The Police Have 'Had Enough'.....Of The American People

FOX News host Megyn Kelly has inserted herself into another controversial topic: Civilian deaths at the hands of US police forces . Ms. Kelly has been serving as host of “the Kelly File” since her return from maternity leave in 2013. During “The Kelly File”’s somewhat-short life, the host generated several controversies owing to her very explicit on-air opinions. The first concerned Jesus Christ & Santa Claus -- & now Kelly is offering Conservative analysis of anti-police sentiment in the United States.

Megyn Kelly helms a weather report in an earlier era

In a January editorial delivered on “The Kelly File” she spoke for “supporters of police” who “have had enough.” Enough of what? The segments & others on FOX News have implied that those associated with law enforcement have had enough of various things -- criticism, bad press, protest, questioning, loss of respect, & the widespread dissent that had racked majority-black areas of the United States in 2014. I would argue that there are several factors that render Megyn Kelly a more effective vehicle for FOX’s Conservative editorial position than other ‘outrage’ hosts. Number 1, Kelly is a former legal professional & is obviously an intelligent and articulate woman. Her professional presentation, & persona of a “newswoman,” rather than an ‘outrage’ host gives her credibility that Sean Hannity, for example, does not possess (& likely never will). The second reason I believe Ms. Kelly is among the most influential assets of FOX News is her physical attractiveness. She is very pretty & somewhat of a sex symbol, while still fitting the mold of FOX News-women before her. She wears dresses (not pants) & her hair is volumized with hairspray. It is definitely a traditionally feminine presentation, but not a very feminine way of behaving -- Kelly is acerbic, rude, condescending, demeaning, and charming (sometimes in the same segment). For Liberal media-critique organizations & MSNBC①, she has been difficult to pin down. Is she a Trojan-horse news anchor, or a less-belligerent, more-acceptable outrage talker? Who knows. But this identity may have moved toward the ‘outrage’ since being awarded her own primetime show. This puts her in the same general neighbourhood as Sean Hannity & Bill O’Reilly.

Megyn Kelly looks somewhat forelorne on the "O'Reilly Factor"

Kelly’s ascendance was not a token quickly given to a pretty blonde. Starting around the time of the 2004 US presidential election, Kelly found success at FOX News -- First contributing segments on legal issues, becoming a weekend host, hosting a weekly piece on Bill O’Reilly’s show, hosting the prominent & popular “America’s newsroom with Megyn Kelly,”②& on-to “The Kelly File” after about 10 years with FOX. Kelly not only is seen as a newswoman with a semi-serious pedigree, but she is also considered one of the “100 Most Influential People.”③ Megyn Kelly serves as a lynchpin for FOX News as its audience ages, & the overt outrage appeals lose their novelty. Megyn Kelly represents the same values FOX has more-or-less always advocated, but delivered in a subtler, almost sub-conscious fashion. This is enough to terrify Liberal & progressive critics,④ who have warned of her ‘Trojan-horse’ potential for years.

Megyn Kelly hosted 'Newswheel' programme "America's Newsroom" in the 2000's

But being FOX’s trojan-horse woman does not mean that Kelly goes out of her way to offer provocative messages in non-threatening ways. In fact, since being awarded her own programme, Kelly seems to have developed a habit of responding to online articles in controversial & scandal-provoking ways.

Slate Blogger Aisha Harris made several TV news appearances after Conservative analysts, led by Megyn Kelly, drew attention to her work

When a Slate Blogger by the name of Aisha Harris inaugurated a discussion of the racial depiction of the mythical figure Santa Claus, Kelly was pre-eminent among critics proclaiming that Santa Claus was, definitively white. Kelly’s response, predictably, garnered more attention than the original Slate article & burnished Kelly’s reputation as a ‘maverick.’⑤ Kelly then later apologized, saying she was joking, though not before she was taken very seriously by other media outlets & those online.⑥ Harris said that the ‘hare-trigger’ outraged responses by Kelly

⑦ & other white hosts “Kind of reinforced my point actually.” This didn’t stop Kelly from editorializing on the racial character of another mythic figure, the deity jesus Christ, whom she also stated was definitively white.

Reports emerge every day in the United States that reveal police brutality & killings of human civilians and animals, such as this dog

Thus, ‘Newswoman’ Megyn Kelly is an outlet for the outrage of law-enforcement to being challenged by civilians. She has spent the last few years garnering her reputation as one who could be something of a Conservative opinion-leader.⑧ Used to experience impunity, overworked, frustrated, & perhaps psychically-traumatized police forces do not react to criticism well (apparently). When one can taze, beat, choke, kill, slam, punch, yell, demean, arrest, & otherwise control other people, (& this power is mandated by law) the wisdom or necessity of criticism seems to fall away -- Thus FOX & its hosts become the nexus for reactionary police associates. (Bernard Kerik, Police Benevolents etc…) Megyn Kelly is by no means the exemplar here: Other hosts reportedly accused Democratic elected officials, Mayor DeBlasio of New York, Al Sharpton of MSNBC, Attorney General Eric Holder, & the President of having “blood on their hands” after two police officers were killed by civilians. What FOX, Judge Jeanine, & Megyn Kelly are obscuring is the fact that America’s black people didn't need these figures to incite them to fight back: The insolence, privilege, & violent actions of the police did that for them.

Who has blood on their hands?

Notes:

①Same thing? lol

②Despite being a ‘Newswheel’ programme, “America’s Newsroom” was personality-driven

③According to one of “TIME” magazine’s spurious lists

④Media Matters, for example

⑤If that is what we are to call it

⑥Which included an appearance on CNN’s “Reliable Sources’ by Aisha Harris where she responded to the attention her post has received

⑦Kelly received support & backup from others like Bill O’Reilly. One could view this as her welcoming into that ‘big-time’ milieu. He later said the controversy was a “Conspiracy” by the Far-Left in the United States

⑧Tho this has not stopped her from challenging prominent Reactionary leaders (Dinesh D’Souza, Vice President Cheney…)

The People's Advocate

According to Charles Payne, host of the FOX Business programme "Making Money," income inequality & poverty are serious problems in the United States. Several graphics on the screen appeared supporting his position. Next, a list of what the host called 'the typical prescriptions' for this problem: minimum wage increases & mandatory pre-kindergarten classes. According to the host, increased wages & earlier education for poor students actually *increases* poverty. Beyond mention of higher wages 'killing jobs,' it is not entirely clear how this is supposed to come about. Payne & his FOX colleagues contend that government efforts are simply impeding what capital would do naturally and automatically. 

Charles Payne appeared as a FOX News contributor before his debut as host of "Making Money"

Payne's ideas, while typical for American Neo-Conservatives, are not usually laid-out so bluntly. While I cannot project into a future where pre-kindergarten may or may not not 'kill' jobs, I can opine on the past, bringing some historical context on where we have been, & what it would mean should the government leave our welfare to the will of capital:

The first attempts to legislate a minimum wage which Americans must be paid emerged from the economic morass of the post-1929 era. Capitalism was undergoing one of its periodic depressions, & this particular 'bust' of the boom-&-bust cycle had certainly left its mark. Millions of people, from Canada to Australia & everywhere in-between were flung into poverty. The international Capitalist system, in 'correcting,' had harmed workers as their national economies went the way of the United States. 1929 unleashed latent revolutionary social unrest. In the United States, Liberalism struggled to contain calls for social reform. In Italy & the Weimar Republic, Nationalism-Fascism became more insistent. The economic depression seemingly did not touch the Soviet Union, increasing support for Communism, & particularly Stalinism, in the United States & Europe. 

During this international tragedy, working Americans suffered as some employers went out of business & others were under no obligation to pay them a 'living wage.' With jobs becoming so scarce, wages were depressed, & people were desperate for any work they could find. In 1933, the National Industrial Recovery Act included a stipulation that would establish a minimum wage. However, just 2 years later, the minimum wage in the United States would disappear when the Supreme Court case Schecter Poultry v. The United States invalidated the law in 1935. In some of the earliest, most difficult years of what is called 'The Great Depression,' American workers had no guarantee from the Bourgeoisie that they would be paid enough to live. Contrary to what Charles Payne says, Capitalism & Capitalists are under no compulsion of logic or self-interest to pay employees any particular amount with government acting as the People's Advocate and forcing them to. It is an easy assertion to make today, with the government guaranteeing some sort of standard for wages, but Payne's Neo-Conservative ideology would have been laughable in the Depression, when people were literally living & dying at the mercy of the Market. Government is the only structure powerful enough to serve as the People's Advocate. 

And we only have to look at the position of the peasant-like American working-class of the Gilded Age to answer whether the Capitalist is impelled to provide education & a 'fair' wage to workers. Neo-Liberalism, Economic Liberalism, Neo-Conservatism-- Whatever name it may go under is a fantasy that has only ever existed in the realm of ideological philosophy. If Capitalism was left to its own devices, it would create squalor across wide swathes of the United States (& it has already done that, to a lesser extent, *with* regulation). The only force that is slowing down the concentration of wealth is government legislation, enforcement, & intervention in the economy. If this were lifted, & government-mandated wages & government-funded schools were repealed, the true decimatory nature of our economic system would be revealed. We would be under no illusions -- The variety of which we have the luxury to indulge in today. 

Neo-Conservatives know very well that it is Capital's imperative and interest to create more capital. The idea that in the struggle for more wealth, that corporations would 'create' minimum wages & schooling on their own, is an ideological myth. It is an ideologically-driven myth that is created and maintained by the Bourgeoisie to justify the transfer of wealth upward in society. Workers must wrest this power away from them, & use it for our own ends. When one looks at the Market, its functions & motivations, human welfare does not enter the equation. Nor should we really expect it to. It is not private capital's responsibility to aid us, nor should it be. We must shed our illusions of the generosity of the Bourgeoisie, and take command of the government, working through it as the People's Advocate. 

Minimum wages without government mandate is a fantasy more idealistic than any utopian Marxist could conceive of.

☭Jakob☭

For more on "Making Money With Charles Payne"

For more on Schecter Poultry v. The United States 

For information about current minimum wages in the United States

"Earning A Degree Can Sometimes Prove Deadly": Campus Nightmares

The American cable channel Lifetime: Television For Women, founded in 1984 & controlled by media conglomerate Hearst, has debuted a new entry in its' documentary programming. It is called "Campus Nightmares," & is produced by Indigo Films, which describes the series as "A new one-hour recreation series (?)...From dorm room encounters gone awry to teacher-student relationships gone bad, earning a degree can sometimes prove deadly." In the few episodes that have aired already are "undergraduate faculty with murder in their hearts, (who) will do anything to preserve their dark secrets...first-hand accounts of the perpetrators behind America's most shocking campus murders"

With material like this, "Campus Nightmares", will likely touch upon some salacious stories of real-life university-related transgression. However, I have no idea what 'recreation television' could mean, other than perhaps the latest euphemism for 'reality show'. ('docu-drama was en vogue just weeks ago)

On the website of the Lifetime: Television For Women family, which includes Lifetime Movie Network & Lifetime Real Women, the channel states it is "committed to offering the highest-quality entertainment & information programming & advocating a wide-range of issues affecting women & their families." 

Institutions of higher learning in the United States have been the site of armed violence since 1892 (at the very least): Shootings have occurred @ Kansas University (1892, 2 shot), Cambridge Commercial College (1906, 2 shot), New York University (1908, 1 shot), Negro Normal School (1918, 1 shot), University of California (1919, 3 shot), Syracuse (1921, 2 shot), School of Dental & Oral Surgery (1931, 4 shot), Ohio State (1949, 1 shot), & Penn State College (1950, 3 shot)...& that is only counting those incidents which occurred prior to the year 1951. As those of the bold, new millennium, we live with university & school shooting as a seasonal, if-not-monthly phenomenon.

"Campus Nightmares" will have a pool of material from the deadly incidents of the type mentioned above, to more banal sexual misdeeds & hazing. All stories will apparently be linked by the terror experienced by participants whose learning institutions were disrupted by violence, deceit, or destruction. 

On of the early episodes of this programme highlights the Chico State Hazing Incident (1 fatality), which occured when students "...decide to join a fraternity & begin their grueling month-long initiation process...the two friends had no idea what they were getting themselves into until it would be too late." Sounds like a unifying sentiment for all those who experience "Campus Nightmares"-- whether one is shot, raped, or spanked with a paddle.

For more on Lifetime: Television For Women

For more on The Chico State Hazing Incident

For more on Hazing......er, 'whoops' Hazing

"If It Was Good, It Was On The Radio"

Today (4th August 2014) I was watching an infomercial on TV. The presenters were Mormon teen idol Donny Osmond and some un-named woman. The product they were hawking was a seemingly-enormous set of CD's that purported to contain every radio hit of the 1970's. In between the stilted, somewhat-awkward dialogue of the presenters, video & performance clips of the artists played in the background. Someone who had lived through the era certainly would have felt their nostalgia heart-strings tugged. That is perfectly understandable & legitimate. 

What is undefendable, & actually plain wrong in this information was a statement made by Mr. Osmond (or rather, his script-writers). Analyzing an infomercial is ridiculous, I know. But I am a social scientist & my thirst for material is insatiable! The content is illustrative and allows me to make a point. "If it was good, it was on the radio," Mr. Osmond said in between clips of Bread & other stars of the 1970's musick industry. Beyond ontologically-messy questions of what constitutes 'good musick' in a post-modern world, I believe this statement deserves analysis. The dark truth of the musick industry behind this statement, unforeseen & unseeable to those who remember is the real nature of 'Golden Age' AM radio. 

During the 1970's decade, the record industry began to achieve parity with other segments of the entertainment industry. Hitherto, recorded musick had been understood as a lesser arena, to films (& even television). From 1970-1979, sales increased in the sector, & recorded musick achieved a new status of prominence in entertainment. The modern incarnation of the corporate, worldwide 'Rock Star,' who indulges in a life of sex, drugs, and disorderly conduct dates from here. On the business side, the process of corporate consolidation accelerated. 

As the number of independent record labels fell, and sales increased, the competitive tactics of the business reached a level of seediness, illegality, & brutality that Hollywood could only dream of. I hate to burst the bubble of those who lived & loved the era, but it is simply not true that "If it was good, it was on the radio." In fact, notions of quality often-times did not even enter the picture at all.

Radio hits were often made in this period by bribes, if not in money, than in drugs ('drugola'). Cocaine seems to have been the 'drugola' of choice for most of those tasked with the promotion of new singles. Don't believe me? Take these examples from Fredric Dannen's "Hit Men" as an illustration:

"Asher (a CBS records executive in the 1970's) wanted to see whether it was possible to break a single on Top 40 without paying large sums of money to a handful of men known as independent promoters...CBS Records was out of control...No one was accountable...It now ran you as much as a hundred grand to hire a top promoter for one Pop song...This network (A clique of highly-paid newcomers to the record/radio business, starting in the 1970's, were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by labels to get playlisted @ radio stations by any means necessary) business was something new, yet disturbingly familiar at the same time...Payola, a contraction of 'pay' & 'Victrola'...It was rampant again in the early seventies...Cash, cocaine, expensive gifts, & hookers" were all involved in the promotion of the 'golden age' of AM radio. (Pgs 5-14)

More from "Hit Men"- "...he did not rule out the possibility of mob involvement...The industry is spending $40 million or $50 million a year, that's sizable enough, to attract organized crime" (Pg 26)

"Roulette (Records) had been a way station for heroin trafficking" (Pg 53)

"Allegations began to surface in the press that CBS Records had bribed back radio stations & done business with an organized crime figure...'drugola'...a word someone coined to describe the use of cocaine as a payoff" (Pg 86-103)

If a favourite song of yours was receiving heavy rotation on radio in the 1970's, more often than not it wasn't because the DJ hand-selected the song as being objectively 'better' than others, but because paid song pluggers made sure he was receiving crates of blow & hookers when he wanted them. 

Take that nostalgia!

We Should Embrace Our Brothers From The South

"We are the support & the will of the people," said Representative Steve King of the American state of Iowa last evening on the floor of the American legislature. Displaying his usual manner of humility & self-effacement, the disgraceful 'national treasure' of a politician inveighed against President Obama's plans to implement new policies concerning immigration. 

What Representative King took umbrage with in the President's position is two-fold: First, like any other 'line-item' Conservative in the United States, he opposes 'amnesty'. That is, pardoning, those who commit the crime of entering the United States. Of course, attention in the public debate is not paid to factors of trade policy that have caused mass flight from México since the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Nor is the attention paid to the fact that Central Americans are fleeing a region that has turned into a virtual warzone due to the drug trade. 

In this debate, like any other media debate in the United States, major structural forces are not addressed. It is not even stated that roughly half of the United States used to be México. In the small scale of time that the United States has even existed, this period was not that long ago. Nor was the armed conflict betwixt México & the neophyte US long ago either. Were we not meant as (North & South) Americans to experience some sense of continental unity? Or was the 'freedom of movement' only intended for capital (or drugs)?

The NAFTA regime has been a raw deal for the peasant farmers of México, & this is why they stream out over the border. They also stream over the border because of the aforementioned violence, a product of the (truly) free market of the drug trade. In this system, the 'freedom' of the market appears in its unvarnished form. It is only in uncontrolled, anarchic orgies of business that the true, revolutionary, destructive power of Capitalism is realized. The potential of this brand of bandit Capitalism to change the status quo scares the bastions of staid, state-sponsored Corporatism in Washington. 

They may recognize some of themselves in the Narco-Millionaires of the South. The same ideology of unrestrained profit accumulation reigns. A member of the Washington Bourgeois milieu would have reason to harbour envy towards the Southern Narco-traffickers: They get to operate with no onerous regulations. If they do not approve of an action that government implements, they have the power to simply kill off or bribe the officials that are tasked with enforcement. Neither do the cartels have to deal with pesky constituencies, that must be coaxed to rubber-stamp government action. The barons of the drug trade derive their power from the barrel of the gun quite openly. 

The same motive lies behind the ambitions of our bourgeoisie, & if given the change, will seek to emulate this programme of terror. Emergency law has reigned in the United States previously, and it will reign again when the authorities find it necessary. 

In the Mexican drug trade, the Universe has given us a spectre of "unrestricted free market principles." And that is why we must accept our brothers & sisters from the South with open arms. We must learn from their experience. There will be a time & a place when we will need it. An alliance of all the American peoples, in a unified front against market hegemony would be a real "support" to "the will of the people," not whatever Representative King vomits onto C-Span.     

Jakob Musick's Nuusblog -- 6/25/2014

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