As Victor Davis Hanson wrote at National Review regarding the now disgraced General Stanley McChrystal, “If an officer cannot figure out Rolling Stone, how can he understand the Taliban?”
But then, these days, a commander always has to secure both the real and the media battlefield if he hopes to win. Or as Gerard Van der Luen of American Digest wrote in May of 2009:
The Media is how America fights its civil wars. In this war at least half the country is both under-served and is painfully aware it is being under-served and lied to.
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In 2007, author William Gibson wrote the phrase the “Cold Civil War” for one of his science fiction novels. That led blogger April Gavaza, also known as the “Hyacinth Girl,” as well as Mark Steyn to pick up on the concept a year later. Back in 2008, one could argue that the Cold Civil War was indeed cold, but things began to heat up a bit the following year. In early 2009, President Obama took office, and quickly ramped up spending and government regulation to unsustainable levels, prompting Rick Santelli of CNBC’s famous cri de coeur in February of 2009, thus helping to launch the Tea Party revolution as we know it. And while the Tea Parties are the first exposure for many to what Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com likes to call “out of doors political activity,” their ultimate battlefield is inside the TV screen and inside the Web browser.
But of course, as General McChrystal’s blunder illustrates, the media isn’t just where wars are fought domestically, as we discuss in the latest edition of our Silicon Graffiti video blog, where we’ll explore:
- MSNBC, a division of once stately NBC, itself co-owned by General Electric, another venerable and respected brand name, speciously attacking half of its potential audience as racist.
- Richard Landes’ 2005 look at the Palestinian propaganda factory known as Pallywood.
- The Gaza flotilla, a Pallywood-style production that sailed into primetime American MSM coverage almost as smoothly as ABC’s old Love Boat series.
- The flip video camera and its impact last month on Bob Etheridge (D-SC), Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL) and Helen Thomas (D-Hezbollah).
- Meet Toronto’s Badge #3478.
And more!
Incidentally, this video is scheduled to be posted at Hot Air later on Tuesday (and a big thanks to Ed and Allah for asking me to be part of the team sitting in during the Big A’s vacation this week) which helps bring things full circle: the “Vent” videos which ran from about 2006 through 2008, featuring Hot Air’s “Boss Emeritus” and produced by the site’s early video producer, Bryan Preston, were my inspiration for launching the Silicon Graffiti video blog series here at Ed Driscoll.com. Michelle and Bryan were definitely early adopters to the fusion of blogging and video, and I learned much from their pioneering work.
Or at least, I think I did! Decide for yourself by clicking here to scroll through 60 or so previous editions of Silicon Graffiti from January of 2008 to the present.
Update: In the comments, B.L. Smith traces the “Cold Civil War” phrase back to a 1962 Ayn Rand column in the L.A. Times, and quotes from it at length; click here to read.
But then, it usually begins with Ayn Rand, to coin a phrase.
Octavia Nasr, Senior Editor, Mideast Affairs, CNN
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138442
” CNN Editor Eulogizes Hizbullah Leader as “Hizbullah Giant’
Tammuz 23, 5770, 05 July 10 09:16by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com)
Lebanese-born CNN senior editor Octavia Nasr eulogized on her personal blog the spiritual leader of Hizbullah, who died last week, according to the media watchdog Honest Reporting.
Nasr, born in Beirut and now living in Atlanta, Georgia, is CNN’s senior editor on Middle East Affairs. Following the death of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Nasr Tweeted, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah… One of Hezbollah’s Giants I Respect A Lot.”
Falallah was one of the original leaders of the Hizbullah terrorist organization and urged suicide bombings against Israel. Hizbullah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said of Fadlallah, “Today we lost a merciful father and a wise guide,”
Fadlallah also belittled the Holocaust, saying, “Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination. They say there were six million Jews – not six million, not three million, or anything like that… But the world accepted this [figure], and it does not allow anyone to discuss this.”
Nasr is not the only reporter of Lebanese origin who has made pro-Hizbullah or anti-Semitic statesmen’s. Last month, “dean of White House correspondents” Helen Thomas, whose parents were from Lebanon, said that Jews in Israel should “go home” to Poland or the United States or other countries.
Following her remarks, the Hearst newspaper chain fired her.”
I love that William Gibson is still pushing the envelope. I haven’t read him in years, but his older stuff is classic cyberpunk, and much of it is surprisingly much like how things have turned out.
“Michelle and Bryan were definitely early adopters to the fusion of blogging and video”
But this “fusion” is a weak point of current politico-blog fashion. Even viewers who have the bandwidth to watch the video without infuriating pauses are likely to skip the whole thing, because video is not so good at random access. Random access allows a reader to skip ahead to see if a written entry is worth the investment in time necessary to read and digest it; not so with video.
Blogs are not TV, and it’s not clear that there are any real advantages to pretending that they are.
I’ve got to agree with tom swift, as I seldom invest the time to watch a video unless it’s something like the Etheridge assault or the Helen Thomas meltdown where there’s something you’ve got to see to believe. If you have something to say just say it — rarely does doing the talking head thing add anything. Then again I don’t watch TV, so I’m probably an extreme outlier.
Actually, Gibson did not coin the term “cold civil war”. All the way back in 1962, Ayn Rand wrote a column for the LA times, of which the July 22nd one was titled “The Cold Civil War”. It’s theme was the perpetual war of all-against-all that is a “mixed economy.” In it, she stated:
“A “mixed economy” is a society in the process of committing suicide.
If a nation cannot survive half-slave, half-free, consider the condition of a nation in which every social group becomes both the slave and the enslaver of every other group. Ask yourself how long such a condition can last and what is its inevitable outcome.
When government controls are introduced into a free economy, they create economic dislocations, hardships, and problems which, if the controls are not repealed, necessitate still further controls, which necessitate still further controls, etc. Thus a chain reaction is set up: the victimized groups seek redress by imposing controls on the profiteering groups, who retaliate in the same manner, on an ever widening scale. …
“Such is the nature of that “cold civil war” which is known as a “mixed economy.” While every social group is destroying every other, the government waits on the sidelines, merely playing favorites and growing. No matter who loses any particular battle, only totalitarian statism can win that war.”
http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=AR51B
It’s pronounced “Ms. NBC” – the clip of feminist Janeane Garofalo that immediately followed mention of MSNBC is a none-too-subtle clue.
Also, Ma. Garofalo’s tongue-massage of Keith Olberman’s microphone was all lies. Tea Partiers generally know more about the principles upon which the US was founded and historical events such as the Boston Tea Party than does the mob Garofalo aims to please.
Although I am not proud of him, it should be noted that Bob Etheridge is a North Carolina Democrat. Hopefully his congressional career will end in the fall.
Lets bury the George Allen/Macaca story, as the Washington Post really had no effect with their efforts. The Washington Post thought that they made hay with the “Macaca” comment stories; however, when you examine the Virginia voting in 2000 and 2006, one sees the following:
2000 Election: Allen/R 1,420,460 Robb/D 1,296,093
2006 Election: Allen/R 1,166,277 Webb/D 1,175,606 Others 26,102.
Webb didn’t win because of a strong Democrat turnout. Webb got fewer votes in 2006 than Robb did in 2000. The third party votes would have otherwise gone to Webb which would have added to his victory margin, but still left him less that Robb got in 2000. Allen lost due to the fact that conservatives stayed at home in 2006 because they were mad at him for his performance as senator, not because of the “Macaca” comment that the Washington Post was hammering him about. The conservatives could care less about that supposed slur, which no one really understands even today.
Bill,
I really wasn’t referencing the Macaca story in the above video, except to comment on Kos’s recommendation to his readers to tape every conservative, and how such advice did a triple boomerang last month when three liberal figures received blowback from identical efforts from the right.
But I don’t think anyone should forget the Post running over 100 negative articles referencing the phrase in the fall of 2006. While there were no doubt other factors for Allen’s loss, such Alinskyite “pick the target, personalize the target and freeze it” tactics had to play a role as well. Not to mention quite likely making Allen permanently radioactive for running for higher office.
Ed
Ed,
Again, you are missing the point. It wasn’t a leftist turn out that stopped Allen. It was conservative disappointment. They stayed home. Macaca, Alinsky methods etc. were to get out the leftist vote. Conservatives don’t care what the media thinks about a person or issue. Conservatives look at what the person does, and, apparently in Virginia in 2006, about 400,000 conservatives weren’t enthused enough to get out and vote for Allen.
Shouldn’t that be “Boss Emerita,” not “Boss Emeritus?”
Peter,
You’re probably right; I’m just using the phrase that Ed and Allah have been using there.
Bill,
I understand what you’re saying, but if Allen had run for the presidency in 2008, he would have had to capture plenty of moderate undecided voters who would have been much more unlikely to vote for him with the racial taint the Post successfully labeled him with. In a very real sense, the Post, as is their wont, was softening the ground for whoever was going to run in 2008 as a Democrat.
Yes, conservatives staying home in 2006 hurt Allen — but the Post may have permanently ended any hope for his career advancement.
Ed,
You are conceding to the Washington Post power that it doesn’t have. Conservatives in Virginia in 2006 cut down George Allen. They didn’t even want to see him in 2008. His appeal to independents in 2008 wasn’t even going to have a chance to be made. Virginians in the audience, can you provide the reasons that Virginian conservatives deserted Allen in 2006, so that it can be confirmed that the Washington Post’s “Macaca” stories weren’t the reason that 400,000 Virginia conservatives deserted Allen in 2006.
Bill