May 1, 2010
-- by Dave Johnson
There were large immigration rallies in cities across the country today. 50-100,000 people marched in LA.
Do you think now there will be wall-to-wall coverage in the news for months now, like there has been for the Tea Party events?
Here's the question: WHY not?
Posted by Dave Johnson at May 1, 2010 6:20 PM
Quoting a great American (well actually me) on Skippy: "The fix really IS in. Maddening but not unexpected".
There were at least two rallies in NYC. One in Union Square and then ironically a union one in Foley Square. The latter was much bigger than the former, or at least bigger than the former was when people just started gathering as reported on CNN. But CNN and the NYT just ignored the Foley Square one and reported a 1000 people at Union Square. Similarly the picture illustrating CNN's coverage of DC showed Cong. Guiterrez being arrested in isolation while the NYT showed seven clearly brown people with signs, clearly on the side of the road. Apparently despite nice weather in both cities all news helicopters were unable to fly to get us some overhead crowd shots.
It is actually not hard to understand why the conventional narrative on just about everything has over the last decade or so (I would argue last three or even five decades) has hardened around an overall message of "Punch the Dirty F'in Hippie!", it just SOUNDS like paranoid raving.
Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver were not pure fantasy, I grew up in a slightly downscale version of that life, but even then you could sense it was all a rear-guard action, the future was with the kids and there were just so gosh-darn many of us Boomers and notions of race and class deference just started being discarded left and right in the sixties. As I sit here dozens even hundreds of cultural and historical illustrations flood in but maybe the classic one is re-runs of the Ed Sullivan British invasion shows of 64-66 (as seen on my local PBS fundraiser). Ed was in the Variety Show business and there was no way he was going to turn down the ratings but the unease was written all over his face. The kids were NOT alright and CHRIST there were so many of them!
I talk on my blog and some on Angry Bear about the fundamental incompatibility between the Burkean Conservatism that is at the root of modern American Movement Conservatism and Majoritarianism. Conservative control over politics and economic outcomes relies on the masses 'knowing their place'. A combination of Boomer demographics, One Man-One Vote judicial rulings, the civil rights, women's rights, gay rights and environmental movements starting in the early sixties shook that foundation of Conservatism to the core, and the results are still playing out.
WHY not? Because Conservatism as we know it was born during the Age of Reaction against the democratic movements that produced first the American and then French Revolutions. But since events of the 20th century worked out that at least lip-service had to be given to 'majority rule' this required the invention of mostly ficticious 'Silent Majority' and 'Moral Majority' and 'Right of Center Nation's. To which we could add such things as 'Skill premium' to explain away income inequality.
The masses simply refuse to 'know their place' and an honest depiction of reality would show that. So it doesn't get shown.
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