Barry Ritholtz, at his The Big Picture, mentioned a column by Fareed Zakaria at Time magazine online, "How Today's Conservatism Lost Touch With Reality".
Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism [Zakaria writes], (Conservatism) started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists...Ritholtz's criticism of Zakaria's (actually very mild) article boils down to What, you only just noticed that assertions of mainstream conservatives are not based in reality? Gimme a break!
Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition... I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? ... The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion...
Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. Really? ... right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. Meanwhile, across the globe, the world's fastest-growing economy, China, has managed to use government involvement to create growth and jobs for three decades.
Barry deals with facts as well as the popular delusion of crowds in his chosen profession. I believe the massive disconnect between the world marketed to us by a mainstream media, and the Real World you and I can plainly see in front of us, rightfully annoys him.
For his observation that the earth is round, serious people are showering Zakaria with effusive praise. While the reality based observations are long overdue, it is embarrassing that we feel so compelled to applaud it. People seem to be forgetting: This is what media is supposed to do... What does it say about our damaged US democracy and its wounded 4th Estate (aka corporate media) that merely making an obvious assertion is news? ...Barry talks about the MSM's reaction to the disaster of Katrina -- the television images of the rooftop stranded and the drifting dead, set against Lil' Boots playing the guitar and strutting in front of teevee cameras; while his mother chuckled that the disaster "worked out very well" for its principally black victims -- as though it were a watershed moment. I'm a lot less sure.
The right wing has long embraced magical thinking. You can see it across a spectrum of thought: It is a short hop from believing that Supply Side Tax Cuts are self funding to all other manner of nonsense. From denying Evolution to managing Health Care costs to Global Warming, it is a continuum.
Making no-plan invasions of other countries is the natural progression of such magical thinking. If your beliefs are righteous enough, then the outcome is assured by a munificent deity.
As a personal belief system, that may be fine, but as government philosophy, it makes for horrific policy decisions.
The Retreat from Empiricism has been detailed over the years, but not by the mainstream media. It has been the alternative press — websites, blogs, critics outside of the mainstream — who have stated the obvious for many, many years. Somehow, the Media missed nearly all of it. It wasn’t until after the Katrina disaster that the scales fell from Press’ eyes. Suddenly, in the middle of George W. Bush’ second term, the Press found their voice. Years after 9/11, after the national terror alert was manipulated for political purposes, long after the Nation was lied into a war of choice through dishonest and deceptive means at great cost in blood and treasure, did the Media found [sic] its voice.
MSM coverage of the tragedy in New Orleans was singular (NBC's Brian Willams, his voice shaking with outrage as he broadcast live, was the high water mark, and no pun intended), and so was the willingness of the media to state clearly that Bush administration's response was, like almost everything it touched, incompetent and ad hoc (Little Rupert's Fox, alone among the media outlets, refused to do so, of course). But the media "finding its voice" didn't continue beyond that sad autumn of 2005. And New Orleans still hasn't recovered.
The terrible synergy between advertising revenue and people buying stuff is still the driving force behind global media -- it isn't about accuracy in reporting; it's about dollars. If the MSM were concerned about truth, 'American Idol' would be the exception, not the rule, and we'd have wall-to-wall cable news programs: The History Channel on steroids, informing people about -- well, the truth.
Instead, cable teevee is about entertainment; or, "news as entertainment". Reporting facts as accurately as possible -- telling the truth -- is the exception. It's what most people in The News Game tell themselves their profession is all about, so they can make their house payments; when all we really get is Hannity, Matthews, Bill-O, Beck and Blitzer. With commercials, aber natürlich.
When telling the truth is seen as "a potential money-maker"; well, then people will talk about this brave, New Business Model In Media as if it were a notion never before invented, and not a response to generations of lying and manipulation for political influence and profit.
Until it becomes unprofitable to sell lies and illusion, it's still Little Rupert's world. We just live in it.
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