Barbelith Underground > Switchboard

CP: I am an American but I've been living in London for about a year. Does that count?

Anyhoo, before I get into the issues I'd like to say welcome to the board, good to have you. It's nice to see someone argue "another side" while remaining pretty respectful of others. Personally I love a good argument and it sounds like you may have some interesting views to bring to the table so I hope you stick around.

Now, back to the issue at hand. Having experienced the media of both the U.S. and other countries I would say that the U.K. at least allows more viewpoints via the press than the U.S. You have a choice of about 12 or more newspapers everyday to purchase here, and some of them are liberal and others are more conservative. You simply don't have that much choice in the U.S. I'd say either the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle are the most liberal major papers that I know of in the U.S. But so many papers are owned by Rupert Murdoch or the Tribune Co. or Gannett and they are NOT going to be allowing too much of a liberal voice. Though it has been my experience in Chicago at least that after Murdoch purchased the Chicago Sun-Times it became so conservative that compared to it, the Chicago Tribune looked like a copy of The Socialist Worker.

And say what you will about The Washington Post or The New York Times, neither of those papers are as liberal as they once were. And I can assure you that there are stories that NBC, ABC and CBS will not touch because they come across as "Anti-American."

I guess I'm getting off topic a bit here but back to Sarandon and Co. Yes, I'll agree with you that there do seem to be more liberal celebrities than conservative ones but I don't think the reason people like Schwarzenneger and Willis say aren't getting work has anything to do with their views and more to do with the returns on their last movies. Money talks and bullshit walks, as they say.

And I do think that there is a tremendous difference between the American climate during Gulf War I from now, in that in 1990 - 91 people felt that they could and did criticize Bush the First without being labelled "anti-American." I'm not saying you're labelling anyone Anti-American, but now let's look at the Dixie Chicks, Sarandon, Robbins, Sheryl Crowe and anyone else who says anything about Bush 2.

And what I find particularly hypocritical is the fact that the people who cry "Anti-American!" the loudest when someone criticizes the actions or policies of the current Bush administration tend to be the ones who spent the entirety of the Clinton administration bashing him and his presidency at every turn.

That said I think questioning and criticizing American policy is about as American as you can get. (And yes I am pretty darn liberal!)

Baseball protest....