Where is the anger?

Where is the anger?

To the editor:

Back in the mid-1960s, when I was technical director for a specialty paper company, I took a job as night watchman at a nearby paperboard plant to gain access to a top secret coater that put a mirror-like finish on cardboard. I wasn't intending to steal the technology, I just wanted to see how it worked. Because the paperboard plant was on strike, I was working with another guard who happened to be an elderly black gentleman who lived in nearby downtown Dayton. I forgot what I learned about the coater long ago but still vividly remember what my coworker taught me.

It was a time of racial unrest in Dayton and there were almost nightly riots with TV news showing rocks being thrown through windows and streets filled with primarily black people carrying clubs. Between rounds my coworker and I sometimes watched the news coverage on a small black and white television. One night, after watching the news my fellow guard told me a seemingly unrelated story about his search for rocks to put under a gutter drain pipe to stop erosion.

"I live in downtown Dayton" he said and went on to tell me about his futile search for rocks. "There are no rocks in downtown Dayton" he continued, "so where do you think all those spontaneous demonstrators got all those rocks they are throwing through those windows?" He went on to point out that many of those spontaneous demonstrators were carrying clubs that looked strikingly similar. "You think that they all just happened to have clubs that all look the same laying around their houses." He concluded his impromptu lecture by saying that none of his black neighbors were demonstrating as far as he knew and that he didn't recognize any of the participants shown on the news. Having learned what I wanted to know about the coater, I had already given notice and left the job at the end of the week. Never saw my coworker again but what he said changed the way I looked at many things.

Since then I have become aware that the media covers the unusual rather than the normal. Millions of planes making safe flights isn't a story but one crashing is. Along the same lines, dozens of people showing up to shout down civil discussion of a pending health care reform bill was a story while respectful discussion of the issue by the overwhelming majority was not. I have also become aware that the media, perhaps inadvertently, tends to cover what benefits it. Glenn Beck's rally of tea party types in DC that attracted a crowd estimated as 87,000 got extensive coverage, even though it was peaceful and thus not newsworthy by media standards, while Jon Stewart's rally to restore sanity, that drew well over twice as many people, got almost no coverage at all.

Since then I have become aware that there are very few actually spontaneous angry demonstrations. The flames of anger almost never burst out spontaneously. They have to be ignited, fueled and fanned if they are to be notable. Remember the movie network in which Howard Beale, a fictitious news anchor for a fictitious network, encouraged people to go to open their windows and shout, "Im mad as hell and Im not going to take it anymore." In the movie people, with no idea of what to do about the problems they faced, rushed to their windows to express their anger. In real life a real network, Fox News, and right wing talk show hosts across the country urged people to not just go to their windows but to go to town meetings and well promoted rallies across the country to drown out civil debate. Unlike the people in the movie who didn't know what they wanted done, these angry mobs came with messages carefully orchestrated by the big money interests that were taking over their lives. "Government", the only entity capable of solving the problems they faced and stopping the countries transition into a feudal society "was the problem, not the solution."'

The president elected by the greatest majority of the people in modern history was their enemy. The solution to economic woes all but the richest Americans face was to again cut taxes for the rich and to get rid of even more regulations in order to free corporations and wall street up to make more money. Never mind that these moves have never worked previously and are in fact the primary reasons the latest economy collapsed. Rush Limbaugh and company say that is what needs to be done so it must be true.

During the health care debate and in the run up to the last election big money controlled media provided the spark to ignite flames of anger across the country, big money provided the fuel for the flames and the right wing media fanned the flames. The carefully orchestrated message back then was that government spending and influence should be cut and that the budget needed to be balanced. Now that a combination of extensions of Bush's unfunded tax cuts and unemployment benefits, along with increases in pork barrel spending, that will cost an estimated 900 billion dollars, is working its way through Congress there are no sparks to ignite the fames of tea party anger, no fueling of the flames by big money interests and no fanning of the flames by the right wing media. Fact is that the latter is cheering the agreement. When asked by Lesley Stahl in an interview of John Boenner on 60 minutes why the Republican Party, supposedly dedicated to reducing government spending and balancing the budget, would support an agreement that would add nearly a trillion dollars to the nation's debt Mr. Boenner took time out from crying to say that deficits are caused by government spending, not by reductions in government income. Perhaps a tea party type who is remaining strangely silent about the agreement can explain why the amount of money the government takes in is irrelevant when it comes to deficits.

Sincerely,

Charles Leach

Lynchburg

To the editor:

Back in the mid-1960s, when I was technical director for a specialty paper company, I took a job as night watchman at a nearby paperboard plant to gain access to a top secret coater that put a mirror-like finish on cardboard. I wasn't intending to steal the technology, I just wanted to see how it worked. Because the paperboard plant was on strike, I was working with another guard who happened to be an elderly black gentleman who lived in nearby downtown Dayton. I forgot what I learned about the coater long ago but still vividly remember what my coworker taught me.

It was a time of racial unrest in Dayton and there were almost nightly riots with TV news showing rocks being thrown through windows and streets filled with primarily black people carrying clubs. Between rounds my coworker and I sometimes watched the news coverage on a small black and white television. One night, after watching the news my fellow guard told me a seemingly unrelated story about his search for rocks to put under a gutter drain pipe to stop erosion.

"I live in downtown Dayton" he said and went on to tell me about his futile search for rocks. "There are no rocks in downtown Dayton" he continued, "so where do you think all those spontaneous demonstrators got all those rocks they are throwing through those windows?" He went on to point out that many of those spontaneous demonstrators were carrying clubs that looked strikingly similar. "You think that they all just happened to have clubs that all look the same laying around their houses." He concluded his impromptu lecture by saying that none of his black neighbors were demonstrating as far as he knew and that he didn't recognize any of the participants shown on the news. Having learned what I wanted to know about the coater, I had already given notice and left the job at the end of the week. Never saw my coworker again but what he said changed the way I looked at many things.

Since then I have become aware that the media covers the unusual rather than the normal. Millions of planes making safe flights isn't a story but one crashing is. Along the same lines, dozens of people showing up to shout down civil discussion of a pending health care reform bill was a story while respectful discussion of the issue by the overwhelming majority was not. I have also become aware that the media, perhaps inadvertently, tends to cover what benefits it. Glenn Beck's rally of tea party types in DC that attracted a crowd estimated as 87,000 got extensive coverage, even though it was peaceful and thus not newsworthy by media standards, while Jon Stewart's rally to restore sanity, that drew well over twice as many people, got almost no coverage at all.

Since then I have become aware that there are very few actually spontaneous angry demonstrations. The flames of anger almost never burst out spontaneously. They have to be ignited, fueled and fanned if they are to be notable. Remember the movie network in which Howard Beale, a fictitious news anchor for a fictitious network, encouraged people to go to open their windows and shout, "Im mad as hell and Im not going to take it anymore." In the movie people, with no idea of what to do about the problems they faced, rushed to their windows to express their anger. In real life a real network, Fox News, and right wing talk show hosts across the country urged people to not just go to their windows but to go to town meetings and well promoted rallies across the country to drown out civil debate. Unlike the people in the movie who didn't know what they wanted done, these angry mobs came with messages carefully orchestrated by the big money interests that were taking over their lives. "Government", the only entity capable of solving the problems they faced and stopping the countries transition into a feudal society "was the problem, not the solution."'

The president elected by the greatest majority of the people in modern history was their enemy. The solution to economic woes all but the richest Americans face was to again cut taxes for the rich and to get rid of even more regulations in order to free corporations and wall street up to make more money. Never mind that these moves have never worked previously and are in fact the primary reasons the latest economy collapsed. Rush Limbaugh and company say that is what needs to be done so it must be true.

During the health care debate and in the run up to the last election big money controlled media provided the spark to ignite flames of anger across the country, big money provided the fuel for the flames and the right wing media fanned the flames. The carefully orchestrated message back then was that government spending and influence should be cut and that the budget needed to be balanced. Now that a combination of extensions of Bush's unfunded tax cuts and unemployment benefits, along with increases in pork barrel spending, that will cost an estimated 900 billion dollars, is working its way through Congress there are no sparks to ignite the fames of tea party anger, no fueling of the flames by big money interests and no fanning of the flames by the right wing media. Fact is that the latter is cheering the agreement. When asked by Lesley Stahl in an interview of John Boehner on 60 minutes why the Republican Party, supposedly dedicated to reducing government spending and balancing the budget, would support an agreement that would add nearly a trillion dollars to the nation's debt Mr. Boehner took time out from crying to say that deficits are caused by government spending, not by reductions in government income. Perhaps a tea party type who is remaining strangely silent about the agreement can explain why the amount of money the government takes in is irrelevant when it comes to deficits.

Sincerely,

Charles Leach

Lynchburg