Bloggo Politico; or, if Aristotle wrote on Politics, why can’t Dottore Gianni?

The good doctor has been pondering this issue for some time. How to express his feelings about politics in general, about presidential politics in particular, and even more specifically about the current campaign for the presidency. It took a natural tragedy of epic proportions, the monster hurricane Sandy, aka “Frankenstorm,” to allow him time to gather his thoughts.

For that storm, horrible as it was in its active state, worse in its aftermath as one of the most important cities on the globe was shut down, as millions were and many still are without power, as clean-up efforts (an understatement if ever there was one) seem as daunting if not more so than any in recent history (with all due respect to other recent natural disasters, which seem to be on the increase – global warming anyone?), allowed Dottore Gianni time because, for the first time in month after month after month the media had no choice but to shut its ever-widening, all-encompassing, frighteningly gigantic mouth/yap/trap about the election of 2012.

Though he has not a shred of evidence to prove it, except for his own observations, which are not always the keenest, and sound bites from said media, and while he doesn’t intend to do any research on the subject (why should he bother? This is a blog/rant, not scholarship!) Dottore Gianni is convinced that the media and pollsters have been involved in a power play – for decades, actually, but in recent years most certainly – to control the U.S., nay even the entire world! Forget Republicans vs Democrats, Christians vs Muslims, China vs the West, the REAL power rests in NBC, ABC & CBS, and probably more so in cable news networks (CNN vs (or in collusion with!?) FOX!

In a prophetic statement in the late 1950s President Eisenhower (who was not otherwise known for being prophetic) told us that we must “beware the military/industrial complex.” The good doctor still believes that. Of course Eisenhower was referring to the growth of the military and worse, of defense contractors getting rich from said growth. And we must also beware the equally dangerous Wall Street/banks/insurance companies complex – Bertolt Brecht spotted this nearly 100 years ago in Threepenny Opera – the time is ripe for a major revival or ten – MacHeath was a crook, yes, but he was small-time –  the REAL robbers were the banks, in 1928, and certainly today.

But Dottore Gianni warns here of what may be an even greater evil: a dark alliance he refers to as the media/pollsters complex, which may ultimately become masters of the universe!

I now turn to first-person point of view…but who IS that first person? Jack? Dr Jack? The good doctor? Dottore Gianni? Difficult to say, but I/we promise it is always the point of view of an increasingly pazzo professore.

And before I begin, a confession: “Bless me father, I have sinned…” No, not that sort of confession! This sort: I watch too much news. Part of this is because, instead of watching or listening to news on the morning of September 11 2001 I was listening to classical music and drove blithely in to work to find the campus nearly deserted. That’s how I found out about the attacks. Now when I awaken one of the very first things I do is turn on a news show, I suppose to check in and see that the world is still turning.

Speaking of turning, I turned from network news to CNN some time ago because I believe that the networks, in a desperate need to compete with each other, dumb down the news, turning it into more infotainment than hard news, and worse, sentimentalize it. I began to loathe reporters goading (in the kindest of ways) people on camera to cry, then going in for the close-up – tears on screen beget tears at home, and that’s what it’s all about, Alfie!

Every evening at 6:56, after the two minute gap between news stories – 6:54 and 6:56 precisely, when commercials rule on all three networks, each network goes for the feel-good story (crippled athletes work, little babies surviving near-death instances play better, loyal dog stories reign supreme) hoping to top the other in tears of joy as the anchors smile sweetly and sign off.

It’s not as though there is NO news to be had, but if you don’t get it in the first ten to twelve minutes (before the first commercial break on network news) you ain’t gonna!

What I found after switching to CNN is that that network is every bit as guilty as the networks of news-lite and sentimentalism, but I think CNN has become worse, in that it doesn’t merely report news, it attempts to create news and then dramatize it – you’ve GOT to watch us because we know it all and if you don’t watch us you’ll miss something big, seems to me the attitude. Even worse, CNN is the primary culprit in lionizing the journalists themselves. Walter Cronkite was a sort of hero, yes, but I think an unintentional one. He read the news, reported it well, and Americans admired him for that. CNN has become more about the reporters than the stories they report, more about pundits than the opinions they blare out. They have become, nay, they have crowned themselves, media stars! At one point I became so frustrated with CNN that I sometimes even switched over to Fox News to see if I could get more hard news.

Of course that was just stupid (to quote New Jersey’s popular governor), because Fox is in its own weird world of vicious snipes and political advocacy, not news, nowhere near news.

Thank God for the News Hour on PBS! A breath of air in terms of well-reported, even-handed news, of reasonable discussions between two guests who have completely differing views, modest but smart reporters and best of all on Fridays Shields & Brooks, pundits in the best sense of the word. And to a point for BBC News, which I tape twice a day. Unfortunately it is BBC AMERICA News. BBC doesn’t get that those of us who value their news shows do so because of what they don’t get on U.S. network or cable news. In my locale it is aired twice each day, at 5:30 pm and at 11:30. These are not the same shows, thank God. While there is some focus on the U.S. (both shows first welcome audiences in the U.S., and as a quick after thought other places around the world) in the 11:30 show, Mike Embley (the usual and excellent anchor) reports much world news with some emphasis on the U.S., whereas at 5:30 Katty Kay (a CNN wannabee) focuses nearly exclusively on U.S. news, providing still another “take” on the same old same old, in recent months the presidential election.

Wait! Did I say “recent months?” Do you realize how long the presidential election has been the focus of news shows? Do you realize how long the election campaigns have been going on? MANY months would be more accurate and it feels to me more like a year and a half.

A couple of things here – first, why don’t we behave like the rest of the world regarding elections? All of them have campaigns, but none so protracted as ours. A few months would be a blessing! Have we heard ANYthing new from the Obama or Romney campaigns? Nothing except how the two candidates screw up in twenty-second sound bites which are then beaten on by the press for days, even weeks. So yes, second, the press! The entire country is held hostage to this campaign, not just by the Republicans and Democrats themselves, but by the hunger of the media to report the minutest details of their lives, their wives’ lives, their children’s lives. By repeating sound-bites endlessly the media does what I call creating the news. What they choose to re-cycle is all we hear, all we remember. Except for the POLLS, my final target! I got a great kick out of CNN political analyst Gloria Borger who actually laughed (then quickly stifled the laugh, but she did laugh) when asked by Wolf Blitzer about poll results recently. But she did remark something to the effect of “Which one(s)? There are 40-some and I can’t keep up with them!” She got back on track almost instantly but I wanted to say to her, “Finally! An admission of how ridiculous all this is!”  Not only are we in an inferno of news repeated over and over with little variation on presidential politics, but with a poll hell as well, endless blabberings, endless pollings…Jon Stewart takes good pokes at this sort of thing on the Daily Show (thank god for that half hour of sanity compared to the inundation of news shows!).

Thus 9/10 of the U.S. is held hostage by campaign teams, by media gangs and by pollsters, and I am sick of it. Aren’t you? Is all of this time and money (don’t even get me on campaign ads, by the campaigns themselves but also by all of these powerful outside groups, that’s another blog – but aaagh!) spent in the name of one of my least favorite groups in America – the undecided voters! Fer Chrissakes decide already! If I hear another interview with some imbecile who still can’t decide, or worse one of those sessions where five or six of them are got into a room with a news show host and are EACH asked their positions, I will scream, I really will.

So! Down with long election cycles, down with an overblown press and down with statistics-laden pollsters. Think short, think sweet – and cross your fingers that Obama is re-elected!

And whatever happens, it’s only “one day more” – and thanks to all the gods for that! See below, for a short piece of theatrical criticism on a related topic:

Coda: I think that anyone who knows Dottore Gianni is aware that he is a fan of Obama, and hopes to god he’ll be re-elected. BUT! The good doctor is also a theatre person, hypercritical at times he admits. However, compare the two songs below used in Obama campaigns, the first in 2008, the second in 2012. Same tune, but wasn’t the first one better sung, with smarter lyrics, getting the message across without hitting you over the head?

The second pales by comparison in every way, in my humble opinion.

http://www.ufppc.org/humor-mainmenu-37/8020-humorvideo-one-day-more-les-misbles-updated-for-the-obama-campaign-.html

http://www.queerty.com/watch-broadway-stars-redo-les-miz-song-one-day-more-as-obama-election-song-20120817/