the rix mix

Political language - rhetoric - is generally awful. Think of how few really articulate, inspiring presidents we've had, who knew how to use language. I've written that John Kennedy was the most recent president who really understood metaphor & was a great speaker (Carter understands it, Reagan used it well but unsubtly). For a lot of Americans, a  gun target symbol is a gun target, not something else.  It does not signify something else. It is not pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

Most of the 20th Century in the United States was notable for the absence of noxious language in our mainstream politics. In Lincoln's time, language was incredibly foul, violent, & incendiary. Lincoln didn't discourage his supporters' use of it. He simply refused to indulge in it himself. When necessary, he denied that it represented his views. 20th Century America didn't lack demagogic media characters & politicians.  But journalistic standards improved & congress was relatively civil.

On the other hand, we haven't the patience for the kind of lengthy, detailed debates organized by Lincoln & Stephen Douglas, or for speeches that fully explain a politician's views.

A direct cause & effect cannot be drawn between right wing talk radio or Sarah Palin's gun-love & the Arizona shootings. The talk show hosts have plenty of deniability. But one nationally-broadcast host can hardly utter the word "liberals" without placing the word "disgusting" in front of it. His shows are word-streams of casual vileness, & violent words, & he assumes the vast majority of his listeners agree with him. Over & over he repeats the word "facts" - everything he says is a fact. That liberals are disgusting is a fact, period, no argument. What's to argue?

I reside in one of the most liberal radio markets in America & I can't find a liberal talk show host on the AM dial. It can only be worse elsewhere, where fundamentalist religious broadcasting is added.

Our major local newspaper, The Star-Ledger, no longer has the staff or resources to fully report the news. Weekend reporting seems to consist of a single person sitting at a keyboard while monitoring The Associated Press & Newark emergency services radio transmissions. When the bare bones of a news story are reported online, bigoted, anonymous comments fill in the "facts." There's no reporter in the field asking questions.

I knew someone able to speak civilly, even kindly, of Bill Clinton & Al Gore. She was no great fan of George W. Bush. She was sensitive about environmentalism & slowly moderating her views on gay rights. But she loathes Barack Obama & now sounds like an obsessed "birther." Why she so hates Obama is puzzlement unless I attribute it to a barely suppressed racial bigotry she is now allowed to focus on a single symbolic black man with real power. The right licenses her vitriol.

Labels: about writing, in the news, media madness