck is wrong with giving your personal views? should schiller have been more "circumspect" about offering his opinions? i flinch at the notion that we ought to hold our tongues every time a controversial subject comes up for discussion. silence is usually equated with assent. if more of us were to speak up about things we believe, this society might not be so in thrall to corporate interests who fund efforts like this.
if you roll over to washingtonsblog.com, you'll see him discussing how the human mind works, and how opinion and belief is formed. one of the most prominent findings he reports is that people run with the herd. the mass media has been neutered by the right, and has taken to suppressing any honest talk about the fringe groups that the GOP rolls out on behalf of the oligarchs. they ARE racist, and they ARE xenophobic, not because the oligarchs are, but because that's how they sell their agenda to ignorant and vulnerable american losers.
it has always been a contention of mine that the right is basically dishonest and weak. they can't voice what they truly believe, so they talk in code and run a defense of offense against their victims. it's not the tea party that's racist; it's obama who hates white people, according to their prophet glenn beck. they're still flogging the same welfare queen that ronnie ray-gun sodomized in 1980, and it's lazy, undeserving foreigners and islamofascists who are threatening their cozy existence.
i'm not defending NPR, as its as safe as milk and as deferential as can be to its corporate overlords and the DC establishment's consensus opinions. still, it's a little slower and less less hyped than "commercial" BS-casters --not to mention its audience dwarfs the radio boobs like beck and limbaugh. if they were smart, they'd forget about that 2 percent of their budget that comes from the feds, and consider turning "honest" (meaning that they serve their audience rather than the oligarchy).
but look at these video "exposes" for what they are: crude attempts to silence any voice that runs contrary to the corporatist agenda that lies at the heart of all this pandering to the far right. you never see these gasbags take on the corrupt bankers and corporate hogs at the federal trough. they aren't trying to shut down the wasteful and pointless foreign adventures of the military-industrial complex. instead, they're still dogging out the "welfare queens" that reagan conjured all those decades ago -- flogging a dead figment of their imaginations.
why aren't the tea baggers honest enough to own up to their own pinched, constipated world view? why not just come out and say, we hate niggers, we hate jews, we hate foreigners? why can't they just admit how they feel, instead of projecting it on others? its a cowardly habit, and if they're so convinced of the righteousness and truthfulness of what they preach, why not just say so?
i for one am tired of waiting for them to be as upfront about their hatreds and resentments as the forebears of their movement -- and by that i'm not talking about the guys in tri-corner hats. i'm thinking nuremberg 1936, hitler hitting his stride and amping up for war and the final solution... isn't this the true ideal of the tea party movement, and not the mushy, pseudo-nostalgia for the "founders" that we always get pounded over the head with?
when it comes to founders, i think they mean flounders -- the fish and the state of the working class in america, which is taking a beating at the hands of these well-financed conspiracies to stifle any semblance of participatory democracy.
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