Xark is a group blog with primary authors in Charleston, SC, and Nashville, Tenn. It dates back to June 2005.
A sister blog,xarkGirl, launched here in October 2008.
Poor Cal Thomas. In trying to argue a conservative Christianist case this week against the Iowa Supreme Court's wise decision on gay marriage, he wound up satirizing himself yet again.
When Meredith Willson wrote the wildly popular musical "The Music Man"
half a century ago, Harold Hill proclaimed trouble had come to River
City, Iowa in the form of a pool hall, which he claimed would corrupt
young people unless the local citizens bought the musical instruments
he was selling and got their kids into a marching band. He promised
that playing music would keep kids from "fritterin' away their
mealtime, suppertime, chore time, too" ...
Neither Willson, nor his mythical character Hill, could have foreseen
what "trouble" the Iowa Supreme Court has brought on the state (and
potentially the nation) when it unanimously ruled that denying same-sex
couples the right to marry "does not substantially further any
important government objective"...
(snip)
The battle over same-sex marriage is on the way to being lost. For conservatives who still have faith in the political system to reverse the momentum, you are ā to recall Harold Hill ā "closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge."
Thomas' problem? If you'll recall your Broadway history, The Music Manis a story about a con man. That "trouble" they had right there in River City? There wasn't any. Just a con man trying to sell musical instruments by manipulating a bunch of rubes via drummed-up fears of a corrupting influence.
Chris Matthew's talk-over-the-guest interviewing style on Hardball has always been nails on a chalkboard for me, but this might be the first time it ever came across as utterly appropriate. Kevin James, a right-wing talker from California, came on the show Thursday after President Bush's Knesset speech to talk about Israel, appeasement and Barack Obama, and his aggressive platitudes prompted Matthews to run a history check on his ass.
It immediately becomes clear that James doesn't have a clue who Neville Chamberlain was, or what happened in Munich. Partition of Czechoslovakia and dialog with Palestinians the Iranians? "It's the same thing!" he says.
What follows might be the greatest smack-down of a self-important, shallow idiot ever witnessed on national TV. Listen to the high-school essay-test evasion ploys and the empty wingnut counter-attack maneuver ("Thirty-eight or 39, Chris? Which one do you want?").
You've got to be morally and intellectually bankrupt if Tweety makes you look small in comparison.
Just for context on the M.O. of Rupert Murdock's corporate news philosophy, The Investigators meet The Buzzsaw...
No, of course we're not surprised. I'm sure they originally prepared for an all-out assault on Hillary Clinton, but they retrenched, retooled, and sent their minions out after Barack Obama instead. And let's face it: The GOP is going to continue this steady drumbeat of sleaze from now through the election, supposedly at arm's length via their "remote operative," Roger Ailes, at the FOX News Division.
Our job is to recognize it, name it, talk about it, share it. Human beings, like many living things, are quorum sensors (bacteria do it chemically; we do it psychologically). So it isn't just the quality of the signals we receive from our environments that matter -- the number of signals of certain types that we receive quite literally count toward shaping our image of reality.
Which is why I say: Share these videos. Embed them. E-mail them. Every time you use the power of human relationships and social networking to spread this exposure of media sleaze you are acting as an antidote to the sickening virus FOX keeps deliberately injecting into our culture. We have to become D.I.Y. media antibodies in defense of our society. We must inoculate ourselves against bullshit. When you show a thing that attempts to be secret, you remove some of its power.
To clarify: I have no quarrel with anyone who opposes Obama for policy reasons. Don't like his ideas about Iraq, or social security, or economics, or taxation? Fine. I disagree, but I respect reasonable disagreement.
But if you think that Obama is a Muslim, or a black racist, or a shadowy figure who secretly hates America? Conversation over. You've just defined yourself out of relevancy. My suggestion? Take another look at why you believe what you believe, and then rejoin the rest of us in our imperfect lurching toward a better future.
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