M
machinehead
Guest
Bob,
Why the latent hostility? I've never heard anything too terribly radical politically on AAR ~ outside of Randi's histrionics, which I admit I steer clear of ~ whereas I've been hearing plenty of very radical right mania on rightie talk for 17 years, ever since the format took over once-neutral "news" stations, from domestic spying to justifying invading sovereign states to the usual character assasination with no one around for a rebuttal, etc. Politically rightie talk is way to the extreme, whereas lefty talk can reach into the middle, mostly by unfolding the various layers of untruths, dishonesty, and nonsense in the White House pursuit of divide-and-conquer-and-call-it-a-win policy.
Agreed, when left to their own devices instead of presenting counterpoints to White House nonsense, AAR can go towards the fringe...just as rightie talk does. There are some in this business and on this board who excuse such extremes as entertainment. I don't, but don't tell me AAR is way off the lefty deep end when anyone with two ears can tell rightie hosts aren't exactly playing golf with Al Gore. Almost any stance not embraced by economic royalists or the Bush administration is dismissed as liberal...as if any of those hosts even cared what the word meant. Still, the right-wing hitment of degrading the word liberal to "commie," "Un-American," etc., but that's another discussion for, I guess, "take it outside."
The reality is, the audience the right caters to NEEDS to have their views solidified and validated every day, or else they themselves will start to see the holes in their arguments, and the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs of the world to keep hitting the talking points in a faux authoritative manner so that they'll believe they're still, uh, in the right.
Lefties, progressives, folks in the middle, and many independents think for themselves, read, take in a variety of media sources (other than Daily Kos, come on), don't need to be reminded every five minutes their views are correct because they don't suffer from a general inferiority complex, and by and large have the facts on their side. As a result commerical progressive radio suffers because there's less of an audience for it that needs to be reassured and spoonfed. NPR's calm, reasonable approach to news-gathering and information is confused by some on the right as "liberal," but that's probably because there's no yelling and seldom an easy answer for everything.
No one expects one side's radio to convert the other, but rightie talk is more commerically successful because it tends to be a little more sexy with it's authoritarian tone, lack of nuance in the discussion, and basically, to put it in knucklehead terms, if you're playing Star Wars, isn't it more fun to be Darth Vader than Luke Skywalker?
For what it's worth Bob, you are correct in that if the Democrats are foolish enough to take their cues from Daily Kos and moveon.org exclusively, they'll lose. Find one major Democratic candidate for President doing so. Furthermore, the Demos are only poised to do well in 2008 because the last Congress and the Bush administration have so ruinied the Republican party for short-term gain, no one takes the current crop of bedwetting Republicans seriously, especially since every time W wants to pass a piece of "anti-terror" legislation he has the power to ramp up the fear quotient. The flood of tell-all books that will come out after this man leave office, attesting to his limited ability to discern, lack of curiousity, and overall ineptness (being in over his head) will be astonishing.
As always, the man's apologists ~ and for whatever reason, there are many ~ will again dismiss these tales as "liberals," even when guys like Colin Powell may be doing the writing. Dereliction of duty, indeed.
Why the latent hostility? I've never heard anything too terribly radical politically on AAR ~ outside of Randi's histrionics, which I admit I steer clear of ~ whereas I've been hearing plenty of very radical right mania on rightie talk for 17 years, ever since the format took over once-neutral "news" stations, from domestic spying to justifying invading sovereign states to the usual character assasination with no one around for a rebuttal, etc. Politically rightie talk is way to the extreme, whereas lefty talk can reach into the middle, mostly by unfolding the various layers of untruths, dishonesty, and nonsense in the White House pursuit of divide-and-conquer-and-call-it-a-win policy.
Agreed, when left to their own devices instead of presenting counterpoints to White House nonsense, AAR can go towards the fringe...just as rightie talk does. There are some in this business and on this board who excuse such extremes as entertainment. I don't, but don't tell me AAR is way off the lefty deep end when anyone with two ears can tell rightie hosts aren't exactly playing golf with Al Gore. Almost any stance not embraced by economic royalists or the Bush administration is dismissed as liberal...as if any of those hosts even cared what the word meant. Still, the right-wing hitment of degrading the word liberal to "commie," "Un-American," etc., but that's another discussion for, I guess, "take it outside."
The reality is, the audience the right caters to NEEDS to have their views solidified and validated every day, or else they themselves will start to see the holes in their arguments, and the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbaughs of the world to keep hitting the talking points in a faux authoritative manner so that they'll believe they're still, uh, in the right.
Lefties, progressives, folks in the middle, and many independents think for themselves, read, take in a variety of media sources (other than Daily Kos, come on), don't need to be reminded every five minutes their views are correct because they don't suffer from a general inferiority complex, and by and large have the facts on their side. As a result commerical progressive radio suffers because there's less of an audience for it that needs to be reassured and spoonfed. NPR's calm, reasonable approach to news-gathering and information is confused by some on the right as "liberal," but that's probably because there's no yelling and seldom an easy answer for everything.
No one expects one side's radio to convert the other, but rightie talk is more commerically successful because it tends to be a little more sexy with it's authoritarian tone, lack of nuance in the discussion, and basically, to put it in knucklehead terms, if you're playing Star Wars, isn't it more fun to be Darth Vader than Luke Skywalker?
For what it's worth Bob, you are correct in that if the Democrats are foolish enough to take their cues from Daily Kos and moveon.org exclusively, they'll lose. Find one major Democratic candidate for President doing so. Furthermore, the Demos are only poised to do well in 2008 because the last Congress and the Bush administration have so ruinied the Republican party for short-term gain, no one takes the current crop of bedwetting Republicans seriously, especially since every time W wants to pass a piece of "anti-terror" legislation he has the power to ramp up the fear quotient. The flood of tell-all books that will come out after this man leave office, attesting to his limited ability to discern, lack of curiousity, and overall ineptness (being in over his head) will be astonishing.
As always, the man's apologists ~ and for whatever reason, there are many ~ will again dismiss these tales as "liberals," even when guys like Colin Powell may be doing the writing. Dereliction of duty, indeed.