If I were in that much debt, I’d make a Satan Sandwich

The national debt “crisis,” as it’s being called, is about as interesting a case study on the media’s activities in the electronic society as is any newsworthy event. This post may challenge the way most of us define “newsworthy,” but I use the word here simply for lack of a better one and for the sake of clarity.

One of the most interesting phenomena surrounding the debt debates is the sheer scale they encompass. And, more than that, that this scale is relatively incomprehensible to a good chunk of Americans – especially those of us in our twenties who think of debt in terms of our parents’ credit cards and college loans. Even then, many twentysomethings are far removed from the process of paying off debt (it’s often covered by someone else or there are many ways to defer payment). Add to this misunderstanding of debt in general a more specific lack of knowledge about the processes that led to the position the United States is in with its own debt.

Although I lack solid evidence, I would also submit that a number of citizens above the twentysomething age limit also find themselves in a place of misunderstanding about the scale and circumstances surrounding the debt debates, including those people who have most vigorously acted to influence their representatives.

Since most of us do not watch C-SPAN, what we do understand about the debt debates is that members of Congress are in a battle that sits strongly along partisan lines. This reality is consistent with what we have known about the government since just before, and certainly after, Barack Obama took office. And, while Tea Party members can certainly be blamed for some of the house fractures, we shouldn’t forget a recent democrat whose “Satan Sandwich” rhetoric has inspired more than a few sarcastic chuckles and some real grumbling.

With respect to the media, this all points to the reality that American media consumers see, hear, and understand only what is available to them and, of that, only what they care to comprehend. Why else would the NPR blog “It’s All Politics” record and publish a rap by Carl Kasell? At some stage, producers realized not only that the sheer scale of these debates, but the mere mention of them as well, was becoming enough for most listeners to flip the dial.

I admit to driving home from work, All Things Considered on the air, asking myself, “What was I just listening to again?” These stories get confusing and they, after so many tries, become somewhat irrelevant. So, why does the media continue to move these stories to the front of the news cycle? Is it because so many people are genuinely interested, or are we all just waiting for the next Satan Sandwich?

Or, maybe there’s something so integral to our humanity, to our current situation in the world, to look for the next person, republican or democrat, to blame.

I’m curious about why you still listen to, read, or watch news about important matters that tie politics in with American livelihood. I’m curious about when you shut it all off. I’m curious about who you blame, who you support, and who you just love to laugh at. What’s your Satan Sandwich moment throughout these debates and others?

The campaign: The hidden harm inherent to American politicking

This morning’s top story on CNN was whether Bill Clinton had role in asking Rep. Kendrick Meek to step down from the Florida Senate race. Meek is already behind in the polls with both the Republican and Independent candidates leading the way. However, when other Democratic supporters of Meek were interviewed about his chances, the general statement was, “Don’t give up. You never know what will come out about the other candidates over the weekend.” And, in campaign season, opposing sides are never hard-pressed to uncover potentially hazardous facts about their opponents. It makes you wonder just what Florida Democrats have up there sleeves.

The stereotypical argument against campaigning is that the attack advertisements and false promises render Americans frustrated and unable to make informed decisions about candidates. So, we respond by not voting.

But, what could be the potential influences of political campaigning on Americans’ understanding of politics in general?

A 2005 article in Science Communication discusses our tendency to use unrepresentative exemplars and heuristic processing when making decisions about issues in which information is a scarcity or the risks of such decisions are relatively high. When someone says “Republican” or “Democrat,” the chances that a particular values-based image comes to mind are quite high. And depending on your values system, the same is probably true for things like science, religion, liberal, conservative, government, and even politics. Both the polarizing forces associated with these enterprises and our general inability to make decisions based less on facts than on opinions logically result in more polarized opinions among the public.

The country was already polarized before the mid-term campaign season began. If you payed any attention to the news, one of the key words associated with politics for the past year was “bipartisan,” or the hope that Democrats and Republicans could work together. If any bipartisian initiatives actually succeeded, they’re currently well under the radar as Republican candidates for office are readopting the “change” metaphor used by then-presidential candidate Obama two years ago – only now we must change Congress.

With this in mind, go out and ask your friend what they think American politics means. The simple fact that politician can effectively take months off their jobs as civil servants to go campaigning in hopes of a future job is comparable to the rest of us taking the same amount of time off to simply hang around our industry without actually contributing anything to it. And getting paid just the same.

It’s no surprise that voting rates in America are so low. While the rest of us work, politician spend their time traveling, making television appearances, and doing whatever else they can to increase their likability while decreasing their opponent’s. And, they can do so because they have money gained from institutions that have professionalized the concept of political polarization – something that is successful only because we think in generalizations.

Just because you believe party X is inherently evil, this does not mean party Y is the savior. The challenge for us is to think rationally and systematically about our world. And in case you forgot, thinking does take work.

Other words/phrases without meaning (that appear on CNN for the next few minutes):

– GOP Machine
– Agenda
– Blacklisted (used by actress Janine Turner, completely out of context)
– Special interests
– American sentiment
– Political stunt

Corporate spending, corporate lies

A few days ago, I wrote about the controversy surrounding the church of Scientology. During a week’s worth of interviews on AC360, opposing parties in the controversy wasted our television viewing time by rebutting others’ arguments against them. At the end of the week, we learned nothing except that a number of individuals within the controversy are lying.

According to The New York Times today, Democrats are seeking legal ways to increase disclosure with respect to campaign spending by corporations. For those of us practicing journalism, disclosure is key to our credibility. Yet, what seems to make the news quite often are events in which political individuals are forced to disclose information they wished they didn’t have to.

In this case, if the Democrats are able to pass their proposed legislation, corporations will have to stop keeping their political spending private. Certainly refusing to disclose campaign spending is not on par with lying about an affair, but why should the government have to pass laws to make corporations tell the truth?

Democrats claim to be seeking legislation that is broadly bipartisan – a claim that’s chilling when we think about all the other current legislation that’s failed to pass due to intense partisanship. Corporate disclosure of campaign spending should be public knowledge, and it shouldn’t have to be forced through legislation because of political disagreements.

I don’t fully understand politics, but there seems to be no point in seeking to hide one’s campaign contributions. If corporations are worried about their contributions becoming public knowledge, they should stop contributing during election seasons. Of course, who know what this could do for our foundering economic situation.

More security please

Lately I’ve been wanting to approach news about conflicts between Democrats and Republicans with a more positive, less critical outlook. A recent story from the Associated Press (that I found via National Public Radio) forced me to remain critical of our nation’s polarization. As with any good news story, the first sentence captures it all:

House Democratic leaders on Wednesday said they are concerned about the personal safety of lawmakers because of threats linked to intense opposition to the new health care law.

At first, I wasn’t too surprised that threats and a few hurled bricks were the results of the health care bill’s passage. Not everyone is going to be pleased by the government’s actions, and no government will ever fully represent its people. But, we Americans have a hard time believing this. This is why we elect people who align with what we think we want, even though what we think, what we believe, and what politicians ultimately do almost never match up in the public square.

So, for me to read this article generously was for me to admit the political system is flawed and to admit that the people protesting have legitimate reasons for doing so. That was until I read this,

Hoyer [the House Majority Leader] said Democrats were talking to the Republican leadership and hoped to come up with a united front on the security issue,

followed by this comment from one reader:

Reading these comments only underscores an “advantage” that the conser[v]atives including the tea party, pro-gun, and such have over the liberals: an underlying threat of violence if they don’t get their way.

Conser[v]ative members of Congress may denounce threats of violence but they do so while pooring fuel on the fire.

Whether the protesters are politically motivated is not my call, but some people obviously espouse this fact, regardless of the truth. Therefore, I feel the need to remind the six people accidentally reading this post of something – citizens reacting first from a p0litical position do so without reason or any perception of responsibility for their actions. Sure, the politicians might be able to get away with whatever they want just to secure a few extra votes for the next election (a scary truth), but those of us who pick up the stones will be charged guilty if we throw them.

You really reported on that, didn’t you

Addendum: This post was submitted to and run in the Feb. 11 Baylor Lariat as an opinion piece.

I woke up to yet another CNN report whose purpose I couldn’t quite understand any more that I could understand why they fact-checked a Saturday Night Live skit about President Obama’s progress in office. Now, my picture of television news is becoming ever more skewed as I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), which I checked out at my local library.

The story I’m referring to is that of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ mocking of Sarah Palin yesterday. Of course Gibbs played it correctly, watching his professional back by waiting until Obama left the press room before he began his rant about the grocery list scribbled on the palm of his left hand.

Of course you may know about Palin’s use of her hand after “bashing” Obama’s use of the teleprompter. For the politicians involved, these back-and-forth media stunts have been genius attempts to garner extra support from either Republicans or Democrats because they know their actions will be reported.

Granted, Palin had it coming. She started the feud and backed up her claims with some “hope-y, chang-y” stuff.

It’s not because news outlets have nothing else to report. Just look at the New York Times homepage and count the headlines (you’ll also notice the Gibbs story is not today’s front-page news). Nor does it have anything to do with which news network you’re watching. FOX News is reporting the same issue just as often (something like every 22 minutes; it’s annoying).

Rather, what’s happened here is the media is showing just how whipped they are by major politicians. CNN would like to wonder, “what happened to bipartisanship,” but the real reason bipartisanship does not exist is because partisanship has always and will always exist in America. Rather than “for the people, by the people,” we have a government that works for the Party, by the Party.

There’s not a competition in American that could give us better television.

Psychologists say that if you ignore problematic children who act out, they’re likely to act out less because their deviant actions are often a call for attention. We have plenty of infants in Washington who enjoy nothing more than having their faces on television and prompting a few laughs from people they already know will laugh in the first place.

During the next major Presidential press conference, what if the media just didn’t show up? You could argue that without the media, the American people wouldn’t be able to get their news. But, studies show the population is increasingly uninterested. If you’re worried about forsaking the “fourth-estate role,” it hasn’t been played by the mainstream media in quite a while.

Keep politicians accountable by letting them know you won’t broadcast the junk they want produced.