Tag Archives: julius streicher

July 30, 2012 · 22:43

Matt Drudge and the New Media Cynicism: We Could Use a Little Good News

“Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?” Sgt Oddball (Donald Sutherland) Kelly’s Heroes

One of my favorite characters in a war movie is that of Sergeant Oddball played with such great aplomb by Donald Sutherland in the 1970 film Kelly’s Heroes.

Oddball is an unlikely hero. In the midst of war’s desolation he finds purpose, in a decidedly hippy sort of way. He is determined that no matter what happens in the war that he will try to be positive. His attitude is something that I wish most of Unholy Trinity of Politicians, Pundits and Preachers would somehow whether it be through diligent study or divine revelation discover.

I look at the Drudge Report every day. He is probably the most influential individual in media today. Millions of visitors flock to his website every day. His traffic is off the charts.  Now I don’t know Matt Drudge, I just know that he has a large amounts of links to various stories and websites and I use him to jump off to see what he is reporting. He basically is show prep for most of the conservative media and blogosphere, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Drudge makes no bones about his conservatism. I remember reading him when he helped blow open the Bill Clinton- Monica Lewinski “it depends of what your definition of is is” sex scandal back in 1997. So I have been reading him for 15 years and have seen how his influence has grown.

However as I noted in a previous article called The Drudge Distort he often will twist the meaning of an article that he links to with a headline that does not resemble the actual article. His website is laid out brilliantly to define a number of breaking news subjects and form them in such a way that a reader who does not actually read the articles that he links to, simply sees a salacious, cynical, conspiratorial and just plain negative picture. It is positively depressing to look at his site.  Simply look at the site layout daily. If there is a big story Drudge will have several headlines to links which mold the way a story looks and when you dig deeper you find that the actual articles don’t say what he is saying.

While the site is heavily tilted towards politics which is perhaps one of the most cynical enterprises that one can report about, the cynicism of Drudge appears to me to color everything that he reports about: sports, culture, entertainment and even religion. There almost nothing hopeful on it, unless one is into some dark schadenfruede that rejoices in the misfortunes of others. Thus it is no wonder to me that so much of the country which is influenced by the Drudge Report is so negative about everything.

Personally I don’t care how he breaks news before media behemoths. I think that a free and independent media is important and that Matt Drudge does a hell of a job at breaking news. Admittedly a lot of news is bad now days. Headlines are all that many people read when they go to Drudge and so the way he presents the news is as important or possibly even more important than the actual news

The dark and cynical message of Drudge is echoed by much of the media, both the New Media and the Mainstream media. Coupled with the 24 hour, or should I say the 1440 minute daily news cycle Drudge feeds the angst of the nation which now feeds on negativity and is amplified by cable news and the multitude of “news” services, political pundits and even preachers. Media outlets echo off of each other be they from the left or the right of the spectrum and Drudge helps drive them.

I really think that this dark culture that pervades almost all of the media is quite destructive to any productive political or cultural discussion. This is the kind of media that helped destroy the democracy of the Weimar Republic and pave the way for Hitler whose media gurus Josef Goebbels and Julius Streicher understood this better than almost all of their contemporaries.

I wonder about the mind of someone who can constantly not only dwell on the negative found in any situation but must then ensure that everyone else is infected with this. I worry about people who do that. This is not just a criticism of Drudge, but the whole media complex. One can look at history and see similar whatever media the Yellow journalism of the 1890s and

Yes there is a lot of bad news in the world. But there is also a lot of good news, except those that make the big money in media find that bad news brings in more money than good news. Admittedly some reporters will throw in the obligatory tear jerker or good news story the rends our hearts, but even then for every good news story there are scores of bad news stories.

Anne Murray had a hit song in the early 1980s called Little Good News”  the last part of which said:

http://vimeo.com/5943612

I’ll come home this evenin’

I’ll bet that the news will be the same

Somebody takes a hostage, somebody steals a plane

How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair

And how we cleaned up the air, how everybody learned to care

Whoa, tell me

 

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today

And in the streets of Ireland, all the children had to do was play

And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA

We sure could use a little good news today

 

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town

Nobody OD’ed, nobody burned a single buildin’ down

 

Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain

We sure could use a little good news today… 

I just wish like Sergeant Oddball that Drudge would drop his sky is falling message and actually report something hopeful for a change. The Apostle Paul once said “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” 

I just wonder what would happen if someone in media, maybe even Matt Drudge actually took that advice. But then maybe I am just a dreamer.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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July 31, 2011 · 01:27

Be Careful…there is a point of no return and we may have crossed it

Be careful with your thoughts because they turn into words

Be careful with your words because they turn into actions

Be careful with your actions because they turn into habits

Be careful with your habits because they become your character

Be careful with your character because it defines you 

Ezra Taft Benson (former Secretary of Agriculture) quoted by Buck O’Neil

On Wednesday night I took a walk about our Nation’s Capitol.  It was a beautiful night and the buildings and monuments were illuminated in the most spectacular ways.  It was inspiring in a sense to see them, symbols of the greatness of the country and the people how sacrificed themselves to build it.  I can understand why so many millions of people have come to this country from all over the world to become Americans and be part of our dream.

In fact I became so engrossed I taking pictures that night that in the darkness I did not see an unilluminated ledge not far from theWashingtonMonument.  I fell from it onto the waiting sidewalk below and crunched my right leg pretty bad.  I had it checked out and x-rayed at the Naval Health Clinic at Joint Base Little Creek when I returned to Virginia. The doctor assumes that there is a good chance that I have a hairline fracture of either my tibia or fibula just below the knee and I am being referred for further tests when I return to Camp LeJeune Monday.  Until then I am on crutches and pain meds.

I fell over the ledge that I had no idea was where it was.  It was inadvertent and even when I got up and looked at it I had a hard time making it out.  However there are those in the country including many in the political leadership and media that seem to want us to go over a cliff because they perceive that it helps them and their agenda.  They see the ledge and they know the danger but they unfortunately enabled by “we” press on to the abyss.

For many years the political ideologues on the extremes of the Left and the Right in the United States have harbored the worst thoughts about those that do not match up with their ideologies. I have been writing for quite some time about how divided our body politic is and how dangerous the situation has become.

The contemptuous thoughts of the Left for the Right and Right for the Left first turned to words and those words became commonplace, so common that they became habitual.  In a sense they have become part of the political DNA of the most extreme among us.

The attitudes that we have formed and angry words which we now use so ubiquitously are reflective of a deep hatred that now is becoming what defines us as a people.  In fact the deep and abiding hatred which now permeates our society is now threatening the international standing and I would say the national security of the United States.  We have only ourselves to blame because through our actions and inactions of the past decade we have made our choice to be what we have become and there is no one group especially in our political, media and business elites that have served us well.  In fact we have as voters chosen this toxic mix of elected officials often more influenced by hate spewing pundits and our own self interests rather than that of the nation and future generations much as we would like to claim that we are looking out for the future.

We have chosen badly and we are paying for it.  We are being held hostage by those that we elected, men and women who supposedly know better than to destroy the country in order to save it as was about the village of Bien Tre in the Vietnam War… “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” The Left and right have racked up massive debt over the past decade which has made previous debt pale in significance.  Each like to blame one another as “mostly to blame” but each has a major part of the responsibility for the mess that we are in.  However the amazing thing is that neither side nor we the electorate seems to be able to hold ourselves responsible.

Without going into the whole debt ceiling debacle which now has us on the edge of a default which we can only pray will not be as bad as real economists around the world say it will be; the fact is that we have made the mess and now our leaders are failing us. I have to say that all of them have used this made up crisis to some extent to further their goals and agendas at the expense of the country.  That is a shame and our elected leaders of all parties and factions are at fault and it comes back to character, theirs and ours.

You see it is about more than the budget or the debt ceiling. It is about hatred of fellow Americans which has been preached by hypocritical ideologues for decades on the radio, television and now the internet.  Much of it is as raw, hateful and disingenuous propaganda disguised as “news” as was Julius Streicher’s Nazi Der Sturmer and the Communist Party Die Rote Fahne were in Weimar Germany.  That poison has infected us and most of us line up on one side of the propaganda machine or the other.  We know what happened to the Weimar Republic, racked by bills it could not pay, massive unemployment brought on by the Great Depression and a desperate population led by politicians that intentionally used their misery to derail the efforts of government after government to try to manage the crisis.  They ended up with Hitler, the head of a large and vocal political movement which refused to compromise with anyone to bring down the Republic that they hated.

Whatever happens in regard to the debt ceiling and future budget negotiations the damage has been done.  The soul of our nation and our national character has been damaged perhaps irreparably.  Our leaders hate each other and the most influential media in the country, the talk radio and cable news pundits of all stripes throw gasoline on the fire every day. The social and political anarchy will reign until one side or the other has crushed their opposition.  Those in the middle lose either way as they will be crushed by whichever side wins unless they ally themselves with the winning side no matter who it is.

History teaches us that such times are at best tumultuous and at worst cataclysmic.  The consequences when great nations engage in such political fratricide it usually has grave consequences that effect it as well as nations and peoples far beyond its borders.

It is time for everyone to take a step back from the abyss before we plunge headlong into something that we will regret which will only benefit those that seek to benefit from it.  Or are we too stupid to see what is happening?

Thoughts, words, habits, character….be careful.

God help us all

Peace

Padre Steve+

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August 30, 2010 · 23:22

I Hate Appalachian Nazis: A Response to “Briar Cavendish”

Elwood Blues: “Illinois Nazis?”

Jake Blues: “I hate Illinois Nazis”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EoOZKjAjlk

I think I can safely echo the thoughts of Jake and Elwood Blues about Illinois or any other type of Nazis that skulk about the dark recesses of the American heartland attempting to blend in with decent Americans while peddling their hate on the internet.

If you read my post from last night and early this morning about what can only be described as an online assault on me by someone that calls himself “Briar Cavendish” you know that it shook me pretty bad. But I also said that I would not back down.  The words and thoughts of this Cavendish fellow who is too cowardly to use his real name but a rather a nom d’guerre is obviously pretty disturbed. So will endeavor to disturb him more to hopefully cause him to slip up and identify himself.

You see last night I went to bed very upset and didn’t sleep well.  The only thing that got me through the early part of the day at work was one hellacious workout for morning PT but apart from that I was pretty wiped out and in a funk through most of the day. It was only tonight that I decided to fight back.  I researched all that I could about him and it seems that he is most likely according to his IP address from somewhere between Johnson City Tennessee and Abingdon Virginia as both cities came up as the location. I’m presuming that he is in a rural area and that his internet service provider alternates him between cities or hat he lives in one and works in the other.  I had thought that he might be in Knoxville Tennessee but think that my initial hypothesis was wrong as the owner of the business using the name “Briar Cavendish” appears to be legit and pretty busy with real life to go around doing such things. The fact also that the ISP address is not in Knoxville kind of confirmed that.

But tonight as I researched him I found a plethora of pathetic posts on numerous sites. Evidently my admirer “Briar” is rabid Appalachian Nazi; he posts this stuff all over the place and seems to be sought out by like-mindless people on some of these sites. What amazed me was not that he was posting but just how many people like him spew this hate on these sites. Some call themselves White Supremacists, others American Nazis and a host of other titles. But the common thread is a hatred of African Americans, other non-white people, Jews, Muslims, established political parties, Christians that disagree with them and by the way need I say President Barak Obama and the belief that they represent the true spirit of America.  The have affiliated sites that cater to veterans, stay at home moms and pseudo-intellectuals.  They often stand should to shoulder with alleged “patriot” groups who while not in total agreement with the Nazis echo many similar themes.  The thing that freaked me out about my admirer “Briar’s” comments were how close some of them regarding minorities, immigrants, political parties especially the Democrats and Barak Obama are to e-mail that I receive from older friends and relatives who spam out e-mails that are full of lies, distortions, wives tales and are easily identified as such by going to Snopes.com.

I guess what bothers me is that many of the themes of the Neo-Nazis are echoed by well meaning people who are simply upset about the direction of the country and have been whipped into frenzy by the 24 hour news cycle and nonstop talk radio.  I think from my study of history, especially the Weimar and Nazi era, which was a specialization in my Masters Degree that I know a few things about what happens when passions become this inflamed in a polarized body-politic that the result is seldom good. It simply takes a crisis be it political, economic or military to push well meaning people who have been pushed to the edge over the cliff into the abyss of civil war and chaos. I can still see the bullet holes in a school that I helped to paint in Rijeka Croatia and the devastation wrought by the Iraq insurgency the mass graves of Bergen-Belsen and Barracks and Gas Chambers of Dachau to see what can happen when this happens.  In fact I think that is what frightened me most about the attack on me last night is that we appear to be sitting on a tinderbox in a sea of gasoline with idiots all about playing with fire.

So anyway, Briar so go ahead. Take your best shot and if you are a man identify yourself and enter into dialogue. If you don’t I have to assume that you are you simply a Hillbilly Hitler with bad teeth, no real reasoning skills and no writing ability.  You make me long for Joey Goebbels, despite being a Nazi thug at least could write, speak and wasn’t afraid to identify himself.  From now on if you post on Padre Steve’s World it will be on my terms and I will shut you down you racist, homophobic Hillbilly Hitler with delusions of dictatorship.  You see Briar you and cowards like yourself skulk about in darkness using pseudonyms to post your pathetic hate filled drivel using the freedoms that I and millions like me have secured for you since our nation came into being.  You’re a pathetic excuse for an American.

Go ahead, make my day,

Padre Steve+

PS. I know that this was not a very “grace filled” post but people like this need to be called out or they will doom themselves and the rest of us to a fratricidal conflict that will make our Civil War look like child’s play.

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