Here we go again.
During August's summer daze, right-wing mini-mobs (egged on by corporate interests) have run wild at town hall meetings, propagating all kinds of smears and misinformation in an effort to derail an important Democratic campaign. Yet the mini-mob members have been treated as deeply important newsmakers by the press during a slow summer news month.
Sound familiar? Recall August 2004, when the right-wing Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (egged on by corporate interests) stole a month's worth of campaign headlines by propagating all kinds of smears and misinformation in an attempt to derail an important Democratic campaign. Yet they were treated as deeply important newsmakers by the press during a slow summer news month.
Fringe players on the right are making wild accusations that cannot be backed up by fact. The mainstream media response? We must cover the phenomenon daily, even hourly!
So, day after August day, these vacuous health care "debates" are aired on cable television, just as news consumers suffered through night after night of vacuous Swift Boat "debates" five summers ago. In both cases, the press for the most part handed in its referee's whistle and focused its attention on simply reporting the fact-free claims and then getting the Democratic response. (i.e. he said/she said.) It turns out journalists are petrified of calling out right-wing activists as liars, and the other side knows it.
Read the full Media Matters column here.
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If the MSM follows through with this kind of "balanced" coverage, this week they should cover four 9-11 conspiracies, three haunted house stories, a Bermuda Triangle story, who really shot JFK, the latest Knights Templar theory and new developments in the Lindburgh kidnapping case.
Govt. can only run healthcare one way and that is to ration it and the people know that means the lions share of care will be allocated to the viable tax payers. The very young and very old will essentially be left out.
You have no response
Why don't you tell us what would happen to ANY politician who tried to take Medicare, which is run by the government, away from senior citizens.
I suppose we could bring them in from other countries...oh wait, we are already doing that and the foreign doctors must spend the 3-5 years in residency here in order to practice.
most relevant books "Violence" how regimes who, when in trouble, resort to violence do so at
the expense of losing power. Violence and state force might prevail for some time, be dominant,
but such a regime is losing all power. That book deals with regimes and was first published in 1968.
Yet the same result might be case here again, on a different level. Groups resorting to violence
might dominate the scene for some time because, among others ,the enjoy all the attention of
(the foolish) media. But the do so, possibly, at the expense of losing power (or more precise:
acceptance). In that case really problematic. While, for instance, terrorists can hold somebody
hostage, the media - if they chose to play the messengers - are compared to that in a very weak
position. All it takes is losing "power", (acceptance), or an active interest (and the willingness to
pay for the messenger service).
It's really an open - ended situation, considering that a media is media crisis taking its toll.
By 'regimes', do you mean people like, say, the founding fathers of this country?
In my opinion, even if they were right on the issues (which they manifestly are not) they should lose the policy debate because of their tactics. We cannot govern and make policy in a country that rewards organized political intimidation and thuggery.