Stickybuffalo.com

Lately I’ve noticed a number of terms which are frequently used, particularly by the Anglo-American news media and punditry, in ways that seem deeply misguided and misleading. I would like therefore to challenge the assumptions made in current usage of the following terms:

Center (or centre). Frankly, in the context of American politics, the term “center” seems to have become nothing less than a euphemism for “conservative,” “reactionary” and/or “Republican.” “The center” always seems to be located in a rightward direction; the only time it ever seems to apply to Republicans is in the context of a primary race, usually for the presidency, in which there is a brief window between courting primary voters and commencing the general election campaign when a candidate might “move back to the center” by means of some modest leftward shift. Otherwise, the “center” seems exclusively used to describe a position to the right of Democrats.

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Some web sites I’ve visited pretty much consistently for the past decade. The BBC of course. The Economist. The San Francisco Chronicle, although it’s starting to get a bit shaky; relentless budget cuts probably beginning to tell.

The Independent is also on that list though, like sfgate.com, I’ve often been “on the fence” about it for some time. A lot of it is just junk: celebrity twaddle, and their endless bloody lists. “World’s Fifty Best Massage Oils,” oooh err, etc. But it seems to come up with something thoughtful and interesting just often enough to stay in my bookmarks.

Example: what seems like a pretty original take on the issue of enormous bank bonuses, from Margareta Pagano.

…the much bigger, still puzzling question is why bankers are paid so much in the first place. It’s an inconvenient truth but those in the City, like Wall Street, really are the last outposts of Marxist control: the banks are one of the few businesses still run like partnerships or co-operatives where the workers come first, and shareholders last. Unlike other companies, banks have allowed the earnings of their top workers to be paid in bonuses often greater than the returns paid to shareholders.

I mean, I’m not sure how far that goes as an explanation, but you’ve got to admit that’s fucking interesting.

“Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest of us,” indeed.

I do not get mainstream anglophone news media’s sudden decision to report that “liberals/Democrats are unhappy with President Barack Obama” since the announcement of the recent tax-cuts-for-unemployment extension deal. Everywhere this latter development is mentioned, there is at least one story on the former; in some cases libdem discontent actually seems to be treated with more importance.

Can someone explain this to me, please? Liberal Democrats are nearly always unhappy. Where is the news? If it’s because discontent with Obama is causing a “rupture” between the president and “his base of support,” we’ve been dissatisfied with him for quite a while, also. Again, where is the news?

And why is it considered relevant to anything, since as political journalists and talking heads constantly remind us, liberals/Democrats are all a bunch of congenitally-ineffective pussies? If these stories are meant to imply that our ire may actually have consequences… how? If not, what’s the point? One big collective Nelson Mundt “HA ha?”

Frankly, I’m not even so much out to criticize here, for once, as I am terribly curious about the mechanics of how this works. If we assume that 75% of these stories are being written simply because it’s now an established story, and everyone feels obligated to cover it, how did it get started? How did this suddenly get enough attention in the first place to reach that magic tipping point?

Is it that, now, the important people are complaining volubly for the first time? Members of congress, Hill staffers, people with big checkbooks, people who actually count within Beltway journalists’ tiny horizon of awareness, is that it?

I’m just curious about how something goes from being beneath the notice of the national conversation one day to front-page news the next. Maybe some enterprising Wikileaker could help him or herself to a list of these Important People and share it with us for Christmas, complete with e-mail addresses, phone numbers, Twitter accounts, etc.? If you really want to stir up some shit, after all…