Media conglomerates are big corporations, so it's not too hard to figure out what side they're going to be on when push comes to shove. As Heather Cox Richardson recently stated in her blog: "Kleptocrats, autocrats and criminals are making a strong bid to control our country." She also wondered "Will they succeed?" In my opinion, they already have, and the high-emotion, clickbait-driven Big Media has played a critical role in that success.
With so much focus on how Facebook's feed algorithms drive stats that help sell targetted ads, you'd think media writ large would stop many of their blatant mischaracterizations now that the game is revealed. Nope. The media trucks right along with their narratives du jour. The job of teaching critical thinking skills will inevitably get harder for educators.
Because unlike their blatantly propagandist counterparts at Fox, ONAN & Newsmin, the traditional media REFUSES to accept that they have any agency or mandate in the education of the electorate. They think by not calling out obvious lies from the right, they are "playing it straight." Meanwhile the propagandists utilize the typical Orwellian tactics (such as the Big Lie, repetition, doublespeak, & Madison Avenue appeals to emotion) to proselytize and gain power... Unfortunately for the US, it is working.
Do any of the rank and file screamers on the right understand what CRT is or isn't? No. No matter what is said to them, all they hear is, "CRT says that white people are bad and guilty and I'm not going to stand there and just say OK, I'm guilty." As far as I can tell, that's the way that crowd thinks.
I'm going to put it in a nutshell and I hope this makes sense. That crowd might be willing to admit that "bad stuff" happened in American history, but they want a bygones for it. That's it.
I'm not sure I'm ready to let bygones be bygones...
So what does that mean? What horrible, destructive evil thing am I going to perpetrate upon society?
I'm going to insist on the right to hear and teach the truth...
THAT is what I insist on. I'm not gonna hurt anyone, not gonna break any windows, not even gonna put a bumper sticker on my car... But a LOT of white people watching FauxNews want to hurt me for it.
Then it's time for all white Americans to stand up for what's right and support people of color. It's time you show them what you want, like education teaching how America was built. Bygones only a racist would think and say that, how can we let bygones when they show their hatred everyday for POC. The lies we hear from the media everyday are destroying America if we don't turn out to vote like our lives depend on it because it does, how much longer will we have a country with democracy.
I don't know what you want me to say. I agree with you. They don't agree with you. They stick to their guns and are loud about it and will continue to be loud about it. As time goes on, they'll be marginalized even more or simply dwindle into irrelevancy. Right now, there are still enough of them to make a mark. In the grand scheme of things, I can't stop them from yelling or screaming or acting on their anger. I can just do what I do.
Paul Krugman has a column today arguing that cowards in the Republican Party are as responsible for what's happening as much or more than the GOP extremists. I would suggest media cowardice is as big or bigger as a problem.
I like to think of #MAGAts as being addicts needing ever stronger fixes, and lacking any desire to quit the addiction.
Despite accepting that the mainstream media are subservient to the wants of the ruling class, which is to say they need to promote the GOP, I see them as addicts as well. There's a relatively fine line between promotion and irresponsibly spewing disinformation (not misinformation).
But despite knowing better, I'm still saddened (or maybe frustrated) to see that mainstream clearly must be as addicted as the #MAGAts because after Trump's causing a couple of hundred thousand Covid deaths and then all the attacks on elections -- verbal and otherwise -- with full support and worse from the party, the media, like an addict, still can't quit the junk. Eh, what's really sad is that there is no longer a single wholly trustworthy site for news.
As for CRT, yeah, sure, I could rant about media coverage, but let me bring in a professional:
The CRT phenomenon is akin to what Republican wordsmiths like Frank Luntz has wrought over the years with misleading or even ironic labeling: "pro-life;" "illegal immigrants;" "death panels;" "partial birth abortion;" and "death tax." After putting the terms in front of focus groups to see which get the most visceral reaction, the talking point is issued and Republican candidates dutifully recite them. The reaction is the goal, and instead of pointing out the BS behind the terminology, the "liberal media" (another term!) literally admires the audacity of the strategy. Eric Alterman has long posited that the right's strategy of "working the refs" would bear (and was bearing) fruit. If he and Jay Rosen - communications professors - can see it, why can't any editors?
They’ve been swallowing and regurgitating GOP BS since Reagan’s “Trickle Down” Economics and it’s only gotten worse in the past forty years. In that time journalists have gone from reporting the news and “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” to stenography, bothsiderism, and narrative. Is it the fault of J-schools or because so many in the media don’t take journalism classes?
Their admiration for the brazen audacity of the right is enraging. Except for the serious investigative reporters, I do not think they actually care if we lose our democracy. Their reporting won’t be much different than it is now. They will just leave out that paragraph 13 about CRT not being taught in public schools on stories like these. Think about how the Times made Trump’s ramblings coherent for four years, or how media ignored Madison Cawthorn’s predatory behavior yet pounced on Andrew Cuomo with glee. To this day they are still painting it is “we don’t know if the president and his team coordinated 1/6 or if he was even involved” when other reporting has shown there was constant comms between the WH and the Willard War Room—where not only Ghouliani and Bannon but the Proud Boys were (and Roger Stone’s connection to the PB). They don’t care about the dangers of a GOP win in the Senate and House and Statehouses. For many of them, their taxes will be cut, they won’t have to worry about parental leave, they have great insurance, the have enough money to go elsewhere if they need or want an abortion, and their jobs will be intact. And they will get to blame the Dems for not preventing it and not having a good enough message to win.
Thankfully Robert Costa has been everywhere sounding the alarm because of what he and Woodward discovered in reporting Peril. But most of the rest of the media refuses to listen.
That’s my question? Where are the editors? In line w/their owners? It feels as though the press and the Rs are in cahoots to ruin the country in exchange for power? We’re all doomed when those in power refuse to hear us pleading from the left to play it straight and fair. Have we lost all of our sense of e pluribus unum? Sure looks like it to me and the msm band keeps playing as if the Titanic was not on the verge of going down. Nothing to see here. Oops.....
I disagree with one thing. I don't believe that the MSM is afraid of being labeled as being liberal bias. I believe the owners of the media are very much on the right, believe that money is most important, believe that their taxes need to be lower. In other words they are aiding an abetting the lies of the Republican Party for the benefit of their own financial growth. Regarding CRT - Correct, it is not being taught in schools but it should be. Wake me up when America finally grows the fuck up and is not afraid to learn about the true history of this country. When will we not be afraid to teach our children how we have killed, enslaved, raped and marginalized minorities for the pursuit of money and power? The fairytales that are taught to our children prevent this nation from finally coming together. I know I'll never live to see the day when we face the truth but hopefully my children's children will.
"very much on the right, believe that money is most important"
Until the left learns to accept that money is most important, and there isn't any way anything is ever going to change that even a tiny bit, the left will continue to lose. Money buys food, shelter, and health care. Even if you mandate that only the gov't controls money and is required to provide food, shelter, and health care for everyone, that does not decrease the importance of money. Are you sure it's the right wing that tells fairy tales, based on wishful thinking? I'm not sure who taught you how to use the word "we", but apparently they fucked up, because I (and I suspect you) have never killed, enslaved, or raped anybody. That was other people who did that, and the fact that we both might now still be benefitting from their past actions may be true and should be redressed, but that doesn't make us responsible for those actions. You strengthen the Republicon's grip on power with your rhetoric. JSYK.
I mean we as a collective. White people which I am one of. Don't take it so personal. It wasn't black people and hispanic people and Native Americans that committed atrocities against whites. Whites did and still do to this day.
Actually, black people, Hispanic people, and Nativie American people did commit atrocities against other people, quite routinely, backing in the day, and some still would if given the opportunity. Almost all of the Africans sold in the colonies via the Triangle Trade were originally captured and enslaved by other Africans, all of the Conquistadors spoke Spanish, and Native Americans attacked each other, as well as European invaders, quite viciously, for countless centuries. I get that you want to concentrate on US oppression of minorities, but your simple-minded focus on "whites" being the sole source of horrendous historical behavior is as revealing as it is problematic. If you want to make progress against current oppression, as I do, rather than simply express outraged grievance against historical "whites", then you need to recognize that your rhetoric enables the other side more than it empowers ours.
This is my letter to the editor from yesterday, re. the republican "strategy". I wish I'd included something about the CRT con job, because the local paper seems to be sold on the idea too.
"They continue to cast all decorum aside because they are committed to overthrowing the democracy. They are proving it daily and daring, no taunting, the rest of us into challenging them so they can clog up the mainstream press with a barrage of lies, shouted over and over and over again until the proletariat believes they are true. All in the name of greed for wealth and power. It is past time for the press to wake up to this reality, or we will very shortly have only a Tass and Pravda-like means of learning anything about what the government is up to. Which is to say, kiss the first amendment and a good part of the Bill of Rights goodby, as well as the checks and balances and congressional oversight of the executive. The only news will be "official news". Then, as the judiciary gets packed with toadies, we'll have daily doses of BOHICA. Like Hungary, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia. Then the magaverse will really have something to whine about, but it'll be too fucking late. Welcome back to the third world."
Bush did the same thing in 2004 when he turned that election into a referendum on gay marriage, or as it is known now, marriage. It was a completely bullshit argument then, as this CRT thing is now.
I learned about CRT in law school, where we repeatedly studied a case called Shelley v. Kraemer, a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1948, six years before Brown v. Board of Education. It dealt with the validity, enforceability, viability and constitutionality of racially restrictive covenants in real property transactions.
"Thou shalt not sell thine house to 'people of the Negro or Mongoloid race'" is essentially what they all said. Look in the chain of title of literally any piece of property anywhere in the country and you will find one of these clauses.
And in law school, we study that case in real property, torts, contracts, civil procedure, and constitutional law. I never learned about it in grade school, high school or undergraduate school. In fact, it's still not taught anywhere except to people who understand what's really going on with systemic racism in our society.
But the poor little snowflakes in the GOP know that the only way they can win any more elections is to appeal to the racists who wrote and enforced those clauses in the first place. They're still among us, and when they vote, they vote for old white men who really don't give two hoots and a holler whether they are thought of as Nazis, and that's because they are, shamelessly, Nazis.
And as you have pointed out in any number of ways, Eric, the media just loves themselves a good old-fashioned fight between and among Nazis and the non-sociopaths who oppose them.
"... it’s 'not part of classroom teaching.' Shouldn’t that be the story?" This is the key conversation that should always (and used to) happen between reporter and editor BEFORE the story is written. Or during editing if the conversation didn't take place upfront. This isn't rocket science. Has journalism uninvented the wheel?
I think you're barking up the wrong tree with this perspective, though I understand your reasoning. But the fact of the matter is that Critical Race Theory IS being taught in elementary school, just not under that name. The idea that there is such a thing as institutionalized or systemic racism, independent of personal and conscious prejudice? The fact that white privilege exists, and is at the same time mostly invisible to those who benefit from it? The mere possibility that laws and policing can result in unfair, unjust, and biased outcomes due to alignment, whether intentional or incidental, between socioeconomic circumstance and racial background? These things were developed by CRT, they were *proven to be true* by CRT, and when they are explained to students they remain CRT, whether they are identified as such or not. And these FACTS, not the college level academic approach that first hypothesized these facts, are what the right wing (racist fascist Republicons, IOW) don't want taught in schools. The fascist Republicon activists are certainly being disingenuous when they rale against CRT, and the racist Republicon voters are ignorant of whether their children are being taught to be ashamed of being white or just conscious of being privileged, but you're taking the bait and swallowing the hook, the line, and the sinker when you try to denounce them with this "CRT isn't being taught" screed. A far more productive and intelligent (but difficult) approach is to point out that racists *should* be ashamed of being racist, whether they are children or not, and just leave it at that. When the anti-CRT racist tries to fan their fake outrage with nonsense about how you just called their kid racist, point out that is a lie, and immediately follow up with "now you're the one pushing Critical Race Theory", and refuse to explain further. They will then be the one tangling themselves up trying to explain what is or is not CRT, or is or is not being taught in schools, instead of you.
Nah. CRT is the opposite of "the way to maintain the oppressive status quo", specifically and by definition: you are in fact echoing Critical Race Theory in your perspective: the very idea of "maintaining an oppressive status quo" is based in CRT. Republicons are racists and want to blame everything on the poor, while you want to blame everything on the rich. CRT is an issue because it is true, but doesn't serve either your interests or theirs. You think poor black people can't be easily duped into trying to stifle education? Sure they can; because they are uneducated. But education costs money and requires privilege, so it's really easy to frame everyone who has it as elitists.
Dems are the good guys, and Republicons are racists. It's that simple.
The CRT story is another example that journalism has been replaced by punditry. This story reminds me of Hard Ball.
Some years ago I realized that Chris Matthews’ Hard Ball —a program that only discussed campaign tactics— only asked one amoral question: did the tactic work? Matthews never asked was it fair, right, or good, only did/will it work.
So here’s the thing to remember: the media is a business. Their business is getting ads in front of eyeballs. Content does not matter in the slightest. Whatever will generate more eyeballs in front of ads is what will lead.
Republicans are really good at getting people emotional and stirred up, and that makes content that will get a lot of eyeballs on ads. If we on the left could somehow generate the same/similar emotional response for, oh, Global Climate Change the tables would shift.
I can't tell whether you're condemning or admiring the way Republicons use emotional manipulation, and I don't think that's coincidental or a failure to communicate, but a result of your own uncertain reasoning. Do you honestly think it is mere coincidence that "getting ads in front of eyeballs" is easier for the immoral side than the moral side?
Global Warming is amoral. There is no good or evil linked with atmospheric temperatures. Pretending there is ends up being one of the reasons "the left" has such trouble dealing with it. If we took a more workman-like "how expensive will it be to deal with moving all those people away from climate catastrophes" instead of trying to use it to demonize people who sell or use the most abundant and inexpensive energy available, it would be a lot easier to remake the economy the way we need to in order to avert disaster. IMHO
Max, I am condemning it, but I recognize that it works.
The Left’s conundrum is that we have the facts on our sides, and the Right figured out long ago how to tell memorable stories. We present charts. No one remembers a chart, and not one talks about that chart around the office break room.
The Left's conundrum is that you wish only we had facts on our side, and only the facts on our side were important. Neither is true, and that is why they keep 'winning'. It is not the dishonesty of the other side, though that is monumental in its proportions and I'll admit it is hard to imagine it isn't the cause of their success given the current situation. But that is merely a lack of imagination on The Left's part. That and flat out denial. The winning side will always be "allowed" to lie more by any society and any media, but that is a result, not the cause, of the winning. When The Left learns to stop making that same mistake over and over of believing it is the cause (because admitting it is a result will require accepting the flaws in our own position) we can begin to reverse the problem.
I have seen several discussions of the con of critical race theory on MSNBC — Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow have all addressed this more than once. You need to skip shows like Meet the Press and other drivel and just watch people like them.
What really shocked me the other night was hearing on Rachel Maddow that Republicans are refusing to allow Biden to appoint ambassadors — we have only 3 or 4 now, two are former Trump appointees. Only one of Biden’s have been approved and that was because he is a former senator so senatorial commity requires they approve him.
The mainstream media has barely covered this shocking and despicable anti-democracy behavior by Republicans.
And Democrats need to campaign on the fact that it’s all the Republicans who are blocking things which is why we need to elect more Democrats in 2022. The media are focusing on how Democrats are failing to get things done, rarely pointing out that back in the day there would have been at least a few Republicans who would vote for these kinds of bills.
That’s a myopic take. There are plenty of reporters who take their jobs very seriously and do good work. I love journalism and news. I want it to be better. Media can be responsible and still make money.
What exactly are you saying here by saying "if white people accepted the fact that hitting themselves over the head with copies of White Fragility does nothing to help Black people..." what exactly do you mean?
Media conglomerates are big corporations, so it's not too hard to figure out what side they're going to be on when push comes to shove. As Heather Cox Richardson recently stated in her blog: "Kleptocrats, autocrats and criminals are making a strong bid to control our country." She also wondered "Will they succeed?" In my opinion, they already have, and the high-emotion, clickbait-driven Big Media has played a critical role in that success.
Heathers always asking the right Q’s
With so much focus on how Facebook's feed algorithms drive stats that help sell targetted ads, you'd think media writ large would stop many of their blatant mischaracterizations now that the game is revealed. Nope. The media trucks right along with their narratives du jour. The job of teaching critical thinking skills will inevitably get harder for educators.
Political press loves groupthink; it’s very reassuring
"Why are the media covering for the GOP?"
Because unlike their blatantly propagandist counterparts at Fox, ONAN & Newsmin, the traditional media REFUSES to accept that they have any agency or mandate in the education of the electorate. They think by not calling out obvious lies from the right, they are "playing it straight." Meanwhile the propagandists utilize the typical Orwellian tactics (such as the Big Lie, repetition, doublespeak, & Madison Avenue appeals to emotion) to proselytize and gain power... Unfortunately for the US, it is working.
Agreed, totally bizarre how not calling out lies now equals “objective”
Do any of the rank and file screamers on the right understand what CRT is or isn't? No. No matter what is said to them, all they hear is, "CRT says that white people are bad and guilty and I'm not going to stand there and just say OK, I'm guilty." As far as I can tell, that's the way that crowd thinks.
I'm going to put it in a nutshell and I hope this makes sense. That crowd might be willing to admit that "bad stuff" happened in American history, but they want a bygones for it. That's it.
I'm not sure I'm ready to let bygones be bygones...
So what does that mean? What horrible, destructive evil thing am I going to perpetrate upon society?
I'm going to insist on the right to hear and teach the truth...
THAT is what I insist on. I'm not gonna hurt anyone, not gonna break any windows, not even gonna put a bumper sticker on my car... But a LOT of white people watching FauxNews want to hurt me for it.
Except that for them, what you want doesn't matter - it's what they want that they care about.
Then it's time for all white Americans to stand up for what's right and support people of color. It's time you show them what you want, like education teaching how America was built. Bygones only a racist would think and say that, how can we let bygones when they show their hatred everyday for POC. The lies we hear from the media everyday are destroying America if we don't turn out to vote like our lives depend on it because it does, how much longer will we have a country with democracy.
I don't know what you want me to say. I agree with you. They don't agree with you. They stick to their guns and are loud about it and will continue to be loud about it. As time goes on, they'll be marginalized even more or simply dwindle into irrelevancy. Right now, there are still enough of them to make a mark. In the grand scheme of things, I can't stop them from yelling or screaming or acting on their anger. I can just do what I do.
And that's all we ask do what you can do in fighting the good fight. Stand up for right we can no longer be quiet no matter our race.
Paul Krugman has a column today arguing that cowards in the Republican Party are as responsible for what's happening as much or more than the GOP extremists. I would suggest media cowardice is as big or bigger as a problem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/28/opinion/republicans-vaccines.html
I like to think of #MAGAts as being addicts needing ever stronger fixes, and lacking any desire to quit the addiction.
Despite accepting that the mainstream media are subservient to the wants of the ruling class, which is to say they need to promote the GOP, I see them as addicts as well. There's a relatively fine line between promotion and irresponsibly spewing disinformation (not misinformation).
But despite knowing better, I'm still saddened (or maybe frustrated) to see that mainstream clearly must be as addicted as the #MAGAts because after Trump's causing a couple of hundred thousand Covid deaths and then all the attacks on elections -- verbal and otherwise -- with full support and worse from the party, the media, like an addict, still can't quit the junk. Eh, what's really sad is that there is no longer a single wholly trustworthy site for news.
As for CRT, yeah, sure, I could rant about media coverage, but let me bring in a professional:
https://presswatchers.org/2021/10/failing-to-call-out-critical-race-theory-as-racist-dog-whistle-let-me-rewrite-that-for-you/
Great piece. Sure makes the case for honesty in reporting. Froomkin’s rewrites are terrific to read. If only .....
Honesty in reporting takes so little, mostly just reporters who are. But that’s not what the mainstream hires.
The CRT phenomenon is akin to what Republican wordsmiths like Frank Luntz has wrought over the years with misleading or even ironic labeling: "pro-life;" "illegal immigrants;" "death panels;" "partial birth abortion;" and "death tax." After putting the terms in front of focus groups to see which get the most visceral reaction, the talking point is issued and Republican candidates dutifully recite them. The reaction is the goal, and instead of pointing out the BS behind the terminology, the "liberal media" (another term!) literally admires the audacity of the strategy. Eric Alterman has long posited that the right's strategy of "working the refs" would bear (and was bearing) fruit. If he and Jay Rosen - communications professors - can see it, why can't any editors?
They’ve been swallowing and regurgitating GOP BS since Reagan’s “Trickle Down” Economics and it’s only gotten worse in the past forty years. In that time journalists have gone from reporting the news and “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” to stenography, bothsiderism, and narrative. Is it the fault of J-schools or because so many in the media don’t take journalism classes?
Their admiration for the brazen audacity of the right is enraging. Except for the serious investigative reporters, I do not think they actually care if we lose our democracy. Their reporting won’t be much different than it is now. They will just leave out that paragraph 13 about CRT not being taught in public schools on stories like these. Think about how the Times made Trump’s ramblings coherent for four years, or how media ignored Madison Cawthorn’s predatory behavior yet pounced on Andrew Cuomo with glee. To this day they are still painting it is “we don’t know if the president and his team coordinated 1/6 or if he was even involved” when other reporting has shown there was constant comms between the WH and the Willard War Room—where not only Ghouliani and Bannon but the Proud Boys were (and Roger Stone’s connection to the PB). They don’t care about the dangers of a GOP win in the Senate and House and Statehouses. For many of them, their taxes will be cut, they won’t have to worry about parental leave, they have great insurance, the have enough money to go elsewhere if they need or want an abortion, and their jobs will be intact. And they will get to blame the Dems for not preventing it and not having a good enough message to win.
Thankfully Robert Costa has been everywhere sounding the alarm because of what he and Woodward discovered in reporting Peril. But most of the rest of the media refuses to listen.
That’s my question? Where are the editors? In line w/their owners? It feels as though the press and the Rs are in cahoots to ruin the country in exchange for power? We’re all doomed when those in power refuse to hear us pleading from the left to play it straight and fair. Have we lost all of our sense of e pluribus unum? Sure looks like it to me and the msm band keeps playing as if the Titanic was not on the verge of going down. Nothing to see here. Oops.....
I disagree with one thing. I don't believe that the MSM is afraid of being labeled as being liberal bias. I believe the owners of the media are very much on the right, believe that money is most important, believe that their taxes need to be lower. In other words they are aiding an abetting the lies of the Republican Party for the benefit of their own financial growth. Regarding CRT - Correct, it is not being taught in schools but it should be. Wake me up when America finally grows the fuck up and is not afraid to learn about the true history of this country. When will we not be afraid to teach our children how we have killed, enslaved, raped and marginalized minorities for the pursuit of money and power? The fairytales that are taught to our children prevent this nation from finally coming together. I know I'll never live to see the day when we face the truth but hopefully my children's children will.
"very much on the right, believe that money is most important"
Until the left learns to accept that money is most important, and there isn't any way anything is ever going to change that even a tiny bit, the left will continue to lose. Money buys food, shelter, and health care. Even if you mandate that only the gov't controls money and is required to provide food, shelter, and health care for everyone, that does not decrease the importance of money. Are you sure it's the right wing that tells fairy tales, based on wishful thinking? I'm not sure who taught you how to use the word "we", but apparently they fucked up, because I (and I suspect you) have never killed, enslaved, or raped anybody. That was other people who did that, and the fact that we both might now still be benefitting from their past actions may be true and should be redressed, but that doesn't make us responsible for those actions. You strengthen the Republicon's grip on power with your rhetoric. JSYK.
I mean we as a collective. White people which I am one of. Don't take it so personal. It wasn't black people and hispanic people and Native Americans that committed atrocities against whites. Whites did and still do to this day.
Actually, black people, Hispanic people, and Nativie American people did commit atrocities against other people, quite routinely, backing in the day, and some still would if given the opportunity. Almost all of the Africans sold in the colonies via the Triangle Trade were originally captured and enslaved by other Africans, all of the Conquistadors spoke Spanish, and Native Americans attacked each other, as well as European invaders, quite viciously, for countless centuries. I get that you want to concentrate on US oppression of minorities, but your simple-minded focus on "whites" being the sole source of horrendous historical behavior is as revealing as it is problematic. If you want to make progress against current oppression, as I do, rather than simply express outraged grievance against historical "whites", then you need to recognize that your rhetoric enables the other side more than it empowers ours.
This is my letter to the editor from yesterday, re. the republican "strategy". I wish I'd included something about the CRT con job, because the local paper seems to be sold on the idea too.
"They continue to cast all decorum aside because they are committed to overthrowing the democracy. They are proving it daily and daring, no taunting, the rest of us into challenging them so they can clog up the mainstream press with a barrage of lies, shouted over and over and over again until the proletariat believes they are true. All in the name of greed for wealth and power. It is past time for the press to wake up to this reality, or we will very shortly have only a Tass and Pravda-like means of learning anything about what the government is up to. Which is to say, kiss the first amendment and a good part of the Bill of Rights goodby, as well as the checks and balances and congressional oversight of the executive. The only news will be "official news". Then, as the judiciary gets packed with toadies, we'll have daily doses of BOHICA. Like Hungary, Russia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia. Then the magaverse will really have something to whine about, but it'll be too fucking late. Welcome back to the third world."
Bush did the same thing in 2004 when he turned that election into a referendum on gay marriage, or as it is known now, marriage. It was a completely bullshit argument then, as this CRT thing is now.
I learned about CRT in law school, where we repeatedly studied a case called Shelley v. Kraemer, a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1948, six years before Brown v. Board of Education. It dealt with the validity, enforceability, viability and constitutionality of racially restrictive covenants in real property transactions.
"Thou shalt not sell thine house to 'people of the Negro or Mongoloid race'" is essentially what they all said. Look in the chain of title of literally any piece of property anywhere in the country and you will find one of these clauses.
And in law school, we study that case in real property, torts, contracts, civil procedure, and constitutional law. I never learned about it in grade school, high school or undergraduate school. In fact, it's still not taught anywhere except to people who understand what's really going on with systemic racism in our society.
But the poor little snowflakes in the GOP know that the only way they can win any more elections is to appeal to the racists who wrote and enforced those clauses in the first place. They're still among us, and when they vote, they vote for old white men who really don't give two hoots and a holler whether they are thought of as Nazis, and that's because they are, shamelessly, Nazis.
And as you have pointed out in any number of ways, Eric, the media just loves themselves a good old-fashioned fight between and among Nazis and the non-sociopaths who oppose them.
"... it’s 'not part of classroom teaching.' Shouldn’t that be the story?" This is the key conversation that should always (and used to) happen between reporter and editor BEFORE the story is written. Or during editing if the conversation didn't take place upfront. This isn't rocket science. Has journalism uninvented the wheel?
I think you're barking up the wrong tree with this perspective, though I understand your reasoning. But the fact of the matter is that Critical Race Theory IS being taught in elementary school, just not under that name. The idea that there is such a thing as institutionalized or systemic racism, independent of personal and conscious prejudice? The fact that white privilege exists, and is at the same time mostly invisible to those who benefit from it? The mere possibility that laws and policing can result in unfair, unjust, and biased outcomes due to alignment, whether intentional or incidental, between socioeconomic circumstance and racial background? These things were developed by CRT, they were *proven to be true* by CRT, and when they are explained to students they remain CRT, whether they are identified as such or not. And these FACTS, not the college level academic approach that first hypothesized these facts, are what the right wing (racist fascist Republicons, IOW) don't want taught in schools. The fascist Republicon activists are certainly being disingenuous when they rale against CRT, and the racist Republicon voters are ignorant of whether their children are being taught to be ashamed of being white or just conscious of being privileged, but you're taking the bait and swallowing the hook, the line, and the sinker when you try to denounce them with this "CRT isn't being taught" screed. A far more productive and intelligent (but difficult) approach is to point out that racists *should* be ashamed of being racist, whether they are children or not, and just leave it at that. When the anti-CRT racist tries to fan their fake outrage with nonsense about how you just called their kid racist, point out that is a lie, and immediately follow up with "now you're the one pushing Critical Race Theory", and refuse to explain further. They will then be the one tangling themselves up trying to explain what is or is not CRT, or is or is not being taught in schools, instead of you.
Nah. CRT is the opposite of "the way to maintain the oppressive status quo", specifically and by definition: you are in fact echoing Critical Race Theory in your perspective: the very idea of "maintaining an oppressive status quo" is based in CRT. Republicons are racists and want to blame everything on the poor, while you want to blame everything on the rich. CRT is an issue because it is true, but doesn't serve either your interests or theirs. You think poor black people can't be easily duped into trying to stifle education? Sure they can; because they are uneducated. But education costs money and requires privilege, so it's really easy to frame everyone who has it as elitists.
Dems are the good guys, and Republicons are racists. It's that simple.
The CRT story is another example that journalism has been replaced by punditry. This story reminds me of Hard Ball.
Some years ago I realized that Chris Matthews’ Hard Ball —a program that only discussed campaign tactics— only asked one amoral question: did the tactic work? Matthews never asked was it fair, right, or good, only did/will it work.
So here’s the thing to remember: the media is a business. Their business is getting ads in front of eyeballs. Content does not matter in the slightest. Whatever will generate more eyeballs in front of ads is what will lead.
Republicans are really good at getting people emotional and stirred up, and that makes content that will get a lot of eyeballs on ads. If we on the left could somehow generate the same/similar emotional response for, oh, Global Climate Change the tables would shift.
I can't tell whether you're condemning or admiring the way Republicons use emotional manipulation, and I don't think that's coincidental or a failure to communicate, but a result of your own uncertain reasoning. Do you honestly think it is mere coincidence that "getting ads in front of eyeballs" is easier for the immoral side than the moral side?
Global Warming is amoral. There is no good or evil linked with atmospheric temperatures. Pretending there is ends up being one of the reasons "the left" has such trouble dealing with it. If we took a more workman-like "how expensive will it be to deal with moving all those people away from climate catastrophes" instead of trying to use it to demonize people who sell or use the most abundant and inexpensive energy available, it would be a lot easier to remake the economy the way we need to in order to avert disaster. IMHO
Max, I am condemning it, but I recognize that it works.
The Left’s conundrum is that we have the facts on our sides, and the Right figured out long ago how to tell memorable stories. We present charts. No one remembers a chart, and not one talks about that chart around the office break room.
The Left's conundrum is that you wish only we had facts on our side, and only the facts on our side were important. Neither is true, and that is why they keep 'winning'. It is not the dishonesty of the other side, though that is monumental in its proportions and I'll admit it is hard to imagine it isn't the cause of their success given the current situation. But that is merely a lack of imagination on The Left's part. That and flat out denial. The winning side will always be "allowed" to lie more by any society and any media, but that is a result, not the cause, of the winning. When The Left learns to stop making that same mistake over and over of believing it is the cause (because admitting it is a result will require accepting the flaws in our own position) we can begin to reverse the problem.
I have seen several discussions of the con of critical race theory on MSNBC — Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow have all addressed this more than once. You need to skip shows like Meet the Press and other drivel and just watch people like them.
What really shocked me the other night was hearing on Rachel Maddow that Republicans are refusing to allow Biden to appoint ambassadors — we have only 3 or 4 now, two are former Trump appointees. Only one of Biden’s have been approved and that was because he is a former senator so senatorial commity requires they approve him.
The mainstream media has barely covered this shocking and despicable anti-democracy behavior by Republicans.
The daily block from 4-12 on MSNBC is generally very good.
Yes they are being held up in committee by the GOP. The Senate rules need an overhaul.
And Democrats need to campaign on the fact that it’s all the Republicans who are blocking things which is why we need to elect more Democrats in 2022. The media are focusing on how Democrats are failing to get things done, rarely pointing out that back in the day there would have been at least a few Republicans who would vote for these kinds of bills.
That’s a myopic take. There are plenty of reporters who take their jobs very seriously and do good work. I love journalism and news. I want it to be better. Media can be responsible and still make money.
What exactly are you saying here by saying "if white people accepted the fact that hitting themselves over the head with copies of White Fragility does nothing to help Black people..." what exactly do you mean?