Monday, December 15, 2008

Sykes v. Shelley: An Afterthought

I was reminded of the tempest by re-reading the Shelley article published in a Milwaukee Magazine found in the MD's waiting room.

After all is said and done, the most telling criticism of Sykes' program was Shelley's contention that 'Charlie played the victim card' for his listeners. What that means is that Sykes portrayed his listeners as 'victims.'

The rest of Shelley's rant is picayune hysterics having more to do with personality conflicts than substance.

Sykes' method, however, turned the Left's most useful weapon, victimhood, on its head--and explains why Sykes (and Limbaugh, to some extent) are so popular.

Shelley would have it that Sykes, et al., are contradicting themselves by making victims out of the non-victim class: middle and upper-middle class folks, largely suburban, who have most of the toys, nice lawns, crime-free neighborhoods, etc., etc., etc. Shelley is not too sympathetic to this group of "victims," and doesn't like what he thinks is Sykes' manipulation of these folks.

To get there, though, Shelley ignores the larger picture; specifically, he ignores certain victims and favors others, for his own purposes.

To take only a couple of examples, Sykes has mentioned the albuterol controversy and the "cap-and-trade" brouhaha. In both these cases, the class of people whom Sykes stokes is, in fact, composed of victims.

They are victims because they do not own and/or hire lobbyists, nor publicity machines which include highly-visible politicians, celebrities, and a supine (one could say worse) Press. And they are going to pay, dearly, for these schemes; in the case of asthma inhalants, about $30.00/prescription (and less medical effectiveness in some cases), and in the case of "cap-and-trade," an up-to-forty percent increase in heat/electricity costs.

In fact, the groups affected by these decisions ARE victims. They will pay more--a LOT more--for health-and-life-sustaining goods and services. That's "victim" in anyone's book, except, perhaps, Shelley's.

What Sykes has accomplished, and what makes Lefties like Shelley hair-on-fire angry, is that he has become a "lobbyist-without-briefcase", simply by using the airwaves. He's doing exactly what the ACLU, Big Green, and the Aggrievement Opportunists have been doing for years (since FDR, anyway): presenting the opposing view.

Lobbyists ensure that their clientele will suffer as little as possible. Sykes does what he can to ensure the same result, but by different means; he merely enables and informs opposition to crushing financial burdens, instead of literally carrying a bag into Madistan or DC offices.

It comes as a shock to Shelley and his cohort that some victims are not what they, (in their cramped and limited worldview), think they are; that some victims are in the upper/middle class; that some victims are religious; that some victims have white-collar jobs; that some victims are apparently comfortable.

In other words, they are victims of Government, not victims of the "white power structure."

Imagine that!

Once you understand the binary theory employed by some Community Activists, Labor Leaders, and Tree-Huggers, you understand Shelley's rant very well. He doesn't like effective counter-lobbying, no matter how it is done--especially on airwaves that he thinks shoud belong to real 'victims,' that is, those approved by Shelley & Co.

Shelley just never thought that there could be victims outside his definition of "victim."

And he's wrong.

7 comments:

capper said...

Dad,

Sykes is not a lobbyist, he is a propagandist. He takes the money of the plutocracy and does their bidding. He is not trying to influence anyone. He is merely one of the tools that the plutocracy is using to try to control the public.

It might not bother you that Sykes is a flaming liar and hypocrite, but it pisses some of us of right fierce.

Dad29 said...

Lemmeeeseeheah....

"Takes money from interests." That would be lobbying. So you maintain that the magazine he writes for is bought-and-paid-for by "interests." So what?

What I stated is that Government is an interest unto itself--just as politicians are interests unto themselves. Sykes provides a counter to that massive and VERY well-funded (point of a gun) interest group.

As to 'liar', I suppose you could document that...

And yes, just like a lobbyist, he's influencing people. Against the single largest entrenched interest in the USA: Gummints.

capper said...

Dad,

For the documentation, there is a whole blogsite dedicated to the such.

Lobbyists are usually upfront on who they represent, i.e. the unions, the automakers, the banks, etc.

Who is Sykes'"lobbying" for? It is not the public, considering that the right, the left and the moderates are more or less fairly evenly split. His neocon spewings would only account, at best, for a third of the public. And even then, most right wingers are a bit more rational than he is. It is not lobbying. It is propaganda in an effort to brainwash the hordes.

Dad29 said...

Make it easy on me, Capper.

Just ONE lie...quote it for me.

You, like the flaming Lib Shelley, refuse to see the world as it is. Sykes observes, correctly, that "victims" are not limited to race/religion/orientation/national origin/sex/handicap.

Government has victims, too; a lot of them. So when one lobbies for the "non-classified" victims--those born without a Legally Identifiable Victim Status--you demand an ID card?

You just can't stand the fact that someone points out the naked king.

capper said...

Since I like you, I'll give you three:

This morning Chuckles said that the director of La Causa has refused to make any public statements regarding the death of Christopher Thomas. Pud he did on Friday.

Chuckles has repeatedly said that Revels Robinson refused to speak to anyone, even after he knew she was told not to by her boss.

When the Palin shopping spree was the topic du jour, Sykes was the apologist and said that she needed the clothes because she was poor and needed the clothes to make her look vice-presidential. This was after the Palins released their financial disclosure which revealed they had $1.2 million in money and other assets.

And those I did off the top of my head.

Dad29 said...

You have, in order:

A rhetorical error: the LaC guy did NOT make any statements until Friday--meaning he clammed up for over 10 days;

A non-"lie": Robinson DID refuse to speak. I'll concede that Charlie shoulda said "her boss told her not to" IF that was true;

and finally: the McCain campaign issued the statement; Charlie read it.

"Lying" requires that one knows the truth and says what is not true, deliberately. The first and third items are not necessarily "lies" by that standard. #2 may be, by elision of the whole story.

But "lies"?

No different, Capper, than when you flatly stated TWICE that Children's Hospital was the agency supervising Christopher Thomas. You did not know the facts. Were you "lying"?

capper said...

Aw, geez, I forgot about this.

I would be a liar if I kept it up AFTER I found out that La Causa was supervising it. (FYI, CH was doing the licensing for the foster home they took Christopher out of. The ones that demanded a psych eval.)

But if you don't like those, what about Liz Wodehouse? or should we say Janet Riordan, who became Janet Sykes after the divorce. Before that, it was just adultery. Is there lying involved in that?