Why the Death of Why? Celebrified Journalism & Right-Wing Lynch Mobs
Andrea's book, The Death of Why, could not come out at a more appropriate time. It's premise has unfortunately become a truism - in the American Idiocracy, we have stopped asking even the simplest questions, much less the tough ones like "why."
Instead of offering up examples that prove Andrea's thesis, let's just take a moment and ask a meta question - why the death of why? In other words, why have we stopped asking questions in a democracy that gives citizens the historically rare chance to inquire?
Part of it has to do with changes in our media - the chief institution that is supposed to exist specifically to ask questions on behalf of society. For years, the media fulfilled this role. But in the last decade, journalistic inquisition has been murdered on the altar of celebrified stenography and power worshiping. We saw this in the lead up to the Iraq War, and we still see it today. Indeed, refusing to ask questions has become such a part of political reporting, that political reporters regularly advertise it. Notice that just today, ABC News pointed out that "the media" - of which it is a part "loves a good fight - even when the charges are unfounded." In other words, the media will promote conflict without even asking whether the conflict is grounded in any fact.
Another part of it has to do with willful ignorance - the explicit desire to avoid inquiry, and the hostility to those who embrace it. I've dealt with this part of the death of why just this week.
During an appearance on CNN, I was asked why Van Jones was originally targeted for attack by conservatives. I responded by suggesting that right-wing political terrorists like Glenn Beck and their lynch mobs originally went after him, in part, because Jones is black. I said this because it's the only logical conclusion that can be drawn when the Jones affair is put into the broader context - that is, when you are willing to ask the bigger "why" question.
The persecution of Jones, of course, is the latest in a racially-tinged campaign against Obama and the administration - a campaign involving allegations that Obama is/was foreign, Muslim, trained in a Madrassas, a black nationalist/socialist, affiliated with allegedly radical African American militants (Jeremiah Wright/ACORN), and a Jesse Jackson-like presidential candidate. And this same lynch mob's next target is Mark Lloyd, a mid-level staffer working at the FCC on diversity issues who is black. When you ask the question of why Jones was originally targeted, and you actually try to answer that question seriously, you see - as Tim Wise's brilliant article further proves - that race is a major factor.
However, in the 48 hours since this CNN appearance, I've been inundated with hate mail insisting that the original targeting of Jones had absolutely nothing to do with race at all - and that all the other race-tinged attacks on Obama have nothing to do with race either. The right simply does not want the "why" question asked - and will try to intimidate anyone from asking or honestly exploring it.
Certainly, there are many other reasons than these two that explain the death of why, which is why Andrea's book is so necessary in the first place. However, these two particular forces - media and right-wing hostility - are among the most pernicious because they aren't passive. Their role in the death of why is calculated and not inadvertent - and that will make them the hardest to overcome.
Wolf Blitzer: 'Senator DeMint says the world is flat, what about that Senator Dodd?'
September 9, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
David: I got in kind of a nasty argument with you here once. But you won me over big time with your appearance on Bill Moyers and other writing since. I do still think we need to close ranks in Presidential election years to prevent Republicans from winning at all costs, but I do support your push from the left as well. This "centrist" garbage we're getting from the administration is bad, and it's precisely because the left doesn't attack more or organize protests. We've got to get out and win these arguments. Keep up the good work...
Anyway, thanks for speaking your mind on CNN. There's got to be a way to break through the intimidation from the right. It's sad, but I kinda wish there was a group of loudmouths on the left that could go out there and do what Coulter and Beck do for the Right. Go crazy, insult Republicans, and end up pushing the center to the left. But as Ellen pointed out today, MoveOn gets censured(!) by Congress for simply playing on Gen. Petreus' name.
In short, I wish there were 100 more Bill Mahers and Bill Moyer's calling bull$hit and shaming people for believing in Beck & Coulter & Limbaugh.
September 9, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://temcnally.podomatic.com/
Terrence McNally is also asking WHY out there, and doing a helluva job at it. Esp. in the first 5 minutes of his interview with Michael Lind.
September 9, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I completely agree with you that the race issue is at the center of the right wing campaign. But blaming the right for the death of why is really an example of the death of why.
The right can get away with claiming this isn't about race because nobody wants to talk about race, nobody in the democratic party, and not even Obama.
And of course nobody wants to talk about class either. How can obama talk about class after giving a few trillion dollars to the fattest cats in the world?
So why the death of why?
Here is a simple answer. Because the Soviet Union collapsed. With the fall of the soviet union, the capitalist class lost the fear that haunted it since the great depression, the fear that we the people might come together and figure out that there are better ways to organize society. The Soviet union kept the US upper class generous, towards the destroyed Europe and Japan, towards its workers and middle classed. There was huge investment in proving that the US was really a better system. That also meant that the debate about how to order society was real. it could go either way. Even when Americans were sold, there was still the threat of people elsewhere. Vietnam, China, Korea, Africa. People every where could chose between the two models. The US killed a lot of people to keep dominoes from falling, but it invested a lot in wining hearts.
With the fall of "really existing socialism", came the famous Tatcher doctrine. There Is No Alternative, TINA. There is no alternative to downsizing, unemployment, reduced services, increased poverty, privatization, stratospheric compensation packages, etc. etc. There is only one model, one way of doing it, by letting the market rule. And since there is no alternative, there is nothing to discuss. It's a waste of time asking why when nothing hangs in the balance of the answer.
What's the point talking about race if the market already decided that African-Americans should own on average less that 10% of what white people have and nothing can be done about that?
And where is Obama on this? Obama pulled the US out of the Durban Review to avoid signing a document that recognizes that slavery was a crime against humanity.
If you blame this on the Republicans talk show nuts, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
September 9, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know damn well that boycotting the Durban Review had everything to do with Israel, domestic politics, and a hypersensitivity to all things even potentially antisemitic.
This is lamentable for its own set of reasons, but it doesn't fit in as a data point for your grand narrative -- for which I was on board until you decided to roll over Obama in the second to last paragraph.
Obama is not a corrosive or cynical influence in this farce that is our history. He is making a good faith effort to lay the groundwork for us to collectively follow a better path, mindful of the constraints of our system.
He can't simply will things to be different. They would destroy him. They may yet destroy him. Deeply entrenched racism and class-based hegemony cannot be addressed by confrontation or by calling it out. That only works if there is real revolutionary power to back it up.
Laying some real groundwork for a better future, and for future gains, is a hell of a lot better than imploding/exploding in a fit of righteous anger.
September 10, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure Obama's good faith or cynicism is the issue here. He is a scion of American "meritocracy," surrounding himself with a Harvard/Yale best of the best, and he buys into it hook line and sinker. It fits his temperament and his beliefs. I do find his campaign usage of the language of radical community organizing to be pretty cynical, given how he distances himself anything that has the whiff of race, class or controversy.
Now, regarding Durban, I disagree that the main issue in Durban has been Israel. That was a smokescreen. Obama put a series of demands to the organizers as a condition for US participation. They were all accepted, and then he pulled out. In addition to the issues regarding Israel, the US under Obama demanded:
Now why did they do it? Was there right wing pressure to do it? It wasn't even on the radar. On the contrary, there was pressure from African Americans groups to do the opposite.
Had the US supported African countries and african Americans at the UN, it would have indeed lay the ground to take new paths. He could have easily represented it as a big victory, getting the conference to drop all mentions of Israel. Most of the US commentariat wouldn't have even noticed what happened until long after the fact.
But that is not his agenda.
September 10, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sirota is himself a media pundit. As such, his job is to dump nonsense into the public square. So his idea that the media were decent ten years ago is ridiculous, as is the attempt to inflate Van Jones' fall into something crucial. Please.
Commercial media has always had one primary goal, to shape the public into selfish, heartless, and ignorant rubes. They have many rhetorical devices for this. One of the most popular is diversion and distraction, a tactic which Sirota uses on a daily basis.
It isn't about why. Why has nothing to do with anything. It's about Amercans' willingness to be manipulated through their emotions: hatred on the right, selfishness in the middle, and self righteousness on the left. The media has a divivsion to exploit each group.
Besides trivia, Sirota is also good with self righteousness, which is why he was hired to right for the left.
September 9, 2009 9:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe if someone stopped and asked themselves, "why do I feel this hatred?" they might not be so "willing" to be manipulated. But I suppose in your world it is as simple as people waking up and saying to themselves, "sure hope I get really manipulated today. God, I love being a rube."
September 10, 2009 5:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wilberforce,
is it possible that your comment is a product of your "willingness to be manipulated?"
September 10, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
But isn't the heart of advocacy journalism its emotional appeal to its readers? When people react emotionally, rather than logically, then they're subject to the very sort of manipulation wilberforce is talking about.
Where I disagree with wilberforce is his cynical assumption that everyone who practices advocacy journalism - left, right and center - is a manipulative creature by nature, and that readers are inherently stupid people who can be herded like sheep.
Rather, I would think that the less supportive the facts are to an advocacy journalist's subject matter, the more he or she will tend to employ manipulative techniques such as stereotyping or personal invective to sway public opinion in his or her favor.
September 11, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kudos for giving Mr. Wise some love.
September 10, 2009 7:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love my life and I'm not going to change it by asking "Why".
I watch FOX all the time, I love Hannity and Glenn Beck, I listen to Rush every day. We know all the Demcraps want is to raise our taxers so they can give welfare to black people, we know they want to surreneder to the terrorists. We know they want to take God out of our lives and rob me of my health care so you can give it to illegal aliens.
This is my life and I want to live it every day just as it is, its what I look forward to and I'm not going to let you liberals try to get me to change it by asking "why."
September 10, 2009 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I know - but you forgot the part about how we're also trying to indoctrinate America's children so that they'll embrace the radical homosexual agenda and look to pornography as a plausible career choice.
September 11, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"why have we stopped asking questions in a democracy that gives citizens the historically rare chance to inquire?"
That is the question, isn't it, Mr. Sirota?
Of course, in a "democracy" with a "free press", journalists like yourself are Constitutionally empowered and obliged to ask potentially incendiary questions on behalf of the public.
So why don't you ask "why" an intelligent, rational, Yale-educated lawyer like Van Jones allowed himself to be deceived by those pernicious "truthers" as late as October, 2004, three months after publication of the Commission Report?
Why don't you pursue the questions listed on the petition and the hundreds of unanswered questions submitted by the victims' families?
Why do Establishment journalists like yourself remain silent about discoveries like this?
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/the-rest-is-silence/
September 10, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yep,
and why don't they cover the phony story of the Holocaust?
September 10, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why not cover this?
http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/make-it-happen-on-purpose/
September 10, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
sure, and why not cover how the Clintons murdered Vince Foster?
September 10, 2009 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Andrea's book, The Death of Why, could not come out at a more appropriate time. It's premise has unfortunately become a truism - in the American Idiocracy, we have stopped asking even the simplest questions, much less the tough ones like "why."
===============================================
You bet asking "why" is tough
Why didn't Obama release any of his medical records?
Why didn't Obama release his thesis?
Why didn't Obama release any of his university transcripts?
September 10, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It's premise" should be ---> "Its premise..."
Also, your "why questions" are looney. Please go take Xanax.
September 10, 2009 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
So it's looney to wonder why Obama refused to release medical records and McCain, Bush and Kerry didn't? It must suck to be you
September 10, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Campesino: There's a black helicopter following you... Look out!
September 11, 2009 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
There may have been some real journalism in the late 60's/70's, but that's rare in American history. Remember, it was William Randolph Hearst who dispatched a war photographer to Havana, Cuba, in 1897 supposedly with instructions, "you provide the photographs, I'll provide the war" -- and did, by trumpeting the accidental explosion of the obsolete U.S.S. Maine into a Spanish attack against America and thereby instigating the Spanish-American War for the purpose of building the United States into a colonial power.
That is American journalism. This is how it has always worked, all the way back to the Bostom "Massacre" when some British soldiers in self-defense fired on a mob that was intent on killing them, and it got painted by American "journalism" into a cold-blooded murder. Except for rare periods when true journalism raised its head, American journalism has always been about as truthful and credible as its owners want it to be -- i.e., not much, usually.
September 10, 2009 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink