I've Done It!

After eleven years living in the Heights, I've walked from the Hoboken terminal to home in fifty minutes flat – but I did stop to take a few pictures. Beautiful strangely warm night. After this week's ice storm the snow looks as if it is glazed. I enjoyed the walk while listening to Sigur Rós's ( ); very apt. The reason why I decided to walk is that, after spending the evening at a right wing, Fox News infested party near Columbus Circle (I will perhaps post specifics on the party at a later time), the packed train from 33rd St. arrived at Hoboken and then decided to turn around and go back to New York. So everyone was bumped off the train waiting for who knows what. Since I still would have had to walk twenty minutes from Journal Square, I figured it would have taken me about the same amount of time or less if I just walked from Hoboken. In the end, I'll never know, but I am glad I walked.

The Media Health Care Reform Push Back

The mainstream media is mounting a serious push against health care reform and the reasons are fairly obvious. For starters, I won't even address Fox News as the entire channel is affected by ODS or, Obama Derangement Syndrome, and it can no longer be considered part of the mainstream (if it ever was). Fox News aside, the mainstream media is simply reflecting the political leanings of their corporate owners. That's also a given.

What is interesting about this push back is that the journalists and anchors themselves are starting to weigh in on the subject. This can be seen in the type of questions they ask, the way they choose to frame the issue, the type of people they choose to interview and not interview. It's amazing to me how, for example, the single payer option, which is the most favored by the American people, is not even on the table, let alone being discussed.

What we are left with then is the so called "public option," already a compromise position which, ironically, is being framed as the liberal, extreme left position; Andrea Mitchell (right), the sleeper right winger posing as a moderate on MSNBC, just labeled it as such while commenting on President Obama's remarks this afternoon. Who would have known that those who kept repeating that the United States is a center/right country, are now the ones accusing the majority of Americans favoring the public option as extremely liberal.

The main reason why these TV personalities (the Chuck Todds and Lou Dobbses), and political pundits (the David Brookses and Pat Buchanans) are beginning to push back on health care reform is because they, with their multi million dollar contracts, are the ones who will lose when health care reform is passed. They are the people with the wasteful cadillac health care plans, the ones who might have to pay the surtax to help cover uninsured Americans, and the ones who might end up losing their cadillac plans if their employer chooses to go "public."

Next time you hear those pundits and TV personalities frame health care reform unfavorably, please remember that they are doing it for their own narrow self interest, which is the interest of the top 5% of income earners who want to maintain the status quo. Never mind that the rest of America is getting crushed by the skyrocketing cost of health care; by a system that is designed to deny care rather than provide it; by an industry whose paramount concern is, as with all for-profit industries, maximizing profit instead of helping people stay healthy.

(image source)

FOX News: "Worst Person in the World"

Australian owned Fox News channel has become the mouthpiece of sedition in the USA for some time. It started fomenting civil unrest against Obama since the Presidential campaign, and now that the right wing crazies are starting to come out and do what Fox News has been exhorting them to do, they act as if they have no responsibility while continuing their seditious propaganda as if they had no responsibility.

I have already blocked Fox on my TV set and I have called my cable provider to tell them that as a matter of balance, they should add Al Jazeera to their line-up and, possibly, put it next to the Fox News channel.

The End of the Political Religious Right

Last week’s rejection by John McCain of two of his most coveted religious endorsement is an example of the unintended consequences of the conservative smear machine. With Fox News at its helm, the conservative smear machine pounded on the relationship between Rev. Wright and Obama until it practically became the channel's only newsworthy item. Little did they know that the more they hammered, the more McCain’s endorsements by the religious right would also come under scrutiny by the other cable news channels.

Back in 2000, the religious right had shunned Senator John McCain by rallying behind George W. Bush thus sealing the nomination in his favor. This year, it was clear once again that the religious right preferred Mike Huckabee over McCain, and once McCain became the presumptive nominee he was faced with the possibility that the religious right could desert him in November. Because of its inherent dogmatism, the religious right is not prone to support the “lesser of two evils” in a general election, and it is with this understanding that John McCain actively sough and got the endorsement of two of their most radical preachers: John Hagee and Rod Parsley.

McCain’s lovefest with the religious right was short lived and the relationship turned sour once more after Hagee’s and Parsley’s outrageous statements came under media scrutiny in the aftermath of the Rev. Wright hoopla. Once it was clear that the endorsements of these two preachers were becoming more and more a liability, John McCain had no choice but to rejected them. Unfortunately for McCain, by seeking and then rejecting Hagee’s and Parsley’s endorsements he has sent a clear signal to the political religious right that as much as he needs their support he’s not one of them.

Today, after having gone full circle, John McCain has managed to alienate one of the most important Republican constituencies. But the consequences of his rejection of the endorsements of Hagee and Parsley could go far beyond this election cycle. The fact that any word uttered by a preacher associated with a political candidate has now become a matter of legitimate media scrutiny can only spell disaster for the religious right. Preachers in the vein of Hagee and Parsley are no fans of compassion or inclusiveness and thus they will be wary of endorsing politicians for fear of being exposed for the bigots they are. They will also steer clear from endorsing candidates who seek their support only for political reasons for fear of being rejected at a later date.

Republican candidates will also be very careful before they seek the endorsement of controversial religious figures. In the age of You Tube, there could always be someone who is holding onto something controversial to be released at a later time. All this to say that the extent of the blowback from the ill advised conservative smear campaign of Rev. Wright might have turned what used to be a highly coveted prize for Republicans into a political liability.

The failure of the Republican smear machine to foresee the unintended consequences of their campaign against Rev. Wright says a lot about the short sidedness of the religious right which is in turn exemplified by the failed policies of George W. Bush. Galvanized from seizing the White House for two elections in a row, preachers such as Hagee, Parsley and Falwell had become more outspoken with the belief that their old testament rhetoric was ready for prime time. Unfortunately for them, the vast majority of the American people have not bought into their Manichean fervor as seen by the dismal approval rating of George W. Bush.

The unintended media spotlight that the Rev. Wright controversy has shone on John Hagee and Rod Parsley has forced them to retreat from the political arena and find refuge in the shadows where they had been relegated before the election of George W. Bush. And if these events can be of any indication, it may very well be the beginning of the end of the political religious right.