A Time for Fairness
I don’t know about you, but when I’m driving I like to listen to talk radio. I mean I have nothing against music, but most of the stuff they play on radio is for younger people. Oh I could switch to the USC classic station, but that gets a little heavy some times. My taste goes for Gershwin, Beethoven (the 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th) some Chopin and a few others, but when they play the fugues and ensembles, they lose me. I’d listen to my IPOD, but my vintage 1995 Mercedes (which, like me, each day seems to have a new ailment), is not equipped for it.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t and cannot listen to right of right Neanderthals like Rush Limbaugh or that bartender-looking Sean Hannity (take a good look at him and tell me you don’t agree). As a matter of fact, there is a whole slew of them, particularly on Fox (Rupert Murdoch-owned stations), vociferously voicing anti-Liberal/Democratic tirades day and night. If you listen carefully, you will perceive that most of their stuff sounds familiar. It should because their material comes from RNC handouts.
I bring this up because I feel that there is a need for fairness and balance in thinking and reporting. In this depressed economic time with our troops in dangerous places, with half the world hating and wanting to destroy us, I do not believe we can have this overwhelming, constant, far right conservative ridicule and divisiveness. While there were deep-seeded hatred and fear by conservatives of what FDR was trying to do, there was much more consensus than we have today. Of course, back then radio had not reached the level of sophisticated(?) commentary prevalent today.
Now, the question I must ask is where are the Jean Shepherd’s of the world. He would come on WOR in NYC at 9:15 each night and gently and humorously laugh at or ridicule us. He had an ingeniously perceptive understanding of the populi – you and me and everyone around us. I don’t know how he did it, but for years, each night, you were left with a new awareness of yourself and those around you and a smile on your face. He was a philospher/homorist. The important thing is he made you feel good, and he made you think. Out here until recently there was Adam Corolla, Tom Leykis and a few others on a station that just switched to all day music. Each of them provided clever, humorous anecdotal entertainment without the hatred of the political “pundits”. Is there no place anymore for this kind intelligent banter? Gone now, they will be missed.
Those conservatives-can-do-no-wrong, so-called commentators, however, will not be missed by me. Some of their talk is downright irresponsibly vicious. I listened angrily as one joker called Obama a Communist and a traitor. Hannity spent a week before the election calling Obama an illegal immigrant. He even started to refer to the Obama recession even before the inaugural. From what I have been reading recently Limbaugh has become the intellectual guru and godfather of the party. If someone deviates from party policy, they must seek forgiveness from Rush (see NH Senator, Gregg Judd. after he accepted and then turned down the Dept. of Commerce position). If you recall, a few weeks ago Limbaugh proclaimed that he hoped Obama’s policies fail. Think about that wish and what it could mean.
Again, this cacophonous chorus of conservatives is only preaching the party line. Listen to those Republicans from both houses spinning that stuff every Sunday on the tube. There is no flexibility, no solutions; only criticism of whatever is proposed.
These thoughts came to me while reading a new biography of Andrew Jackson, “American Lion”. What I have concluded is we need more people like Edward Livingston. Over an issue of whether settlement in the territories (remember this is 1830) should be slowed by federal law, the burning and sublimated issue of nullification by southern states came to the surface in Congress.
The debates were angry, loud and vicious. In response to John C. Calhoun and Robert Hayne, two staunch believers in nullification, Daniel Webster made his inspiring liberty and union speech (he ended with a resounding “liberty and union, now and forever; one and inseparable!”).
With angry vilification and accusations from both sides of the aisle the debate continued into the night. Finally a tall, thin figure arose. He was Edward Livingston, one of the senators from Louisiana. He calmly stated that the cost of partisanship for partisanship’s sake i.e. seeing politics as a blood sport where the kill is the only object of the exercise was too high a price for a free society to pay. Differences of opinion and doctrine were fine and necessary in free governments. But, he added, parties are one thing; partisanship another. “What occurs”, he stated, “Is a form of zealotry which magnifies causes of complaint and while attributing to itself every virtue, denies any merit to its opponents; secretly entertains the worst designs; mounts the pulpit, and in the name of God of mercy and peace, preaches discord and vengeance, and invokes the worst scourges of Heaven, war pestilence and famine as preferable to party defeat.”
He added that an excess of party rage was always a threat when people of power and ambition gather to settle issues of power, wealth and faith. All he was arguing for was calm and common sense. Whatever his hyperbole, his point stands emphatically today.
We could use someone like him here now. With the awesome and complex problems facing the nation, and the decisions to be made on what to do and what direction to take for the future, we can no longer afford the luxury of such political gamesmanship. If the current planned tactics are unsuccessful, then we try something else. I do not believe that just cutting taxes while watching it all collapse is a solution. Cutting taxes was Reagan’s response, and it was a failure. The question I have is what would the other side be doing if they won the election?
Look I don’t know if Greithner is the right guy for the job or even if he or Summers or Bernakie or even Obama know what the hell they are doing. However, that said, there is a need for fairness and balance in thinking and reporting. In this depressed economic time with our troops in those terrible places surrounded by hate, with health coverage issues, with our infrastructure and environment decaying around us, our education systems failing, with the national debt heading into Heaven, and so many other problems, I do not believe we can afford the constant barrage both in the Congress and on every talk show every day all day and night for every action this administration takes. Yes, we are a contentious nation. That’s the way the Founding Fathers set us up. But let’s let the good of the nation enter into our decisions; not just partisan politics. Let’s see Republicans come up with some fresh, new ideas instead of just saying no! There is too much at stake. Am I being naïve?
AHS 3/2009
