It is an irony that Webb here suggests blame for distorting and polarising politics in the US can be laid at The Web’s door. The ‘fabrications, the lies, the nonsense’ that comes from the Web are all to blame. Well yes….he’s right….it’s just that he blames the wrong Web.
Webb returns to his old stomping ground to add his wit and wisdom to Mark Mardell’s who clearly isn’t biased enough for the BBC.
Webb wants to know:
How did US politics become so polarised?
Remarkably for a BBC man who has spent much of his career doing his best to trash President Bush and the Republicans he admits:
[That] this bile matters. It has real consequences. It leads, in Congress, to deadlock. A nation beset with urgent issues to confront – of which the size of the national debt is probably the most serious – cannot find the cross-party consensus necessary to act.
So media misrepresentation of political figures and their policies results in extremely bad consequences for Democracy? Go Figure! Who’d a Thunk? A political journalist who just worked that out!
Naturally of course such an impasse is always blamed on the Republicans.
However it is not just the Republican politicians to blame….it is that shapeless, writhing monster the Internet and its sinister army of swivel eyed, foam flecked (Right Wing) bloggers that reduce democracy to a hollowed out shell in which only the most sharp elbowed and well heeled succeed in getting their message across.
Does he mean Obama who used the internet to raise a massive amount of money and agitate for votes? No, that’s the ‘good’ internet.
If only we had an impartial, unbiased provider of news, facts and fair comment to inform, educate and entertain us and that would provide a balance to all the highly political and partisan comment and opinion out ‘There’!!!
Webb goes on:
‘…..newspaper columnist Carl Hiaasen. He made an interesting point about the sheer number of sources of information on offer to the average American in the digital age. The TV of course, and the radio, but also from the net the blogs and the YouTube video and the snippets of half noticed opinion on Twitter and Facebook. A maelstrom of fact and opinion and sheer nonsense. All mixed up.
“The ability to twist and fabricate makes it so much more difficult to sort through what’s true and not true. You need to dig twice as hard.”
In these circumstances, no wonder many people defend themselves with the obvious human psychological defence mechanism – they believe what backs up what they already think and disregard the rest!
The crush of “facts” actually reduces people’s ability to see the other point of view.’
It must be true for Mark Mardell also admits he is overwhelmed by information…..
‘If you are anything like me you will find there is too much to read, too much to absorb.’
That interpretation is the latest ‘thinking’ from the Left….ignorance and psychological problems are the causes of ‘right wing’ thought and ideology….it is deployed with increasing rapidity to combat critics of climate change, immigration, Islam and Europe…..and then the usual add-on….it will all lead to another Auschwitz if we allow such bile onto the internet…..
According to Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian Prime Minister who now leads the Liberals in the European Parliament, “The ultimate consequences of identity thinking are the gas chambers of Auschwitz“.
What Webb is really upset about is that the BBC and its ilk are now held to account (if I might say by the likes of this site) and its stories can be checked…..and are often found wanting. No wonder the BBC and the Left would like to close down the bloggers.
But wait there’s more….not only are the lies and nonsense of the internet making a mockery of Democracy it is the ‘nastiness’ of real life….as practised by the Republicans….if only we had the cosy, cosseted world that Liberals and Democrats would provide…cradle to grave State funded generosity carpeting the world for us…just like Roosevelt’s New Deal…….
‘Michael Slote, Professor of Ethics at the University of Miami, agrees. But he wonders as well if there is not a deeper issue – an issue that goes to the heart of what it really means to be an American.
He sees that community spirit I identified at the start of this piece as a diminishing quality of American-ness. In fact, he believes it was a recent aberration. The real America is a tougher place, a place where bullying politics is part of the scenery.
He is depressed by what he sees as a nation reverting to type after a period of gentleness – brought on originally by the Depression and the New Deal politics that came after it – which suggested to Americans that in good economic times they could afford to help each other out.
and of course there is always that final kick in the teeth to Webb’s political bete noires….remember Romney being lambasted for not caring for the 47%…….well you know never let a good quote go to waste……‘the hatreds are ideological as well. Some Americans don’t see us as having basic obligations to our fellow citizens.”‘
That’s Romney told…what a nasty fellow he is….ideological hatred for the poor and downtrodden by a callous, bullying politician.
Gosh…Vote Democrat chaps for a nicer world!
So Webb gets a few days off from smarming for Socialism in order to visit the USA again-none of that global warming/Plane Stupid stuff , if there`s endless freebies to Washington at licence fee expense.
That was then…so last week..this is now!
I`d have thought that the USA had one or two “political analysts” to help us through Obamas coronation…but l`il Justin is obviously key to us all getting the nuances of why Romneys shit and Obama is faecal genius.
Webb conveniently forgets the abuse of Bush and Palin in “the media”…and here is Britain, the BBC IS the media…maybe 80% of it!
Yet cognitive dissonance applies…the media turn out to be the Murdochs, and not the monopoly purveyors of compulsory tax-funded LibleftieLabor conspiracy that is the BBC and its incontinence pad that is the Guardian.
I`ll keep saying it-how does the US Embassy possibly think that Webb has any reason to get a work permit…aren`t there enough Democrat spongers and shillers in situ to trash Romney or Palin with less damage to the ozone layer?
Unless the US Embassy these days welcomes fifth columnists as standard…
“Mark Mardell also admits he is overwhelmed by information…..
‘If you are anything like me you will find there is too much to read, too much to absorb.’ ”
Hmmm …. and like so many in the BBC, let’s remember he only reads one side of any and every story, and now he says he can’t even cope with that – so he’s clearly even less capable of reporting with any sense of balance than one may have perhaps thought.
After all the vicious things Webb said on air and online about Sarah Palin and people in the US on the Right in general, this is a pretty sickening display.
But the BBC and the Leftoid media in general have been singing from this hymn sheet for quite some time. Curiously, it all started back when we elected a Democrat President….
Webb’s Today colleague James Naughtie in 2010
In March 2010, Paul Mason was a bit more obvious about what he thought was the problem than the rest of them.
Mardell was moaning about how nasty things were.
Matt Frei in 2011.
And so on. It’s a media Narrative and not much else. Were we not so polarized back at the beginning of the Civil Rights movement?
I can’t say I follow American politics much, but I gather from the BBC that Nixon was evil, Regan was evil and stupid, Bush is stupid and evil, and Ford was just stupid. Kennedy on the other hand was sexy and idealistic, Carter is idealistic, Clinton is idealistic and sexy, and Obama is a sexy idealist. As I understand it British people are forced to pay for the BBC because it is the only broadcaster which tells them the facts without any political agenda.
Excellent summary Wild.
All US presidents with four adjectives.
Save us a lot of American Studies courses wouldn`t it?
Makes our crop of Prime Ministers similarly easy to describe too-possibly need to replace a couple of those adjectives-didn`t Clintons wife think a Miliband was “cute”?…
So much for eye laser surgery over there..
It is unacceptable to quote a Belgian pm in a forum such as this …
‘‘If you are anything like me you will find there is too much to read, too much to absorb.’
When I first saw this, I laughed out loud.
He’s a journalist, who admits he can’t deal with information.
And can’t seem to grasp that his evident coping mechanism… only paying heed to one set of views, probably those fed to him… has made him and his employer a laughing stock in the world of professional, objective journalism.
Hey ho. And they reckon it’s Romney who mis-speaks?
What ol’ Justin is actually doing here is telling you that the mouth-breathers in the US can’t possibly understand what’s really going on because we’re inundated with all this noise on the internet (for “information” read: “opinions and chatter”). He’s using the basic trick of pretending to identify with the reader, so it doesn’t seem like he’s denigrating anyone. But it’s a phony act, and he is denigrating.
Behind it all is just another variation on a favorite Beeboid theme: if you don’t agree with them it’s because you don’t understand the issue. We’re either ignorant or have been misled. This “too much information” angle is another way to say we don’t get it.
Don’t agree with the “consensus” about Warmism? You’re just overwhelmed with all that noise from the likes of Delingpole and Watts. Don’t agree with us about The Obamessiah? You’re just overwhelmed with all that heat without light (“bile”) from the Right-wing bloggers. The internet provides an easy and unregulated megaphone for all sorts of brutes, you see, and it confuses the masses. Is ol’ Justin referring to the vicious stuff going on at the Daily Kos or Media Matters? Hell no.
I’d also suggest that there’s anger on some level about how the internet has allowed unapproved thoughts and information to get past gatekeepers like Webb.
Justin Webb knows about the following; he and his BBC colleagues don’t want you to, so they censor it:
White House to Democrats: ‘Punch back twice as hard’
Or this:
Obama Walks Back Call For Latinos To ‘Punish’ Their ‘Enemies’
Piolin questioned how Obama could ask Latinos for their vote when many don’t believe he’s worked hard to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Obama responded: “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s gonna be harder.”
“I will be happy to see the Republicans test whether or not I’m itching for a fight on a whole range of issues,” Obama said last week. “I suspect they will find I am. And I think the American people will be on my side on a whole bunch of these fights.”
The signs were there early on. As part of the election press contingent, Webb knew all about this:
The McCain campaign and RNC are pouncing on another line from the Obama pool report:
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said in Philadelphia last night. “Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
Worst of all:
“Argue With Neighbors, Get In Their Face”
Fish rots from the head. But it’s all the fault of the fevered bloggers, right?