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Originally Posted by roachboy
ace--i don't think the town hall meetings, and their slogans/tactics, came together around the columns of george will or bill kristol or whatever it is that karl rove does these days (the last one i don't know about for sure)...it's pretty obvious that the ways in which issues were framed came out of populist conservative media and that the primary, though not exclusive, drivers for this at the masscult level were people like limbaugh & beck and other zanies. there's little doubt that there's also bloggers who are important in here as well as other forms of collective mobilization brought to you by the usual conservative groups and their funders in the insurance industry (these days).
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There is, in my opinion, a correlation between the growing hostility with government and the ineffectiveness of government. Rush, was on every day during the Clinton administration doing the same thing he is doing now. The difference has more to do with unemployment and how people feel about the future than Rush going off on liberals. All these guys do is just tap into the sentiment and ride the wave. They do not create the sentiment. They do not have that kind of power.
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and it's entirely implausible, given the whacked out ways in which much of the public face of the town hall phenom has gone, that these folk just converged and happened to be saying the same things based on the state of affairs that obtained in congress at a particular moment.
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I have shared my views on the TH meetings in other posts. I don't listen to Rush nor watch Beck regularly and my frustration level is as high as it has ever been. My frustration is related to several things, the most important is the lack of focus from the WH and their unwillingness to address simple questions.
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there are of course people on the right with principled objections who are not part of the organized populist zaniness that we've been treated to as a public spectacle.
and not everyone on the right watches the talking heads.
but there's no way to go from there to any argument that therefore there's no influence.
it seems so obviously false, that kind of argument, that i really can't figure out why you'd head down this path and try to make the claim.
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I think you guys are "tilting at windmills". You create your false monsters for a reason I don't understand. Another example is Palin. she is one of your "monsters", yet she has no power, and no real influence to change behaviors or views. I like Palin because she sees many things the way that I do, she has never persuaded me. On the other hand, Reagan actually changed the way I saw things - I did not vote for him, but I became a Republican because of him.
---------- Post added at 09:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:06 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by YaWhateva
yes I know that Glenn Beck is just acting but a lot of people don't. He takes conservative concerns over the top and then the conservatives who watch him and take it seriously take the over the top statements he makes and regurgitate those statements. His lies (yes most of the shit he says are flat out lies) get ingrained in many peoples' heads as the truth and nothing will dissuade them from that "truth".
And yes I have a few friends who absolutely swear by Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. When I disagree with the bullshit that they spout (yes it is bullshit because they still believe Obama isn't a citizen) they say that it's people like me that are destroying America and yes they are very serious about it. It's scary.
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What were they before Beck and Hannity? If they were the same, I don't get your point. If they changed, I accept your point and agree that they do have some influence and perhaps have more than I realize. I would love to see an objective study on the issue at hand here.