When right-wingers drone on about the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading elitists on the east coast, they actually have a point. Sort of.
Sure, they're a bit disingenuous: You think Bill Frist doesn't read The Times, or that Rush Limbaugh has never been to Starbucks? And by targeting "the media elite," arch conservatives are trying to make the point that being well-educated is in itself a form of snobbery, that learning facts and thinking for yourself is something that good, hard-working Americans wisely eschew.
Which is bullshit, but as I say, they're right about one thing: So-called progressives can be terrible snobs.
Case in point: A recent story on NPR's Morning Edition promoting (and "promoting" is the right word, since it was a pure puff piece) the new movie Clerks II featured the film's director, Kevin Smith, being interviewed by Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep. Since Smith's latest opus finds the slacker protagonists of Clerks still working blue collar jobs ten years down the road, Inskeep thought it would be depressing if Smith rejoined their saga ten years hence, and found them still working at convenience stores or fast food restaurants in their forties.
Smith, to his credit, was indignant, asking Inskeep if, when he stops by convenience stores in real life, he thinks the employees are losers, then going on to point out that this is how many people live their lives, sometimes by choice, sometimes not, just earning enough to pay the bills and have a little left over for fun.
A smug, self-satisfied self-promoter, Smith's sum total to world culture basically amounts to a fistful of dick jokes, but man was it nice to hear him nail this smug public radio douchebag to the wall.
Because Inskeep's comment was pure snobbery, betraying an utter contempt for the lives of millions of hard-working Americans. When you hear a prominent member of a well-regarded news-gathering organization say such a thing, it makes you wonder if that kind of attitude has an effect on what stories are covered, and what ones aren't. Big Media gave almost no play to the recent defeat of a (admittedly half-hearted) recent attempt in congress to raise the minimum wage. But why would Big Media cover it? It's impossible for them to imagine earning minimum wage, and impossible for them to care about those who do. Who cares about a bunch of proles?
Unless they're trapped in a coal mine, and only if they die.
