Category: media and media people

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folly ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Sometimes a Great Moment

Spartacus, Senator Cory Booker, Brett Kavanaugh, hearings, grandstanding, populism

“This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment,” Corey Anthony Booker said, referring, during last week’s Senate hearings, to his “leakage” of confidential emails from Supreme Court nominee Brett Michael Kavanaugh.

How the mighty have fallen. Senator Booker, when mayor of Newark, seemed an up-and-comer.

Now? A down-and-goer?

“I come from a long line, as all of us do as Americans, of understanding what that kind of civil disobedience is, and I understand the consequences.” It was almost a Br’er Rabbit Briar Patch Moment, performatively suggesting, “whatever you do, don’t censure me.”*

The moment Senator Booker was referring to was from Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, where a group of slaves all claim to be Spartacus, the leader of the rebelling slaves. Booker mostly missed the point of a great movie scene. 

That wasn’t all he missed. The emails he leaked (a.) had in fact been previously released to the public; (b.) he knew this; and (c.) they somehow failed to provide that killer proof of Kavanaugh’s racist love of racial profiling.

Funny, in a cringe-inducing sort of way, as when someone tries to tell a mildly risqué joke at a church social . . . and flubs it.

Booker was not the only one to make a fool of himself at the Senate’s Supreme Court nomination hearings. Though Kavanaugh doesn’t seem so scary, Democrats have gone off the beam, even so far as to engage in ululations of protest.

Why?

I have several theories. But maybe it’s just that they are out of power.

It’s especially hard being out of power when power is what you are all about.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Being seen as the underdog is so persuasive that some will put themselves under a dog.

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general freedom ideological culture media and media people moral hazard

Until the Fat Lady Offends

Richard Wagner, Israel, censorship, radio, law, offence, offensive, outrage

We live in a new Age of Offense. A whole lot of people make a whole lot of fuss about what other people say and listen to, view and experience.

Then again, some things are enormously offensive.

One of the latest offense-takings takes place in Israel, where a classical music station played music by Richard Wagner. And so of course had to apologize.

The music played was from the final opera in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Not my cup of tea. Or coffee. Or latte. As those who follow me on Facebook know, I have varied musical tastes, but more classic rock than classical.

Israelis who listen to classical tend to be none too fond of Wagner not because he was an especially bad composer (I’m told he is a “Great”) but because he was very much an anti-Semite, and Hitler’s favorite composer.

“While there is no law in Israel banning the German composer’s works from being played,” The Telegraph informs us, “orchestras and venues refrain from doing so because of the public outcry and disturbances accompanying past attempts.”

Understandable.

Still, some Israelis do like Wagner’s music. But since the radio station is State-owned and -controlled, the Israel Wagner Society’s president’s admonishment that “Whoever doesn’t want to hear the music can always turn the radio off,” doesn’t quite work.

That would apply only were the station owned by the Israel Wagner Society — willing to bear the loss of customers one might expect in Israel.

In America, of course, Wagner is often on the air. 

And those who object . . . turn the dial. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Ooga Booga Time

moon, earth, flag, Aldrin, Buz,z, tribe, tribalism, patriotism, globalism

Two tribes —

On the left, we see both iconoclasm (razing of Confederate memorial statuary) and a fixation on surface meaning (defending the actions of antifa by fixating on its name: “it just means ‘anti-fascism’!). 

On the right, rallying around the flag and MAGA hats has reached fever heat.

— Welcome to Ooga Booga Time.

In other words: tribalism.

Consider the upcoming movie about Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon. The makers of this movie have made a point of not depicting the raising of the Stars and Stripes above the dust of Mare Tranquillitatis.

Why? Because, says the Canadian actor who plays the part of astronaut Armstrong, the filmmakers wished to present “Armstrong’s success as a ‘human achievement’ rather than a patriotic American victory.”

But it was, factually, very much a Cold War victory. 

What the filmmakers are doing is rewriting history to conform to their cosmopolitan, internationalist tribal mindset.* 

Nothing new, of course — Hollywood has been a propaganda mill for a very long time. Once it aligned itself with Washington, D.C. Not any more. 

Now, apparently, even depicting a central bit of traditional American symbolism in the history being filmed is so stylistically, ceremonially offensive that actors and directors and cinematographers avert . . . our eyes.

“One thing is needful,” philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote. “To add style to one’s character.” Maybe. But when it comes to politics what we need — in Hollywood and Washington and Anytown, USA — is less attention to symbolism. To style.

And more on substance. And truth.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* And, perhaps, to appease the propaganda-minded censors of Chinese government. That’s Ben Shapiro’s take.

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

No. No. No. No.

Chuck Todd, Meet the Press, right wing, left wing, propaganda, myth, bias, MSM

“Look, I think one of the best things going in Donald Trump’s favor — we know this — is the mainstream media,” David Brody, the Christian Broadcasting Network’s White House correspondent, told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd yesterday. 

“I hate to say it. I know I’m sitting on a Meet the Press roundtable, but the truth of the matter is 62 percent think the media is biased,” added Brody. “So, in other words, if you look at the approval ratings of Donald Trump versus the approval rating of the media —” 

“The conservative echo chamber created that environment,” interjected Mr. Todd. “It’s not — no. No. No. No. It has been a tactic and a tool of the Roger Ailes created echo chamber.”

“So, let’s not pretend it’s not anything other than that,” Todd insisted. (So, it IS something other than that?)

“Well, hang on,” Brody responded. “Yes and no. Because remember, the independents are part of Donald Trump’s base. . . . [T]hose Independents also distrust media. This is not just Republicans. It is many Americans across —”

“Oh, no. No. No. I take your point,” Todd again interrupted. “I’m just saying it was a creation — it was a campaign tactic. It’s not based in much fact.”

Hmmm. Todd does not dispute Brody’s assertion that a supermajority of the country sees bias in the Fourth Estate. Nor does he deny that in a battle between Trump and the so-called mainstream media, the approval-rating-challenged president bests the media most days.

Instead, the former Democratic Party campaign staffer-turned-journalist smugly maintains that one cable TV channel, talk radio and a spate of conservative websites have totally invented a fantasy of an anti-conservative bias where absolutely none exists.

Meet the press bias.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
Common Sense free trade & free markets government transparency insider corruption local leaders media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Never Trust a Politician

salt, lies, politicians, politics, Donald Trump, truth, economy, trade

One of my more persistent critics on this site asked, last week, why I might believe anything the current president says — considering all the lies.

For reasons of decorum I won’t repeat his exact wording.

The odd thing about the comment was not the vulgarity, though (unfortunately). It was the idea that I was relying upon belief in Donald Trump’s veracity. The whole point of my commentary regarding Trump’s handling of trade and foreign policy was to read between some lines.

I try never to believe anything . . . er, everything . . . any politician says.

In Donald Trump’s case, though, there are lies and there are fictions and there are exaggerations. And corkers . . . and “negotiating gambits.” Separating the wheat from the chaff from the grindstone is not always easy.

Based not only on some of what he says, but also on results-thus-far from the EU negotiations, Trump’s idea of “fair trade” appears to be multilateral free trade. But he has chosen a bizarre method to get there: the threat of high-tariff protectionism — which in the past has led to multilateral protectionism, not free trade.

Trump sees everything as a contest. Trade isn’t a contest as such. It’s win-win. But trade negotiations are contests. And Trump’s game of chicken is dangerous.

Regarding foreign policy generally, though, he seems to be playing a more familiar game: we can outspend everybody. The recent increase in Pentagon spending is bigger than Russia’s annual military budget!

So, who pays? Americans in

  1. higher taxes and 
  2. the consequences of massive debt, as well as in
  3. the higher prices from his tariffs.

That’s awfully daring of him. For us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo from Max Pixel

 

Categories
free trade & free markets government transparency media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Most Outrageous Negotiation Strategy Yet

Trump cards, Donald Trump, The Madman Theory, strategy, negotiation, deal, trade, tariffs, trade war

The best defense of Donald Trump’s presidency, so far? He is smarter than the rest of us, and knows how to negotiate with bad guys and insider players. We have to discount what he is saying, the theory goes, because he is not telling truths . . . obviously. 

He is negotiating.

Take nothing at face value, including Trump’s professed beliefs.

Protectionism, for example. Trump has long been against NAFTA and the modern version of “free trade.”* But, as I noted in late July, Trump does not seem to be demanding managed trade, or high tariffs as a means to protect American producers, or even tariffs as a means to increase government revenue. He appears — at least some of the time — to be using tariffs as a way to bargain other countries to reduce their tariffs.

This method has not worked in the past.

But is Trump different enough a politician to pull off a “madman” strategy to get leaders in other countries to do the right thing and reduce their tariff and regulatory burdens on their own countries?

A long shot — and several sectors of American business are being hurt right now in this “negotiating” (threat) phase of Trump’s outrageous gambit.

Another area where one might express such hope for a master-negotiator president is in reining back the Pentagon. In the run-up to November 2016, Trump sure seemed defiant of the neo-conservative/neo-“liberal”/center-left establishment on foreign policy.

But now he just signed a huge increase in the Pentagon budget: an $82 billion increase.

Is Trump’s plan to bring big-spending military-industrial complex lobbyists to heal by first giving them what they want?

That. Won’t. Work. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Post-WWII trade policy has consistently defended treaty-based global trade, but with heavy elements of protective tariffs, regulations and subsidies, making the whole thing look less like Free Trade and more like Mis-Managed Trade.

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