Where Have You Gone, Little Beirut?
Admittedly, the Oregonlive comments section isn’t the best place to gauge overall public opinion, since righties have much more spare time than the rest of us, but I admit I was a bit embarrassed to read how many Oregonian readers think Phil Knight is the best thing since sliced bread, and how dumb they are.
In comments on the last post, Steven Rockford asked after reading there, seemingly in disbelief, if righties in Oregon were that dumb, and after going through several pages of their pithy contributions, I can confidently tell him, “Yes.” As a reader of the print version of the Oregonian, I’m usually only subjected to formal letter writers, and since about a dozen of them repeat endlessly, I was given to believe that they were neither numerous or especially scary. They spout the standard talking points without fail, but they generally do so fairly reasonably, and in proper English, even if their “facts” are made up.
Not so over at OregonLive. Each and every one of them not only doesn’t grasp the basic facts of the case, which I’ll get to later, but all are as vitriolic as they are grammar-challenged. Caps are used in abundance. Every commenter has a Sarah Palin-like disdain for everything reported in the media (that they don’t like), all swallow the Randian idea that that the rich are inherently better than the rest of us, and all have a visceral loathing for anything “liberal,” whether or not their opinions agree with it. None has ever read a book.
You see, they talk about “jobs,” not realizing that Knight’s company pioneered removing production to the third world to escape paying a living wage; most appeared to believe that Nike actually had “plants,” when all it has is sweatshops abroad and yuppie “marketers” here, all of whom would be appalled to live somewhere there wasn’t good skiing, bike trails, and lattes, and are actually a big part of the “liberal elite” here. None understood that the supposed exodus of Fortune 500 companies that had occurred since Nike’s founding were a product of globalization and deregulation of banks, as much as the barely literate Phil would argue otherwise. Many had fake statistics, and all dismissed government statistics out of hand. Hardly any could actually afford Nike’s products, either, a fact which must have old Henry Ford kicking himself in shame from the grave for wasting his money so on wages.
What we have here in Oregon, just as we have across the country, is a sizable minority who, thanks to a relentless and coordinated propaganda campaign from the right, are both dumb and crazy, and more than ready to man the battlements of the other side as they are being mowed down. It’s a little embarrassing.
I look forward to the actual letters section that emerges from this “discussion,” especially because the Oregonian representative’s only response so far has been to denounce the “name calling,” from the few lefties, of course. But I no longer wonder why the Oregonian, like many other newspapers, publishes so many letters from people who are both stupid and obnoxious…. for all their faults, these people are engaged, and dying newspapers like the Oregonian are too timid and desperate to call them on their BS, even when giving them space makes the paper and the community it “serves” look like Dogpatch.
Maybe that’s the real reason we have such a poor “business climate.”
I was asking rmp earlier where the hearts of progressives might beat a bit stronger if Boston, after the loss of the “Kennedy” senate seat, and Chicago, after the fall of Rahm, each cede influence over the national reform agenda.
Power abhors a vacuum.
Might a sinkhole of influence be found in Portland?
Well, maybe Portland itself, but I have my doubts about the rest of the state. And it’s pretty pathetic when the city’s newspaper indulges such Glenn Beck idiocy, but I think it helps to make Portland itself even more liberal.
All of the Nike people I know must be deeply embarrassed about Knight’s rant, and horrified that he would use their livelihoods and homes as a cheesy, false threat. None, of course, would ever say so, but even in this recession, I can hear resumes going out.
Well there’s a difference between Boston and Portland.
Boston is a politics factory town, whereas you suggest Portland is a sneaker factory town.
Does Portland have plans to diversify?
Just do it …
As I said, all the factories are overseas; Nike is a “marketing” company, where yuppies toil away in the wilds of Beaverton.
No actual sole pressers there?
Never have been. Soles are pressed, and soccer balls stitched, by children in Asia.
-
Not historically much difference. Only by the flip of a coin flipping, Portland’s not Boston. There but for grace ….
-
Nice historical note, Meremark. Few Bostonians know that story.
How about a post on that?
It’s kind of boring really… Asa Lovejoy and a guy named Pettygrove, can’t remember his first name, (they both now have streets named after them) debated on what to call their new town. One was from Portland, Maine, and the other from Boston (can’t remember which was which) and they decided to flip a coin. Portland won which seems fortuitous in retrospect, since we would have forever been “the other Boston,” whereas poor Portland, Maine is now “the other Portland.”
Oh now I remember. Maybe it’s not worth a post after all.
I lived in Portland, Maine and graduated from high school there. It’a nice town really, but it is true it never grew much beyond its mean 20th century population level.
It’s the cultural capital of Maine more or less, but except for died-in-the-wool socks Mainers, a lot of people wouldn’t like it.
Maine winters are hard and long, definitely an acquired taste, and actually all of the “up country” New England cities – Portsmouth, Concord, and Manchester, New Hampshire; Burlington, Rutland, and Montpelier, Vermont; as well as Bangor (home to Stephen King) and Augusta (the state capital), Maine – are modest in size and scope.
Cabin fever stahhts in Oc-TOH-buh up THEY-yah.
AYY-yuh!
Also,a lot of those folks up there disliked Massachusetts liberals and Noo Yawkers long before these newbies in Greater Boston.
Excellent points.
It’s not just Portland that suffers from this display of ignorance that seems to ooze from seemingly normal people in the local press comment sections and chat rooms. I live in Arizona – Goldwater country. I’ve been active in some progressive groups in the area, and for the most part the members come from all walks of life. Believe it or not, there is a rather large liberal population in the Phoenix area.
However, whenever I read the editorial section of the local paper (or their online site) all that I find is the same type of unthinking bullshit that you noted in the Oregonianlive.
It’s much like rightwing talk radio. It has a huge following among the unthinking people who are looking for like-minded ignorance – birds of a feather and all that.
Anyone with a brain doesn’t even think of writing anything on these sites.
Just read the comments at ABC News or Huffington Post… The indoctrinated righty cadre is always at the ready, whether in the tiny minority or not. The slightest bit of fact checking as policy could correct this, but no one would ever suggest such a thing. It’s the right that has guns, after all. What are the liberals going to do, hit some editor over the head with a sand candle?
Yeah, Steven, E.J. Montini not only looks and talks like Mussolini, he’s probably a descendant.
I rest my case.
-
“It’s much like rightwing talk radio.”
Ha! It IS rightwing hatetalk radio — WRIT at-LARGE.
-
Ah, a fellow Arizonan. You aren’t wrong, Steven — about the newspapers, TV channels, etc. Goldwater himself was something of a moderate by today’s standards. When I first came here from CA, I was amazed to find an entire state busily, almost hysterically fucking itself. Wages were half what they were in CA, state services, except for the immigrant-torturing battalions, were virtually non-existent, and the only thing that worried the voters was that Janet Napolitano was going to take their guns away, and make them wear a helmet when they rode their Harley.
The largest economy, in Maricopa County (Phoenix) was based almost solely on real estate and retail. Both senators were ignorant scumbags, and Joe Arpaio was widely considered to be a shoo-in for governor in 2010. The ballot in my precinct didn’t list a single Democrat below Attorney General.
If anything, it’s worse now. I’ve got a Blue Dog, rather than a thieving carpetbagger for a congressional representative — whoopee — but the schools are broke, the state parks are closed, and Governor Brewer is contemplating the sale of the state capitol office buildings.
Serves ‘em right. The wages of fear and ignorance are real, but you can’t see them if you never look up from the Book of Mormon.
So when are you leaving for Vermont?
Ah, Tom — the ignorant abstraction. No name, no place of origin, no occupation, no educational history, no clue about history, philosophy, economics, mathematics, linguistics or politics. Just a hired mouth.
Piss on you. (My apologies to our gentle host.)
No apology required.
-
“… hysterically fucking itself.”
That’s be-you-tea-full, WT. Words work when the mind reels.
-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575011293044432552.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
-
If I may take issue with you, CH, in this: “… across the country, is a sizable minority who, thanks to a relentless and coordinated propaganda campaign from the right, are both dumb and crazy.”
Correction: Across the country, is a pitiable minority who, thanks to a relentless and coordinated propaganda campaign, from the right seem sizable, in large, both dumb and crazy.
The few, the both, the myna-bird minority, is an injected-gas exaggeration, like white bread: puffed-air heads. Know by my attest that almost all people ordinarily have brains full of much, an observed fact which, agreeing too, even Limbaugh says … although his deaf voice can’t rightly pronounce it.
-
More testimony on how puny is the audience of the small-minded.
‘Both — harper and harpee’d — dumb and crazy.’
-
Outside the metropolitan areas, this bunch is actually a majority. All TV’s are tuned to FOX, and all radio blares Rush and his many imitators. In the Oregonian today, there was an article about the anti-tax crowd taking its show on the road, to just these places. Marx was right about “rural idiocy,” anyway, so the anti-Marxists head out to the hinterlands. This played out hilariously for one white-trash town… they voted down a development fee for sewer upgrades, so now the “citizens” get to pay for them instead of the developers.
Outside the metropolitan areas, this bunch is actually a majority. All TV’s are tuned to FOX, and all radio blares Rush and his many imitators.
That seems to be true all over . NY & CA, for example, are (geographically)”Red” states with a few “Blue” islands. Of course, ~80% of the population is in those islands. NYT had a county map of the whole country, sometime before the last election. You can see that pattern almost everywhere.
The online commenters here are generally of the same persuasion as in the Oregonian, but (usually)slightly more literate.I only occasionally bother to visit. Last time was when the only-3-terr-rists-&-a-little-waterboarding meme was getting started. Some were dutifully parroting it. There was a couple of the regulars arguing otherwise, but they are of the ineffectual, lightly armed, FOX house-liberal sort, so usually ~ useless. I went Gennzilla on their depraved(& used that word
asses,o at least as much as I could, in the limited space avilable . (Took 3 or 4 posts just to get the short version in.) The first response was ” Go jump off a bridge , and kill yourself , so we can be spared this drivel.” Others seconded that sentiment. My response : ” 
“
That’s the same treatment the few liberal dissenters got at OregonLive… I skipped responding.
I just wrote a new post about this disturbing phenomenon.