A radio show decades ago is misremembered as having caused widespread panic on Halloween; Congress has become just another form of legalized bribery; and the left-wing San Francisco Chronicle has been covering that city’s Occupy movement like a right-wing paper. These discoveries and more below.
On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.
The links below open in a new window. Newer ones are on top.
The Halloween Myth of ‘The War of the Worlds’ Panic
Mass panic and hysteria swept the United States on the eve of Halloween in 1938, when an all-too-realistic radio dramatization of “The War of the Worlds” sent untold thousands of people into the streets or heading for the hills.
America’s ‘Oh Sh*T!’ Moment
Has the U.S. deleted the very things that made it great? Niall Ferguson on how America can avoid imminent collapse.
Tea Party and OWS
If politics is show business for ugly people (which, by the way, it’s not, not this time, not the ugly-people part anyway, not with a cast of characters as glossy as Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin’s ghost, and Barack Obama), is Occupy Wall Street the tea party for liberal people?
Are Elite Colleges Worth It?
Kurt Vonnegut’s son, Mark, wrote in his memoir, “The Eden Express,” that the best thing about graduating from college is that you can say what a pile of crap college is and “no one can accuse you of sour grapes.”
The Importance of Protests
The most frequently asked question Glenn Greenwald has encountered has been: but what can we do about all of this? The reason he finds the Occupy movement to be one of the most important, exciting and inspiring political developments of the last decade is that it provides the definitive answer to that question.
Congress as Legalized Bribery
Thomas Friedman finally got something right: “Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery.”
Artists in the Workforce
Research offers industry-specific, regional and demographic data on the 2.1 million artists working in the U.S.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Occupy SF Problem
In America’s most left-wing city, pundits for the San Francisco Chronicle, the city’s daily newspaper, are coming across like the smarmy voice of the Chamber of Commerce.
Surveying the Occupiers
Zuccotti Park in New York’s financial district is decked out with posters and signs for the wide array of political viewpoints of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
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Quote:“After Obama sailed into office on the
biggest popular-vote majority in twenty years,
Republicans were left treading water. A few months
later, the Tea Party came along to pick them up, dry
them off, give them a new suit of clothes, and set
them on a starboard course to victory in the 2010
midterms. The rescue wasn’t free of charge, of
course. The cost, to the country as well as to the
sad remnants of moderate Republicanism, has been
high. But there’s no denying the potency of whatever
it was that the brave new party injected into the
scarred veins of the grand old one.”
I disagree with the premise in the article that the
Tea Party movement was “grassroots” even at its
inception. This is not to say that some of
its adherents weren’t sincere or even believed
that they were engaging in a grassroots effort.
In reality though the very same contingent that put
Sarah Palin into play as vice presidential candidate
for McCain was behind the scenes orchestrating the
activity. They were pouring in money, not after the
fact but to “create” the grassroots appearance. They
had no issue with misleading many of these
participants into working hard to shoot themselves in
the foot.
This wasn’t a case of a protester not being exactly
sure what they thought regarding an issue. This was
a case of deliberate misrepresentation of the facts
to the adherents and choreographed “talking points.”
Did you notice how they had that “all important
message” perfectly honed and in-sync. I know here on
the blogs, the talking points and the barrage was
highly organized (and obvious to anyone paying
attention). It is not the same situation with OWS and
that too is obvious.
Many, many groups came together regarding OWS, folks who normally might not share a common bond. And again, to anyone who’s been paying attention that common bond is the outrage directed at the very same entity that was behind the “grassroots” tea party moment, the ONE PERCENT.
Since I read all Kurt Vonnegut’s books that he had published so far by the time I was in high school (I got Kurt Vonnegut to sign a copy of Hocus-Pocus, not one of his best, and a carton of Pall Mall’s in eleventh grade), I eventually read his son Mark’s “The Eden Express”, which was interesting.
I think he was being fucked with by hypnotists, but anyhow… after he gave up his old ways and went back to school to become a prominent psychiatrist, I saw him speak on a panel about ADD. He was asked to define it (if I were to define it I would call it a case of being a kid). He couldn’t, but he remained undaunted about the validity of the ADD diagnosis and prescription of amphetamines to children nevertheless, as far as I know.
I never went to college (or finished high school), but have “sour grapes” about how college eventually taught folks like Dr. Mark Vonnegut and many others to think (or not think).
Marching in Chicago: Resisting Rahm Emanuel’s Neoliberal Savagery
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By EmileZ, November 1, 2011 at 2:58 am Link to this comment
Zoloft by Ween
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2atr-SKjM8E
Happy Halloween Dr. Mark Vonnegut (and Larry)!!!
Report thisBy Outraged, October 31, 2011 at 10:46 pm Link to this comment
Regarding the article Tea Party and OWS.
Quote:“After Obama sailed into office on the
biggest popular-vote majority in twenty years,
Republicans were left treading water. A few months
later, the Tea Party came along to pick them up, dry
them off, give them a new suit of clothes, and set
them on a starboard course to victory in the 2010
midterms. The rescue wasn’t free of charge, of
course. The cost, to the country as well as to the
sad remnants of moderate Republicanism, has been
high. But there’s no denying the potency of whatever
it was that the brave new party injected into the
scarred veins of the grand old one.”
I disagree with the premise in the article that the
Tea Party movement was “grassroots” even at its
inception. This is not to say that some of
its adherents weren’t sincere or even believed
that they were engaging in a grassroots effort.
In reality though the very same contingent that put
Sarah Palin into play as vice presidential candidate
for McCain was behind the scenes orchestrating the
activity. They were pouring in money, not after the
fact but to “create” the grassroots appearance. They
had no issue with misleading many of these
participants into working hard to shoot themselves in
the foot.
This wasn’t a case of a protester not being exactly
sure what they thought regarding an issue. This was
a case of deliberate misrepresentation of the facts
to the adherents and choreographed “talking points.”
Did you notice how they had that “all important
message” perfectly honed and in-sync. I know here on
the blogs, the talking points and the barrage was
highly organized (and obvious to anyone paying
attention). It is not the same situation with OWS and
that too is obvious.
Many, many groups came together regarding OWS, folks who normally might not share a common bond. And again, to anyone who’s been paying attention that common bond is the outrage directed at the very same entity that was behind the “grassroots” tea party moment, the ONE PERCENT.
Report thisBy EmileZ, October 31, 2011 at 9:35 pm Link to this comment
RE: Mark Vonnegut
Since I read all Kurt Vonnegut’s books that he had published so far by the time I was in high school (I got Kurt Vonnegut to sign a copy of Hocus-Pocus, not one of his best, and a carton of Pall Mall’s in eleventh grade), I eventually read his son Mark’s “The Eden Express”, which was interesting.
I think he was being fucked with by hypnotists, but anyhow… after he gave up his old ways and went back to school to become a prominent psychiatrist, I saw him speak on a panel about ADD. He was asked to define it (if I were to define it I would call it a case of being a kid). He couldn’t, but he remained undaunted about the validity of the ADD diagnosis and prescription of amphetamines to children nevertheless, as far as I know.
I never went to college (or finished high school), but have “sour grapes” about how college eventually taught folks like Dr. Mark Vonnegut and many others to think (or not think).
Report this