Bill O'Reilly has a flashback to '70s conservatism, you know, that dour grim stuff that made conservatives a minority and liberals rule the roost, the kind of conservatism that dominated before Ronald Reagan made "morning in America" a dominant conservative theme.
O'Reilly thinks that the US stands alone, that there is no hope of breaking through a dominant world media attitude of anti-americanism. This is quite rich comming from a Fox commentator. Traditional media decrepitude is just as advanced abroad as it is here and Internet advances mean that the decline curve is likely to be steeper than it was in the US.
O'Reilly also preaches quietism for ordinary americans addressing the problem of anti-americanism abroad. Certainly we shouldn't replicate the Guardian and attempt to influence their elections directly. On the other hand, the US has been doing more elections, more regularly, than any country on earth. We elect people to positions like county clerk which are almost universally appointed positions. We do so because we have a great deal of experience in political skullduggery and how to root it out.
A better approach than to merely refrain from wearing your "orange velour sweat suit" abroad would be to simply ask the question whether their local media give a good picture of reality that lets them make accurate predictions about the future. Accuracy of prediction means they make fewer mistakes in business planning, their diplomats further their national goals better, and so on and so forth. Looking at things objectively, world media has had an execrable record providing good information on which accurate predictions can be based.
If we can just get ordinary people to open their eyes and see how badly they are being served by their media, they will behave exactly as we have done here. They will seek out alternatives that do the media's job better. New media will rise in their nations too, and the endless parade of hit pieces on america will slow down because they are money losing fantasies, not reality. In all too much of the world, they are money winning fantasies today.
Posted by TMLutas at January 29, 2005 10:44 AM