No one need be depressed: McCain did very well. He held up our end […]. Of course, he has the advantage of the better positions.
But Obama’s more like a pro  more like a professional debater than a politician who happens to do all right in such settings. Not that that is necessarily the most effective thing, politically: There is such a thing as being too smooth.
What’s depressing, to a person like me, is that Obama has mastered the trick of coming off as perfectly moderate  even when your career and thought have been very different. Listening to Obama last night, you would have taken him to be a Sam Nunn, David Boren type. No ACORN, no Ayers, no Wright, no community-organizin’ radicalism, no nothing. He certainly knows what it takes to appeal to people in a general election. Then, once he’s in  if he gets in  he will govern as far to the left as possible.
That’s the old game. And you know (if you’re a longtime reader) what I always appeal for in an election  it’s my number-one (electoral) prayer: honest campaigning. Then, let the chips fall where they may.
Indeed.
What Nordlinger captures here is the true underlying concern of many conservatives: that we, as a nation, are poised, after decades of sound-bite news coverage, identity politics, and star-fucking, to elect an inexperienced charlatan President based almost entirely on his abilities to generate “buzz” and reframe all his leftist positions so that they play to uncritical centrists and mainstream Democrats.
The failure of the new left, they surmised, was that the American people were not much for French-style ’68 radicalism. Which is to say, the great middle in America is hopelessly bourgeois. It’s not us, the new left told itself. It’s them — the mediocre, the “cudlips,” the almost retrograde Rockwell American clinging to his guns and his religion. So rather than fight that (although with Palin, we’re seeing cracks in the foundation of studied “moderation” — and the elitist condescension of less polished progressives bubbling to the surface like fetid sewage), the plan became to take a long term strategic approach: capture the important institutions from within. Religion that believed in its ostensible precepts became “fundamentalist”; religion that worked for “social change” celebrated the “diversity” of its flock.
Schools that used classical educational models became tools of the patriarchy, bastions of failed Enlightenment notions that had been deconstructed by the new epistemologies arising from postmodernist observations on language, truth, consensus, contingency, irony, and pragmatism, and replaced by an ontology that became identity politics: the personal is the political. The modern academy, as a result, is decided anti-intellectual: free speech zones, superficial “diversity” appeals, an utter reversal of the concept of “tolerance”; cultural sensitivity training and multiculturalist Balkanization; and the hectoring and, at times, punishment, of the heterodox.
The Constitution, rather than a founding document, became, by way of revisionary thinking in the role of the courts, but a mere set of guidelines as an extant document. As a text on the other hand, it was now open to the machinations of the linguistic turn — and so it became, by way of a change in kernel assumptions about how “meaning” is derived and about who “controls” the text’s signs, a “living” document, which is nothing more than a high-minded way of saying that current judges need only refer to the original document before ignoring its intent in favor of their own rewrites and revisions, which they then (per Gadamer and others) insist are to be added to the “original” intent by virtue of a sensible consideration of new and previously unforseen contexts.
And of course the media, while still free to operate under the cloak of “objectivity,” has turned increasingly away from “neutrality” in presentation to advocacy in narrative. Reporting has been replaced by “journalism,” with facts being replaced by lessons. That the mainstream press, as a whole, lists overwhelmingly to the left, the majority of “information” we receive from that body is crafted by a particular worldview, and is intended to teach the lessons that that worldview believes are important.
Alinsky, Gramsci, and others saw that this type of march through the institutions — a slow intellectual undercutting of classical liberalism through the very institutions built to safeguard it — was the best way to turn the founding principles of individualism, equality of opportunity, and self-sufficiency (protected by a Constitution, the rule of law, and federalist principles) into voter bloc politics, equality of outcome, and reliance on the increasingly centralized Federal nannystate.
In short, it was the way to set the stage for socialism.
And what Nordlinger is bemoaning here — and what I myself have long bemoaned — is that the march through these institutions by progressivism, given cover by the media, has set the stage for the election of a President who has managed successfully to frame his leftism in the easy, empty bromides of populism and promise, and to do so with very little in the way of vetting of his background by a fifth column that sees itself as entitled to determine elections based on its own presumed cultural and intellectual superiority.
It is, not to put too fine a point on it, the height of arrogance and hubris. But at the same time, it is an arrogance that grown from the hard work of finally — and perhaps successfully, at long last — marrying the idea of “moderate Democrat” to the kind of 60s leftist radicalism Barack Obama learned and will use to inform his policies, just as he did with CAC, and just as he will as President.
The only thing that has changed is the packaging.
And we as a society have become so conditioned to examine the packaging — with even many of the elites, the useful idiots, presuming to take a disinterested look at things such as height, posture, style of dress, etc — that we’ve lost sight of what it is that lurks inside the box.
In Obama’s case, it is the political and philosophical desire to have the US join the world community as an equal — and to do so, given our current position as a hyperpower, means, necessarily, that we as a country need to be taken down a few notches, to abase ourselves (as Carter would’ve had us do), or to surrender military and strategic advantages, while keeping us dependent on foreign energy and entangled in transnationalist endeavors, so that the rest of the world doesn’t look upon us as a “bully,” but as an “equal.”
Equality of outcome over equality of opportunity. This is the essence of socialist thinking. And we have been softened up enough that we may just yet be ready to adopt such a paradigm of governance.
this is just so…depressing.
but true.
I think it’s good news/bad news.
Senator Obama has had a centrist trajectory since coming down out of the clouds.
Should he win the election, I’m not as fearful for the future of the country.
However, if the fellow’s principles are that mutable, who knows in which direction he could ricochet?
If the electorate falls for this and Obama wins, which I do not accept as a forgone conclusion yet, then yes we are headed for some trying times. But reality has a way of intruding on the best laid plans of leftist and hopefully their follies will be recognized some time before they devolve into internment camps and rooms full of bleached skulls. Because that’s just so passe.
– The interesting part about all this is how much progressives bitch about packaging/ empty shell/ Disney everything is. It is all about keeping real… right?
– O! is an empty shell. He is a tool which the far left is using to have the position. By himself, he is nothing.
Owing to their long march through the institutions, the leftist have supplanted education in schools with a social indoctrination instead. So, instead of us passing on our values to our children we are superseded by the state, and have in essence surrendered that right and responsibility to the state. And, instead of educating our children in the skills that will allow them to both function in society and expand upon their education later, such as reading, writing, and mathematics, they focus on the most shameful aspects of our nation’s history-discounting it’s achievements. In order to lay the groundwork for moral relativism, they insist that all are winners, simply for participating; in the name of diversity, fairness, and inclusion meritocracy is essentially replaced by outcome based mediocracy. In addition to laying the necessary groundwork that makes the collective appealing, our youth are taught to respond in an almost Pavlovian way to the dog whistle calls of the coded language of identity politics; the antithesis, and perhaps death knell, of the spirit of E Pluribus Unum and the real diversity and multi-culturalism that the founders of America intended when the Constitution was written.
As a result of our current sound-byte, ADHD, instant gratification society our electoral process has been transformed into an American Idol like contest. And, the MSM controls the content and the showtimes of that program. The very lack of focus on the real issues that O! & Co. wring their hands about constantly, are in fact the kernal of his possible success.
Here’s hoping that the current financial mess causes people to focus on the realities of this election, as opposed to who is the most attractive, most historic, or who they’d most like to have a beer with. I’m sure that if they do, the public will see through the masterfully memorized summations, the dramatic and well practiced gestures and facial expressions, the finely honed populist rhetoric, and the enthralling, almost heroic, narrative arc breathlessly, gushingly, and endlessly repeated by the MSM; the narrative arc that is the story of O! …
Barack must hide his real agenda for another 40+ days–then he can move far left and sock it to us. He is running out the clock now, and will probably win in November. We will not recognize our country in four years of his rule–and our economy will go down the tubes also.
Rocketman
Hate is their indulgence that I think transcends the packaging. They hate bitter clingers and they hate George Bush and they are hateful to dissent from their narrative and you can hear the hate on the MSNBC and the NPR and the CNN. It’s not as sub rosa as all that is all I mean. There is for real blowback what hate of this vehemence generates.
Have you seen the video of the McCain supporters walking through Manhattan, holding signs? I just don’t get the hatred over political differences. There are people I disagree with on politics, but I don’t hate them — I wouldn’t yell at them, flip them off, or any of that.
It’s scary, really.
Why is the McCain campaign not bringing to light the connections to Ayers, Rev. Wright, Obama’s record? Are they saving this for October? They have ceded the campaign to Obama. It’s not Obama himself that scares me, it is the Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime that scares me. Why isn’t McCain running against that????
What proportion of our whole society, polity, population, what have you, is now captured by, trained in, wedded to, nourished by, employed in, paid a living at, making ourselves less free to do as we wish with our lives?
What proportion of our people is engaged in the writing of, interpretation of and enforcement of, hundreds of thousands, millions? of laws and regulations, useful and niggling, puny and important, insurance policies and product warnings, binding contracts and bullshit contracts, business licensing and tax collecting, politicking and narrative writing that burrows away into every transaction we might have with one another as free people?
Excellent essay, Jeff. Really hits on-target.
Darndest thing…if Sen. Obama wins, I will probably end up staying in the Armed Forces longer than if not. I joined the Army when we shaking off the last of the Carter malaise…be damned to me if I leave it to have Clinton x 10 happen to it without trying to retain some of our elan, experience and collective knowledge.
Should Sen McCain win, I’ll probably stay in a year or two more, then hang it up – with a smile on my face.
But it is a kind of soothing hate on The npr
Which is to say, the great middle in America is hopelessly bourgeois
Yes, yes it is, and you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Call me Panglossian, but I’m actually looking forward to the next four years. Either McCain wins, with the entertaining spectacle of the Left self-immolating, or Obama wins, and events and the media rip the mask from his face. Because the only thing the media likes better than their hip multi-cultural heroes is a good blood bath.
Either way, the boobwazee will be looking for scalps, and I see a new Republican party stocking up on warpaint.
– I’m not pessimistic. I remember the same doubts being voiced during the Kerry/Bush contest.
– The Cems/Progressives/Media always find a way to self-destruct. Its just too many balls to keep in the air, when you have to lie continuously, just to try to make your ideology (totally anti-Republic, pro Socialistic in Nature) slip by Middle America’s notice.
– The divine wind in this case will be the Ayers/Wright/Rezko/Fannie/Freddie/CAC/ACORN. the economic mess, the wind down of Iraq/the specter of a nuclear armed Iran, and the Brady effect.
– McCains camp hasn’t even started in on all the skeletons in Obama’s closet.
– McCain may not only win this election, he may win it big. The Dems are floating on a cloud of manufactured nonsense, with a manufactured rock star candidate, shingled out over the fog. The fall is going to be spectacular.
Barack Obama = Human “Ponzi Scheme.”
Let’s say that His Majesty wins (Saints Preserve Us!) in November. He’ll only be able to cruise along for so long on charm, style, soulful looks, stuttering equivocations, and the fawning support of the MSM until…a truly major crisis comes along (e.g., Iran sets off a nuke).
If The One weathers it, fine. However, if he engages in his usual “phone-in leadership,” then his pooch will truly be stewed and screwed. Indeed, Obama will likely have a hell of a time reining in the more radical elements of his own party–does anyone really think old hands like Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, Clinton, etc. are going to take marching orders from a wet-behind-the-ears backbencher who got lucky? They have their own agendas and I’m sure they’d tell Golden Boy behind closed doors, “Pal, you’ve got three choices: lead, follow, or get the f*** out of the way.”
This is one of the biggest flaws in Obama’s character: many American voters are apparently willing to elect a guy who is concurrently arrogant, but who also wants to be liked by everybody in the room. He’d learn soon enough that being a leader means that one is going to piss off somebody, no matter what, and there is no such word as “present” in the presidential dictionary. I’ll willing to make a bet with anybody that, if Obama is elected, by January 2010 a majority of those who touched the screen by his name will be staring in their bathroom mirrors every morning, spitting at their reflections, and moaning, “What the f*** was I thinking on Election Day?”
O!: My father was from Kenya, me, I’m from Manchuria…
Salt Lick
The only thing I worry about is that the landscape of the media has changed dramatically since Carter. And I do see an Obama first term as Carter’s second term. The first quarter of 2009 will see Obama/Pelosi/Reid destroy talk radio, hamstring FoxNews and make inroads into those segments of the internet they find objectionable. It is their final frontier in mopping up the American cultural landscape of any dissent against Left ideology.
Except for non-compliant conservative Christians and Jews. But new laws will completely gut them from the public square, too.
Just as Obama thugs are threatening jail in Missouri to anyone that “lies” about Obama, so such Truth Squads will yank the tax status of any church or synagogue that strays from what the Left defines as acceptable liturgy.
“Darndest thing…if Sen. Obama wins, I will probably end up staying in the Armed Forces longer than if not.”
Well, Major John, if you do decide to stay in, you and every other officer need to have an answer to the following question ready to go:
“When does an order / law become so obviously unconstitutional (even though it dots all the i’s and crosses all the t’s, Supreme Court rulings and all) that no officer who understands his or her oath to uphold the actual Constitution can obey it?”
Because I’ll guarantee that Obama and his followers will get there.
“Senator Obama has had a centrist trajectory since coming down out of the clouds.”
Obama is just the shell, it’s the ones riding him we need to worry about.
SDN,
I rather hope not.
– There’s a post-modern civil/culture war going on, even as we type. The only difference between now and 1864 is that its being waged with electrons at the speed of light, instead of guns and bullets.
– If the Left wins, and tries to turn this country into France West, ala Pe;osi-Land, that could change.
The culture was won’t lead directly to a shooting type war. the economic warfare that is being waged against the red states just might.
Obama’s father was from Kenya and all I got was a horse’s behind.
Card check needs to come up at a debate. Baracky’s media avoids that one like toxic waste. It is wholly emblematic of the inherent thuggishness of Baracky’s agenda I think, and it makes me feel very sad to think of how many people would be co-opted in one stroke. There won’t be anything I can do to help them.
@ 26 Card check needs to come up at a debate.
Sorry hp… what am I missing here?
Here and the link there to here/a> is a quick into to the fun that will be card check.
Run, little workers, run. Ohnoes. Too late. Now you is all greasey.
hmmm. That doesn’t look right.
– Yes, its pethetic Marxism in its most naked form.
– But it couldn’t exist if corporations didn’t do everything they can to fan the flames.
oh. and that shoulda been quick *intro* … I really made a mess of things, huh.
Feets:
Them HTML links will always getcha, so complex are they. Here, have one of these < on me…
Thank you, dicentra. I will put that with these fragments over here what I have shored against my ruins.
The first quarter of 2009 will see Obama/Pelosi/Reid destroy talk radio, hamstring FoxNews and make inroads into those segments of the internet they find objectionable.
Well, Darleen, I’m not educated in the nuts and bolts of what that struggle would involve, but from a broad perspective I can’t see Fox, all of talk radio, and people like us allowing that to happen.
Americans, even some liberals and Demos, rise up when they see attacks on basic freedoms and values. For example, I was surprised at the rabid opposition to Clinton’s first-term attempt to push “gays in the military” and to nationalize healthcare. I had assumed the kind of softening up Jeff mentions above made my fellow Americans ready to roll over for those changes. Not!
My guess is that the kind of attack on freedom of speech you suggest will meet similar opposition. I’ve still got that kind of faith in our polity.
Thank you sir.
Now I have to go change my shorts.
So if O! wins should I invest in the “militia” industry?
Oh, you wingnuts are really doin’ the paranoia dance. To me, you all sound like the crazy left right before Reagan got elected. Mellow out, dudes. If Obama wins, he’ll have his hands full and I think he’ll put off that whole “radical socialist” agenda and actually try to get some governing done.
Obama will put aside his socialist agenda the same way Reid and Pelosi put aside their support for ACORN in the bailout. Not at all.
Whew. We can all relax. Because drill says so. I feel so much better now.
Really? In an age when bald threats to broadcasters are made by political candidates? When law-enforcement officials declare they’ll prosecute people for “false” statements against the same candidate?
I’m not so worried that the majority of the population will accept the tactics so much as they’ll never hear about it in a context that would upset them. How many people have heard about the Missouri “truth squads”? When they do hear about them, what tone will the press take — will they emphasize the danger, or will they react like they did with Palin’s email getting hacked, by deflecting the issue?
What has he ever done before now that tells you he would care about governing?
Well, McGehee, barring his conquest of the planet, there’s not a higher office he can run for.
…bearing in mind, that is, Drill’s intended distinction between “that whole ‘radical socialist’ agenda” and “governing.”
[…] HOW WE GOT HERE: “Schools that used classical educational models became tools of the patriarchy, bastions of […]
And if you’re critical of his “governing,” well…
Hell, I’m sure I’ll be critical of his “governing” too.
Here’s my question: do you (or jeff) really think that Obama wants us to remain dependent on foreign energy? And do you really think he wants us to abase ourselves to join the world community as an equal? That just strains credibility. He wants us to regain our position as the beacon of hope for the rest of the world and our most-respected nation status around the world. That’s not a position of equality. That’s a position of exceptionalism.
You’re super smart.
Abase? Have you ever watched this, drill? That’s just about what I’d call it.
Sort of like a dog rolling over on its back to expose its belly as an act of submission I’d say.
We’ve had an additional 16-years of softening.
We never lost our position as beacon of hope. Just because Michelle is not yet proud of her country doesn’t mean her country has lost its way.
The only exceptionalism he’s interested in is his own.
lookout! community organizer! comin at ya! where the white women at?
Do you disagree also that we’ve lost our most-respected nation status in the world? There has been a sea change in the way the U.S. is viewed in the world, clearly not to our benefit in security matters as well as others. If this is not something that you see, I won’t be able to convince you of it. But the fact is that Obama does seek to repair this image and this IS a position of exceptionalism.
(BTW, that Michelle Obama meme is so old and tired. Why not continually harsh on Todd Palin for his membership in the Alaska Independence Party, by which he swears loyalty to the state of Alaska rather than his country? Oh right, because you are a partisan and partisans can’t be evenhanded. Anyway, I personally don’t go in for that kind of spousal piling on. But when you continue on and on with that Michelle Obama business, it’s the first thing I think of.)
Happyfeet, You is much smarter than I.
Yes.
Examples? Cites? Anything to back this up? Or by “the rest of the world,” do you mean certain EU countries?
Not when the demands for such a status are that the country stop being so exceptional. This isn’t very complicated, drill. But it does get a bit recursive.
First, because you have declared the Michelle “meme” (I prefer to think of her actual statement as a demonstrative fact) “old and tired” does not make it any less instructive of her mindset. That she presumed to make that statement publicly tells me even more about how responsive she was to the preachings of Rev Wright. Obama, of course, found that kind of nonsense insulting, which is why he only made Wright his “spiritual advisor” and not his “future Secretary of State.”
As for Todd Palin, that’s been covered here on a number of occasions. Try the search function. The fact of the matter is, secession was not an official plank in the AIP platform. So unless you have proof that Palin advocated for Alaska’s secession from the union, the one being evenhanded here is me.
As for the charge that I’m a partisan, a number or Repubs would likely laugh at that little bit of projection.
— he said, having just introduced Todd Palin into the mix —
I’ve mentioned it probably four of five times, because I find it instructive, and because she actually said it.
Whereas your Todd Palin indictment? Doesn’t hold water. I’ve linked repeatedly to an AP article noting that secessionists are at the fringe of the AIP, but since that doesn’t seem to disabuse certain types of certain smears, let’s try this, from the hyperpartisan factcheck.org:
Lots of links there. Go and give a good thorough what for!
drill
If O is elected with Pelosi/Reid still in charge, then yes, you will see guaranteed things like card check and the Fairness Doctrine done. As close to immediate as politically possible. The press and MSM hate talk radio. and gutting it has been talked about openly by Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein.
They might have a harder time with the Internet, but they’ll try. And as long as Kosskiddies and Amanda Marcotte get to have their sandbox, they’ll be more than happy to kapo the undesireables of the ‘net.
I have no doubt that The One has a vision for regaining American “prestige” … its by making America more like Europe. The far Left is enamored by radical secular Leftist Europe. They really feel all the hoi poloi outside of the NYC/LA/Frisco/Chicago/DC areas are embarrassments, throwbacks to the nasty cowboy days…clinging to their guns and religion.
OH MY GODDESS, IT’S JEEBUS LAND!!!
Obama’s hardon for universal preschool (government funded and run) is just part and parcel of getting those hick kids early and
indoctrinateeducating them to the proper Radical chic mindset.Look to Canada, or China, on how they handle religions who don’t follow government speech rules.
Examples? Cites?
He don’t need proof, JG.
If this is not something that you see, I won’t be able to convince you of it.
It has been revealed to him. Drill sees the light, the one true light.
Obama said it, drill believes it, that settles it.
Darleen said,”I have no doubt that The One has a vision for regaining American “prestige†… its by making America more like Europe.”
Ohnoes! Have you been to a roadside rest area in France? I don’t think the ‘O’ has.
Re: the Todd palin thing. Imagine the situation were reversed and Michelle Obama was the one belonging to some state independence party. I can just imagine the number of damning posts here about it. You would just use all the evidence on the other side to explain why it’s so traitorous. But anyway, as I said, I don’t care much about it, certainly not enough to spend my morning coming up with links, etc.
In terms of Obama’s intentions, I guess you guys just know more about what Obama’s going to do then anyone else, including Obama. Obama says he doesn’t want to reimpose the fairness doctrine? Well, the anti-One says it. Therefore, you don’t believe it. That settles it.
And yes, Obama will sign card check into law. He said it. I believe it. :-)
Rusty,
P.J. O’Rourke always said that when people want something to be “public” he said just think of the great condition of things that are “public” – public restrooms, public parks, public schools…
The Democrats continue to compare their Presidential candidate to the Republicans Vice Presidential candidate as if they are the ones running against each other.
And confirmation that Democrats believe that the secrecy of the voting booth is a bad thing.
“Good job Frank. Keep it up.” “Arthur Jenson Network”
M’chelle got paid a huge amount more just cause her pimp got elected to Congress. That’s wrong. Todd Palin works for a living for real.
Jeff G:
All I have to say to that post is: Amen.
Lay off my wife. If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family….
Baracky doesn’t scare me. Supercilious Harvard creampuff.
[…] who don’t bother to worry about skin color in the first place), but rather the day that the strategy to overwhelm classical liberalism from the inside out finally takes hold, and leads us down a path followed by Western Europeans toward a […]
You’d have to “imagine” it, because it wouldn’t be the case were it not true. Remember, I took the position on Obama’s lipstick on a pig remark as less directed toward Palin as a misogynist line than as a laugh line accompanied by a political tin ear.
You haven’t been reading here long, have you?
— though you evidently care enough about it to post a reply, in which you ostentatiously aver that you haven’t the time to find links. I submit that you could have used the time it took you to deny your evident interest to find examples to match your accusations.
Not at all. We are trying to suss his intent from the text of his life and candidacy. And we show our work, too.
Actually, what “settles it” is that it is Congress who will push for it, and Obama who would then have to stop it.
Given that he’s tried on numerous occasions now to thwart criticism — using legal intimidation — it is not farfetched to believe that he is sympathetic to the Fairness Doctrine. I suppose if he changes the name of it though, you’ll claim victory on a technicality.
Again, I show my work. You? Not so much. Tyranny of the facts and all that.
And yes, Obama will sign card check into law. He said it. I believe it. :-)
God, I’m depressed.
In June of this year a spokesman for Barack Obama had this to say about reimposing the “Fairness Doctrineâ€Â:
“Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters. He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible. That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-and-the-fairness-doctrine/
What is the difference between network neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine?
Or “opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible”?
Let me throw you a clue here:
The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was (in the FCC’s view) honest, equitable, and balanced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine
You see what is happening here? Obama may be opposed to something called a Fairness Doctrine, but he is in total agreement with the principles behind it. So we will just reinstate it under a different name later, and he can say he is opposed to it now.
He is clever like that. He went to Harvard, you know.
What is the difference between network neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine?
Completely different.
Network neutrality has to do with a common carrier engaged in selling bandwidth.
The Fairness Doctrine deals with networks selling content.
They’re not the same thing at all.
Darleen (I think) gave the example of a station running Rush Limbaugh being forced to give equal time to some yammering leftoid. Obviously that would cause a revenue hit. Only one person can talk on the radio at a time, and radio spectrum space is limited by the laws of physics. If leftwing moron is yammering, someone who might bring in a profit won’t be able to get on the air.
On the other hand, asking Limbaugh’s ISP to sell bandwidth to his opponents for the same price they sell it to Limbaugh (allowing for discounts on quanity) would produce increased revenue for the ISP. Limbaugh and LeftBoi can both yammer at the same time — there’s no mutual exclusion there.
If the bandwidth runs low, the ISP can just add another OC-3 or whatever — plenty of dark fiber out there.
So, no, I don’t see the two as equivalent in any sense.
Given the context, I think he is talking about TV networks, SPB. I may be wrong, however.
Maybe so — but I’ve generally seen “network neutrality” used in the sense of Internet bandwidth.
Particularly when Sen Obama’s own chief consultant on telecommunications policy and former FCC Chairman, William Kennard, while not commenting on behalf of the Obama campaign, said he personally did not believe that the Fairness Doctrine would withstand Constitutional scrutiny.
So called, Net-Neutrality, ah, now that is a (trojan)horse of another color. See Kennard’s comments here at C-Span’s “The Communicators”. (scroll down for program, comments begin at approx 18:00min)
Barack must hide his real agenda for another 40+ days–then he can move far left and sock it to us. He is running out the clock now, and will probably win in November. We will not recognize our country in four years of his rule–and our economy will go down the tubes also.”
An even worse thought: he stuff the ballots boxes, junks our judicial branch with activists, makes the regulatory state left-liberal-craptastic … AND the economy muddles along well enough that the same knuckleheads who elected him, the same people who are unaware of his real ideological danger, let him become re-elected.
And the Nation as we saw it is gone.
“- The divine wind in this case will be the Ayers/Wright/Rezko/Fannie/Freddie/CAC/ACORN. ”
BUT WHO WILL CONNECT THE DOTS AND GET THE UNDECIDEDS TO WAKE UP AND SEE THE CONNECTION? He’s a looney leftist. But he’s offering a ‘middle class tax cut’ the same trick Clinton pulled.
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