No, not the NSA's Big Brother spies and lying troglodytes, who merely merit firing for violating the Constitution. I am talking about the haters ensconced in the 24/7 spy camera residence of the CBS "reality" show Big Brother, which is drawing the ire of assorted critics - as it should.
Look, it's one thing to be a demented, friendless loser (entertaining fantasies of "salvation"), who sits in a squirrel cage hideout in his apt. and churns out blog after blog of hate: deriding those he despises as "monkeys", "black apes", "libtards" or "c*nts" (in the case of potential female presidential contenders) - but it's another thing to have it on a network prime time program. In the first case, the creepazoid psycho may have barely five regular followers, in the latter case we're talking about millions. This may be one reason Barbados opted never to have the 'Big Brother' show as part of its mixed STV (subscription TV) schedule, though it did accept 'The Amazing Race' and 'Survivor'.
According to a piece in The Denver Post yesterday by media critic Joanne Ostrow ('Racist, Boorish 'Big Brother' Houseguests Light Up Ratings', p. 6C) this installment of Big Brother has out done all others in hate, over the top nastiness, and racial epithets - all issued by the whiteys (including two Jews, if you can believe it!) While one can make allowances, perhaps, for those from the South - like Aaryn Gries from San Marcos, TX, and 'Spencer' from Ark., it's difficult to understand the basis for the hate spewed out by the Jewish female contestants. Have they not read their own history or studied the history of the holocaust? Are they not aware that similar racial opprobrium as they now spew forth was also part and parcel of Hitler's propaganda films on German Jewry?
Enter Gina Marie Zimmerman, of Staten Island, NY who (according to Ostrow's article):
"in the online feed used the N-word to describe welfare as 'insurance' for black people"
An aside:
This is interesting indeed, coming from a privileged white woman, who likely has never known poverty in her life. It's even more interesting because her recycled trope fits in almost perfectly with the current FOX campaign to denigrate food stamp recipients. Chris Hayes' featured this on his 'All In' show two nights ago, displaying a Fox News (Fox Nation) banner header: 'Unabashed Surfer Receiving Food Stamps to Buy Sushi and Avoid Work'. Chris noted the content was all about how the guy was receiving food stamps to avoid working. He also noted it is a case of "perpetuating lies on a program that has one of the lowest rates of fraud in the U.S." and "just about the most dishonest depiction of food stamp fraud ever."
Chris portrayed it as "lies" but at a deeper level, of course, FOX commits the fallacy of distribution, when an argument assumes there is no difference between a specific person belonging to a given class and the class as a whole. In other words, it makes no distinction between the distributive (referring to a given member) and collective- referring to the class itself as a whole. Thus, FOX Nation sought to show- and hoped its ignorant viewers would accept- that because one loser surf bum avoids work using food stamps, ALL those who need food stamps are of the same exploitative inclination. It also reminds me of Michelle Malkin's attack on Social Security disability two years ago, in which in which she attempted to link the outrageous behavior of a couple of extreme cases (adults with adult baby syndrome' - who needed to wear diapers all day so couldn't work- had to have disability) to the behavior of all those receiving Social Security disability.
The same fallacy is employed to attempt to stir bitter outrage over "voter fraud" - to justify the use of photo IDs which would essentially disenfranchise most African-Americans especially older ones - who were often born at home and with no birth certificates. In fact, the actual cases of voter fraud are so rare as to not be worth a mention. Yet yahoos and haters try to turn it into some major conspiracy against proper white voters!
So what we find in each case is an outrageous insult to the intelligence of the prospective viewer (in the case of the Fox Nation bunkum) or reader, in the case of Malkin's odious tripe. Does Ms. Zimmerman buy into these moronic fables? I hate to say it, but it seems so!
She, like other demented loons, appears to be buying into what Chris Hayes has called the GOP 'turning its institutional attention to fighting the scourge of hungry people getting food'. In other words, the Goopers "want to turn food stamp recipients into the next welfare queens" according to Hayes, and would rather all those hungry people, 1 in 3 of whom are kids, starve.
This whole shtick was exposed on FOX in a disgusting propaganda piece called "The Great Food Stamp Binge", grossly misrepresenting a program that feeds millions of hungry Americans - many of whom fell out of the middle class and may be your neighbors. What do these nattering FOX turds expect? That the hungry in our nation starve? The kids go without food? Are these morons even aware that one of the ways McDonald's lists for employees to "try to make ends meet" is to use food stamps (since their wages are so low). Oh, they also mention trying to get an extra job or two!
Meanwhile, Hayes provided the reality check facts on food stamp recipients, including:
- Less than 2% of SNAP benefits go to households that don't need the food stamps
- The program is actually under-used with roughly 25% of people eligible signing up
- Less than 40% of seniors eligible participated in 2010.
WHO is actually receiving help? Hayes again gives the facts from actual government statistics.
- 91% of SNAP benefits go to families living under the poverty line of $23,550 for a family of 4
- 55% of SNAP benefits go to households with incomes below half of the poverty line.
- Most of the food stamp recipients live in Red state counties.
According to Bloomberg News, "among the 254 counties where food stamps doubled between 2007 and 2011, Republican Mitt Romney won 213 of them (in red states) last year".
This is eye-opening and shows something is rotten in Denmark, or rather down Dixie way (which are all red states). It's also interesting that some of the biggest hater bloggers are also gov't benefit recipients, who are blessed by not having to work any more - so they can blog on and hate! They castigate others taking handouts but don't look at themselves. Maybe they can't spell hypocrisy.
Back to Big Brother.
Aaryn Gries, the 22 yr. old white girl from Texas, also earned fame in the house by "calling one fellow contestant a 'queer'" according to Ostrow (ibid.) and telling an Asian-American contestant to "shut up and go make some rice". She also "warned others to be careful what you say in the dark you might not be able to see that n-bitch" in reference to the African -American girl, Candice, from New Orleans.
Then there is Amanda Zuckerman who Ostrow notes "called another housemate a 'monkey'." She also went one step further and "complained about a black cast member putting a headband on her 'greasy, nappy hair head'". Not yet satisfied, she mocked the accent of a Korean-American woman.
Of course, some dunderheads - like a certain intellect challenged hate blogger- will likely say this is all an example of "political correctness" run amuck. But really what it's far more likely to be is civility gone lost. And please, calling out hateful remarks and bare-faced prejudice is not the same as being politically correct. And anyone who believes so is a moron, just like anyone who seriously believes that all food stamp recipients are 'welfare queens'.
None of this would matter much, as Ostrow notes, if Big Brother wasn't enjoying sky high ratings. As Ostrow observes:
"This week, up against the 'Teen Choice Awards' on FOX, Big Brother was the highest rated show of the evening with 7.2 million viewers."
The saddest remark of all was perhaps the one quoted from CBS honcho Les Moonves who told critics in Los Angeles recently, according to Ostrow:
"What you see there.....is reflective of how certain people feel in America."
Well, let us hope it's only "certain people", mostly losers, like the pitiful hate blogger referenced earlier. Let's hope it isn't over thirty million mostly in the South and red states that wanted desperately to see Obama go down in the last election. And when he didn't, found their new racist 'oats' on steroids. It's one thing to feel your racist 'oats', another to broadcast them.
Let's also hope that when the racist house guests on Big Brother finally exit, they get a good look at themselves when they play back the episodes...and then ask if those people, those bigots, are individuals they can live with.
No comments:
Post a Comment