Category: Don’t Take Any Guff From These Swine

Wired brings us this epic rant which does an excellent job of summarizing an ongoing battle between the FCC and the money-sucking corporate vampires who want to destroy one of the great successes of the last 20 years.

I’m strongly inclined to see this as yet another salvo in the war on equality.  Seriously, America is the only country in the world where people (remember, corporations are people too!) are supporting the idea that something inherently incapable of discrimination be remade in order to discriminate.  And there’s a serious chance corrupt legislators will do it, too.  Got to make sure the Haves let the Have-Nots know who’s in charge!

…why I love Jezebel.  I love it when wingnuts play postmodern semantics games, I really do.  It’s like when your dog goes from licking his own butt to trying to lick your nose–disgusting and yet charmingly misguided at the same time.

Key line:

And someone who actively seeks to restrict women’s freedom calling herself a feminist is, not to put too fine a point on it, a liar. There’s a difference between a big tent and no boundaries whatsoever; if Palin’s “entitled to be accepted” as a feminist just because she says she’s one, then the word is completely meaningless — as opposed to merely vague and controversial.

To Greg’s point in particular, I think the problem is not just that Palin’s attacks and smears have become so vile and absurd that they no longer merit attention, but rather, that major media outlets pass along Palin’s vile and absurd attacks without telling the public that her nonsense is nonsense.

This, this, a thousand times this.  The press does this all the time.  You can see it most clearly when anti-science lunatics blather on about “teaching the controversy” but it happens on every subject.  Without anyone to name a lie for what it is, any penalty or drawback for lying is removed.  It’s pure poison to our political system, and the proliferation of this mindset among journalists and editors is a major factor in why we are where we are today.  ANY time a public figure tells a lie, it needs to be called out.  ANY time a public figure gets the facts twisted, it needs to be called out and put in context.  Public figures complain?  Eff ’em; scrutiny is part and parcel of what they signed up for.  These people are public servants*, not an aristocracy.

*Sarah Palin is not a public servant.  She quit halfway through her term and is now a media personality, much like Anne Coulter or Glenn Beck.  Or Jesse James, for that matter…