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Re: What is Neal smoking?
Nice piece? Doc, it's the media, not politics that is "for show, not substance — a tale told by a whole crew of idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Gabler misses the point. The penetration of reality by the media is an old story, since Walter Benjamin, but it doesn't turn reality into a movie, it just confuses people's sense of reality -- pretty different. So America isn't divided or united, it's confused. If pervasive media turns the Presidential election into a popularity contest, gee, that ain't exactly a division about 'aesthetics.' Maybe nothing hangs on who's elected homecoming king, but right now we're about to get a Secretary of Defense who is on record favoring an immense anti-missile barrier in space, an Attorney General put in place at great effort by the Christian right, and maybe three new Supreme Court justices appointed by this crew -- not to mention the anti-environmental head of the Department of the Interior, the anti-Labor head of the Department of Labor, etc. What do you think will happen to the policies of these departments? To the courts? Nothing? Believe it or not, I'm not just expressing my personal politics (but I'm not hiding them either). If America voted for what we're getting then fine, it's what we deserve. But I don't think that's what happened. Like Neal Gabler, I think it was a rejection of smartypants in favor of frat boy. But, aestheticizing politics only hides the real results, it doesn't prevent them from happening. Hold on for a wild ride. There are responses to this message:
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