This goes for a point-to-point reaction to the list that is supposed to make you think the “media’ is not “liberal”:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/08/10/15-things-everyone-would-know-if-there-were-a-liberal-media/
There are a few points that are valid complaints and I share them. The snippets I copied here do not include the full paragraphs, just enough to capture the writer’s idea.
1. Where the jobs went.
Outsourcing (or off-shoring) is a bigger contributor to unemployment in the U.S. than laziness…..
When was the last time you saw a front-page headline about outsourcing?
I agree that this has all the appearance of something planned by the rich and powerful. The reason is that all the “free trade agreements” Washington is making are not “free trade” anything at all. This is managed trade, like Ron Paul pointed out, not “free” trade, when you have to have a 30,000 page treaty to manage the “free” trade and set up courts and all.
Meantime, it’s interesting how many “liberals” who claim to favor the poor, rather dismiss them as irrelevant when it comes to allowing cheaper goods to come in from overseas, or when someone overseas gets a job working for an American company.
Consumers avail themselves of goods at cheaper prices than they would under a tarriff-happy regime. Tariffs in fact, protections for the private businesses that have lobbyists
The problem is not just free trade. The intervention of fiat currency manipulators (aka “money changers”) distorts the market. The benefits to the consumer are spread out over 100% of the population instead of concentrated big corporations and big union cartels.
And the poor benefit the most from low prices.
2. Upward wealth redistribution and/or inequality.
In 2010, 20 percent of the people held approximately 88 percent of the net worth in the U.S. The top 1 percent alone held 35 percent of all net worth.
…These statistics are not Democratic or Republican. They are widely available to reporters. Why aren’t they discussed in the “liberal” media?
—
I don’t know what “media” the writer pays attention to, but you cannot escape the constant drumbeat of complaints over “social justice” and the forever repetition of “inequality” as the only reason for poverty. But if you really and truly want to see how the poor can prosper, you only have to observe historically and in the real world where they have been better off.
But look at the governments that have made “inequality” the worst economic evil and institutionalized downward wealth redistribution. The poor people of these countries are much worse off than those that live where there is wealth and where left-fascists (aka “socialists”) complain the loudest.
Meantime, it is true that wealth has been rearranged upward. The writer of this piece might ask whether a liberal press would point the finger at the biggest culprit in this upward movement of wealth, the Federal Reserve. Newly minted money, including the welfare outlays, find their way into circulation first to the biggest banks. The banks deal it to their biggest clients, and so on down the line. This has been going on since 1913, when the “progressive” Woodrow Wilson with a “progressive” Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act into law.
3. ALEC.
If there was a corporate organization that drafted laws and then passed them on to legislators to implement, wouldn’t you think the “liberal” media would report on them?
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is such an organization. Need legislation drafted? No need to go through a lobbyist to reach state legislatures anymore. Just contact ALEC. Among other things, ALEC is responsible for:
- Stand Your Ground laws
- Voter ID laws
- Right to Work laws
- Privatizing schools
- Health savings account bills which benefit health care companies
- Tobacco industry legislation
=> ALEC generally favors legislation that favors business in general, but most of all, the biggest corporations. This is crony capitalism, and the redistribution “solution” is a cure that throws out the baby and makes the bath water even dirtier. Hugo Chavez had a garage full of the most expensive cars. The current king of North Korea likes his sports cars and other accoutrements of exaggerated luxury, and finances basketball matches for his personal pleasure. The guy in the Havana barrios might get some chicken twice a week, but Raul Castro indulges in steak whenever he feels like it. Gorbachev had a nice vacation with his family while his generals pulled off a day-long “coup” in Moscow..
The cure is to cut off government force at the knees so it can leave the poor free to do business as they please, while respecting the rights of others.
4. The number of people in prison. Which country in the world has the most people in prison?
Number 4 and number 5 are part of the same issue.
5. The number of black people in prison.
In 2009, non-Hispanic blacks, while only 13.6 percent of the population, accounted for 39.4 percent of the total prison and jail population.
It is an outrage that so many people are incarcerated over crimes against themselves only. Drug “offenses” are only directly harmful to the users, except for the same indirect “spillover” effects that lead to the same crimes. Greed causes theft, carjacking, home invasions, and the rest, that people say makes them favor drug laws.
It is interesting that the biggest driver for the loosening of attitudes in this area recently, in the United States, and the attention it has been getting, comes from a few places that might surprise a “liberal”. The biggest and loudest voice for “liberalizing” drug laws in recent years in the USA is Ron Paul, and while his son Rand Paul is a bit more careful to propose goals more easily reached.
What causes more damage? The drugs or the drug wars?
6. U.S. health care costs are the highest in the world.
The expenditure per person in the U.S. is $8,233. Norway is second with $5,388.
Total amount of GDP spent on health care is also the highest of any country in the world at 17.6 percent. The next closest country is the Netherlands, at 12 percent.
What does that have to do with whether the media is “liberal”, by which they mean left-fascist, meaning maximizing the strong-man welfare state at the expense of capitalists?
7. Glass-Steagall.
Glass-Steagall separated risky financial investments from government backed deposits for 66 years.
Glass-Steagall was a gift to crony capitalist banking, no doubt about it. The left-fascist media told the public it was the only way to save Grandmother’s savings. The biggest sponsors of this state corporate welfare looting were also left-fascists, which is something else covered up by the left-fascist media.
That should set “liberal” minds thinking…
8. Gerrymandering.
When was the last time you saw a front page headline about gerrymandering?
….In North Carolina, the statewide vote was 51 percent Democrat and 49 percent Republican yet 9 Republicans won and only 4 Democrats.
Since when is gerrymandering a practice of only one half of the two-party political cartel? How do they think the Congress was a one-party institution for most of the 20th century? Because they make it more difficult for the average American to start a business, grow a business?
9. The number of bills blocked by Republicans in Congress.
The filibuster has been used a record number of time since Obama was elected President. From 2008-2012, 375 bills weren’t even allowed to come to a vote in the Senate because Republicans threatened the filibuster.
Yeah, not counting the Southern Dems that did all that before. Not counting all the times the Dems did not allow votes on Bush nominees by promising to filibuster. Not counting the vacancies they caused in in the GW years by same.
Neither party is blameless, and the gang in federal government nowadays is ganging up on us. The party labels are just convenient ways for the gullible to think they have choices, and to divert their attention from the real issues rarely discussed, like the slow bleeding the Federal Reserve has done to the economy.
10. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision
In a 2011 Hart poll, only 22 percent of those polled had actually heard of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision
before taking the survey.
If 77 percent believe that corporations have more control over our political process than people, why isn’t the liberal media talking more about the Citizens United decision?
As if it didn’t? You want more? Gosh. Anyway, this is very funny, since billionaire companies have no problem hiring millionaire lobbyists to write legislation, and Citizens United was about a tiny non-profit that helped some of the poor and middle class have a voice to say some things unsaid by that Media about Clinton.
Why doesn’t the “not-liberal” media complain more about the lobbyists that get legislation passed by the left-fascist favorites?
11. Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
The Southern Strategy is a strategy for gaining political power by exploiting the greatest number of ethnic prejudices. Kevin Philips, Republican and Nixon campaign strategist, speaking about this strategy in a 1970 interview with the New York Times:
Who cares? Very interesting, bringing up a Nixon strategist, since his own party told him to resign. So who covered up the Clinton Chronicles murder revelations, if not the left-fascist media?
If the media isn’t mostly left-fascist, why doesn’t it talk more about the racism baiting ad hominems hurled at the usual targets? Why did they wait a year after the “knockout game” was documented in a book by the WND? And that just a little bit?
12. Tax cuts primarily benefit the wealthy. A progressive tax program is designed to tax people very little as they are starting out and progressively increase their rates as they do better.
Tax cuts. Aha. If the left-fascist media really and truly wanted more tax cuts for the wealthy, they would invite Austrian economists like Walter Block much more often to actually add some real-world wisdom to the discussion? How about a real champion for poor blacks like Walter E.Williams?
13. What’s happening to the bees?
40-50 percent of commercial U.S. bee hives were lost this year to
colony collapse disorder.
….Instead here’s a typical media story about bees: Thousands of Bees Attack Texas Couple, Kill Horses.
Yes, here we have an example where the political class gets bipartisan to protect Big Agriculture campaign donors.
14. The impact of temporary workers on our economy.
The number of temporary workers has grown by more than 50 percent since
the recession ended to nearly 2.7 million.
If they weren’t left-fascist, they would be more clear how much Obamacare has cut the hours to workers, stopped investments by small businesses, and put a big crimp on job growth.
15. Media consolidation
Six corporations – Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation, Viacom, Comcast, and CBS –control roughly 90 percent of the media in the U.S.
These companies are in business to make a profit.
No kidding! So why don’t you ask yourself why they almost all say the same things about the big issues? Why MSNBC?
If the American media —owned by those companies
Trutherator's Weblog 