I wrote an article called “Mining outrage” nine years ago in another forum. It was prompted by that label being applied to Bill O’Reilly and I don’t remember the precise vein of outrage he was mining back in 2004 on his TV show, The O’Reilly Factor. The point was that he used emphasis, rhetoric, telling half the story and sometimes misdirection to get people unjustifiably upset about things, to make them feel outraged. Mining outrage is a mainstay of partisan political talk radio, and the worst examples (particularly in intellectually dishonest outrage mining) seem to be on the Conservative side with Rush Limbaugh the miners’ union boss and the Republicans in Congress happily on board. (Keep in mind that I don’t have access to Liberal talk radio.)
When I was growing up, you had three TV network news organizations, major newspapers and news magazines that might have had a tiny slant in one direction or another, but generally told the story straight, and were quite responsible in using the appropriate level of concern about the stories they reported. AM radio played music. Today, those sources are still around, but there are so many other news sources that don’t subscribe to the canons of journalist integrity. There has always been some yellow journalism, but it has now exploded to the point that most people get their news from the dumpster. Indeed in a recent poll, Fox News was found more trusted as a news source than CNN on the Boston Marathon bombing story.
Birthers mine outrage as well and tap in to nascent racist feelings among their crowd. In either case what results is a cadre of people who are outraged, and being outranged not thinking straight, and not thinking straight, being outright nasty and combative. Outrage also makes people act hastily and stupidly. It is my feeling that folks are more nasty and belligerent than they used to be, Congress is more nasty and belligerent than it used to be, and that the explosion of low-quality alternative news sources and nasty and belligerent commentators is largely to blame, and those people who get rich by making other people angry really outrage me.
I recently had a conversation with a Lady at work. She always listens to Limbaugh on her ride to work. I told her I used to listen just for the entertainment value of his ignorance. Well she explained that Limbaugh has the pulse of what is happening to the Country. She is an older woman who has a hidden racist streak that she sometimes lets slip in what she perceives as friendly company. I tried to explain that Limbaugh makes realistic statements then uses that veil as a tool to spread hatred and anger. It has been the profitable model for him and others who have followed his example. She then asked me to show her where he ever said anything racist or hateful. I tried to explain he isn’t going to come out and exclaim racist words he uses subtlety to walk that line that way his listeners who are the racists the haters understand what he is really saying and they think he is on their side without even saying racist words.
She then said that is what Limbaugh says about those that oppose the truth they try to make him the bad guy. When it is the “Regime” that is trying to destroy the Country.
I just gave up and told her to really listen and not just let him make her angry. That also didn’t go off too well. She said it is the “Regime” that is trying to pit everyone against each other not Limbaugh. I just walked away with that one.
You could have always told her about the time Rush told a black caller to “take the bone out of his nose and call him back.”
Today’s 60 minutes covered the seal team rescue of Jessica Buchanan, Obama sent in the Seals to rescue her in January, At the State of Union event Obama turned to and told the defense secretary “Good Job”, it was this story that he reffered to as a good job, and it was. It would be a neat thing for Orly to call this woman and tell her Obama is a traitor, see how far Orly’s outrage gets.
See the story http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50146677n
“Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” — to an African American caller, while hosting a Top 40 music program under the name Jeff Christie
Referred to now-President Obama as “Barack the Magic Negro” and played a song by the same name to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1882947,00.html#ixzz2T8a8qvaM
Wow, theres some real zingers in there. O.O
Well said, Doc! You’ve hit the nail on the head of where a major amount of the poisoning is stemming from… I agree with you on all points.
When your racist limbaugh is truth loving friend asked for an example of limbaugh being racist. You should have told her that episode the fat pill popping tasteless bastard sang that song “Obama the magic negro to the off key tune of puff the magic dragon.
Doc you are absolutely right on all points and you should like many of us have a right to be angry. There is little or no journalistic integrity left anymore in this country. In fact I believe most of the major news sources are like tabloid journalism, with the worst being the editorializing of news at the expense of truth in just plain reporting. Those days of legendary journalists like Murrow are forever gone. Now its all about the ratings. I guess the movie network was so eerily dead on about the future state of things. Its time for folks like you doc to shout “Iam mad as hell and I won’t take this anymore”.
I’m in the process of rereading William Manchester’s THE GLORY & THE DREAM (somerthing I do every 5 or 6 years or so), a detailed history of American from 1932 to 1972 and I try to take heart in reading about the equally vile, hate-filled and divisive actions the Right (lumping together the racists, the xenophobes, the financial elites, etc.) took in the 1930s to oppose FDR… Surely it is not worse today; we may be just more aware of it.
OTOH, it is sad to see that overall, as a country, rich and poor, educated or not, the media, the elites, we (or should I say, you) have learned almost nothing from the lessons of that period. The introduction chapter on Hoover’s attempts at dealing with the depresson in 1932 is frighreningly reminiscent of today’s administration policies.
For some reason I can’t fathom, while it was a best-seller when it came out in 1975, GLORY & DREAM seems to be out of print today, and not available as an e-book either.
I very much recommend it to anyone here weho hasn’t read it & would like to put both Obama and his detractors in a more historical context.
I also recommend Oliver Stone’s ground-breaking documentary on the UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES:
http://www.sho.com/sho/oliver-stones-untold-history-of-the-united-states/home
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Stone%27s_Untold_History_of_the_United_States
While not quite as directly relevant to Obama as Manchester’s book, the segment on Henry Wallace was quite an eye opener (to me).
A friend of mine and I once had an argument over Fox News.
He insisted they truly are “Fair and balanced” and they don’t take sides.
He kept on using the “We report, you decide” slogan to bolster his point of view.
So I gave him this example: Let’s say you are told you are going to get one of two things to eat: carrots or peas. Which one do you want to eat?
He said he didn’t really like either, but chose the carrots.
I said “Fine, you have the carrots, I’m going to eat the chocolate cupcake.”
Suddenly he said “you never mentioned any cupcakes, how could I have had a choice?”
I replied “Exactly! Fox News could be 100% honest when they mentioned the carrots and peas, but how can you make a choice if not given all the other possibilities?
Just because they “reported”, doesn’t mean your “decision” considers all choices.
He kind of saw the light then, but I doubt he’s changed news channels.
The Gatewaypundit has a mashup of conspiracy theories to make a new conspiracy theory:
Michele Bachmann: Obama Released IRS Bombshell to Divert Attention From Benghazi
☞LINK
I agree with your assessment. I grew up on walter Jacobson and bill kurtis (local news wbbm) Cronkite, Huntley brinkly etc. don’t forget, fox is sort of a stand alone entity in the business of cable news. there is a striking contrast in and among the field. I am a fox guy no doubt, but I watch them all. some people have no tolerance at all for the fox. even won’t be in the same room. sometimes I even change it to the cnn or even the weather channel. I do this out of respect.
there is a new wave of citizen journalism in the American undercurrent. the internet has become the fifth pillar to the news media. the watchdog used to be the news (free press), now it’s the people again. there is so much to absorb out there, and of course there is a segment of our population, that simply refuse to engage in any of the new social media. good fascinating topic doc, good article.
Great analogy and challenge, US Citizen!
But, to make it more fitting, I’d suggest using 2 gastronomic disasters from competing fast food chains.
^^^^^^^^^^ This.
I am sad for these people. The anger and outrage is not good for them physically, mentally and spiritually.
Frankly, I’m in favor of Michele Bachmann hitching her caboose to this train. That practically guarantees the story will be viewed by sane Americans as a nutjob conspiracy.
“Bachmann, a former tax attorney” — amusing. She worked as an entry-level trial attorney in District Counsel in St. Paul. She tried … hold on, this is a BIG number! … exactly one case in the United States Tax Court during her five-year tenure there. It was a slam dunk case that she won, because those are the cases that are assigned to young attorneys to build their trial skills. All of her other cases were settled by the Appeals Division; all she had to do was babysit the files while someone else did the heavy lifting. A significant percent of her time with District Counsel was spent on maternity leave. Like Sarah Palin, she’s a quitter who left tax law in 1993 and never practiced law again.
Despite holding a LL.M. in Tax, Ms. Bachmann’s grasp of tax law is tenuous at best. She proves that every time she opens her mouth and elaborates on the subject.
The problem as well is that the internet has become a vast source of MIS-information. If you want your lunatic theories confirmed, its all right there, from the earth is hollow and filled with superbiengs, to Anorexia is actually good for you. The only good things that came out of the “swift-boating” nonsense is the rise of the “fact checkers” who actively check the truth in the latest talking points and the memes pumped out by the opinion making industries like FOX. But again, the misinformation power of the internet means that if you DARE link to them in a discussion the rubes will scream that linking to them is not valid.
It also means that it is utterly impossible to dissuade people of the wrong things no matter how much you prove what they are saying is lies, even from the sources they use themselves. They have entire communities out there now who are supporting one another in lying, and entire websites of “citizen journalists” who just pump out raw lies and opinion as fact to one another. Birthers and their ilk now crow that they don’t even watch FOX anymore because it wont report “the truth.” So the seeding by Limbaugh and FOX is increasingly making them irrelevant. They are perhaps needed to begin a meme of misinformation and hatred, but once it starts it will spread and mutate without them.
Basically, people have traded the ability to reason for the ability to be totally convinced, and they are surrounding themselves with people who actively lie to one another to support their beliefs. Hell, Orly’s reliance on the amount of Google hits that pop up is a form of self validation.
As a good example, look what happened to ACORN. They were a victim of fraud, were stung by a hoax, they were investigated and cleared of any and all wrongdoing, but they were still shut down because of the manufactured lie.
Manchester’s book is my absolute favorite non-fiction book…the best history of the United States from 1932 to 1972, and he is a terrific writer.
I also remind myself that the vast legions of FDR and JFK-haters are forgotten, even by their descendants, today, and the drivel they spouted about both of the above is similar to that being hurled at Obama. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh will be forgotten 100 years from now, while college students will still be doing term papers on Obama, and his home will be a National Park Service site.
Nevertheless, I do agree that the tone in American public discourse is the worst I have seen in my entire life, and my father, before he died in 1995, said that tone was the worst he had seen since the 1930s. He pointed out, during the Clinton Administration, how people in the Depression whined about WPA workers leaning on their shovels and government waste, but there was not the total hatred and disrespect of government and its institutions. And this was a time of peace and prosperity under Bill Clinton.
If anything, it has become worse in the 20 years since then. Now we have endless war and an economic crisis, and those have fueled the flames. Making matters worse is that the gun debate, always a major emotional issue in this country, is at the top of the debate. We also have something that is a mortal terror to conservatives and racists…a mildly liberal black president with an Arab name, a white mother, and an African father. Heck, I’m surprised Obama was elected in the first place…I figured our first black president would be Colin Powell, a conservative type who would be palatable to the GOP and its base.
These factors are inflaming an already paranoid angry right-wing culture and further polarizing an already acrimonious political debate, where the tone is not set by serious thought and intelligent ideas, but by angry motormouths, who spout emotional drivel and lies simply to gain attention, viewership, and money. It is impossible now for men and women of goodwill, honor, and patriotism, to work out solutions to problems, because they are shouted down by the extremely angry, cynical, and warped people who are dominating the debate.
Other factors:
* Americans are more familiar with and accepting of conspiracy theories for all their ills, because their soap-opera-like solutions make the world neat and tidy.
* The decline of faith in and support of government in the past five decades, since the moral filth of Vietnam and Watergate, along with the excesses of the 1960s. A lot of people equate the left wing with the defeat in Vietnam and the Symbionese Liberation Army.
* The terror so many Americans have over the word “socialism.” They are petrified of the word, and seem to still find Communist takeovers in every initiative. Never mind that the only places that still espouse Communism are Cuba, North Korea, and the faculty lounge at City College of New York.
* The problem we face of jobs and economic opportunities going away, leaving a vast tract of the American population that may never achieve the “American Dream” spouted at them on television, of living like the Ewing family in “Dallas.”
* The shifting demographics in this country, which will render white people a minority, and that leaves a lot of them terrified of other ethnicities…which again relates to the excesses of the 1960s. Ask people about Newark, they immediately think of the riots…they took place 40 years ago, and every single person who was killed in the riots…died of a bullet fired by a National Guardsman.
Kiwiwriter: The shifting demographics in this country, which will render white people a minority, and that leaves a lot of them terrified of other ethnicities…which again relates to the excesses of the 1960s.
“Requiem for a Grand Old Party
Pat Buchanan lays out demographic realities of Republicans’ chief base: White voters”
http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/requiem-for-a-grand-old-party/
Watching your countries population change before your very eyes is a very VERY terrifying thing to witness, and I don’t think there’s any problem admitting that. I think that simply acknowledging that fact might be a small first step in getting some understanding going here.
I’m reminded of the movie Mandela and de Klerk, where in the first meeting with the 2, De Klerk (played by Micheal Caine) talks to Mandela and talks about the fact that he knows the ultimate conclusion once talks go under way, but he says that He and all the white people are South African as Mandela is, and he wants to make sure that he and the white people have a place in South Africa. Mandela nods and says he thinks he understands, and the 2 slowly shake hands and De Klerk says “Then lets begin.”
That image of 2 adversaries having a mutual understanding that both have a place in their society has stayed with me. Its a great movie, btw, I recommend you check it out if you see it.
For those with a general problem with change, perhaps. But if you can’t handle change, dude, you are so in the wrong universe!
Don’t believe us? Ask the native Americans what it was like! Maybe that’s what all the outrage is about.
The Native Americans kicked someone else out when they arrived, and they did plenty of warring amongst themselves and kicking one another out of territory.
And seriously, if you are talking about immigration in terms of an enemy invasion by comparing it to the whites arriving on America, you are talking like the Anti-immigration crowd.
Except that most of “the people” have no idea what real journalism is. If there is any evidence that “citizen journalism” has improved the overall quality of journalism, I would like to see it. Most of what I see passing for “citizen journalism” is highly partisan and agenda-driven, created or spread by people who either are unable or unwilling to apply critical thinking to what they write.
The problem is that man of these ‘news sites’ so often are based on speculation more than factual analysis. While the spread of information is to be applauded, there are many people who need the certainty of being told rather than willing to figure out what aspects of the ‘reported’ issues are factual. Everyone with a keyboard can pretend to be a ‘reporter’ and ‘publish’ the most outrageous ‘facts’ and given the social nature, people are quick to ‘like’ and ‘quote’, leading to a false perception of accuracy.
It’s this need to avoid ambiguity combined with ‘news sources’ which are ideological and take pride in the fact that they do not have to tell the truth, that undermines rather than strengthen our nation.
Look at the birther sites for example… Many of the sites show no interest to explore the claims, and few like Dr C’s and the Fogbow even take the time to look in more depth at the claims and often expose them as flawed.
Of course, to the stereotypical ‘conservative mind’ this generates a lot of ambiguity and rather that confront they retreat into their own groups, avoiding to listen to other perspectives. This inevitably leads to a situation where nothing is going to convince such a person of his follies. Facts be damned…
And that my friend is a real danger to our democracy. People are so easily manipulated nowadays that a few media sites can string along its listeners quite easily. Faux News is just a great example but there are countless examples of conservative talking heads who are taken as ‘messiahs’, rather than as entertainers whose ratings depend not on them telling the facts or even the truth but rather on attracting viewers.
Yes, and the facts that resistance to change correlates strongly with the conservative brain, and religiosity, it becomes even more a problem.
and
That is basically the definition of ‘conservative’. Its what I learned in civics classes in the 60’s anyway.
I don’t see any great revelation here, sorry.
What I find striking are the smilarities between 1932 (as recounted by Manchester) and today.
The differences, too, are striking. People seemed far more combative then and the “rich” (for lack of a better term) were more frightened then. A little known fact reported by Manchester: more people LEFT the United States then than immigrated.
Finally, why is that book out of print and not available as e-book? It’s downright insane.
I find it very odd that someone claiming that he grew up on Cronkite and Huntley/Brinkley could have anything but contempt for Fox.
I have no doubt that either of these three gentlemen would have been (rightly) horrified at the stream of undending propaganda unleashed daily by Fox.
Here is Cronkite’s opinion on Fox:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mKbetULhPU
One discerning factor between RWs and LWs seems to be that RWs rely more on feelings than facts.
LWs being the opposite.
This would also explain that sans a decent education, all a person really has is feelings… even if it’s about something they know nothing about.
To some degree, I think this has even caused a fear of education. One might learn something that hurts their feelings.
One of the things I’ve learned to do is to “wait a day” whenever the newest “outrage” is being hyperventilated about on the media, on both the right and the left. Far more often than not, the actual facts that emerge don’t bear out the initial hysteria. It’s caused me to lose what little respect I had for most of the “pundit class,” simply because they’re rushing out to be “first!!” with their opinion on something, which turns out to be based on a half-heard summary of what is happening.
So-called “citizen journalism” really consists of people with penknives to grind bouncing around each other’s conspiracy theories in a vast echo chamber of paranoia and cynicism.
There is no fact-checking, no standards of accuracy, no efforts to be fair, very little empathy, and writing based on anger and emotion, rather than intellectual analysis. A lot of it is in buzzwords and jargon.
Yes, there are a lot of similarities between 1932 and today, and a lot of differences. And people were leaving the United States in 1932 and after…that included my German teacher’s family, which heard about fantastic jobs for beekeepers from relatives back in Hamburg, went back to Hamburg, and endured the war and the bombing. They were happy to see British tanks show up in 1945.
The rich in 1932 WERE terrified, and they are not as much today, but the psychology of fear that existed in 1932 is being recycled and used, more cynically this time. In 1932, the danger of the collapse of the United States was very real. I think that if Giuseppe Zangara’s bullet had been just a little lower, and FDR was killed instead of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, the Cactus Jack Garner Presidency would have been an utter nightmare, leading to a right-wing coup by frightened industrialists, possibly with military or para-military backing. Hitler would have won the war.
I think Manchester’s book was reprinted a few years ago, and is available on tape or CD as well.
You’re right; a friend of mine was looking for it and I’ll relay the information. I looked on amazon, however, and the price is quite steep — $78 in paperback and $63 on CD. I wish there was a more affordable edition; it should be required reading in schools.
Most of the time, there is no facts at all. Somebody makes up some “friend of a friend” story and it spreads as if it was fact-checked by the Pope.
Or somebody posts a wild conjecture (remember the “Obama surrendered his law license to avoid criminal prosecution” claim) and the next one already relays it as fact.
I found paperback copies of it fairly cheaply…trade-size, of course.
The book should be required reading…it has a few minor glitches: it doesn’t explain what the Bricker Amendment actually said, it has the Cold War ending with the detente agreements of Moscow in 1972, when it actually had another 27 years to run, it has the US troops in the Philippines retreating to Corregidor before they did, and he sinks the USS Lexington at Coral Sea, then resurrects it in time for the Battle of Midway. The paperback edition corrects that error.
I also recomend his other books on Churchill, MacArthur, the Krupps, and “Goodbye Darkness,” his memoir of WW2 in the Pacific.
the 24 hour news cycle just make sit worse…
Plenty of cheap copies on eBay (US eBay at least…)! And multiple listing at many price points on Amazon. Much less than $78 US.
Of course, then there’s the problem of int’l shipping.
More than happy to buy a copy and ship it to anyone overseas who wants one.
17!
Well here’s a story about one media talking head that has finally figured out to get some sense out of Orly:
Making Sense Of Orly Taitz: Barack Obama And The ‘Pan African-American Drama Tactic’ (VIDEO)
With consideration to mining outrage, I’d like to speculate on what Fox viewers would say if the Fairness Doctrine was instituted again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine
They would freak. Its one of the things Rush Limbaugh and the other right wing Jackals constantly harp on about as an imminent threat and the end of civilization.
I use bookfinder.com when searching for out-of-print books. They show many copies available, in varying editions and conditions, and of course variable pricing. The lowest price I see for a new copy of Manchester’s book (hardcover) is $51.
$42.99 at Amazon for a new copy.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Glory-Dream-Willam-Manchester/dp/B001E9OVZG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368664130&sr=8-2&keywords=glory+and+the+dream
193 listings at ABE Books, but they’re all over the place and you really have to dig. But hey, ‘reading’ copies (i.e., terrible condition), for a buck!
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=Manchester&sortby=1&tn=The+Glory+and+the+Dream
Well, it is a direct threat to Limbaugh’s job security. Its end made his ‘career’ possible.
Reminds me of years ago, when the Car Talk guys, Click and Clack, did as their customary opening comedy act a take-off on a piece of serious academic research about why the male or the species — or maybe only some males — just have to have an opinion, even about things they know nothing about.
They conjured up a guy who was not on speaking terms with half his relatives, but he knows the surefire solution to peace in the Middle East. And he hasn’t managed to get a date for six months, but he knows what women REALLY want.
And two or three other riffs that I can’t recall. Wish I knew exactly when this ran; it was much funnier with the brothers than I’ve rendered it here. I know it was in the spring in the early 2000s, because I was taking my son to play in a baseball league with an April-May schedule.
Thank you all for the info re the availability of Manchester’s book. I have forwarded the info to my friend.
If anyone here hasn’t read it, you should. Especially in times like these which bear some resemblance to the 1930s. I cannot find enough praise for it — it will likely be a stunning discovery.
One idiot on amazon gave it one star claiming it is “pro-communist”. Honestly, I don’t know how these people can tie their shoes in the morning (velcro?).
The open thread is closed so I thought I’d dump this here – it does talk about mines.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-torpedo-dolphins-20130518,0,7621822.story?track=rss