NPR's On The Media right now: We are dangerously close to gov't by referendum b/c bailout opponents

[Leopolds Ghost]

Media expert insists (and the anchor concurs) that the public has always been narrowly in favor of the bailout "ever since this debate started" and that the "squeaky wheels" have "out shouted everyone else" and that ordinary Americans are "merely skeptical about the bill and worried" but not "overwhelmingly against the bill" as ideologues on both sides (who have good reason to hate the bill) have claimed. The host concurred, saying it seems that we are dangerously close to government by referendum where congresspersons are too eager to vote the way their most vocal activist constituents tell them to, by phone and e-mail.

Also, Marketplace had a series of self-congratulatory segments in their usual (carefully engineered by NPR corporate HQ) modulated, slightly bemused and haughty tone of voice (which all NPR commentators are required to adopt because it markets well among NPR's upper-middle-class listenership, according to execs) about how "all this incredible upheaval in the market is making people wonder what will happen next" and how "nobody could have predicted" the current economic collapse that we on DU have been foreseeing for the past 4 years as the economy went into a slow post-2002 trickle down death spiral.

On the Media (again, just now) had a guy on (inexcusably, in light of Obama advisor Larry Summers and McCain advisor Phil Gramm's joint effort to repeal the Glass Steagall act, which precipitated this crisis by returning the nation to pre-1929 investment banking practices) comparing Roosevelt to the next President, saying:

"the chief difference is when Roosevelt was elected you had banks failing left and right, and I don't think you'll see that this time thanks to the FDIC."

[DJ13]

1. Its not a good sign that the powers that be feel they already need a cover story

I think they're afraid they have lost the confidence of their constituents with that vote.

And they should be, it wasnt popular.

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. I just find it interesting that PBS commenters are afraid congress might be overresponsive.

To their "most vocal constituents", an old chestnut.

[JDPriestly]

3. The majority don't pay attention. They don't know what is going on,

so the media can pretend they support this deal.

Actually, of the random people I have talked to, right and left, almost nobody supports it as it was passed.

[Beregond2]

4. So now we are supposed to throw NPR overboard

because they had some people on who don't agree with the "financial rescue equals a fascist takeover" crowd here? I wonder what the next liberal litmus test for the media is going to be. Maybe they must subscribe to the "not saying you are for gay marriage makes you a traitor" meme, or the "Democrats who don't push for impeachment are collaborators" one?

Sometimes this place really does live down to every rightwing stereotype about us. It makes me tired.

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. NPR and PBS. Go edit wikipedia if you have facts. Or buy one of their programs (you can buy it.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NewsHour_with_Jim_Lehrer

For most of the run, funding has been provided by AT&T, SBC Communications (prior to its takeover of AT&T), Archer Daniels Midland, PepsiCo, New York Life, Smith Barney (and its former mid-to-late '90's moniker "Salomon Smith Barney", when merging with Salomon Brothers), Travelers Group, Pfizer, CIT Group, Chevron, Grant Thornton LLP, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Pacific Life, the Ford Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The National Science Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthrophies, The Park Foundation, BP, Toyota, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and by contributions to PBS stations from Viewers Like You.

Critics of The Newshour

Critics have accused The Newshour, along with mainstream American media, of being "stenographers to power" with a pro-establishment bias. In October 2006, a study by the left-oriented media analysis group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) accused The NewsHour of lacking balance, diversity, and viewpoints of the general public, in favor of Republican and corporate viewpoints. FAIR studied NewsHour's guest list for the 6 months October 2005 to March 2006. Republicans outnumbered Democrats 2:1 (66% to 33%). People of color made up only 15% of US sources. Alberto Gonzales accounted for 30% of Latino sources, while Condoleezza Rice accounted for 13% of African-American sources. Hurricane Katrina victims were 46% of all African-American sources. On Iraq, "stay the course" sources outnumbered pro-withdrawal sources 5:1 (this ratio continued even after polls favored a withdrawal from Iraq). Not a single peace activist appeared. Public interest groups were 4% of sources. Current and former government and military officials were 50% of sources.

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler agreed with FAIR's report. These are "perilous times," wrote Getler in his Ombudsman column. "As a viewer and journalist, I find the program occasionally frustrating; sometimes too polite, too balanced when issues are not really balanced, and too many political and emotion-laden statements pass without factual challenges from the interviewer."

FAIR also protested when Liberty Media purchased a majority of the program, citing Liberty's owner, majority John Malone.

[tom_paine]

9. Sometimes you Coincidence Theorists and Head-In-The-Sand-ers make ME tired.

Sometimes this place really is as foolish as the clueless Democratic Consultants who made sure all the 2004 Democratic Convention speeches were "nice" and "calm" and not "negative" to the Bushies because God Forbid the American People would welcome blunt truth-telling over Bushie Lies.

How'd that work out? The Bushies kindly reciprocated our docile gentleness at THEIR 2004 convention in NYC, no?

:rofl: (have a purple-heart band-aid if you guessed correctly)

Plus, so far as I can see your comment is a absolutist straw man, stupidly implying that there is no room to have a choice OTHER than EITHER "believe NPR" or "throw it overboard".

A False Choice
1/0
False Dichotomy

So many people, even two-thirds of DU, have atrophied minds. We THINK the way the Bushies WANT us to think, just as Orwell prophesied they would. You think 1/0 because you have been exposed to nothing else for decades. If you are young enough, you may never have been exposed to anything else as critical thinking skills are seldom taught in schools these days.

1/0. That's all there is. 1 or 0. Sad. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't affected, that I could fully rise above such mental weakness. I could no more do that that I could rise up and be above the quality of air that we breathe. Bushiganda drives all of our thinking, even if we are aware of it and fight against it.

More false choices. All the "meme" bullshit is just you cubbyhole-ing complex position into one side or another of the 0 or the 1 that is all you can see (mostly...it is a statistical certainty that once in awhile when you cry wolf, there actually IS a wolf...not often, I am guessing, but occasionally)

So, I would say to exercise your mind, and remember what it was to REALLY THINk and to see that there is more than the 0 or the 1 that you see on TV, that like all of us who watch TV and participate in the Media Saturation, be it internet, TV, or whatever, there is 0.5 and 0.25 and 0.75 and 0.1 and 0.9 and...

Yes, Head-in-the -Sanders who have forgotten how to critically think (or never learned, if they were educated by "Channel One" and the Mt. Dew commercials in the 90s and 2000s) make me so very tired.

It's almost too late already for you to pull your head out of the dark place it's in, even if you did so tomorrow.

And while I don't expect my "0.25" view to make any dent on your 0/1 trained-by-the-Bushies way of thinking, here it is anyway.

Few or none are saying anything like "financial rescue equals a fascist takeover" just as it is with your other thoughtless 0/1 classifications.

What many are saying is that this allows the Bushies, as they have been demonstrably doing over at DOJ and other places, to maintain power even after they are gone. It hamstrings Obama if he is selected Emperor, and further bankrupts our nation.

Not only does it do this at the expense so temporary the credit markets are already whining about how $700,000,000,000 in squeeze isn't enough, BUT to make matters worse, there is not a whiff, not an IOTA of progressive thinking in the bill. This is not FDR's bill in any way. It is Hoover's 1931 bailout bill, although more shamelessly thieving in keeping with the weak-minded changes in our National Personality to more like 1930s Germans than 1930 Americans.

Gee, you don't think there is any connection between you're being unable to think other than binarily 0/1 and the fact that the language and thinking for the Democrats does not even exist for them to consider for a moment using any of the money for anything other than buying Bushie Swampland in Florida (even If they were inclined to do so, which they clearly are NOT)?

Naah. Couldn't be, right? That's not a yes/no question, not an either/or, not a 1/0, so it doesn't compute for you, does it?

It is likely you won't be able to discuss my position, opting instead for insult, because that is the common reaction among Head-in-the -Sanders and those who can only think in either/or.

That kind of mirror held up usually makes people very angry, like Bushies being told the facts about the tyrants who's asses they kiss.

Very seldom, though it has happened, someone has been insulting, as you were in the post which I am responding, and I have dished back and held up the mirror as I am doing to you. Then, instead of starting a flame-fest, the other person responds civilly and we have a good conversation and exchange of views.

If you respond civilly, I will consider the insults even and go on from there, promising not to "strike first".

But, previous experience indicates that is very unlikely. Still, I await your reply.

It can be boiled down to answering these question What makes you think, for the "memes" you brought up, can you REALLY believe there are only two views, yours and the meme? Are you merely projecting your own 1/0 way of thinking onto others here, or is it a legitimate criticism and why?

Oh, and let's be clear about one thing. I am not taking issue with you because you disagree with me (a convenient phony straw man I could see you throwing back in my face, so I am preemptively removing it for you) but because of the infurating manner in whch you eliminate nuance and reduce everything, at least so for in what you wrote, to a false choice binary 1/0.

Which is, of course, how the Bushies WANT us to view the world, as yes/no either/or, because people that can't see nuance are easier to fool.

I DO NOT think I am better than anyone else (another convenient straw man most people use after an exchange like this). As I said above, we are ALL affected by it. Further, as human beings we all have our stregths and weaknesses. I am sharp in some things, dull in others. So are you. So are we all. Normally I wouldn't bother people about their own blindnesses any more than I would want people to throw my own in my face.

The only reason I do so now is because for you to remain in your binary mental configuration is to give aid and comfort to the Bushies, to help them out with their schemes as you are doing now, without even knowing how well you serve them. And if you are truly a Democrat, then whether we agree or disagree for the good of the nation it is important that you and millions of other learn to see nuance again.

It isn't going to be easy with CNNMSNBCFOX and all the rest repetitiously "retraining" us all to think in 1/0 ever time we turn them on. But it must be done. Free your mind, and your ass will follow.

One more nuance for you, stated with brevity: It is not the idea of govermemtn intervention that is wrong-headed, butthe fact that there is little to zero included in the bailout bill that could be remotely ascribed to what the consensus believes is Democratic Policy, at least pre-1980, when the Democrats still represented their constituencies in some meaningful way.

If you can restrain your ego and accept that you insulted people in your post, you were insulted back, and now we are even. If you can answer my questions as to why my assessment of you is wrong (and it might be, I don't know you from Adam...but I can read what you wrote; please elaborate if elaboration is warranted) and do it without reviving the "insult game", then we can have a civil conversation about our disagreement.

Unfortunately, experience shows me there is not much of a chance you will do that. I hold out hope, though.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. Dem Panelests: Republican Pro-Bailout voters "profile in courage"; opponents are "know-nothing vote"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4172711

[riverdeep]

7. I turned on that show Marketplace early this year,

March, April maybe. I never listen to it normally, but the guy was talking about how the economy is really just fine and the talk of a recession is just being DRAMATIC. He said stuff like jobs growth and housing construction are all doing fine. It stuck out at me because I could see something very different.

Almost all mainstream finance shows on radio or TV have their head up their ass. They parrot the party line of Wall Street and buy into every one of their assumptions.

[Leopolds Ghost]

8. You can own Marketplace if you have enough (bailout) money. See post #5 n/t