Monday, April 25, 2005
The media is the crappy mother, the politicians are the delinquent children
I've just finished watching the NewsHour with Jim Lehr. Today, they had Sentors Durbin and Kyl. What I found really disturbing was the following: No one cared what the question was - each was going to use the oppotunity to get whatever talking point out that the were supposed to their constituencies.
For some reason, I really expect our national leaders to actually listen to each other when they address each other. What really terrrifies me now is that they're really talking about serious stuff. The right of the minority to filibuster extremists is critical. The other critical part is this: It means you need to trust that the other side is using it in good conscious. I wonder if it's occured to the republicans that maybe if all 44 democrats are willing to remain together in support of a filibuster (The republicans only need 4 to break ranks to break a filibuster), that maybe they might actually be doing their job and represent the majority of americans that believe this country is headed in the wrong direction.
So here's the question: Why does the media allow politicians to simply put forward the tested, spun marketing message, rather than demanding an actual dialog? The more that we allow politicians to use the media as a way to target a consistuency, rather than as a public media for debate, the more extreme our politics will become.
What was horrifying about Sentor Kyl's responses was that he only barely distanced himself from the "Justice Sunday" telethon that the Family Research Council held yesterday. What amazed me was the following: Reverend Dobbs, the head of Family Research Council and a Chrisitan Fundamentalist extremist advocated that we reign in our "our of control, unaccountable federal judiciary." This coupled with Tom Delay's threat to defund circuts of the courts whose rulings they dislike represents a fundamental assult on the nature of our democracy. These are the seeds of an elected dictatorship - a judicary where even the most extreme nominees are confirmed dispite any oppoisition, and a court system that is intimidated by the threat of congress defunding it.
How can we not demand a media that forces our politicians to actually speak to each other? How can we not demand substantive debates about the future of our democracy, and not simply who will rule rather than govern. We have never needed a vigilent media more.
For some reason, I really expect our national leaders to actually listen to each other when they address each other. What really terrrifies me now is that they're really talking about serious stuff. The right of the minority to filibuster extremists is critical. The other critical part is this: It means you need to trust that the other side is using it in good conscious. I wonder if it's occured to the republicans that maybe if all 44 democrats are willing to remain together in support of a filibuster (The republicans only need 4 to break ranks to break a filibuster), that maybe they might actually be doing their job and represent the majority of americans that believe this country is headed in the wrong direction.
So here's the question: Why does the media allow politicians to simply put forward the tested, spun marketing message, rather than demanding an actual dialog? The more that we allow politicians to use the media as a way to target a consistuency, rather than as a public media for debate, the more extreme our politics will become.
What was horrifying about Sentor Kyl's responses was that he only barely distanced himself from the "Justice Sunday" telethon that the Family Research Council held yesterday. What amazed me was the following: Reverend Dobbs, the head of Family Research Council and a Chrisitan Fundamentalist extremist advocated that we reign in our "our of control, unaccountable federal judiciary." This coupled with Tom Delay's threat to defund circuts of the courts whose rulings they dislike represents a fundamental assult on the nature of our democracy. These are the seeds of an elected dictatorship - a judicary where even the most extreme nominees are confirmed dispite any oppoisition, and a court system that is intimidated by the threat of congress defunding it.
How can we not demand a media that forces our politicians to actually speak to each other? How can we not demand substantive debates about the future of our democracy, and not simply who will rule rather than govern. We have never needed a vigilent media more.
# posted by Will (Militant Liberal) @ 9:11 PM 
