As an outsider to the American political process (which seems to actually run for a full 4 years these days- I expect the primaries to restart about next January!), I am somewhat bemused by the ridiculous amount of coverage in news around the world about the family life of a woman that two days ago nobody had ever heard of.
For those who don't read newspapers Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, was nominated by Republican John McCain as his candidate for vice-president. Nobody outside the U.S. had ever heard of her previously. But suddenly her family situation is all over the news. Why? Because some idle gossipers claim that she pretended to give birth to her youngest child when in fact it was her daughter's child.
And now one of her daughters is in fact pregnant! Shock horror! Well I'm sure that will affect the way most Australians will vote in the U.S. election, because clearly her policies on international financial processes, domestic agricultural subsidies and Islamic terrorism are going to be completely shaped by the fact that she is a mother.
This rubbish says a lot about:
* the emptiness of much political commentary in the U.S.
* the U.S. media- for wasting their time with this
* Australian media- for an even greater waste of time and energy
I don't even think it's relevant when we get reports of local politicians' children getting caught for drink-driving, much less whether a potential US vice-president covered up her daughter's pregnancy or whatever.
Media and political hype- I am so over it all!
Thank you!I am SO tired of US politics. The problem is that the news people get hold of something that was initially interesting, then talk about nothing else for months. Details that are not the least important or interesting are blown all out of proportion just so they have something to say. They don't even seem embarassed to be milking stories like this just to drag them out. Today they are all talking about Mrs. Palin's terrible crime of once fishing without a license and asking if this could affect her chances of becomming VP.The silly thing is that there ARE other things to talk about. We seldom get world news, even BBC America seems to have 85-90% American content. We get about 2 big (always American) stories then the rest of the news, if any, are things like coffee is good for you.What is sad is that it doesn't even seem to help. They interviewed students who were loudly protesting at the Republican convention and the students were not even able to name the running mates! Even after numerous clues, they were still not able to come up with even one single name! The announcer concluded with something like, "you're yelling at people, but don't even know who you are yelling at!"Some people find all this interesting though. Arthur has it on all day and all night, the TV, the shop radio and the radios in both trucks. We took a 7 hour road trip last week and that's all we listened to on the radio. I was going crazy! :lol: Well thanks for letting me vent here!
ReplyDeleteYou've got to maintain the sanity somehow!Another take on US politics from abroad. Why did the Governor of Louisiana make all those outrageous claims about Gustav being the worst storm ever- "the mother of all storms"? Do politicians live in some kind of Hollywood disaster movie?I can understand that after the Katrina debacle they needed to change the approach... but why not try something really novel and just tell people the facts?Next time when another big storm approached New Orleans, who is going to believe them? Katrina 2 comes along and they blow up all the hype and everyone will say "You told us all this last time."It is amazing that the most wealthy nation in the world hasn't worked out how to cope with natural disasters! In Australia we tend to have well organised approaches to helping with cyclones, floods, earthquakes etc- I guess we get lots of practice :) Usually government agencies and community bodies have well-defined roles, the politicians listen to experts and good information and advice seem to flow. Everybody just gets on with it.Cyclone Tracey devastated Darwin in 1974- Christmas Eve if I remember correctly. Everyone was away on holidays. Politicians and public servants were out of action for a couple of weeks. A military leader decided that somebody needed to do something. So he mobilised his troops, got the support of the Defence Minister and had the city evacuated within 24 hours. Within days essential services and emergency accommodation were in place.There was no political fighting, no turf wars between agencies. From memory there was a national election on at the time, and that was dropped for a while so that the collective wisdom of the nation's leaders (I know that seems like an oxymoron) could be brought to bear on the crisis. Sure people make mistakes and people die like they do everywhere, but we do seem to handle this kind of emergency far better than many places.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, in America disaster sells news, truth doesn't and it's all about money and fame, foretelling disaster makes you sound important, but saying what is real doesn't. I think you hit it right on the mark when you said that politicians live in a Hollywood disaster movie. It seems that everything here is dictated by television and movies. Very sad and there is so much missed.
ReplyDeleteI hope we don't follow that part of American culture!
ReplyDeleteI think the fact there was a question mark over her honesty, the fact she'd lie and decieve to save face, and now promiscuity in the family. The media rightly had a bone to chew. It was neither empty or silly, unless you hold it up to the fact that honesty went out of some country's politics around the time Lincoln got shot when Skull & Bones came on the scene..
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