Forum Replies Created
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MNR,
90% of those who work in “the media” vote Democratic.
No, they’re not biased.I’ve been comparing the headlines for Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN websites for awhile.
When Fox comes out with big headlines that should produce real investigative reporting, the other networks label it as Clinton overcomes obstacles.
I remember when the media bit hard after Nixon, with very little to go on. Their persistence paid off. Now we have HUGE amounts of evidence that Clinton was involved in felonies, and the MSM barely are touching it. If they acted like Bernstein and Woodward did in 1972 and 1973, Hillary would be done for sure.
Complicating it is the most corrupt presidential administration we’ve seen in years. Most transparent administration ever, yep. I can see right through them.You and I see things quite differently in this regard. Fox news, for instance, is just the media arm of the Republican party. Murdoch and Ailes created it for that reason. You’ll notice that when they do try “investigative journalism,” it’s only ever in support of right-wing causes and agendas. They pretty much never go after Republicans, unless they buck the party establishment. And when the GOP holds the White House, they never go after that administration. They endlessly cheerlead for it instead. And, it’s incredibly rare that they go after corporate America.
In short, they’ve never been a legitimate news organization. They’re a joke. A bad joke on the American people, riling up their audience and spreading hatred and lies for twenty years.
The rest of the MSM are owned by conservative corporations too, like Comcast (NBC), Viacom (CBS) and Disney (ABC). Their agenda is decidedly center-right. That fits in well with the power structures of both the Dems and the GOP. The MSM support both parties to the degree they stick to the center-right script. Veer away from that, and you’ll get more stories about that veering.
As for Clinton. For the billionth time, I don’t want Clinton or Trump to be president. But there isn’t any evidence that she’s committed felonies, nor is there any evidence that the Obama administration is any more corrupt than past administrations. The far right long ago invented an alternate universe Obama, and clings to their demonizations without pause. Obama is a run of the mill, center-right president, in a long line of run of the mill, center-right presidents, and has done his best to keep the status quo he was handed by Bush, with some tweaks in a few areas like civil rights. Ever ask yourself why, after endless hearings — involving Clinton too — the GOP has never been able to produce ANY evidence of actual wrong-doing? They’ve been witch-hunting Clinton for nearly 25 years, and they’ve got nothing to show for it except millions in taxpayer bills. Their vendetta against Obama has, of course, covered fewer years, but it’s failed to find any evidence of corruption.
End of your ill conceived and poorly written work of fiction.
Huh? I posted facts and nothing but facts. In a head to head fight for the title of “most corrupt,” Trump wins against Clinton, and it’s not at all close. All the facts show this.
But, again, I can’t stand either of them, so the “most corrupt” title doesn’t interest me, other than the fact that I think it’s completely insane to support Trump if “corruption” is a problem for you, not to mention lying. Trump wins biggest liar, too — and they both lie.
I’ve posted them before, and you’ve ignored them, but here goes again. Two great sources of proof of Trump’s corruption, theft, cheating, etc. etc.
Another big factor when it comes to Americans’ seeming indifference to wealth inequality? Most Americans have no idea how bad it is.
A recent study demonstrated that brilliantly — and things have actually gotten more unequal since then.
http://www.rawstory.com/2010/09/poll-wealth-distribution-similar-sweden/
Link to the original study itself:
http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf
92 percent prefer Swedish model to US model when given a choice
Americans generally underestimate the degree of income inequality in the United States, and if given a choice, would distribute wealth in a similar way to the social democracies of Scandinavia, a new study finds.
For decades, polls have shown that a plurality of Americans — around 40 percent — consider themselves conservative, while only around 20 percent self-identify as liberals. But a new study from two noted economists casts doubt on what values lie beneath those political labels.
According to research (PDF) carried out by Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School and Dan Ariely of Duke University, and flagged by Paul Kedrosky at the Infectious Greed blog, 92 percent of Americans would choose to live in a society with far less income disparity than the US, choosing Sweden’s model over that of the US.
What’s more, the study’s authors say that this applies to people of all income levels and all political leanings: The poor and the rich, Democrats and Republicans are all equally likely to choose the Swedish model.
But the study also found that respondents preferred Sweden’s model over a model of perfect income equality for everyone, “suggesting that Americans prefer some inequality to perfect equality, but not to the degree currently present in the United States,” the authors state.
Recent analyses have shown that income inequality in the US has grown steadily for the past three decades and reached its highest level on record, exceeding even the large disparities seen in the 1920s, before the Great Depression. Norton and Ariely estimate that the one percent wealthiest Americans hold nearly 50 percent of the country’s wealth, while the richest 20 percent hold 84 percent of the wealth.
But in their study, the authors found Americans generally underestimate the income disparity. When asked to estimate, respondents on average estimated that the top 20 percent have 59 percent of the wealth (as opposed to the real number, 84 percent). And when asked to choose how much the top 20 percent should have, on average respondents said 32 percent — a number similar to the wealth distribution seen in Sweden.
“What is most striking” about the results, argue the authors, is that they show “more consensus than disagreement among … different demographic groups. All groups – even the wealthiest respondents – desired a more equal distribution of wealth than what they estimated the current United States level to be, while all groups also desired some inequality – even the poorest respondents.”
The authors suggest the reason that American voters have not made more of an issue of the growing income gap is that they may simply not be aware of it. “Second, just as people have erroneous beliefs about the actual level of wealth inequality, they may also hold overly optimistic beliefs about opportunities for social mobility in the United States, beliefs which in turn may drive support for unequal distributions of wealth,” they write.
The authors also note that, though there may be widespread agreement about income inequality, there is no agreement on what caused it or what should be done about it.
“Americans exhibit a general disconnect between their attitudes towards economic inequality and their self-interest and public policy preferences, suggesting that even given increased awareness of the gap between ideal and actual wealth distributions, Americans may remain unlikely to advocate for policies that would narrow this gap,” the authors argue.
Norton and Ariely’s survey was carried out on 5,522 respondents in 47 states in December of 2005. The results are to be published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.
honestly i don’t think people care. even if you were able to somehow shed more light on it or there was more media coverage on these issues.
i don’t think people care all that much about disparity in wealth, empire building, clandestine organizations. that’s the sense i get.
That may be true. But why don’t they care? Perhaps because we don’t talk about it, and the media and our educational system don’t bring it up.
It’s likely one of those chicken and egg things. Is that apathy a cause or an effect, etc.?
To me, judging from the success of marketing and sales in America, where people can be led by the nose to believe most anything about various goods and services . . . . it’s not too much of a stretch to think that a well-crafted sales and marketing campaign on behalf of the things in that list . . . and others like them . . . might be quite successful in changing that apathy and ignorance.
bnw,
Trump has repeatedly lied about our current military capacity, as have a huge number of his fellow Republicans. If we’re to believe them, Obama and Clinton have gutted and slashed the American military to the point where we couldn’t defend ourselves against Costa Rica. In reality, Obama has steadily increased defense spending, just like all other American presidents, and set in motion a trillion-dollar program of nuclear updates and more. Trump would have us believe we’ve never been weaker, and he vows to radically increase defense spending, including a massive increase in nuclear weapons, war ships and troops.
Trump wants war and empire just as much, if not more, than anyone else in the duopoly. And he’s willing to lie his ass off to make it happen.
My take is different. The host came out and said the election was rigged by the media in favor of Clinton. To me, that’s absurd and has no connection with reality. It also tells us a lot about the biases of the show itself.
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first time we’ve disagreed in a while :>)
I think the MSM is completely totally utterly cheerleading for Hillary. To me its just jaw-droppingly blatent. And as you know i loathe Hillary and Trump so I’m not yer usual complainer about the ‘liberal media blah blah’.
From NPR the networks to the comedians — everyone i see/hear on the MSM is cheerleading for Hillary.
So, i agree with the host of that show, though I’m not sure i’d use the word ‘rigged’. I might, i might not, i dunno.
Course Trump has rightwing talk-radio, and Fox, i guess, so its not like the Righties dont have their megaphone.
w
vI think we agree on the vast majority of stuff, so it’s all good.
;>)
IMO, it’s really important to see this as an arc over time. Again, from my observation, the MSM didn’t turn on Trump until that tape on the bus came out, and Trump has repeatedly given them reason to do so prior to that. Think about his start as Birther in chief (2011), his call for banning all Muslims (2015/2016), shutting down mosques, doing Benthamite surveillance on Muslims, etc. etc. . . . lying about “thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11,” etc. etc. . . . and attacking the media daily. Here’s a running list of fact-checking to give an idea of what they’re up against with both candidates . . .
Meanwhile, they went hard after Clinton for the email server and the Clinton foundation, repeatedly pushing the narrative that she wasn’t trustworthy — which, of course, is the case :>). But because there was no equivalent set of investigations of Trump and the GOP, the media concentrated primarily on her, and the crazy things Trump would say on a daily basis, not really on what he’s done for decades. As in, his own history of scandal was largely left untouched, with reporters like Kurt Eichenwald and David Fahrenthold being some of the exceptions.
I know you tend to stay away from TV news, but I held my nose and watched too much of it this time, and I’ve been struck by the lopsided air time for Trump campaign staff/spin. Clinton just doesn’t get the same air time, and the hosts are generally far easier on Trump staff, IMO.
Again, at least until the Access Hollywood tapes. That changed the media landscape.
Americans overwhelmingly want change. Hildabeast is more of the same failed Obama policies. Trump is that change.
I definitely agree that Americans want change. But they don’t want the kind of change Trump talks about or represents, nor do they want HRC’s kind. Both candidates are hugely unpopular, with record-setting unfavorables. We’ve never had an election in which the two candidates were so reviled.
Not sure why you’re not getting that. You constantly write as if Trump has majority support in America. He doesn’t. Far, far from it. He has his partisan base; Clinton has hers. But neither reaches majority status, and large numbers of Americans will be voting against the other candidate, not for either one.
And after all of our debates here, I’ve still never seen you actually define “change” as it relates to Trump, or how he would accomplish this. How. I feel sorry for you, in that regard, because your candidate has never actually told you how he would make all of those unicorns and rainbows appear . . . . and he’s never defined exactly what his kind of “change” would mean. Trump never goes beneath the surface of his bumper sticker slogans to do that. He just tosses them out there, his crowds eat it up, and he moves on to the rest of his word salad.
Again, America doesn’t want either candidate, bnw. I think you’re fooling yourself if you think either one of them has any kind of majority support, and I know you think Trump does.
You’re wrong as usual. I have noted Trump’s warts before as in his being a pig, his blind support for Israel, his support for the Patriot act. But unlike Hildabeast he isn’t a treasonous self enriching exploiter of human misery ala Haitian relief. He isn’t a CRIMINAL. He hasn’t rigged the entire political establishment to do his bidding like the Clinton Crime Syndicate.
bnw, every single time we post an article proving Trump’s endless lies, his cheating, his criminality, you respond with some variation of “yawn.” You never admit that any of it’s true. Not once. Yes, he’s a criminal. And yes, he’s exploited the shit out of his fellow humans to enrich himself. He’s done that his entire life. And his tax proposals will net him hundreds of millions, personally, and his family even more. But you just dismiss all of that and continue your unquestioning devotion.
And then you prove how lost you are in right-wing swamps by repeating the lunatic fringe’s hair on fire nonsense about Clinton. Trump and you try to make her sound like some evil super-villain with inhuman powers straight out of Marvel comics. In reality, she’s just a standard-issue politician for the duopoly, working on behalf of the donor class, just like the vast majority of her peers. There is no evidence that she enriched herself via Haiti; no evidence she committed “treason”; and no evidence that she rigged “the entire political establishment to do her bidding,” or that there is a “Clinton Crime Syndicate.”
Wild, hair’s-on-fire, puerile and Manichean exaggerations don’t help you make your point. And ignoring Trump’s past hurts you even more.
Face it, bnw. Trump is actually worse than HRC, and she’s terrible. She’s a terrible, no-good, rotten politician primarily because she’s far too much like her right-wing Republican peers. She, just like the party and candidate you’re voting for, is a warmonger, a supporter of the capitalist system, Wall Street, a neoliberal, with neocon leanings, who will do her best to protect the status quo (and the American empire). As will Trump. Trump doesn’t oppose anything Clinton does that’s actually bad for Americans — and there’s a ton of that to choose from. In fact, he doubles down on most of it.
Bottom line: This isn’t a contest between evil super-villains on the left and Saint Trump on the right. This is a contest between a career politician and her center-right party, working mostly on behalf of the economic system you love, supporting the status quo ante, while they put the richest 1% at the top of the heap . . . . . and, a career businessman, con-artist, tax-cheat, serial liar, serial sexual assaulter who brags about it and will do all of the rotten things the Dems do and more.
