Sat, 07/25/2009 - 3:15am — Sarah
A moment's remembrance, please: it's been a week now since Walter Cronkite passed away. Next month will mark the 100th anniversary of Lyndon Baines Johnson's birth.
Date: 12/01/1971
Serial #: D4442-33a
Event: President Johnson interviewed by Walter Cronkite
Location: Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum, Austin, Texas
Description: L-R: Walter Cronkite, President Lyndon B. Johnson
Credit: LBJ Library Photo by Frank Wolfe
Rights Info: Public Domain Item (No usage fees, no permission required.)
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I have an aunt who likes to say
"Obama kills babies" - she's part of the 'American taliban'. But it can truly be said that LBJ 'killed babies'. And at that time I hated him for it and for all of the rest of his policies in SE Asia. We were blind to everything else, which over the years I've learned more and more about. At this point I am truly impressed by all the liberal policies he implemented. He was probably very close to being just as instrumental in liberal governance as FDR. Of course, he willingly executed a SE Asia policy. He was in charge and he should be held responsible for it. My one question now is what would have happened if he had made the decision to get out of Vietnam in 1964 - 65? Where would this country be now? Nixonland was a good book on this whole period.
I think there are other LBJs out there.
But I don't think that there is another Cronkite hanging around in broadcast media. Big media would never allow that type of journalist to rise to the top anymore - the media is now way too ego-driven. Maybe over at the BBC there is someone.
But new LBJs? I think they exist. I don't think LBJ would be as effective as he was if he was president now. He didn't live in a world where half the country only had real access to conservative rhetoric. We still had the fairness doctrine.
Our national discourse is so out of whack that it's very difficult to get anything done of value to ordinary Americans.
"Someone needs to point out that elephants produce infinitely more shit than donkeys." Brad Mays
Right
But that's why talking point #1 for people on the left is should be that our society is being inundated with right-wing propaganda by a corporate media. Movement Conservatism did a very smart thing in vilifying the "liberal media" in the public's mind beginning in 1968. Anytime a damaging story for the movement emerged, they dismissed it as a "liberal media" construct.
Almost regardless of the issue under discussion we should first explain to the public what the corporate position is, why it serves the wealthy, and how they are selling it. If folks on the left can not get a fair shake from the media, let alone control it, we should be discrediting it.
Instead we end up with our supposed spokespeople contented with getting themselves occasional turns at bat in the rigged M$M infotainment game.