The 112th House of Representatives is "The People's House"......

[Jenne]

Quite probably.  But then there's a whole lot of chicken and egg behind that.  Do those minorities support the Democrats because of Republican racism?  Do Republicans feel no need to appeal for the greater support ethnic minorities provide the party because of their skin colour?  Etc etc

Definitely in the short term this is more about screwing over the other side, but the larger, more structural view...it's harder to say.

...you make a good point, but all I gotta say is, listen to their punditry.  The Rushes and the Becks.  And I mean their radio shit.  It's pretty plain what they FEEL about the "non-American Smudgy People."

[Prince Glittersnatch III]

Quite probably.  But then there's a whole lot of chicken and egg behind that.  Do those minorities support the Democrats because of Republican racism?  Do Republicans feel no need to appeal for the greater support ethnic minorities provide the party because of their skin colour?  Etc etc

Definitely in the short term this is more about screwing over the other side, but the larger, more structural view...it's harder to say.

...you make a good point, but all I gotta say is, listen to their punditry.  The Rushes and the Becks.  And I mean their radio shit.  It's pretty plain what they FEEL about the "non-American Smudgy People."

Whats funny is that on social issues most of those brown smudgy people agree with republicans, before 9/11 almost all muslims voted R and I have a feeling the deeply religious latinos would vote for them if it wasnt for their heavy anti-immigration stance.

[Jenne]

Quite probably.  But then there's a whole lot of chicken and egg behind that.  Do those minorities support the Democrats because of Republican racism?  Do Republicans feel no need to appeal for the greater support ethnic minorities provide the party because of their skin colour?  Etc etc

Definitely in the short term this is more about screwing over the other side, but the larger, more structural view...it's harder to say.

...you make a good point, but all I gotta say is, listen to their punditry.  The Rushes and the Becks.  And I mean their radio shit.  It's pretty plain what they FEEL about the "non-American Smudgy People."

Whats funny is that on social issues most of those brown smudgy people agree with republicans, before 9/11 almost all muslims voted R and I have a feeling the deeply religious latinos would vote for them if it wasnt for their heavy anti-immigration stance.

Yes, but that's the LAIL of the GOP.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

It's funny how that works out. Ethnic/religious group X would vote for party Y except party Y embraces/historically is (un)associated with Z.

Makes me think of my Irish grandfather and his ineffectual support of Clinton and Obama, due to his view that the GOP are all warmongers (support for neutrality and diplomatic solutions), even though he seems to be a pretty staunch Catholic, with all of the social view disagreements that would normally incline him to the GOP (doesn't approve of divorce, premarital sex, or homosexuality).

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Quite probably.  But then there's a whole lot of chicken and egg behind that.  Do those minorities support the Democrats because of Republican racism?  Do Republicans feel no need to appeal for the greater support ethnic minorities provide the party because of their skin colour?  Etc etc

Definitely in the short term this is more about screwing over the other side, but the larger, more structural view...it's harder to say.

...you make a good point, but all I gotta say is, listen to their punditry.  The Rushes and the Becks.  And I mean their radio shit.  It's pretty plain what they FEEL about the "non-American Smudgy People."

Whats funny is that on social issues most of those brown smudgy people agree with republicans, before 9/11 almost all muslims voted R and I have a feeling the deeply religious latinos would vote for them if it wasnt for their heavy anti-immigration stance.

It's not the anti-immigration stance.  It's the assumption that all Hispanics are immigrants, illegal or otherwise.

[Jenne]

All Muslims want to blow up your babies, all non-Christians want to ABORT your babies and send them to hell, all non-whites are lazy job-stealers with no education and no English skills, be suspect of anyone with an accent that may want to 1) doctor you 2) educate you 3) marry your son/daughter/grandchild, all non-whites want to live off the dole and not work for a living, non-whites don't pay taxes like WE DO, if there was a crime done in your neighborhood--esp a violent one--a non-white did it, ...it goes on and on.

And yeah, those sound like some major hyperbolic bigotries, but you hear them threaded into each and every pundit's asshole explosions when the rhetoric runs high.  The town halls they did for the health care bill sort of showcased the best of them...

[Cain]

Quite probably.  But then there's a whole lot of chicken and egg behind that.  Do those minorities support the Democrats because of Republican racism?  Do Republicans feel no need to appeal for the greater support ethnic minorities provide the party because of their skin colour?  Etc etc

Definitely in the short term this is more about screwing over the other side, but the larger, more structural view...it's harder to say.

...you make a good point, but all I gotta say is, listen to their punditry.  The Rushes and the Becks.  And I mean their radio shit.  It's pretty plain what they FEEL about the "non-American Smudgy People."

Yes.  But with all due respect, I think you're missing my point.  How did racism in the first place become acceptable within the ranks and was it a calculated political decision based on cost/benefit analysis or was it the result of entryism by racist individuals or groups?  Obviously there is a bit of both, but at the same time it's an important question as to whether calculated political decisions drive the racism, or the racism drives the calculated political decisions.  It throws up massive questions about the meta-political strategy that anti-racism groups should pursue to try and reform the political system.

For instance, I don't think most of the idiots on the radio and TV, the big-league ones, are racist to any great degree.  Most of them live in urban areas and work in cosmopolitan corporate environments.  They come into contact with people of different races and sexual orientations every day.  However, they quite likely know that by making appeals to racism and racists they can help shape political commentary in such a way as to create policies which benefit the big backers of the Republicans and punish the (minor) supporters of the Democrats.

Such is politics.

[LMNO]

Of course, there is the possibility that while the appeals to racism shape the political commentary, it may stem from nothing more than an easy way to create a narrative that listeners (consumers) can latch onto, which then lures in advertising dollars.  

If you attempted to explain and nuance the myriad factors that influence politics and current events, the average person would either be unable or unwilling to listen.  But if you have a bipolar drama, that taps into the "US vs THEM" narrative, people will drop everything to listen to whatever it is you have to say.  

The US has become a base entertainment culture -- It only makes sense that its news and politics should follow the same themes and fictions as the movies and TV shows it produces.

[AFK]

LMNO is riding the correct newscycle. 

[Cain]

But how much actual racism is there in the entertainment media?  COPS aside, that is?  Shows like 24, The Wire, Law and Order and CSI, where there is ample space for bringing in racist tropes, actually steer away from them or even attempt to deconstruct them.  While a facile good/evil view of the world often prevails in such series, they are rarely ever linked to group identities (unless we consider "the main cast" a group identity).

If anything, I would say there is more money in using racism as the basis for classism (set working class blacks and whites against each other, and they're hardly likely to join hands and march on their employers demanding a raise).

[LMNO]

That's a good point.  It would be easy to say that the entertainment industry is ultimately more clever than the political machine, but that would be a cop out.

There is a possibility of a mixture of genre savvy/genre blindness in the audience, dependent on the context of the story.  In film and TV, the audience recognizes the "fiction" of the narrative, and has learned to expect twists and nuance; but when they turn to politics, they are blind to the blatant racist manipulations.

Also too easy of an answer, though.

[Jenne]

Quite probably.  But then there's a whole lot of chicken and egg behind that.  Do those minorities support the Democrats because of Republican racism?  Do Republicans feel no need to appeal for the greater support ethnic minorities provide the party because of their skin colour?  Etc etc

Definitely in the short term this is more about screwing over the other side, but the larger, more structural view...it's harder to say.

...you make a good point, but all I gotta say is, listen to their punditry.  The Rushes and the Becks.  And I mean their radio shit.  It's pretty plain what they FEEL about the "non-American Smudgy People."

Yes.  But with all due respect, I think you're missing my point.  How did racism in the first place become acceptable within the ranks and was it a calculated political decision based on cost/benefit analysis or was it the result of entryism by racist individuals or groups?  Obviously there is a bit of both, but at the same time it's an important question as to whether calculated political decisions drive the racism, or the racism drives the calculated political decisions.  It throws up massive questions about the meta-political strategy that anti-racism groups should pursue to try and reform the political system.

For instance, I don't think most of the idiots on the radio and TV, the big-league ones, are racist to any great degree.  Most of them live in urban areas and work in cosmopolitan corporate environments.  They come into contact with people of different races and sexual orientations every day.  However, they quite likely know that by making appeals to racism and racists they can help shape political commentary in such a way as to create policies which benefit the big backers of the Republicans and punish the (minor) supporters of the Democrats.

Such is politics.

True, and that point I would never argue, so for me I guess the problem is when it's ingrained in the polemic.  It's all well and good for the dog and pony to know it's just a show, for ratings.  But the people watching think it's factual and actual, and put their money exactly where their mouths are sucking at the media teat.

Rhetoric quickly became accepted as "actuality" and "factuality" so quickly in the last decade that it made my head spin.  We went from political correctness to political badness, because "Jesus said so," in one fell swoop (I'm talking 9/11 here).  Rights and liberties that a decade before were held sacred were then smashed to bits on the almighty altar of safety.

But then, I swallowed the KoolAid that America's ingrained isolationist tendencies were not dying out, and I also saw religious fervor on the wane in the 90's.  So much for my head being stuck in that Ivory Tower for too long. 

...and btw, I have you to thank for helping me back out of that one.  It's too bad my radar wasn't attuned more finely to events and movements that I had once been so keenly interested in (the Middle Eastern conflict for one, and middle America politics for another).  I said some dumbass'd things here and on Faust's old site.  I've learned to look and listen a bit more now.

[Jenne]

But how much actual racism is there in the entertainment media?  COPS aside, that is?  Shows like 24, The Wire, Law and Order and CSI, where there is ample space for bringing in racist tropes, actually steer away from them or even attempt to deconstruct them.  While a facile good/evil view of the world often prevails in such series, they are rarely ever linked to group identities (unless we consider "the main cast" a group identity).

If anything, I would say there is more money in using racism as the basis for classism (set working class blacks and whites against each other, and they're hardly likely to join hands and march on their employers demanding a raise).

I think this is the actual "liberal media bias" and "Hollywoodification" of so-called real life that the rightwingers like to talk about, MSNBC aside (that's a recent knee-jerk reaction to Fox News).  Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general have had a longtime battle with the right side of the aisle, from McCarthyism on back.  So if there's a political slant to ANYTHING that comes out of the entertainment business, that's usually where it lands.  Left of center. 

So when a "cause celebre" comes about, you can pretty much guarantee that the Barbara Streisands, Brad Pitts, George Clooneys and Sean Penns get involved in politics, they will also be left-of-center.  Sometimes because of their belief systems, but also because they are sort of "brought up in the biz" that way as well, and there'll be a slant GIVEN in the media about what they do as well.  I think the more middle of the road or even less politically invested of them do things that are less "US government bad, look we do GOOD" in overall message-making.  But perhaps that's just the way I see it.

The truly fuzzy part of it, though, is who OWNS the networks.  THAT is the rub, and the fact that the primetimers are losing out to the cable networks means that George Will and his ilk will tear the cable networks a new asshole (or so they think) because they aren't "playing ball."  They are taking the conversation somewhere else, or in a direction that the owners of the primetime networks can't control (like that Family Council or whatever it's called that ABC listens to).  And like the internet, they are MORE of a rogue space for the media to engage in.

So the message differs there as well.

[Adios]

As many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems putting them at risk of being rejected by insurance companies or having to pay more for coverage, according to a U.S. government study reported by the Washington Post on Tuesday.
{SNIP}
A Republican House aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report was not yet public, told the Post: "When a new analysis is released on the eve of a vote in Congress, it's hard to view it as anything but politics and public relations."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41132734/ns/health-health_care/

[Requia ☣]

The report is somewhat bullshit.  Most Americans get their insurance via work, and a different law protects employer provided healthcare from pre existing condition discrimination, and there's nothing in the healthcare bill that prevents insurance companies from charging people with pre existing conditions more money anyway.

There are much worse things repealing the bill will do, like reinstating lifetime payout caps and lowering the bar on single issue caps.