Posts Made By: Stan Grove

You ask "what liberal media"? I think what is generally referred to by this phrase is the kind of reality that stares us in the face when we compare the presidential endorsements of the 100 most widely circulated newspapers in the USA. Easily 95% of them were pro-Kerry (ergo, "liberal"). Yet the voting populace, despite feeling economically threatened and hugely disgusted with ongoing bungled war efforts, was less than 50% for Kerry. Why the enormous (and consistent) discrepancy? It is, as they're all saying now, deeply ideological (moral) in origin. To merely say that the Republican electorate is the stupid half of America is unprovable, and worthy of a five-year-old. The same imbalance between what we hear (from the media) and what we vote is manifest with respect to the entertainment industry -- certainly not notable for high intelligence. Likewise with respect to nearly all major network commentators (the vehemence of conservative talk radio, a relatively recent introduction, is, after all, reactionary to this long-standing state of affairs), and organized labor (are we going to argue that unions magically draw all the intelligent ones? -- yea, whatever). Bottom line: one doesn't need conspiracy theories, just two eyes and a brain, to observe that the dominant voices in America are not proportionate to the views of Americans on the whole.

Whoa there Al -- just to clarify where I'm coming from, I don't vote Republican, I didn't vote for Bush and I certainly don't assume that whatever Bush is up to in Iraq is morally blameless. But I AM saying, from a nonpartisan perspective, that there is an obvious discrepancy between what most media say and what the people say with their ballots. That's the brute fact that demands some explanation. Is it as simple as "country people don't run newspapers, while city people do"? Somehow I doubt it. Anyhow, what is it about the cities (I'm thinking, of course, about the notorious red/blue maps) that makes people think differently than they do in the rural areas? In saying that the media/voter discrepancy is moral in origin I was not suggesting that morality is entirely on the side of the Republican majority, or that the mideast action is ethically irreproachable. But so deep a divide must be based on moral differences, not differences in intelligence. People aren't smarter just because they live in a blue county. But it is conceivable that differences in moral outlook arise from differences in the urban/rural context.