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| Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) addresses the throngs of teabaggers in her state |
This photo is from the most recent Tea Party rally in South Carolina. Despite expecting thousands to show up, only around 30 actually did. This is in the reddest of red states and home to tea party Senator Jim DeMint. If they can only get 30 people to show up at a rally, why are they taken so seriously as a "movement" and a force in American politics? Tens of thousands of liberals rallied in Wisconsin for nearly a month straight, and yet the media still refuses to believe that the country is NOT made up of angry, white senior citizens who "want their country back."
Liberal media, my ass.
2 comments:
Great post, and great photo, Dave.
I think the reason the Tea Party gets so much more press than the left is not because the Tea Party is more popular. It is rather because the Tea Party, or at least its image, is generally louder and angrier.
And it is also because the media has stopped being a watchdog and has become a corporate lapdog. They show us what their masters want us to see and hear, and what we see and hear is what they think will sell. What they think will sell is stuff they deem sensational. That's why we get endless coverage of things like Michael Jackson, Balloon Boy, OctoMom, the death of Kaylee Anthony, along with angry people yelling and making spectacles of themselves.
When the Tea Partiers were instructed to go out and disrupt the town hall meetings, those who encouraged them knew what they were doing. It got lots of media coverage, and because of that, America was given the impression that the Tea Party was a large, powerful movement. It was not large and powerful at that time, and while it is still not all that large, it has gained power and numbers because the media has continued to give it so much free press and thus, credence.
As much as Tea Partiers like to claim theirs was a grass roots movement, it is more like a monster created, wittingly or unwittingly, by our wonderful "mainstream" media. At the very least, I think those who wanted to completely squash Obama's agenda got "the movement" going because they knew how to use our news media as a tool for achieving that end.
Our news media used to be pretty sharp, but it has been reduced to the equivalent of a dull-witted fool, which has worked nicely to create more such elements within our voting public.
Marshall McLuhan wisely said "The media is the message." And I believe it is all about the image... and thus I believe that the images the media chooses to portray make up the messages we get.
If we see images of angry right-wingers shouting down left-wing politicians, and if we hear more pious-sounding Republicans talking about how they are the adults in the room and about how wrong the left is than we hear from the left, the image the public gets of the left is that the left IS wrong and the Republicans ARE the adults.
The left has been too mellow. The right wing has been loud, and thus they get more coverage. It's just a huge crock of bullshit.
Another good quote I have always believed:
"Freedom of the press is limited to those who have one." - A.J. Liebling
Conservatives who disagree with that one ought to consider who owns the presses!
GE, that outfit that proudly pays no taxes, owns NBC.
Disney owns ABC, and it is safe to say Disney has a pretty conservative view of the world.
FOX? Heh! It's owned by News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch has a pretty large stake, and he controls it. Newsmax? Well... it's privately owned, but Richard Mellon Scaife owns about 7% of it.
CBS is owned by... CBS. But how liberal or conservative is it, really? This is informative:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200502180005
Liberal media, my ass... indeed! LOL, what a MYTH!
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