stewart is awesome! (0.00 / 0)

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by: The Big Hurt @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 14:27:35 PM CST

How Could They Have Been So Wrong (4.00 / 2)

for so long?

D'OH!!! indeed...

I wish I were--I wish I could be-- as confident as you are about the reliability of the memory of the average media consumer. Psychology has first understood and then developed, and then media and schools and churches have systematically installed a pretty subtle bank of switches in the subconscious of the "average murkin." Sometimes it's called "learned incompetence," but the better description it "embedded ignorance." I am sometimes furious with people, but to blame them for this condition is like blaming the passengers on one of those planes for hitting the towers.

Have you read Foucault (me: only in translation)? He uses the construct of "discursive practices" to describe the permanence of the structures of conversations in which we all participate in mere fragments of. Like the language itself.

When industrialization created the conditions of possibility, it was only a matter of time that somebody would figure out that, like any other vehicle, you could "manufacture" consent. Edward Bernais, Freud's favorite nephew, and amenuensis when the old man was in the US, created "public relations," which is merely the application of propaganda techniques of the public sphere to private communications.

So, I'm not sure that the memory of the people is that reliable; not sure that there isn't some neurally-implanted psychic media-switch that wipes memory clean. It's as if The Manchurian Candidate wasn't about psychology, but  sociology.

Anyway. Another good catch.
Yr.Obdt.Svt
k

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by: konopelli @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 14:36:28 PM CST

Shouldn't that be "networks'... (0.00 / 0)

plural possessive?

(in the walsh box)

it's funny how that changes the initial reading...

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by: konopelli @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 14:42:25 PM CST

Obama's Katrina? (4.00 / 3)

Mr. Rosebnberg's link to Robert Reich's article on Salon only describes the craziness of the WSJ editorial page, but the thing itself goes way beyond what any sane person would probably imagine from Reich's description.

Under the screaming headline Obama's Katrina? with the equally screaming sub-title "The new president seems dangerously out of touch," the Wall Street Journal is running a story about...

A couple of parties in the East Room of the White House.

I could not make this shit up!

Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America's head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation's highest award for pop music on Wednesday.

A week before that, the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a female a cappella group, filled the East Room for a Black History Month program first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200 sixth- and seventh-graders from around the city.

Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date, all held on Wednesdays.

We do not begrudge the president his fancy cocktail parties. Indeed, if anyone in the White House is reading this, please add us to the invitation list.

But there is a dissonance here that is rather hard to miss. The same president who last month lectured private-sector executives, "You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," is living large in the Executive Mansion that we taxpayers have generously provided him.

It's Hurricane Katrina all over again!

...but only in the psychotic fantasy-world of the Wall Street Journal.  

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by: Jacob Freeze @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 14:47:07 PM CST

Digg had an article by MSNBC's Cramer up briefly... (4.00 / 3)

It was dugg into oblivion soon enough... But, basically the article said that Cramer was a democrat who voted for Obama, but now he endorses McCain's philosophies 'cos the economy's too bad to be a Democrat or something like that...

A sad joke... and I do feel sad, too... 'cos he was one of the few financial guys on our side for awhile, but he's either taken the note from his CNBC masters or is showing his true supply side... I'm guessing the latter... he's just another wall street pig out to hustle the rest of the country...

He may have pretended to be a democrat, but it was all a ruse...

They are all out to sabotage this presidency... for now, the people aren't buying it, but it's only a matter of time...  We are going to have to work and fight every day to fight these saboteurs... we're seeing them come out of the woodwork, even on our side...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 14:57:14 PM CST

GE (4.00 / 3)

Suddenly with GE stock down at $6.71 articles are appearing suggesting that GE might not survive.  A more likely outcome is that GE will either spin off GE Capital if it is too toxic or sell off non-core businesses like NBC, MSNBC, CNBC.  Wouldn't that be a hoot.  Maybe we'd get accurate news and pro-Democratic opinion under a new owner.

I doubt they will sell off their military contracting business though.

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by: David Kowalski @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 16:34:38 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Obama will never be blamed for this mess (4.00 / 3)

Democrats ran against Hoover for years after he left office. A partisan Republican wasn't elected to the White House for forty years the last time the economy was in such poor shape.

People will remember Bush and remember who is to blame for this mess. Even if it gets worse, Obama will get the benefit of the doubt. Once again, the Republicans and the media just can't grasp how much Bush was hated.

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by: Kal @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 15:14:52 PM CST

Saw Stewart Last Night (0.00 / 0)

It was awesome.  Hilarious and dead on point as only Jon Stewart can do.  Joe Nocera was a pretty good interview as well.

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by: jmnyc @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 15:23:11 PM CST

I'm glad this is going viral (4.00 / 3)

I have seen it at least 5 different places today.  It is definitely tapping into something.  maybe CNBC = LOSERS!

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by: sisterfish @ Thu Mar 05, 2009 at 18:52:26 PM CST