first off, cimmaron--i don't think this is a matter of opinion. there is a conservative media apparatus. it is very well funded. that well-funded media apparatus operates in a circular relation with it's demographic that reminds me quite alot of the relation that used to obtain between western communist party people and the cp press---the basis of the interaction is identity, claims about identity. propositions concerning the world articulate a subjective relation to the world. the boundaries of the official press are typically (not always, in either type) the boundaries of what is read. when one moves into "hostile" information environments, one does so armed with a host of memes or a priori labels that allow the delicate subject to ward off any untoward dissonance.
there is a clearly define set of basic propositions that define conservative political discourse. there is no corresponding set of propositions elsewhere. among the propositions is the series of claims about the "liberal press"---and this is a structuring projection, basic to the game. and folk have been onto it since the clinton period. i is an oft-repeated straw man that functions basically (a) to make the reorganization of the conservative movement seem reactive and (b) to conceal the extent to which that re-organization has jerked the right way to the right.
so now, thanks to this sort of obfuscation, the united states finds itself with a political discourse machinery based on repetition the only entry criterion for which is that you can afford to buy your own outlet or can afford to produce your own long wind-bag program. and there's little doubt that there's alot alot of money passing into the coffers of politically vile but ownership-wise powerful corporate persons like clear channel. and this is not to even start talking again (at this point) about murdoch's hilariously named "news corporation."
american political discourse has been purchased outright by the deep pockets that bankroll the ultra-right. the memes particular to the right's discourse **still** shape debate, **not** because they're coherent or helpful or anything like that, but rather because the zombie of conservative-speak continues to be animated by the repetition machine.
as for the general situation that slots into, it's hard to say, yes?
i've thought from some time that the united states is a fading empire that is collapsing by increments into it's own particular fantasy-land in which it is many things but not a fading empire.
i kinda like this quote from edward gibbons that turned up in a thomas friedman edito a little while ago.
Quote:
|
Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly lacking, long before the barbarian invasions had done their work, long before economic dislocations became serious, was an inner go. Rome’s life was now an imitation of life: a mere holding on. Security was the watchword — as if life knew any other stability than through constant change, or any form of security except through a constant willingness to take risks.
|
i don't know about this "inner go" business. what i know more about is that what's available for people to think follows from the categories that circulate in their world, that enable them to frame questions, organize information, think things out. and i think that the persistence of the corpse of free markety/washington consensus/neoliberalism is an aspect of this implosion of empire.
and it's a choice. the problem is that no-one of us made it. it's made for us by members of a self-appointed financial aristocracy that sees its short-term prerogatives as fundamental political questions and sees people like us as a mangement problem and is in a position to buy the tools that allow us, collectively, to be managed. to manage ourselves.
i think the game could be changed. sometimes i'm almost optimistic. not always though.