TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2024
Pepperidge Farm remembers: We're losing a chunk of time this morning. We won't be posting until this afternoon.
At that time, we'll continue with this week's discussion—with a discussion of our flailing society's unmistakable new suit of clothes.
It was Hans Christian Andersen who recorded the history of the emperor who was mal-adorned in that famous manner. As Andersen noted, it was hard for citizens of his empire to see or acknowledge the problem with his suit of clothes.
To what extent are we the people failing to see the suit of clothes currently being paraded about in ours? How many individuals and organizations might be involved in this process?
Is our flailing national discourse currently draped in a new suit of clothes? This afternoon, Pepperidge Farm has agreed to remember the raiment we the people were willing to wear at the time of Quemoy and Matsu!
Quemoy & Matsu?
ReplyDeleteFor some stupid reason, the Kennedy/Nixon debates spent a lot of time arguing over the defense of these two utterly insignificant islands near Taiwan
DeleteWell, DiC, the Taiwan Strait crisis was about a confrontation between China and Taiwan. That still seems to be an issue today, don’t you think?
Delete@9:55
DeleteIt becomes an issue only when there's a way to accuse Dems of treachery. Until then, then it's "insignificant."
“the raiment we the people were willing to wear at the time of Quemoy and Matsu!”
ReplyDeleteThis incident occurred in the 1950’s, a time when serious men like Edward R Murrow were on our TV news. It was also the heyday of rabid anti-communist Joseph McCarthy. (“Anti-communism” was a major propaganda item back then under something called “ The manufacture of consent”, according to Noam Chomsky. Interestingly, Trump and Vance and Fox and the GOP keep referring to Harris as a communist. Roy Cohn, counsel to McCarthy, was a mentor of Trump’s. But I digress.)
Kennedy, accused of loyalty to the pope, barely won in 1960.
The 1960’s, when Walter Cronkite was helming the news desk, you had Vietnam, and the assassinations of Kennedy and King.
Humphrey was crushed in the electoral college, despite losing the popular vote by only about 500,000 votes.
This was an era before Somerby’s term “democratization of the media” had happened, presumably. The implicit idea of Somerby’s seems to be that things were better back then, that citizens made more reasonable choices, etc. (Wallace won several states in 1968.) We could look back to the actual destruction of our country in 1860, prior to the age of mass media.
I’m just throwing this out there for consideration.
Well said, thank you.
DeleteThe Civil Rights Movement, the War in Vietnam, and the Women’s Rights Movement tore the country apart in the ‘60s. The country slowly healed, at least in part because everyone shared the same sources of news. The Trump phenomenon is again tearing the country apart. If Trump wins, can the country heal again, when we no longer share common sources of news?
DeleteThis country is already damaged beyond repair by Trump.
Delete"The country slowly healed, at least in part because everyone shared the same sources of news."
DeleteUtter fantasy, offered with zero evidence.
This is the kind of trite nonsense you get when a con man has successfully identified a sucker and relieved them of their duty to think independently and critically.
Turmoil erupts in Pennsylvania town after Trump spreads false claims about Haitians there
DeleteSarah K. Burris
September 16, 2024 3:56PM ET
Trump poisons everything he touches.
When Cronkite was helming the news desk, he was also emceeing parties where corporate America celebrated their influence over society by having their right wing Republican pick be elevated to Supreme Court Justice.
DeleteSomerby misguidedly conflates democratization of media (a net positive) with corporate takeover of media (a negative).
"Utter fantasy, offered with zero evidence."
DeletePerhaps you may remember the feeling immediately after 9/11 when we all felt like one nation, indivisible.
Sheer revisionism.
DeleteIt's a shame that you didn't feel the warmth of a shared patriotism that the rest of us felt in the aftermath of the attack on the twin towers.
DeletePP, was that before or after they started calling me a "surrender monkey"?
DeleteDid that “shared patriotism” include a shared push to attack Afghanistan and Iraq? (Speaking of manufactured consent, “war on terror” and all that jazz…)
Delete"the rest of us."
DeleteLOL!
W’s approval ratings hit 92%. The country was united. (Then W blew it all up by lying us into a war in Iraq.)
DeleteW blew it all up so much that he got re-elected; hence the Great Recession.
Delete“ Is our flailing national discourse currently draped in a new suit of clothes?”
ReplyDeleteLike Trump, Somerby claims we are doomed and only he (Cassandra) can see the truth, that the Emperor is naked. Somerby’s grandiosity mirrors Trump’s narcissism. Neither of them is right about society. Our society in general is doing fine, we are prospering and getting better with Biden. Trump’s prescriptions would be a disaster. Somerby offers no suggestions, only negativity. We would be better off without MAGA extremism but also without Somerby’s nihilism.
Agree.
DeleteThe Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense Denmark is very creative and well worth visiting.
ReplyDelete“ It was Hans Christian Andersen who recorded the history of the emperor who was mal-adorned in that famous manner. As Andersen noted, it was hard for citizens of his empire to see or acknowledge the problem with his suit of clothes.”
DeleteSomerby writes this sentence as if Andersen were writing actual history of a real Danish emperor, when this is a fictional story for children, having nothing to do with actual events in Denmark. The story wasn’t written as political commentary. It is about peer pressure, a universal social phenomenon, not necessarily a flaw of human thinking because social cohesion tends to benefit people. Andersen was gently mocking us. The gentleness made him beloved and welcome to tell his stories everywhere.
Somerby could learn from him instead of just borrowing his story as a metaphor.
"Somerby writes this sentence as if Andersen were writing actual history of a real Danish emperor"
DeleteThat's your misinterpretation, not Somerby's meaning.
Words like “Andersen recorded the history” have specific meaning.
Delete“ To what extent are we the people failing to see the suit of clothes currently being paraded about in ours? ”
ReplyDeleteHas Somerby forgotten that the emperor in the story was not maladorned (badly dressed) but was wearing no clothes at all?
How can “discourse” have nothing on? What constitutes fashionable clothing for discourse? I find this confusing.
It has been real quiet around here since the DOJ announced their investigation/indictments related to Russian/Putin meddling in our elections this year...
ReplyDeleteThere have been two highly publicized supposed assassination attempts of Trump this year.
ReplyDeleteIn both cases the perpetrator was a White male Republican gun enthusiast, yet Trump and his cronies keep trying to lay the blame on Dems, to little avail.
Trump is confused and confounded by why his stance fails to gain any traction; undeterred Trump continues on with his snake oil salesman ministry, hawking shoes, bibles, bitcoin, etc., unwittingly exposing his incompetence at running a legitimate business.
Trump and his Republican supporters are using these events to mute Harris & Wal's effective criticism.
DeleteTurmoil erupts in Pennsylvania town after Trump spreads false claims about Haitians there
ReplyDeleteSarah K. Burris
September 16, 2024 3:56PM ET
This is the country we live in now. Fascists like DiC will applaud Trump. We're so fucked.
Thomas Sowell says Trump is unfit to be president.
ReplyDeleteDIC will have an explanation.
Deletecannot find any recent statements to that effect
DeleteI don't think fitness for the job is high on MAGA's criteria for electing a President.
Delete