Posted on 11/05/2004 5:21:26 PM PST by Timeout
Chris Matthews was discussing the "moral values" impact on the election with Jim Van der Hei (WaPo) and Jim ______ (Chicago Tribune). The two Jim's actually seemed to get it...they specifically said it was demeaning to attribute it merely to evangelism, gay marriage and abortion. They agreed that the press does NOT understand heartland America.
Chris had not really agreed with them, simply asked the questions. And then, at the very end of the segment, he said:
"Maybe we have to start covering 'America' as a separate beat...like our foreign correspondents".
Amazing! The entire media elite MISSED the most important issue in an election that had gone on for 2 full years. How? By living in the center of blue country where they rarely interact with church-going "folk". And Chris' solution is that they should start covering a vast swath of the country as if WE are foreigners. Funny, coming from the guy who went in the tank for the French looking candidate.
What an odd understanding of nihilism. I think the poster is referring to an empty nothingness of sex above anything else.
The funny thing is that in a real cultural war the liberals would be busy barrading their cities (those little blue dots)to keep out the red heathens out. One day they might realize no one from the red areas want into their cities and they have in fact created themselves a prison, not a refuge.
I live in Boston and have for 40 years. My jobs have taken me all over America and the world. I was also educated in some of the "elite" universities here.
In the Northeast, West Coast and some other metro areas, it is like an echo chamber - all these people hear are their own voices. The press, politicians, activists, etc., feed off each other's delusions.
They have no idea what the real America is like or what the average American feels or thinks. It is like a nice warm cocoon and there is no great desire to see what is outside of it since it is filled with knuckle-dragging neanderthal monsters.
Traditional voices inside the echo chambers are oppressed. They are called racists, homophobes, Jesus freaks, bigots, intolerant, greedy, etc., etc. They are kept from expressing their opinions except through outlets like talk radio and the Net. Political correctness if forced upon them and their children are turned against them through a systematic public school indoctrination program.
Some leave the cocoon for a more accepting environment in a Red State while others, simply keep their mouths shut.
The good news is, the open-minded, diversity loving fascist liberals don't get it at all and are not likely to any time soon. This guarantees Republican control over the Federal Government for generations to come. This increased national power holds out hope that the the oppressed majority stuck inside these cocoons will find a way to rise up and be heard.
Got my vote.
The press, including Ghris Matthews can leave tonight for all I care.
Chris is crazy.
Could be Jim Warren if he was nasal, cynical, and balding.
"Covering America like it's a foreign country" is ambiguous. It could mean presuming that one doesn't understand the country and taking a closer and more revealing look into how one's countrymen actually live. Or it could mean taking a cynical, alienated view of the rest of the country that simply uncovers caricatures and stereotypes. If it's the latter, it won't be an improvement.
But maybe journalists might consider how many "degrees of separation" divide or link Manhattanites to Tulsans or San Franciscans to Topekans. We may be closer than we think. Just as American who can speak Arabic or Russian or Chinese come into demand when there's confusion overseas, so New Yorkers who understand Kansas or Nebraskans who know LA may be able to go far in today's climate.
Consider the source....obviously a pink boy who's never even seen a tree, or walked on grass. Screw him; ignore him.
"There are two things that consistently strike me in these conversations.
"The first is that "religious conservatives" are pretty much the only group in the US that folks appear to feel "safe" about stereotyping. Many presumably educated and enlightened people appear to think it's okay to be bigoted about religious conservatives, talking about them in a really hateful manner.
"Most of my religious conservative acquaintances are not bigoted or intolerant - which apparently would be a real shockeroo for many people who apparently only know religious conservatives from television. Because I think of them as people, not stereotypes, I don't appreciate bigotry or intolerance directed towards them, either.
"Their views deserve to be treated as respectfully as anyone else's. I suspect many people would be shocked to find out how nuanced their views are. After all, these are religious conservatives - they must be bigoted, ignorant trailer trash, right?
"Which segues into my second point. Most of the folks in my area are quite conservative, whether religious or not. Their viewpoints are complex, nuanced, and often quite well-informed, whether you agree with them or not. Those viewpoints are not being accurately represented in much of the national media, much less in the international press.
"I doubt it's deliberate, but I see a huge disconnect between the discussions of conservatives I hear first-hand at work and socially, and the way those viewpoints are portrayed in the media. I don't necessarily agree with their positions, but the way they are portrayed does not accurately reflect them. At all."
But it won't require covering us as a foreign country. It will require covering us, period. It isn't as if there's some mysterious unattainable current of thought; all they have to do to understand it is to read Free Republic for awhile without the "God, aren't these people freaks" filter that is so easy for the ignorant to assume.
In point of fact, there's been altogether too much assumption on the part of liberal elitists that conservatism and the heartland are victims of some pathology who must be dissected to be comprehended. This isn't objectivity, it's fear.
Keep this thread alive...it is important!
Mona Charen basically said the same thing on Brian Lamb's show today. A woman called in worried that America will become just as dangerous as Muslim countries because the "Christian Right" showed some muscle.
Ms. Charen said you really can't compare radical Islam to the Christian Right, really no rational person can.
There are three of us now! Come on everyone sigh up. It is no longer MSM "Main Stream Media" but the "OM" Old Media!
Chris Mathews was interviewing Senator elect Thune over the phone and was aghast at Thune mentioning he was going pheasant hunting! wanted to know if he killed the birds and ate them.
Nah...He just wanted to have little funerals for each bird after he used the feathers to stuff pillows for the homeless.
ACADEMIC JARGON
"As concerns this question, our inspired Founder instructs us that the fealty due from the Ultimate in connection with and subjection to the intermediate and the inferential, these being of necessity subordinate to the Auto-Isothermal, and limited subliminally by this contact, which is in all cases sporadic and incandescent, those that ascend to the Abode of the Blest are assimilated in thought and action by the objective influence of the truth which sets us free, otherwise they could not." .....It was just a snow-flurry on a warm day: every flake was distinct and perfect, but they melted before you could grab enough to make a ball out of them.
- "Three Thousand Years Among the Microbes"
Mark Twain
The perfection of Mohammed is HATE.
This is where we have them beat. ALL of us know what Blue America is like, what the values of the Blue states are. We are force fed their values every day on TV and in the newspapers. But, these people have no idea what WE are like because they control the old media and expunge everything that doesn't fit their leftist world view.
What did Matthews say about John Kerry's duck hunting charade? I guess it's like how Clinton can get away with carrying the world's largest Bible because everyone knows there is not the slightest chance he would ever open it.
There is a major point here - that none of these folks in the blue areas could survive a week without the folks in the red areas. The blue areas don't grow their own food, mine their own minerals, drill their own oil. They don't even pay their own taxes. All of that stuff comes from the red areas. The blue areas are dominated by folks who don't know how to do anything that someone else would willingly give up his own hard earned money to pay for. And when someone in a blue area gets really rich and can do anything he wants what does he do? He goes and buys a "ranch" in a red area.
I suggest the BLUE be Marine Target Practice free fire zones.
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