Thursday, November 18, 2010

Even NPR Toes the Wingnut Line - We Are Doomed

Even NPR toes the wingnut line, as evidenced by this. If even NPR has surrendered to the Fox News storyline, it is obvious that free journalism in this country is dead and is not coming back.

Of course, evidence of this was already apparent years ago, when NPR steadfastly refused to use the word "torture" to describe torture, just because it was our country that did it and the White House played word games. Every time I listened to NPR and a story about the torture that we did (and continue to do) was mentioned as "enhanced interrogation techniques" I screamed at the radio that "no, it is fucking TORTURE you useless pieces of shit." Or something to that effect. They never heard me.

I will never ever give money to NPR now because of that gutless surrender to right-wing bullshit. I almost want to get called by someone at NPR asking me to give money, so I can tell them "no" and tell them exactly why I am saying "no." Their ombudsman had some article about this some time back, and it was the usual gutless bullshit that somehow calling it "torture" would be "taking a side" and not being "objective" when exactly the opposite is true. Since it is, in fact, torture, calling it by any other name is taking an ideological side. It is that same "he said, she said" fake balance of journalism. I'm sorry, but when one person says something that is objectively true, and someone else says the opposite, it is not "objective" to just report what each says and leave it at that. The only "objective" reporting would be to say that one person is telling the truth and the other person is not - and further, to investigate and find out if the person who is not is merely ignorant (and whether it is wilfully so) or if they are a lying sack of shit. THAT is objective reporting. Alas, it is gone forever.

Sure, there is the internet, but there is a huge portion of the populace that either gets their news from the Villagers on tv, or they read only right-wing blogs, and so our future is dead. The right-wing has already won. It is just a matter of how fast they can turn our society into a serf state (and it is already well on its way). Nothing can change this. There will be no more revolutions. There will be no hope. No one with any power will take the side of the populace. NO ONE. The GOP of course is against the populace, and the Democratic party is the only viable alternative - and they are utterly and completely pathetic and useless, and always will be.

We're fucked. Might as well unstrap your seatbelt and open the door and jump into oblivion while the car speeds toward the edge of the cliff.

6 comments:

Larry Hamelin said...

Or you could join the revolution... or make your own.

Larry Hamelin said...

Also... you should read Steppenwolf (Hermann Hesse)

Robert said...

Calling it "torture" isn't particularly taking SIDES, and it is an accurate word.

Similarly, calling abortion "fetus killing" isn't taking a SIDE, and it's an accurate description.

But I can see why a journalistic organization would choose to avoid the emotionally-laden terms, in these instances. Can't you?

DBB said...

Torture is torture. Changing it to a eumphism SOLELY because, after decades of using that word, without controversy, to describe it - suddenly ONE side starts advocating it, is pure bullshit.

Abortion is not accurately described by "fetus killing" because there doesn't have to even be a fetus to abort. If you abort early, you are aborting simply a fertilized egg, or a zygote. So it is also "egg killing" and "zygote killing". What it is not is "baby killing". What does tie all of it together is "pregnancy" - but you can't "kill" a pregnancy, you can end it. So the most technically correct term is "pregnancy ending".

"Fetus killing" as a term is thus not technically accurate and so to use it is to use an innaccurate term for emotional reasons. Though frankly, I don't care if that term is used (when accurate).

Torture, on the other hand, was the word used to describe what is torture for decades - centuries - right up until George W. Bush started advocating that we do it. Then suddenly, an entirely new phrase, never before used to describe it, was created and then adopted by ALL news organizations to describe it. Sounds to me like pretty effective propeganda, it sounds like all of the media took Bush's side on the issue, and it sounds like an utterly worthless media as far as reporting the truth.

DBB said...

Larry - can you have a revolution of one?

Krystyn41 said...

Jeezz and I thought I had doomsday thoughts!! ;) Nice to be not alone...