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Originally Posted by
SDW2001 
I don't agree with that. Their news coverage is far more balanced than their competitors. You may find some conservative slant, but not in the proportions one finds liberal slant and outright bias on the other networks.
Now, their opinion and analysis shows (O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity specifically) are clearly conservative. The difference is (as you say) they don't pretend to be anything by conservative (notice I didn't say "Republican.") They also have many liberal guests on their shows, even if they are berating them at times (that means you, Mr. O'Reilly and Hannity)
Then you frankly have your head in the sand. The media has supported liberal causes since the days of LBJ. We could be here all day citing examples, from withholding legit stories, to making up illegitimate stories...from editorializing the "news," to "gotcha" interviews with conservative politicians. The list goes on.
Fair enough. But the bottom line.. is that the corporate media, sponsored by advertising dollars, cannot be a transparent and unbiased purveyor of news. Its very nature prevents it.
Very often, newsworthy events that reflects badly on any of its life-giving providers are either downplayed or excised, for obvious reasons. And since the people who own and direct the corporates which provide the funding for the major news disseminators tend to be politically conservative, it isn't a leap to conclude that the mission of large media organizations tend towards politically conservative stances. Furthermore, the large media corporations (directorially) are closely connected to defense contractors, military and intelligence agencies etc etc, which also tend towards the politically
ultraconservative.... there is no argument here. There is no "conspiracy" as such.. (before anybody gets off on the 5th grade stuff).... this is the nature of the beast. How often does one see the major media networks do
groundbreaking investigative journalism? The fox, when investigating the henhouse, tends to keep matters in-house.
Some of the slack has been taken up by the alternative media which as we all know, have jumped on material censored or denied by the corporates. The alternatives (of course) have their own problems, not the least being that their relative small size means an inability to station correspondents and reporters all over the planet, as do CNN and the like. However, stories published by the smaller alternative or "boutique" media are not necessarily less truthful.
Having railed about the built-in biases that afflict corporate, privately owned news broadcasting (more especially of the dinosaur variety), when such services are taken up by government... nuff said.
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What, pray tell, is the "war agenda?"
Yikes! Despite the fact that the US is blessed with being geographically in the most secure area on the planet... (to the South is Mexico, relatively friendly since 1848, to the North is Canada, with whom the US has never been at war, while to the East and West are thousands of miles of open ocean).... since WWII, we've overthrown 20 foreign governments, many of them freely elected democracies, and been involved in at least six assassinations of foreign heads of state. Since WWII, we have dropped bombs on 23 countries. We have been at war with somebody or other, on a more or less continuous basis for the last 100 years, having gotten militarily involved in more than 100 campaigns throughout the world in that time period.
Of course there is a "war agenda", and its got nothing to do with party politics.. the bloodbath is independent of which party has a majority in Congress, or who happens to be sitting in the White House (legitimately or otherwise). And the number of times that we have gotten into wars for "national security" reasons is a very tiny proportion of the total. Since WWII, our economy has become so dependent upon militarism that it comes as little surprise that wars are started in order to feed the coffers of those who depend on conflict and its numerous related industries and spin-offs. Again, its the nature of what we have become... we need it like an addict requires a fix. It's a case of following the money, as always.
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I don't support the "bailout," though I'd like to know where you got the figure "17 trillion" from. Unfunded obligations, perhaps?
The worst case scenario comes to about $23 trillion. By the end of March 2009, this Bloomberg article reports the cost as
approaching $13 Trillion A yera ago,
the figure was around $7.36 Trillion. Another estimate from 10 months ago puts the heist at
around $13.7 Trillion, which includes the Fannie/Freddie rescue.
Socialism for Wall Street how exceeds the total cost of every war and major program, adjusted for inflation, that the US has gotten involved in...Quote:
As for the "corporate crime" that "characterized the Bush Administration," that's just silly. It existed, but it didn't characterize the administration. They didn't cause it and cannot be tied to it. Please tell me you're not going to go the jimmacian route of crying "deregulation!." Say it ain't so.
During the Bush administration years, either corporate crime took a huge leap, or they just got lax about it and ended up getting busted?
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AHHHHHH! No! There it is. Anyway...I'd like to know how you believe "deregulation" caused the media to behave it is today. Is it relaxed ownership rules, for example?
The media, especially radio, was decimated by the Clinton 1996 deregulation which allowed for monopolization by a few very large and powerful companies, in effect eliminating competition. This was a prime example of how predatory capitalism, working hand-in-hand with with big government, destroys free enterprise.
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