0 comment Wednesday, November 26, 2014 | admin
''A multicultural society is one that is inherently prone to conflict, not harmony. This is why we see a huge growth in government bureaucracies dedicated to resolving disputes along racial and cultural lines. These disputes can never be resolved permanently because the bureaucrats deny one of the major causes: race. This is why there is so much talk of the "multicultural" rather than the more precise "multiracial." Ever more changes and legislation are introduced to make the host society ever more congenial to racial minorities. This only creates more demands, and encourages the non-shooting war against whites, their civilization, and even the idea of the West. '' - Frank Ellis, Multiculturalism and Marxism
But is it still a 'non-shooting war'?
The news story of the four police officers killed in Oakland has been much discussed in the right-blogosphere, though crimes like this are under-reported in the old media. The CofCC has a piece on the black radical group which organized what amounted to a celebratory march in honor of the killer, Lovelle Mixon.
Uhuru/APSP is one of several extremely militant anti-white groups thriving in black communities across the United States. Uhuru openly celebrates violence against white police and authority figures. They also denounce Obama as a tool of the "white power establishment."
The group is based in St. Petersburg, Florida and actively holds rallies and demonstrations in about a dozen cities. The leader goes by the name "Chairman Omali Yeshitela." The group claims a kinship with ZANU, the political party of violent Zimbabwe dictator Mugabe. It also claims to be allied with "revolutionary forces" in South Africa and other nations. Uhuru calls itself the "American front of the international African liberation movement."
It's an old story that the mainstream media treat groups like this as harmless and as 'civil rights' or 'activist' groups when they cover them at all, whereas we know that a White counterpart, if such existed, would be shrilly denounced as a 'hate group' or worse, and would probably by now have been raided and mass arrests carried out. But we all know that the double standards exist, and that nonwhite radical extremist groups will be handled with kid gloves and/or treated with exaggerated respect by the powers that be.
Another distressing aspect of the event and the old media coverage of it is the tendency to make the killer just one of the victims. This kind of thing is standard these days, especially when the perpetrator is of a 'victim group'. But this trend is an affront to the actual victims and to their families and friends. It is the ultimate in moral obtuseness.
I caught a few minutes of O'Reilly earlier this evening, and in his usual fashion he declared that the vast majority of 'African-Americans' deplore crimes like those committed by Mixon and that the majority do not support the march in support of the killer/rapist. Of course O'Reilly had nothing to back up that assertion, and I see no evidence of it in real life. I have to wonder if O'Reilly mixes and mingles with the ''African-American community'' enough to know what the majority there thinks or feels. I suspect his experience consists mostly of mingling with the blacks who work in the media or in other related positions, people like Juan Williams, who usually adopt a more moderate tone.
Surely, though, we can look back some years to the O.J. verdict and see how most blacks reacted to Simpson's acquittal (no doubt with the aid of sympathetic black jurors). Or we can go back a little further and remember the L.A. riots after the Rodney King incident. How many 'African-American leaders' expressed shock or dismay or chagrin over what they saw during those days? None, that I can recall.
Similarly, with Katrina, how many 'African-Americans' stood up to deplore what occurred there in the aftermath of that natural disaster? From what I recall there was much race-baiting, and accusations of purposely delayed evacuations, actual claims of conspiracies (levees being blown up, and so on) and charges of 'racism' in general from the national leaders.
Few or no blacks denounced the hysteria and the race-baiting, except for an occasional lone voice.
O'Reilly is like most media figures in that he leans over backwards to insist that it's only a 'tiny percentage' of blacks who commit heinous crimes and an only slightly less tiny percentage who excuses or even celebrates the criminals. However he is going to have to come up with something to back up these assertions if he insists on making them. But we know he will never do that; he will never have to. Most people are eager to simply let those statements pass or even to blindly assent, without any evidence of their accuracy. And we know why this is: political correctness.
Inevitably even those who recognize the dishonesty in statements like O'Reilly's will acknowledge that, and then proceed to justify the PC 'white lies' by saying ''oh, well, he has to say that, if he wants to keep his job. He can't tell the truth."
Yet O'Reilly is the guy who calls his TV program the 'No-Spin Zone', the man who claims to be so blunt and honest in contrast to the mealy-mouthed spinmeisters elsewhere in the media. He trades on his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is persona, and he is blunt enough when it comes to the safe topics, but when it comes to race, he is little better than any of the other PC-fied media minions.
So why does he make these silly PC statements about how 99 percent of blacks don't agree with the extremists, when the evidence to the contrary is everywhere? Why do many others do the same? We also see the same thing with those who insist that there are 'moderate Muslims' who are the peaceful majority, and only a minuscule number who actually support extremism and terrorism. Whenever the subject is the behavior of some minority group, there are the eager apologists who rush into the conversation to insist that ''but the majority are not like that! We can't blame all of them; it's just a few that cause problems. The majority are good people."
Perhaps it's some kind of psychological defense mechanism that makes people feel compelled to deny that there is a problem and that it does involve a great many people, not just a few troublemakers. Acknowledging that there is a problem and that it is more widespread than political correctness would admit would imply having to deal with the problem in some way, and many people prefer to avoid that.
And then there are those for whom PC is their quasi-religion; these people have to 'feel good about themselves' and these days, what better way to do that than to take a benevolent and all-tolerant attitude towards minorities who behave badly?
But these are people with their heads in the sand, believing that if they deny the problem, it will somehow evaporate on its own.
Maybe O'Reilly himself, who is so often accused of being 'racist' or 'fascist' is more sensitive to that criticism than he lets on. Despite his blustering tough-guy image, I think he cares very much about being seen as 'fair-minded' or unbigoted, even if it means denying obvious truths.
The media of late have gone all-out, as we've discussed here and elsewhere, to show us falsified images of blacks in positions of authority, wise, noble, kind, friendly, accomplished blacks, probably in an all-out effort to counter the crime stories or the evidence of our own senses from everyday life. The news channels and the media generally like to present us with blacks who belie the stereotypes and it has worked like a charm, apparently, for most people. However as I've always said, one exception, or the occasional aberration, does not disprove the rule.
Again, Frank Ellis said
A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bertoldt Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men.''
But we still, if we are honest and realistic, have to look at the overall statistics and the realities, without the rose-colored glasses provided by the media propaganda.
Political correctness kills; when I first said that on a forum some years ago, I was angrily challenged for it, but every day in the news we get more examples of how it can be fatal. I have to wonder to what extent PC affects law enforcement policies when 'interacting' with people in the ghetto or the barrio. I have to wonder how many people's lives are put at risk by this foolish insistence on believing in PC fairytales.
But is it still a 'non-shooting war'?
The news story of the four police officers killed in Oakland has been much discussed in the right-blogosphere, though crimes like this are under-reported in the old media. The CofCC has a piece on the black radical group which organized what amounted to a celebratory march in honor of the killer, Lovelle Mixon.
Uhuru/APSP is one of several extremely militant anti-white groups thriving in black communities across the United States. Uhuru openly celebrates violence against white police and authority figures. They also denounce Obama as a tool of the "white power establishment."
The group is based in St. Petersburg, Florida and actively holds rallies and demonstrations in about a dozen cities. The leader goes by the name "Chairman Omali Yeshitela." The group claims a kinship with ZANU, the political party of violent Zimbabwe dictator Mugabe. It also claims to be allied with "revolutionary forces" in South Africa and other nations. Uhuru calls itself the "American front of the international African liberation movement."
It's an old story that the mainstream media treat groups like this as harmless and as 'civil rights' or 'activist' groups when they cover them at all, whereas we know that a White counterpart, if such existed, would be shrilly denounced as a 'hate group' or worse, and would probably by now have been raided and mass arrests carried out. But we all know that the double standards exist, and that nonwhite radical extremist groups will be handled with kid gloves and/or treated with exaggerated respect by the powers that be.
Another distressing aspect of the event and the old media coverage of it is the tendency to make the killer just one of the victims. This kind of thing is standard these days, especially when the perpetrator is of a 'victim group'. But this trend is an affront to the actual victims and to their families and friends. It is the ultimate in moral obtuseness.
I caught a few minutes of O'Reilly earlier this evening, and in his usual fashion he declared that the vast majority of 'African-Americans' deplore crimes like those committed by Mixon and that the majority do not support the march in support of the killer/rapist. Of course O'Reilly had nothing to back up that assertion, and I see no evidence of it in real life. I have to wonder if O'Reilly mixes and mingles with the ''African-American community'' enough to know what the majority there thinks or feels. I suspect his experience consists mostly of mingling with the blacks who work in the media or in other related positions, people like Juan Williams, who usually adopt a more moderate tone.
Surely, though, we can look back some years to the O.J. verdict and see how most blacks reacted to Simpson's acquittal (no doubt with the aid of sympathetic black jurors). Or we can go back a little further and remember the L.A. riots after the Rodney King incident. How many 'African-American leaders' expressed shock or dismay or chagrin over what they saw during those days? None, that I can recall.
Similarly, with Katrina, how many 'African-Americans' stood up to deplore what occurred there in the aftermath of that natural disaster? From what I recall there was much race-baiting, and accusations of purposely delayed evacuations, actual claims of conspiracies (levees being blown up, and so on) and charges of 'racism' in general from the national leaders.
Few or no blacks denounced the hysteria and the race-baiting, except for an occasional lone voice.
O'Reilly is like most media figures in that he leans over backwards to insist that it's only a 'tiny percentage' of blacks who commit heinous crimes and an only slightly less tiny percentage who excuses or even celebrates the criminals. However he is going to have to come up with something to back up these assertions if he insists on making them. But we know he will never do that; he will never have to. Most people are eager to simply let those statements pass or even to blindly assent, without any evidence of their accuracy. And we know why this is: political correctness.
Inevitably even those who recognize the dishonesty in statements like O'Reilly's will acknowledge that, and then proceed to justify the PC 'white lies' by saying ''oh, well, he has to say that, if he wants to keep his job. He can't tell the truth."
Yet O'Reilly is the guy who calls his TV program the 'No-Spin Zone', the man who claims to be so blunt and honest in contrast to the mealy-mouthed spinmeisters elsewhere in the media. He trades on his no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is persona, and he is blunt enough when it comes to the safe topics, but when it comes to race, he is little better than any of the other PC-fied media minions.
So why does he make these silly PC statements about how 99 percent of blacks don't agree with the extremists, when the evidence to the contrary is everywhere? Why do many others do the same? We also see the same thing with those who insist that there are 'moderate Muslims' who are the peaceful majority, and only a minuscule number who actually support extremism and terrorism. Whenever the subject is the behavior of some minority group, there are the eager apologists who rush into the conversation to insist that ''but the majority are not like that! We can't blame all of them; it's just a few that cause problems. The majority are good people."
Perhaps it's some kind of psychological defense mechanism that makes people feel compelled to deny that there is a problem and that it does involve a great many people, not just a few troublemakers. Acknowledging that there is a problem and that it is more widespread than political correctness would admit would imply having to deal with the problem in some way, and many people prefer to avoid that.
And then there are those for whom PC is their quasi-religion; these people have to 'feel good about themselves' and these days, what better way to do that than to take a benevolent and all-tolerant attitude towards minorities who behave badly?
But these are people with their heads in the sand, believing that if they deny the problem, it will somehow evaporate on its own.
Maybe O'Reilly himself, who is so often accused of being 'racist' or 'fascist' is more sensitive to that criticism than he lets on. Despite his blustering tough-guy image, I think he cares very much about being seen as 'fair-minded' or unbigoted, even if it means denying obvious truths.
The media of late have gone all-out, as we've discussed here and elsewhere, to show us falsified images of blacks in positions of authority, wise, noble, kind, friendly, accomplished blacks, probably in an all-out effort to counter the crime stories or the evidence of our own senses from everyday life. The news channels and the media generally like to present us with blacks who belie the stereotypes and it has worked like a charm, apparently, for most people. However as I've always said, one exception, or the occasional aberration, does not disprove the rule.
Again, Frank Ellis said
A mode of opinion control softer than outright censorship is the current obsession with fictional role models. Today, the feminist and anti-racist theme is constantly worked into movies and television as examples of Bertoldt Brecht's principle that the Marxist artist must show the world not as it is but as it ought to be. This is why we have so many screen portrayals of wise black judges; street-wise, straight-shooting lady policemen; minority computer geniuses; and, of course, degenerate white men.''
But we still, if we are honest and realistic, have to look at the overall statistics and the realities, without the rose-colored glasses provided by the media propaganda.
Political correctness kills; when I first said that on a forum some years ago, I was angrily challenged for it, but every day in the news we get more examples of how it can be fatal. I have to wonder to what extent PC affects law enforcement policies when 'interacting' with people in the ghetto or the barrio. I have to wonder how many people's lives are put at risk by this foolish insistence on believing in PC fairytales.
Labels: Anti White Racism, Crime, Cultural Marxism, Hate Crime, Media Bias, Old Media, Political Correctness
0 comment Tuesday, November 25, 2014 | admin
Rick Sanchez, affirmative-action reporter on CNN, thinks that minorities who work for Fox News are 'sellouts.'
I've wondered about just what Sanchez's ancestry may be, since he appears 100 percent European. I guessed he was probably of (White) Cuban descent, meaning mostly Spanish, and I was correct, according to Wikipedia.
The son of Cuban political exiles who came to the United States in the 1950s from Cuba, Sanchez grew up in the city of Hialeah, Florida. He graduated from Hialeah High School in 1977 and accepted a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead. He transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on a CBS/WCCO Journalism Scholarship in 1979."
There you go, another one of those arch-conservative Cuban-Americans of whom the Republicans like to brag, like Bob Menendez who is also a liberal son of Cuban immigrants. So much for that myth, right? No, I am sure the Republicans will cling to it, just like they cling to the idea of the precious Hispanic vote on which they are staking their political fortunes.
Sanchez has apparently been taking potshots at Fox News lately, as ''reporters'' on those ultra-left news channels do regularly, and it's rather absurd, really, since Fox is almost, very nearly, as politically correct as CNN, MSNBC, or any of the others. They certainly abide by the rules of PC and slavishly seek 'diversity' in hiring on-air personalities.
I notice they now prominently feature more black faces and minorities in general than in the past, no doubt partly in response to CNN's sniping, and the most popular one on Fox is the FReepers' pinup, replacing the blonde Laurie Dhue, is Julie Banderas.
Miss Banderas does not look like most Hispanics I've met; she looks more like an Anglo-American with a dark tan, and acording to her biography, her birth name was Julie Bidwell, and she is a descendant of John Bidwell, a prominent pioneer.
Went by her birth name Julie Bidwell while at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, Virginia and at WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She is a paternal descendent of John Bidwell. Her father's name is Howard D. Bidwell. She is partially of Colombian descent, henceforth the use of the Spanish name.
The biography of Miss Banderas says she is 'partially' Colombian, so I wonder why she chose to drop her birth name in favor of a Hispanic name. I suppose it certainly does not hurt one's career to claim minority ancestry these days. I suspect we will see a lot more of that, as this country becomes majority nonwhite, and Hispanics become the majority. I expect many White Americans will emphasize any ethnic ancestry they may have so as to escape the stigma of being White-bread, and if they have any Hispanic ancestry, even just Spanish, as Linda Sanchez the 'conservative' has, they will pick that as their identity for practical reasons.
Miss Banderas has replied to Sanchez:
As a wise Latina woman, I have no comment other than to say if I were Rick Sanchez, I wouldn�t look in the mirror, period.''
It does seem an ironclad law that just about anybody with one-quarter or more nonwhite ancestry identifies with their minority side; I see it all the time in real life too. I can't think of any exceptions, offhand.
The mainstream 'conservatives' hold to their faith that ''Democrats are the real racists, and they are keeping the minorities on the plantation. But one day they will wake up and see that Republicans are their real friends!"
Sometimes I think the mainstream conservative types are more lost than the liberals. They come right to the brink of understanding, and pull back every time.
Fox News helps keep them in the dark.
I've wondered about just what Sanchez's ancestry may be, since he appears 100 percent European. I guessed he was probably of (White) Cuban descent, meaning mostly Spanish, and I was correct, according to Wikipedia.
The son of Cuban political exiles who came to the United States in the 1950s from Cuba, Sanchez grew up in the city of Hialeah, Florida. He graduated from Hialeah High School in 1977 and accepted a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead. He transferred to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on a CBS/WCCO Journalism Scholarship in 1979."
There you go, another one of those arch-conservative Cuban-Americans of whom the Republicans like to brag, like Bob Menendez who is also a liberal son of Cuban immigrants. So much for that myth, right? No, I am sure the Republicans will cling to it, just like they cling to the idea of the precious Hispanic vote on which they are staking their political fortunes.
Sanchez has apparently been taking potshots at Fox News lately, as ''reporters'' on those ultra-left news channels do regularly, and it's rather absurd, really, since Fox is almost, very nearly, as politically correct as CNN, MSNBC, or any of the others. They certainly abide by the rules of PC and slavishly seek 'diversity' in hiring on-air personalities.
I notice they now prominently feature more black faces and minorities in general than in the past, no doubt partly in response to CNN's sniping, and the most popular one on Fox is the FReepers' pinup, replacing the blonde Laurie Dhue, is Julie Banderas.
Miss Banderas does not look like most Hispanics I've met; she looks more like an Anglo-American with a dark tan, and acording to her biography, her birth name was Julie Bidwell, and she is a descendant of John Bidwell, a prominent pioneer.
Went by her birth name Julie Bidwell while at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, Virginia and at WBRE-TV in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She is a paternal descendent of John Bidwell. Her father's name is Howard D. Bidwell. She is partially of Colombian descent, henceforth the use of the Spanish name.
The biography of Miss Banderas says she is 'partially' Colombian, so I wonder why she chose to drop her birth name in favor of a Hispanic name. I suppose it certainly does not hurt one's career to claim minority ancestry these days. I suspect we will see a lot more of that, as this country becomes majority nonwhite, and Hispanics become the majority. I expect many White Americans will emphasize any ethnic ancestry they may have so as to escape the stigma of being White-bread, and if they have any Hispanic ancestry, even just Spanish, as Linda Sanchez the 'conservative' has, they will pick that as their identity for practical reasons.
Miss Banderas has replied to Sanchez:
As a wise Latina woman, I have no comment other than to say if I were Rick Sanchez, I wouldn�t look in the mirror, period.''
It does seem an ironclad law that just about anybody with one-quarter or more nonwhite ancestry identifies with their minority side; I see it all the time in real life too. I can't think of any exceptions, offhand.
The mainstream 'conservatives' hold to their faith that ''Democrats are the real racists, and they are keeping the minorities on the plantation. But one day they will wake up and see that Republicans are their real friends!"
Sometimes I think the mainstream conservative types are more lost than the liberals. They come right to the brink of understanding, and pull back every time.
Fox News helps keep them in the dark.
Labels: Affirmative Action, American Diversity, Ethnic Identity, Fox News, Media Bias, Old Media
0 comment Wednesday, October 15, 2014 | admin
A couple of months ago I posted an entry about the post-Katrina cover-up, which amounted to a denial by many in the old media of the horrific events which occurred in New Orleans.
I suppose those who are determined for whatever reason to deny that certain things happened will continue to deny, but here is one more piece of corroboration of the kinds of things that happened. The story is an AP story so I won't excerpt it, but a doctor who was trapped in a hospital in New Orleans during the post-Katrina chaos gives her account, and it confirms much of what had originally been reported.
There are just too many first-person stories along these lines to be explained away or dismissed. The cumulative evidence is too hard to ignore.
The other question the deniers don't address is: who would benefit from making up such stories? The deniers are forced to resort to claiming that people like this doctor are mere attention-seekers conjuring up a juicy story. It just won't work. The deniers have many reasons for choosing to deny: the stories are too politically incorrect, and conflict with the victimolatry which underpins the liberal agenda. On the 'right', people who are obsessively pro-Bush believed that 'the Democrats' made up these stories to discredit the President, which is patent foolishness.
It seems to me that the evidence is there, whether it suits someone's agenda or not.
I suppose those who are determined for whatever reason to deny that certain things happened will continue to deny, but here is one more piece of corroboration of the kinds of things that happened. The story is an AP story so I won't excerpt it, but a doctor who was trapped in a hospital in New Orleans during the post-Katrina chaos gives her account, and it confirms much of what had originally been reported.
There are just too many first-person stories along these lines to be explained away or dismissed. The cumulative evidence is too hard to ignore.
The other question the deniers don't address is: who would benefit from making up such stories? The deniers are forced to resort to claiming that people like this doctor are mere attention-seekers conjuring up a juicy story. It just won't work. The deniers have many reasons for choosing to deny: the stories are too politically incorrect, and conflict with the victimolatry which underpins the liberal agenda. On the 'right', people who are obsessively pro-Bush believed that 'the Democrats' made up these stories to discredit the President, which is patent foolishness.
It seems to me that the evidence is there, whether it suits someone's agenda or not.
Labels: Memory Hole, Old Media, Political Correctness, Revisionism
0 comment Saturday, August 30, 2014 | admin
I came across this piece at Lew Rockwell.com and it describes a cultural phenomenon that is part of America's problems.
Christmas Music: A Postmortem Reflection
Karen De Coster
While surfing the web recently, I noted that one Christmas music-hating blogger asks, "Why do I have to hear Little Drummer Boy on the radio over and over again?" The answer is fairly straightforward: the giganta-corp, media conglomerates turn out uninspiring, repetitive rubbish they think the dumbed-down listeners want to hear.
The problem with radio is that it is a government-controlled medium. It is government-regulated because the airwaves are considered to be a public good. Oh sure, the media conglomerates are "private" in the sense that they are publicly-owned corporations, but they operate on publicly-owned airwaves and are nothing more than government propaganda mills. They offer the public a service � superficially "free" music � and what you typically hear on their radio stations reflects the reality that there is no free-market price system to encourage a higher-quality, more diverse product.
So often, you hear people say they "hate" Christmas music � they are tired of the same old, repetitive songs that drive them batty year-after-year. This is because most consumers of commercial radio are content with the status quo found on the government airwaves. They don�t seek alternatives because radio, with all its talk, news, and music, is supposed to be "free." People are conditioned to believing that certain goods have to be public goods, and accordingly, the idea of paying for a competing product seems highly unreasonable.
Consequently, when we listen to the "all Christmas music" stations post-Thanksgiving, we hear ruthless renditions of Santa Baby and Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. Sure, these dumbed-down, pseudo-Christmas songs appeal to the inner imbecile in some � but not all � of us. The more immediate problem is that the recurrent comic relief being passed off as Christmas music suffers from an old disease known as "political correctness."
[...]
The real problem with the current crop of Christmas songs on the radio is that Christmas, and the music that goes along with it, has become politically incorrect. Christmas music, these days, has come to mean "holiday" music, minus the Christmas. The word Christmas, you see, has become taboo in a period where diversity reigns � except for when it comes to a traditional, Christian celebration like Christmas. The publicly-owned airwaves have long been expunging traditional, religious Christmas music in favor of secular tunes and clownish melodies that reflect a generic "holiday" theme. Of course, broad-category tunes like those can�t possibly offend those who celebrate atheism and demand that age-old customs be banished from the public airwaves. Thus we hear "safe" songs like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Happy Holidays replacing more conventional themes that center on the birth of Christ or the celebration of religious life.
[...]
You can expect to hear Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer at the beginning, middle, and end of the hour, and in between, Nat King Cole�s Christmas Song battles with some version, any version, of Winter Wonderland for most airplay. Nat King Cole, in fact, has a magnificent catalog of Christmas songs that never see the light of day due to their traditional flavor.
[...]
Only those songs with the secular, fluff lyrics are heard in the normal rotation, while the traditional, popular Christmas songs receive very little time on air.''
She is exactly right. It is all about dumbing down the 'holiday' music and making it as innocuous and neutral (no mention of Christ or Christianity) as possible, so as not to provoke the perpetually offended, or even the potentially offended.
This is a subject that I have brought up with a lot of people during the Christmas season over the past, say, five years. That's around the time when there seems to have been some kind of edict passed down that any religious Christmas song was banished from the commercial airwaves. Some of the people to whom I've mentioned this subject claim they haven't noticed anything different in our Christmas musical fare, but it's glaringly obvious.
I often wonder about how these things happen as if by some agreed-upon signal. The change seemed to be noticeable all of a sudden. Is there some kind of group mind in the media, so that all those executives are part of some kind of gestalt? Or are there directives passed down from on high, from the FCC or somewhere, that are not made public?
Why did the media suddenly decide that the old religious songs were no longer publicly acceptable, and only the bland, banal 'holiday songs' were fit to be heard?
I notice the trend accelerated after 9/11; did this all begin as an effort to placate the growing Moslem population? Or the increasingly vocal atheist malcontents?
The old news media insist on politically correcting their news and 'information', the entertainment outlets of the old media empire politically correct the 'entertainment' they present to us. But just as the Internet provides a less controlled, more demotic alternative to the old news media, satellite radio and the Internet offer an alternative source of music. The old media with their narrow and restricted content will, I hope, be superseded by the new media because the latter actually provides a choice.
The old media court the few at the expense of the majority, and this is true of the news media and the 'entertainment' media. One wonders how profitable this can be over the long term; would it not make more economic sense to go after the majority? Why is it suddenly practical or profitable to ignore the many in favor of a small segment of the population?
The majority of the population, unfortunately, are content to passively, uncritically accept the inferior products that are offered us. This seems to be a weakness of the American people these days; we acquiesce too easily, and are content with the pabulum that dominates the media.
And this is true in all areas of life; too many people are quite content with the dumbed-down selection of Presidential candidates who are presented to us as the best our country has to offer. Sometimes one wonders if the most unpalatable candidates are presented alongside the anointed one that the elites want to place in the White House, so as to make that pre-selected candidate appear more desirable.
It seems that whether we are talking about music or politics, we are too passive in accepting whatever is put before us. Until we begin to assert our will and exercise the power that rightfully belongs to the majority, we will be given only a Hobson's choice of inferior alternatives. We will get more of what we tolerate.
Christmas Music: A Postmortem Reflection
Karen De Coster
While surfing the web recently, I noted that one Christmas music-hating blogger asks, "Why do I have to hear Little Drummer Boy on the radio over and over again?" The answer is fairly straightforward: the giganta-corp, media conglomerates turn out uninspiring, repetitive rubbish they think the dumbed-down listeners want to hear.
The problem with radio is that it is a government-controlled medium. It is government-regulated because the airwaves are considered to be a public good. Oh sure, the media conglomerates are "private" in the sense that they are publicly-owned corporations, but they operate on publicly-owned airwaves and are nothing more than government propaganda mills. They offer the public a service � superficially "free" music � and what you typically hear on their radio stations reflects the reality that there is no free-market price system to encourage a higher-quality, more diverse product.
So often, you hear people say they "hate" Christmas music � they are tired of the same old, repetitive songs that drive them batty year-after-year. This is because most consumers of commercial radio are content with the status quo found on the government airwaves. They don�t seek alternatives because radio, with all its talk, news, and music, is supposed to be "free." People are conditioned to believing that certain goods have to be public goods, and accordingly, the idea of paying for a competing product seems highly unreasonable.
Consequently, when we listen to the "all Christmas music" stations post-Thanksgiving, we hear ruthless renditions of Santa Baby and Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer. Sure, these dumbed-down, pseudo-Christmas songs appeal to the inner imbecile in some � but not all � of us. The more immediate problem is that the recurrent comic relief being passed off as Christmas music suffers from an old disease known as "political correctness."
[...]
The real problem with the current crop of Christmas songs on the radio is that Christmas, and the music that goes along with it, has become politically incorrect. Christmas music, these days, has come to mean "holiday" music, minus the Christmas. The word Christmas, you see, has become taboo in a period where diversity reigns � except for when it comes to a traditional, Christian celebration like Christmas. The publicly-owned airwaves have long been expunging traditional, religious Christmas music in favor of secular tunes and clownish melodies that reflect a generic "holiday" theme. Of course, broad-category tunes like those can�t possibly offend those who celebrate atheism and demand that age-old customs be banished from the public airwaves. Thus we hear "safe" songs like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and Happy Holidays replacing more conventional themes that center on the birth of Christ or the celebration of religious life.
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You can expect to hear Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer at the beginning, middle, and end of the hour, and in between, Nat King Cole�s Christmas Song battles with some version, any version, of Winter Wonderland for most airplay. Nat King Cole, in fact, has a magnificent catalog of Christmas songs that never see the light of day due to their traditional flavor.
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Only those songs with the secular, fluff lyrics are heard in the normal rotation, while the traditional, popular Christmas songs receive very little time on air.''
She is exactly right. It is all about dumbing down the 'holiday' music and making it as innocuous and neutral (no mention of Christ or Christianity) as possible, so as not to provoke the perpetually offended, or even the potentially offended.
This is a subject that I have brought up with a lot of people during the Christmas season over the past, say, five years. That's around the time when there seems to have been some kind of edict passed down that any religious Christmas song was banished from the commercial airwaves. Some of the people to whom I've mentioned this subject claim they haven't noticed anything different in our Christmas musical fare, but it's glaringly obvious.
I often wonder about how these things happen as if by some agreed-upon signal. The change seemed to be noticeable all of a sudden. Is there some kind of group mind in the media, so that all those executives are part of some kind of gestalt? Or are there directives passed down from on high, from the FCC or somewhere, that are not made public?
Why did the media suddenly decide that the old religious songs were no longer publicly acceptable, and only the bland, banal 'holiday songs' were fit to be heard?
I notice the trend accelerated after 9/11; did this all begin as an effort to placate the growing Moslem population? Or the increasingly vocal atheist malcontents?
The old news media insist on politically correcting their news and 'information', the entertainment outlets of the old media empire politically correct the 'entertainment' they present to us. But just as the Internet provides a less controlled, more demotic alternative to the old news media, satellite radio and the Internet offer an alternative source of music. The old media with their narrow and restricted content will, I hope, be superseded by the new media because the latter actually provides a choice.
The old media court the few at the expense of the majority, and this is true of the news media and the 'entertainment' media. One wonders how profitable this can be over the long term; would it not make more economic sense to go after the majority? Why is it suddenly practical or profitable to ignore the many in favor of a small segment of the population?
The majority of the population, unfortunately, are content to passively, uncritically accept the inferior products that are offered us. This seems to be a weakness of the American people these days; we acquiesce too easily, and are content with the pabulum that dominates the media.
And this is true in all areas of life; too many people are quite content with the dumbed-down selection of Presidential candidates who are presented to us as the best our country has to offer. Sometimes one wonders if the most unpalatable candidates are presented alongside the anointed one that the elites want to place in the White House, so as to make that pre-selected candidate appear more desirable.
It seems that whether we are talking about music or politics, we are too passive in accepting whatever is put before us. Until we begin to assert our will and exercise the power that rightfully belongs to the majority, we will be given only a Hobson's choice of inferior alternatives. We will get more of what we tolerate.
Labels: Entertainment Media, Old Media, Political Correctness, Politics, Popular Culture