Monday, April 9
Cafferty's Pre-election Conclusion: Voting Against Incumbents is Voting Against Banana Republicianism
The resident grump at CNN, Jack Cafferty puts the "fun" back into dysfunctional television news.
Years ago my health required me to give up watching commercial TV. In large part that decision was tempered by my overwhelming desire during "news" broadcasts to reach for the nearest brunt object and toss it through the television screen.
I simply could not watch what had become the primary news source for two of every three Americans without feeling rudely --and crudely--insulted. At best, TV is propaganda; at worst, it's progressive brain rot. I realized I had no more brain cells to contribute to that lost cause.
Since then, You Tube and Google online clip have introduced me to Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's replacement for veteran talk show host Phil Donahue who in 2003 was fired six months into his new contract by the cable network's parent company GE, a defense contractor, over his opposition to the Iraq War--though Donahue was hired to foster a left-of-center viewership. At the time of his dismissal, Donahue was among MSNBC's most-watched shows!
One had to the collective brain trust running MSNBC/NBC/GE had been watching too much of their own product. Nonetheless, Olbermann's regularly elegiac essays pasting George Bush and Amerikan fascism have demonstrated he is a worthy successor to Donahue.
Only recently did discover Jack Cafferety through YouTube/Google clips; clips of his low-keyed but direct skewering of the post-9/11 fascism consuming the US are readily available.
The clip below--an cut-and-paste version of Jack's 16 October 2006 pre-election "Broken Government" fiesty essay advocating we vote out Capitol Hill incumbents--is compelling viewing; it gratifies my sense of how TV talking heads should talk about America's political leaders, who, as Cafferty explains in the clip, have made American into a "banana republic."
The title of this YouTube clip is "The Campaign to Given Jack Caffery His Own Show: Broken Government." In the marginal notes, it asks viewers to click on www.givecaffertyashow.com and sign the petition.
While I won't ever again become a fan of commerical TV, how could not accept that offer?
Years ago my health required me to give up watching commercial TV. In large part that decision was tempered by my overwhelming desire during "news" broadcasts to reach for the nearest brunt object and toss it through the television screen.
I simply could not watch what had become the primary news source for two of every three Americans without feeling rudely --and crudely--insulted. At best, TV is propaganda; at worst, it's progressive brain rot. I realized I had no more brain cells to contribute to that lost cause.
Since then, You Tube and Google online clip have introduced me to Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's replacement for veteran talk show host Phil Donahue who in 2003 was fired six months into his new contract by the cable network's parent company GE, a defense contractor, over his opposition to the Iraq War--though Donahue was hired to foster a left-of-center viewership. At the time of his dismissal, Donahue was among MSNBC's most-watched shows!
One had to the collective brain trust running MSNBC/NBC/GE had been watching too much of their own product. Nonetheless, Olbermann's regularly elegiac essays pasting George Bush and Amerikan fascism have demonstrated he is a worthy successor to Donahue.
Only recently did discover Jack Cafferety through YouTube/Google clips; clips of his low-keyed but direct skewering of the post-9/11 fascism consuming the US are readily available.
The clip below--an cut-and-paste version of Jack's 16 October 2006 pre-election "Broken Government" fiesty essay advocating we vote out Capitol Hill incumbents--is compelling viewing; it gratifies my sense of how TV talking heads should talk about America's political leaders, who, as Cafferty explains in the clip, have made American into a "banana republic."
The title of this YouTube clip is "The Campaign to Given Jack Caffery His Own Show: Broken Government." In the marginal notes, it asks viewers to click on www.givecaffertyashow.com and sign the petition.
While I won't ever again become a fan of commerical TV, how could not accept that offer?
