While "the alternative media" of talk radio and FOX news is doubtless better than the so-called "mainstream media," it isn't much of an alternative at all.
For quite some time, I have been an avid consumer of what is commonly regarded as "the alternative media," a loose constellation of allegedly unconventional news and opinion sources that, in addition to the internet, is generally recognized to be comprised of "conservative talk radio" and FOX news. While the agents of this media, its radio and television commentators, are deserving of gratitude for supplying to national audiences both information that otherwise never would have seen the light of day, as well as a perspective whose dreams in an earlier era of just a fight for a hearing, much less a successful fight, would have been inconceivable, it has become all but impossible for the honest observer to any longer avoid confronting his suspicions that the substance of this media, if it was ever there at all, is wearing terribly thin.
The masterfully composed narrative of contemporary American political life that invests "the alternative media" with its distinctive identity and which accounts for its stupendous success is by now all too familiar to both friend and foe alike. It is an epic melodrama of a perpetual contest over the future of America, a war of quasi-cosmic proportions between the (self-avowed) defenders of the country's founding and the insidious forces of "Political Correctness" resolved to undo it.
Unfortunately, the ingenuity with which its authors weaved this tale fails to compensate for their deficit of veracity, for their confident assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, "the conservative" of the radio waves and FOX news, far from being the enemy of "Political Correctness," has assisted in strengthening its hold over the American mind. In relation to this phenomenon, however, our "conservative" can't but strike us as a paradoxical figure in eliciting both our sympathy and scorn: he is a sympathetic character inasmuch as his sins appear to spring not from any deliberately cultivated intention to deceive others but, rather, the self-deception in which he is mired; he invites scorn, though, because whether it is through advertence or inadvertence that he provides aid to his self-sworn nemesis, we rightly expect for him to know better.
The first thing of which to take notice is that our "conservative" seems to know next to nothing about the intellectual history of the orientation in whose name he speaks. While it is true that there exists within the conservative (intellectual) tradition a commendable degree of diversity, it is equally true that its many voices are united by virtue of the themes and suppositions that they share. Yet on no occasion does the "conservative" of "the alternative media" recall any of these ideas. The closest he comes to indicating but a modicum of awareness of the tradition to which they distinctly belong occurs during those rare moments when he references Edmund Burke — the Anglo-Irish eighteenth century British parliamentarian and philosopher typically acknowledged as "the father" of modern conservatism — but even then, what we are treated to at any given moment is what we were fed the last time around, a single passage mercilessly ripped from the context from which the richness of its meaning was gotten: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Though such allusions to Burke are almost invariably partnered with a call to combat "Islamo-Fascism," the "Patron Saint" of conservatism made this now famous remark while composing his Reflections on the Revolution in France, a work within which its author eloquently, incisively, and passionately articulates not just those beliefs that have come to be associated with conservatism, but those unspoken dubious metaphysical and moral assumptions underwriting both the French Revolution as well as all of the subsequent utopian, Rationalist projects for which it would prove to be the quintessential template, projects like, interestingly enough, the very "War on Terror" for the sake of which "the conservative" on the air waves resurrects Burke's words.
But our "conservative" furthers the "Political Correctness" against which he rails in more obvious ways. One example of this tendency is to be found in his readiness to play "the race card" with all of the thoughtlessness of his leftist counterpart. The most recent illustration of this propensity that comes to mind is the response with which "the alternative media" met Harry Reid's "negro" comments regarding Barack Obama. Yet this incident was but one manifestation among many of our "conservative's" determination to avail himself of every possible occasion to attribute his opponents' promotion of the Welfare State to the "racism" that allegedly informs it.
This brings us to another respect in which "the conservative" of "the alternative media" undermines his own credibility. Just as his professed belief in "limited government" is belied by his unqualified, enthusiastic endorsement of a potentially endless series of military adventures to "democratize" foreign lands — i.e. "the War on Terror" — so too is "the conservative's" insistence on "individual responsibility" equally weakened, although admittedly more subtly so, by his insinuation that the destructive pathological conduct characteristic of "the black community" would be a thing of the past if blacks would but vote Republican. In other words, our "conservative" routinely reasons, the glaring disparities that have long existed between blacks and whites vis-a-vis rates of crime, illegitimacy, high school and college graduation, incarceration, unemployment, and virtually every other social indicia are the products, not of the preponderance of vice-inducing decisions on the part of individuals coupled with the morally corrupt culture of which those decisions are both cause and effect, but, rather, of government policy.
Neither does our "conservative" hesitate to charge his opponents with "sexism" when it serves his interests to do so. The barrage of criticisms to which Sarah Palin has been subjected — including the concern (whether sincerely held or not) that parenting several children, one of whom is an infant with Down's Syndrome and the other an expecting teenage daughter, could conflict with the awesome responsibilities intrinsic to a political office of the kind to which Palin aspired — he adamantly dismisses as a function of her critics' "sexism." The objection that the duties of motherhood and those of political office could conflict is an especially serious one, at least for those who remain convicted that there are but two forces that separate civilization from barbarism: mothers and fathers. However, rather than meet this objection — a feasible enterprise — the champion of "traditional family values" chooses to erode his credibility further by treating it as but the latest expression of a great evil: his opponents' "sexism."
That he is correct about his opponents' hypocrisies, bad faith, and self-obliviousness is beside the point; what matters as far as our diagnosis of our "conservative" is concerned is that his double mindedness — the profound discrepancy between his unequivocal declaration against "Political Correctness," on the one hand, and the regularity with which he concedes ground to its agents, on the other — be seen for what it is.
To this list of evidence for the duplicitous character of "the conservative" of "the alternative media" much more could be added: his tireless support for President George W. Bush whose "compassionate conservatism" included the extension of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research; the disastrous "No Child Left Behind"; the promotion of a "Home Ownership Society" which led to the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008; and an assortment of other policies that resulted in an expansion of government and government spending that eclipsed even that of President Johnson's "Great Society."
But there is only one other consideration to which I would like to speak at any length.
For all of his lamentations over the tyranny of his opponents' biases, that our "conservative" has none of the intellectual honesty and tolerance of rival viewpoints that he perceives in himself is definitively established by his uncompromising refusal to provide to those on his right any of the accommodations that he seeks from his leftist counterparts. For instance, he proudly and loudly affirms "limited, constitutional government" and "individual responsibility," yet when a politician, like, say, Ron Paul emerges whose record precludes all doubt regarding his commitment to these values, our "conservative" either mercilessly derides him or remains silent while others do so. Considering that during election cycles — when a not insignificant portion of right-leaning voters make known their reticence about endorsing any Republican candidate who they suspect of being insufficiently sympathetic to the rights of the unborn — our "conservative" ceaselessly counsels the rest of us on the perils of being "one issue" voters, his treatment of the Ron Pauls of the world is particularly offensive for the hypocrisy of which it smacks, for it is obvious to all who have eyes to see that the Ron Pauls and the Pat Buchanans are ostracized as "cranks" and "extremists" for no reason other than their refusal to endorse the Republican Party's foreign policy objectives, that is, its interminable "war" to "democratize" the Islamic world.
In short, whereas "the alternative media" of talk radio and FOX news is doubtless better than the so-called "mainstream media," it isn't much of an alternative at all. But, I suppose, in a broken world like the one in which we reside, a true conservative will refuse to make the Perfect the enemy of the good by taking what he can get.
Jack,
I’m in agreement with your opening statement; “While “the alternative media” of talk radio and Fox News is doubtless better than the so-called “mainstream media,” it isn’t much of an alternative at all.”
I began listening to “the conservative” from the alternative media in ’84. I rather quickly came to the conclusion that this “conservative” commentator was primarily an entertainer. However Fox News and such commentators do have a place in the political lexicon. You cannot deny that they foment debate. We may argue the legitimacy of that debate, but it is debate nonetheless. Which is more than I can say about MSNBC.
Second; media outlets such as Fox News do provide another perspective on the presentation of the news. Their Nielson Ratings are proof enough that the audience is not strictly conservative; so obviously there are persuadable persons of alternative political viewpoints tuning in.
I believe that the ultimate purpose served by the alternative media is to drive the closet conservative to seek other outlets for his opinion. Personally, my introduction to the aforementioned “conservative” talk radio host along with several years worth of viewing Fox News is what eventually sent me to the internet in search of political kinsmen. I stumbled across IC almost two years ago; and believe I’ve found a home where I can not only express myself, but debate my ideological beliefs as well.
These experiences eventually led me to not only take up authoring opinion pieces of my own on a fairly regular basis, but also resulted in contacting my local T.E.A. Party affiliate, and eventually accepting the challenge of greater involvement by running for local political office. That particular challenge was unsuccessful, but I doubt it would have happened at all if it were not for the alternative media and what it has allowed me to become.
Without alternative media, I would just be another closet conservative who sits at home each evening, screaming and throwing stuff at the television. The popularity of this “alternative” media allows those who tune in to eventually realize that they are not alone and that there are other deeper levels of personal involvement.
The alternate media ‘conservative’ is very much in the tradition of most American ideologues, left or right. His deficiencies are those of most Americans who have never learned (or been taught) to take complex ideas very seriously. The poor judgment for which you criticize the ‘conservative’ is certainly found among liberals every bit as much as it is among conservatives. Intellectuals of left and right have bemoaned this sort of thing for a very long time. New England Transcendentalists like Emerson loathed popular politicians like Lincoln and longed for a more intellectually and spiritually elevated American politics. The Agrarians of the 1930s denounced the shallowness and vapidity of American culture and American politics from the Right, while an enormous array of mostly New York intellectuals of the Left mocked America’s middlebrow culture and theoretically uninformed politics.
However, as Mr. Wavering points out, exposure even to a superficial expression of conservatism in the media can lead the conservative who is in search of his kinsmen to find them eventually. Much the same thing happens on the Left. However, one safe generalization about intellectuals is that they are, almost by definition, not especially representative of whatever political position they take up.
So, we liberals can sneer at the congressional Democratic leadership, knowing full well that voters will pay little or no attention to our opinions. On the Right, you folks are in the same boat. All conservative media commentators have to be entertainer in order to make their points at all, and most conservative politicians will never, ever read a line of any major conservative thinker. Or, worse, they’ll think that Ayn Rand counts as one.
If Mr. Kerwick’s “the conservative” is Rush Limbaugh he should come out and say so. While Limbaugh is conservative in many respects, when it comes to race he descends into brainless partisanship. As Francis D. Adams and Barry Sanders point out in “Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, 1619–2000” (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), particularly on page 23, the root of America’s race problem is the inability of blacks to adopt American culture. This has been true since the earliest colonial times, when it played a large role in the development of the peculiar institution, and has become institutionalized in the cult of Black Power.
Limbaugh fails to recognize that contemporary American blacks vote Democratic because they reject American culture and values and are a willing vanguard in the march from a constitutional republic to a socialist one. This is what one would expect from an ethnic group that has given us Communnists—W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson—on our postage stamps and made the tyranny of taxation the case law of the land. Limbaugh simply doesn’t understand that pandering to them simply reinforces their rejection of traditional (as opposed to Progressive) American values. To get their votes the Republicans will have to forgo being a conservative party and thus become an echo of the Democrats. Again.
While the social maladies of the minority underclasses are indeed the results of individual decisions, government policies are hardly blameless, particularly the social programs that destroyed the black family. A key point here is that these programs were promoted by the black leadership, including Martin Luther King. Court decisions supporting the Left’s cultural revolution have also played a part.
As Gestell points out; “…exposure even to a superficial expression of conservatism in the media can lead the conservative who is in search of his kinsmen to find them eventually. Much the same thing happens on the Left.” This is where the ‘public’ portion of the battle begins.
Such programming, on both right and left will motivate a percentage of each political ideology to take both their point-of-view and their opinion to the next level, discourse.
There can be no dispute that a combination of Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and the absolutely dismal record of the NEA membership at actually imparting education in the public schools has combined to place blacks in a decidedly precarious position economically.
Conventional wisdom says; “If you want more of something subsidize it.” Generous welfare benefits, supplemental rent programs, and government sponsored food distribution programs taught a generation of African American women that men were little more than a recreational possession. Simultaneously; this system also taught African American males there were few. If any, consequences to be faced by impregnating and subsequently abandoning those same females. Male children, growing up in such homes, learned the pattern from observation.
Birth rates per 1,00 women for whites versus blacks are telling. For whites between the ages of 15 – 44 in 1980 the total of all out-of-wedlock births amounted to 16.5 births per thousand. For blacks between the ages of 15 – 44 in 1980 the total of all out-of-wedlock births amounted to 87.9 births per thousand.
By 1990 these rates were 30.6 and 106.0 respectively. In 2000 32.7 and 75.0. In 2006 (the last year I could find available statistics) the rates were 31.4 and 63.5. While this data shows that out-of-wedlock births did decline somewhat for both races; they peaked in the ‘90’s, then slightly declined and have remained rather steady since. (See table 19 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/unmarry.htm )
One can reasonably assume that welfare reform, which occurred under President Clinton and stopped the practice of raising compensation rates automatically for each child born had something to do with this decline an leveling of the birth rate. That they have remained steady for almost the last twenty years would seem to indicate that the resulting out-of-wedlock birth rates experienced today are the visible effects of welfare subsidies combined with the failure of the public education system.
reply to Ark Ashamed of Bill
Now, you’re what I call a real conservative. I”ve been a little disappointed that genuine racist right-wingers don’t pop up more often on this site. However, I won’t let you get away with a total misrepresentation of Adams and Sanders book, “Alienable Rights.” The book is not at all about how blacks haven’t adapted to American culture. You make the book sound like something Sam Francis or Mel Bradford might have produced, and it’s not that at all, no way. The book is a scholarly book about the difficulties blacks have had in gaining full acceptance in American society, going back to colonial times. The authors are standard academic liberals and so they highlight many, many incidents of racism and white-on-black violence. Their real point, which you evidently didn’t get (or couldn’t quite follow) is that blacks have made gains only when militant actions on their behalf, undertaken by either blacks themselves or, as they document in great detail, the post-Civil War Radical Republicans (just imagine! Radical Republicans! brings a smile to my lips), and other white supporters. Otherwise, they contend, the evidence continues to show that most whites are still uncomfortable with most blacks as full members of American society.
Now, I think these authors overdo their thesis more than a bit, but, sir, you should not lie about a book and claim it as support for your views, when it offers nothing of the sort.
Gestell,
Acceptance in society is not a one-way street, for any group. I would go so far as to say that the most damaging thing we can inflict on any group is to bequeath that group “victim’ status. I’ll highlight my meaning by addressing one of the dogmas of the Religion of Secular/Progressivism; affirmative action.
Affirmative action has probably done more to ensure the permanent separation of Black and White America than Dred Scott of Jim Crow. While progressives believe that affirmative action ‘makes’ up for past discriminations be creating set-asides for special victim’s groups; what it actually does is twofold:
First; it places those selected into a situation where it is almost impossible for that person to succeed. For example: I selected the college I wanted to attend early in my sophomore year of high school. My facility assistant told me flat out that if I intended to be accepted to that specific university I’d better alter the class schedule I had declared and do a much better job regarding the grades I was earning.
I took that advice to heart, and was eventually successful in attaining the goal of being accepted at my ‘only choice’ university; that’s right; I only applied to one place. Several of my relatives and acquaintances called it ‘luck’. It was luck, if you define luck as preparation meeting opportunity. Affirmative action was already being practiced in the early seventies and in order to meet established racial quotas a significant percentage of minorities were part of my freshman class. Only about half survived the first year. You could observe on a daily basis that they were in over their heads. They weren’t prepared to do the work. They had not developed the study habits, the language skills, or the mathematic skills to get through the prerequisite course material. Granted, this was back during a time when colleges still had a prerequisite course structure. As they were assaulted by wave after wave of proof that they were not up to the task at hand, they became more and more despondent. I watched as several persons on my dormitory floor first became worried, then angry, Some just left, others began to surrender to the ’party’ side of university life, booze and drugs. By my second year of college the overwhelming majority of these students were gone; either for academic or disciplinary reasons.
Did it fix anything? Decidedly no. All it did, in my opinion, was reinforce the attitude that most had regarding ‘whitey’. ‘Whitey’ didn’t really want us in their society, and they had rigged the university to get rid of them. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. They just weren’t adequately prepared to undertake the challenge they were awarded.
Over the generations, we’ve now sufficiently dumbed down the curriculum that everyone graduates, but no one can function and I have proof of this as well.
I worked, for a time, as a manufacturing engineering consultant. I was under contract to a composite laminate manufacturer in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. After procuring an old structure, refurbishing it and adding sufficient industrial electrical capability to operate his equipment; we moved his manufacturing lines into the new building. At this point I was basically finished; my only remaining task was to hire my replacement. The owner’s desire was to hire a person that could ‘grow’ into the position. They would have to demonstrate the ability to read customer prints, calculate tolerance, and lay out specific manufacturing procedures in order to deliver orders to customer requirements. After several hours of discussion he decided that he desired a person majoring in manufacturing technology. He didn’t’ have the cash flow right now to hire a degreed engineer. We both felt that someone with a manufacturing technology background would have sufficient grasp of these areas that he/she would be ‘trainable’.
I was directed to develop a screening mechanism. It would be used to decide the ‘first cut’ if you will of qualified applicants. The exam consisted of 6 questions. Adding a column of decimals, subtracting a column of decimals, converting a fraction to decimal equivalent, converting a decimal to a fractional equivalent, reading a caliper, and measuring a part to the nearest 1/16th of an inch. The owner went to the local satellite campus of the University of Arkansas and told the dean that he had an opportunity for a senior student in his manufacturing technology track.
Over the next two days, I administered this test to 12 senior year students from this campus, none of which were capable of completing more than 1/3 of this exam successfully. The owner took the test sheets back to the campus and had another meeting with the dean. The result of that meeting was an article in the local paper where the dean accused the company of ‘racist’ attitudes in their hiring practices, and was scheduling a meeting with the local NAACP affiliate to plan out the action to be taken against the firm. Over 80% of this company’s workforce was already black, but the company was ‘racist’ because they exposed the uselessness of a college course of study.
This is the very nature of the problem with affirmative action. We do everything humanly possible to insulate special victims from reality by ensuring they don’t have to compete. We say to those very groups; “We know that you are not properly equipped to compete against all other groups so we’ll develop a different standard just for you.” The ‘soft’ bigotry of low expectations.
Oh, and knock it off with the accusations of ‘racism’, and find a different slur. It’s become such an overused term by the progressive left that no one other than yourself attaches any stigma to it any longer.
reply to Bill Wavering,
Are you agreeing with Ark Ashamed of Bill that blacks just don’t fit into American culture? And do you share his wildly incorrect understanding of the book he mentions? Ark’s contribution shows his racism. Your reply to me does not show racism.
I appreciate your willingness to share your experiences with racial quotas and hiring requirements. I have a similar story. For a few years I was associated with a graduate program that I helped establish, a Ph.D. in public policy. The admissions policy of the program, which I had nothing to do with, was supposed to be one of ‘openness’ for women and racial minorities. Over the time I was connected with the program, it admitted a number of black and Latino students, a majority of whom were very poorly prepared for any sort of graduate work. the comprehensive exam we administered after a student had spent two years in the program washed these individuals out with alarming regularity. We allowed three tries at the exam, but it was still true that a majority of the minority students failed it, and were eliminated from the program. Some of us who taught in the program tried to get the director and his allies to toughen the requirements. After much infighting, there was a very slight tightening of admission requirements. By this time I had decided to return to my department and abandon the program. There were, however, a few well-prepared minority students who did very well and passed the exam, going on to write their dissertations and get their doctoral degrees. The program continues to tout its ‘openness’ to minorities, but I saw up close just how harmful it is to the students involved to be poorly prepared. So, I’m a liberal who thinks its a disgrace to admit unqualified students to graduate programs.
I’ve had a number of fruitless exchanges on affirmative action on this site, with people who simply don’t believe that my university’s hiring practices can have both an affirmative action requirement and avoid racial quotas in hiring. I won’t repeat my account of my experiences in hiring faculty, since I was regarded as a blatant liar first time around.
Gestell,
I don’t, for a minute, believe that blacks don’t fit into American culture. I actually believe that there is a distinct black component to American culture. Having said that, it is also my firm belief that affirmative action programs do not prepare minorities for the competition they are eventually going to come up against in the working world.
As I said in my previous post, the longer minorities are ‘protected’ by affirmative action set-asides, the more drastic and damaging the ‘correction’ will eventually be when those set-asides are either withdrawn or no longer guaranteed. In the long run, such programs do more damage than good.
Are you, or have you ever been, a racist?
And for the sake of full disclosure exactly when did you stop beating your wife?
Affirmative action hires in higher education and the real world have led to mediocrity and weak management in those organizations. The concept of affirmative action makes sense when used as a tie breaker where tow candidates match up so well that a decision cannot be made without a coin. Higher education has suffered the most since they will create new useless departments to hide their bad hires where industry will eventually drive most, but not all, of the incompetents out.
In higher education institutions that I have worked the requirements are diluted to allow for the “protected minorities” weak skill sets to match up.
What will happen when old fat white guys are the minority? Certainly not affirmative action.
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