Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Anti-intellectualism and Anti-Poverty in the Press

I was listening to Which Way L.A. and the "Democratic" Moderate (I call him a wishy-washy Republican with guilt) slammed Al Gore for quoting too many authorities about a subject. I guess it was just SO boring, or, it seemed, too smart for that guy (I guess he can't do that, I can't either, unless you're talking about baby sleep patterns or new wave nutrition!).

So it's not just on the right that we find anti-intellectualism, and obviously, this is how we got and keep George Bush--and an insane war. We deny reality (facts) and ignore rationality (logic). Who needs critical thinking when we've got spin and Fox News!

I've yet to see a positive article about John Edwards in the L.A. Press. The link above's comments hint at why this is so--no corporation likes a populist. The last article ended with this quote from some Clinton polster, "If Edwards doesn't win Iowa he's dead." Such arrogance, isn't there?

More disturbing to me was how the article pitted the interests of the poor against the middle class. They wanted to establish that the poor has no consituency (voting block) which is disgusting even if the numbers "show" that.

They failed to point out the truth...that many of us ARE poor, we just don't fill out the questionaire to reflect that truthfully.

In 2004 I never thought Edward's "two Americas" was useful because even the folks in the poor America think they are in the Middle Class America. He's figured that out, among other things.

Peace.

"Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?...Probably [Possibly (radio version)]

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice"

Gnarls Barkley, Crazy

2 comments:

Vigilante said...

Incredible is the bounce JRE received off the last debates. He was way ahead in the D-Kos poll when I saw it.

Pink Liberty said...

Yes, I think he did well in this last debate but for the last comment which seemed to be the one time he wasn't actually listening to the question--bad way to end the debate, ugh.