Category Archive 'NPR'
Leftism Successful Only Wearing Camouflage
Barack Obama, Daniel Greenfield, Media Bias, NPR, Rachel Maddow, The Left, The Mainstream Media
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow
Dan Greenfield argues that, while Barack Obama succeeded in selling leftism to the American public, he did it by concealing his real identity behind a masque of reasonable moderation. When leftists fail to conceal their leftism, Americans still find them totally repulsive.
The playwright and director David Mamet achieved an epiphany while listening to NPR. Unfortunately for NPR the epiphany was that he was no longer a liberal. "I felt my facial muscles tightening," he described, "and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the f___ up."
The unfiltered left with its onslaught of sanctimonious bleating often brings out that reaction.
It's why Air America not only couldn't compete with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative talk radio hosts, but it couldn't even remain solvent. MSNBC, the bastard child of a ridiculous union between Microsoft and NBC, spent years drifting in search of an identity only to become the new Air America.
Why does the left, which is so adept at putting its agenda across in mainstream media outlets fail spectacularly when it puts away the disguise and begins saying what it really thinks?
George Orwell described the phenomenon in his book The Road to Wigan Pier. The behavior he is describing is so familiar that it's worth pausing to remember that it was written 77 years ago in 1937.
"I do not think the Socialist need make any sacrifice of essentials, but certainly he will have to make a great sacrifice of externals," Orwell wrote, explaining why the left was failing to make headway with more sensible people. "If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt, and every vegetarian, teetotaler… sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly!"
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"You Will Be Assimilated"
Community of Fashion, David Brooks, NPR, NPR Funding, The Elect, The Elite, The Intelligentsia
Dan Calabrese explains why David Brooks thinks NPR must be federally funded.
I sort of like having David Brooks around. He serves as a living demonstration of a lot of troubling things. By the standards of the New York Times and much of official Washington, Brooks is supposed to be some sort of conservative. And that probably tells you everything you need to know about officialdom.
So when MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Brooks the other day to make his case for why we should continue to give federal funding to public broadcasting, what could the elitist Mr. Brooks say? He couldn't say there aren't enough other choices, since there are thousands of them. He couldn't defend NPR and PBS against the elitist charge, although, as an elitist himself, he probably has a hard time seeing the problem with that.
So he said this:
"Here's the case: You know we have a common culture. If we're going to assimilate people, if we're going to be one nation – it helps to have a common culture. There's some things that do join us. And government has some role in help creating those things, in funding the things that join us. The Smithsonian museums do some of that. I think public broadcasting with shows like 'The American Experience,' they give us all something to clue into our history. They join us as a people. They assimilate immigrants and it's worth a very small amount, and you should see my paychecks – a very small amount that we pay to this."
Got that? It doesn't matter that you can get upwards of 1,000 different channels on cable or satellite, or that you can get hundreds of radio stations on XM/Siruis – not to mention your local broadcast stations. Apparently those hundreds and hundreds of offerings don't effectively "assimilate" you into the "common culture" of America, as defined and approved by snobs like David Brooks.
To really get a sense of where he's coming from, you need to read more David Brooks, but since you would rather scratch a chalkboard, I'll sum it up for you. Brooks believes the major division in society today is not rich vs. poor, nor is it liberal vs. conservative, but rather the educated vs. the uneducated. Guess which group David Brooks likes!
So you, the great unwashed, watching wrestling, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Operation Repo or the very worst thing of all, Fox News Channel, David Brooks has a problem with you. See, we have a "common culture," and it consists of things David Brooks approves of. Stuff you find in the Smithsonian. Stuff you hear at the opera.
It's fun laughing at David Brooks' pompous egotism, but his argument is really just more liberal establishment fantasy. NPR does not assimilate anybody. The availability of some Vivaldi on some FM NPR channel makes nobody switch over on the dial from Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh.
Federal NPR funding is simply a bien pensant gesture expressing our would-be ruling class's cultural piety and affirming their authority to call the shots. The redneck gas station mechanic in Nebraska may be immune to conversion to membership in a culture that applauds exhibitions of Gay Portraiture at the Smithsonian and that likes to listen to Baroque music in the morning, but he can, by Jingo! be made to pay taxes to support the preferences of his betters.
"Explosives-Loaded Printer Cartridges in Cargo Plane"
Cartoon, Islam, Juan Williams, NPR, Political Correctness, Terrorism
No Big Surprise: Conservatives Are More Tolerant
Fox News Conversions, Free Speech, Juan Williams, NPR, Tolerance
Michael Barone identifies the moral of the firing of Juan Williams by NPR and applauds the happy result for this particular victim of liberal intolerance.
Reading between the lines of Juan's statement and those of NPR officials, it's apparent that NPR was moved to fire Juan because he irritates so many people in its audience. An interesting contrast: while many NPR listeners apparently could not stomach that Williams also appeared on Fox News. But it doesn't seem that any perceptible number of Fox News viewers had any complaints that Williams also worked for NPR. The Fox audience seems to be more tolerant of diversity than the NPR audience.
The good news: Fox News president Roger Ailes has given Williams a three-year contract at an increase in salary. Hurray!
Juan Williams Fired By NPR
Free Speech, Islam, Islam, Juan Williams, NPR, Political Correctness
New York Times:
NPR has terminated its contract with Juan Williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel.
NPR said in a statement that it gave Mr. Williams notice of his termination on Wednesday night.
The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the "The O'Reilly Factor" on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O'Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a "Muslim dilemma." Mr. O'Reilly said, "The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet."
Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O'Reilly. …
NPR said in its statement that the remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."
Here are the comments that got Williams fired.
Your tax dollars fund National Public Radio and pay the salaries of the representatives of the arrogant and intolerant left who enforce political correctness at the expense of freedom of thought and expression. Let's hope the next Congress does something about this.
Blog Administration, CIA, Democrats, Global Warming, Health Care Reform, John O. Brennan, Kubrick, Media Bias, Michael Scheuer, NPR, Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Ladin, Republicans, The Blogosphere, WordPress
Your tax dollars at work. NPR uploaded a 1:24 propaganda cartoon last November which has recently been noticed and is attracting criticism.
Peggy Noonan says passage of the Health Care Bill is going to be a catastrophic victory for democrats. Republicans are currently simply waiting for democrats to finish destroying themselves, and she warns them that, with respect to their own coming political accendancy, they should take a cue from the film Saving Private Ryan (1998) and: "Earn this"
How's that Global Warming working out for you? Snow covers the United Kingdom from Land's End to John o' Groats.
WordPress is retiring the much-admired Kubrick as its default format theme. Never Yet Melted started out briefly using Kubrick, like just about everybody else.
Michael Scheuer says Obama Counter Terrorism Czar John O. Brennan in 1998 blocked a CIA operation that could have klilled or captured Bin Ladin.
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