What we're missing is that the big lie, maybe the biggest of all the lies, is that the mainstream media are on Hillary's side. The reality is that they are so desperate to prove that they are fair and balanced and so afraid of the conservatives attacking them that they present lies that they know are lies as if they were possibly true.
As I've said before, if Germany had our news media back in the days when Hitler was trying to get into power, they would have reported endlessly on the evil of Jews and the need to exterminate them. They wouldn't have said they were evil and should be exterminated, but they wouldn't have said that it was nonsense either.
They would have just spread the lies and then presented both sides in a debate -- in a balanced manner. "Our first guest is Julius Streicher, followed by Rabbi Hertzmann."
When one side is willing to sell any bizarre lie no matter how foolish and finds that it's believed while the other side tries to least stick generally to the truth and the news media can't tell the difference between the two (or more accurately won't tell the difference between the two), abandon all hope you who enter here.
Note: As you know Fox admitted it lied about Hillary being indicted. It didn't take but A few minutes before conservatives began accusing FOXNews of having been bought off by the Clintons. Yes, that's right. They actually accused FOXNews of being on the Clinton's side. We have entered a world of utter madness, at least, on the conservative side.
News today is about making money. The non right wing news is like the Democrats have been for so long, afraid of offending the right wing wing lying news.
My prediction is that if this election is close it will make the Republican Party more extreme than ever. They will tell themselves' "if only we been a little bit crazier we would have won."
If it's a big loss for Trump, there is a chance that they might begin to mend their ways. But remember, many of them, like the whole Breitbart hate monger machine, are true believers and won't change no matter what.
If Trump wins, this nation may be in the biggest trouble it's ever been in. The Brits were never willing to put out the massive levels of force, blood, and treasure that was necessary to subdue us, as long as we held out they would eventually give up. Hitler and Tojo really didn't have a chance against us. Eventually we would have used the atomic bomb on Berlin, if that's what it had taken. The danger of the Cold War was more nuclear war than anything else. And OK, that would've been a disaster for the whole human race, but we weren't in any serious danger of being conquered, just our entire species becoming extinct.
I'm not the first to point out that the real danger to America is an internal, voter supported coup. I'm also not the first to point out that would be largely religious coup. (And with the military becoming more and more fundamentalist evangelical it's possible that we might not even need voter support.)
Bill Marr recently described the Republican Party's efforts in recent decades as a slow moving coup. I prefer "slow-motion coup" but he makes an excellent point.
America's place as the most democratic nation in the world has long been degrading. We're about number 21 on at least one respected list. Democracy is dying in America. I've said it before, we're turning into a kleptocracy. That is the fault of the Democrats as much as the Republicans.
Republicans are refusing to fill any Supreme Court justices unless their candidate wins the election, an absolute repudiation of the rule of law, of democracy, and of the Constitution. So even if Hillary wins, our nation could be crumbling before our very eyes.
The only reason I have hope is the millennial generation. They are not perfect, but they sure have a lot of very sound basic ideas and they can tell the difference between Internet lies and reality. After all, they grew up with the Internet. I trust our grandchildren. Whatever happens I believe they will save the world and the United States.
Showing posts with label the media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the media. Show all posts
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
A Terrorist Is A Terrorist, For A' That
I thought that this response which I made an old friend's musings about where all these vigilantes are coming from was worth posting on my blog.
When the left went crazy in the 60s and 70s with bank bombings and attempted assassinations, Democratic officials condemned them. I can't recall a single elected official supporting any of the left-wing terror of the time. When the right wing nut cases started exploding, especially after the election of Pres. Obama, the right wing embraced them. Numerous elected officials, including congressmen, currently praise the crazies. That's why the left wing crazies died out pretty quickly and the right wing crazies just seem to keep on getting stronger and stronger.
Perhaps even more significant is the response of the media. The media uniformly and universally condemned left-wing terrorism back in those decades. Fox News and many other right-wing party organ, propaganda machines regularly praise and encourage this type of vigilante behavior. There is a causative relationship.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Idle Thoughts -- The Media Strikes Again!
In response to a request for homework help regarding the following article: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/16/us/two-studies-link-child-care-to-behavior-problems.html. I responded:
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/day-care-and-behavior-problems-unlinked/
Check the following excerpts from a blog with very different findings also coming from the New York Times. Quick summary:
One. -- A team of researchers from Norway, Harvard and Boston College, examining the varied research that sporadically associates an increase in hours in day care with increased behavior problems, noted that three. the work was all based on child-care studies done in the United States.--
Two. The old headlines read: -- “Does day care harm children?” battle here in the United States: “Does Day Care Make Kids Behave Badly? Study Says Yes” (ABC). “Child Care Leads to More Behavior Problems” (Fox). “Day-Care Kids Have Problems Later in Life” (NBC). “Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care” (The New York Times). “Bad Mommies” (Slate). --
Three. --All that (and more) from a single, small finding, published in 2007, -- so it's unlikely that a small study would produce accurate results. Many studies that are extensive and larger required to get dependable data.
Four. Clearly, can't be your 2003 study, but it seems to have been a very similar one.
Five. Note the headlines are busy blaming working moms for the problem. They are not blaming working fathers.
Six. -- A more recent study, -- suggests otherwise, indicating that poor quality day care is -- primarily responsible for any association between unruly behavior and time spent in day care. In Norway, where day care is subsidized, of a reasonably consistent quality, and an expected part of childhood (in 2009, 79 percent of all 1- to 2-year-olds, and 97 percent of all 3- to 5-year-olds attended publicly subsidized center care there), researchers found little evidence that more time in day care could be associated with “externalizing problems” like defiance and restlessness, in 3-year-olds (a result they hope to confirm in older children). -- This didn't go beyond the three-year-olds like the other study did but it is a study that finds the opposite conclusion. But the team found that conclusion in a well regulated environment where most children go to daycare.
Seven. So kids who attend the poorly regulated, very erratic in quality, who knows if there are any good?, daycare in United States don't do very well according to a pair of studies. Who's surprised? The well-regulated, part of every kid's natural upbringing and intended to be really good for the kids because they're very good day care centers, work very well in other countries. Who's surprised?
Eight. --That’s consistent with the U.S. research as well. In 2007, Slate’s Emily Bazelon contacted the author of that much-publicized earlier study, and asked her to examine the quality of care received by the children who spent more time in day care, and who had a higher-than-average incidence of bad behavior. “The kids with more reported behavior problems in elementary school were the ones who spent three or four years in day care and whose care was, on average, of lower quality.” -- So the author of the 2007 study says that looked at carefully her data does not show that day care causes problems. It shows that poor quality day care causes the problem.
Nine. So if the problem was with poor quality day care and the 2007 study actually shows that. Why didn't the headlines report it that way? Answer: because it's much better to blame daycare and the parents. Why is that better? It sells more newspapers, magazines and gets higher ratings for TV shows. The study was badly reported and the conclusions are clearly wrong. Now this is a 2007 study but the author of that study is the one who says that the headlines got it wrong and daycare does not hurt kids. Good quality day care doesn't hurt kids. Poor quality day care does hurt them.
My summary answer is the last sentence of number eight and a statement that attention grabbing media distortions caused the misunderstanding and gullible viewers who didn't bother to check things out were so gullible they believed it. Day care does not hurt children. Poor quality day care hurts children.
Imagine if we did a study in which we checked what happened when children go to incompetent, bad doctors. The study would show that doctors are bad for children. At least that's the way the news media would report it. They would somehow miss the fact that bad doctors are bad for children, and good doctors are good for children.
Okay I just read your original article. Even it shows -- the mother's sensitivity and the family's socioeconomic status had a greater influence on children's behavior than did the amount of time spent in child care. Greater maternal sensitivity and higher level of family income and education correlated with better behavior in the children, the study found. --
It was a better study than the 2007 study, but I'll stand on things I said about it. Once again it studied a wide variety of daycares and, as far as the article indicates, there seems to have been no attempt to separate the effects of good daycare from the effects of bad daycare. I stand by all the statements I made about the 2007 study. They seem to apply here except that one of these two 2003 studies was more extensive, but once again it occurred only in United States and looked at a very poorly regulated daycare environment.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Prime Time Biblical Exegesis
Started watching The Bible on the History Channel. Good thing, too. I obviously missed a LOT in Sunday School and from reading the Bible. For example, I was totally unaware of the really cool Ninja Angel hoo- ha, hop n chop scenes in Sodom just before the destruction. Wonder how I managed to miss that?
I can hardly wait for the History Channel's next show on the Battle of Yorktown. I'm certain they will reveal the truth that the battle was won by Washington's secret core of zombie bigfoots.
Nothing like the History Channel to learn about history!
I can hardly wait for the History Channel's next show on the Battle of Yorktown. I'm certain they will reveal the truth that the battle was won by Washington's secret core of zombie bigfoots.
Nothing like the History Channel to learn about history!
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Thesis Comments
OK, everyone, I had a bad night and a worse day. I tried to get off Bentyl yesterday and ended up forced to take a late night dose when my guts refused to cooperate. So I'm going to cheat a little today. Bobby, I'm posting my slightly edited responses to your thesis. It would be clearer with the thesis added, so, if you can, and if you wish, please post a link to it in comments. If you don't want to, no problem! My comments can stand alone, but lack depth. If anyone else is reading this, Bobby's thesis is engaging and well worth reading.
And so:
THESIS
Notes for Bobby
What I'm going to do, Bobby, is just make recordings here on Dragon as I read your paper. That means it'll be rather chaotic, but consider it an going one-sided conversation. I'll make comments in the middle or at the end of each page, not reading ahead.
Page 1
On the marketplace of ideas. It seems to me that conservatives frequently refer to the benefits of the marketplace as benefits which accrue because of what is, after all, a form of natural selection! Considering their enmity towards science and most particularly toward the theory of natural selection this is quite remarkable! Indeed, if taken at face level as they themselves present it, this suggests a literal state of anarchy.
It can only be accurately descrdined as Social Darwinism. Darwin hated social Darwinism, but the zealots have seized upon it since the days of the Monkey Trial to condemn the unrelated science. It was Spenser who created the actual social movement BEFORE Darwin's theory of natural selection was created. He simply coopted the science to support his already declared twisted view of human nature-- a view utilized by William Jeenings Bryan, Hayek, Ayn Rand, the GOP, Reagan, Thatcher, the Tea Party, etc. to attack the unrelated science. So they utterly hate Social Dawinism, but desperately want it adopted as our economic and health care systems. I mist say again, considering their devotion to law and order, to anti Dawinism, and supposedly, to Jesus, this is quite a strange position for them to take.
Page 2
If we accept market demand as an essential ingredient, it also occurs to me that means that the free market says we should certainly totally legalize drugs as well. The market demand is there isn't it?
Page 5
Do individuals really value truth over falsehood? We all say we do, but I seriously to question whether this is in fact.
Page 6
This all reminds me of the theory that everyone acts rationally in the marketplace, therefore you should simply carefully calculate these rational human responses and you will be a great success. The group which practiced this were referred to as quants, or quantifiers, on Wall Street. They are the people who destroyed our economy with their foolish misunderstanding of human nature.
Page 7
The independent media? You mean like FOXNews? Rigorous, disinterested; I wonder where you can find things like that?
The rational public? A very tiny minority.
The most fundamental problem of the whole free-market concept is that the free market sells what people want to buy. On what basis do all these academics assume that people want to buy facts or accurate information? What people want to buy is reassurance, comfort. excitement, and emotional highs. They don't want facts. That's the last thing on their agenda.
Page 8
I can't help but make a contrast between the situation in World War II in which FDR was forced to attempt to convince the American people that the danger was real and that keeping our national head in the sand would not make the scary Nazis go away and the Iraq war in which the majority of the American people supported the war which was clearly and obviously going to be a complete disaster. Clearly, the power of the president is at once vast and almost nonexistent depending upon many other circumstances. FDR faced the problem that Americans felt cheated and tricked into World War I and therefore we're about to be tricked again whereas Bush had the advantage of having had 9:11.
The public seeks accurate information? No, they don't. At no point in the process do the great majority of the people seek accurate information. That is simply a baseless concept. You might just as well say that people going to the local drug dealer are seeking a nice safe medication to cure their illnesses. The so-called news media today or more in line with sports events than a history class. People watching football may display concern about facts in regard to statistics but only to support their team.. People watch the news for the same reason they watch the Superbowl -- emotion. They seek excitement and pleasure from watching their team win and the other team lose.
Page 9
At the top of the pager making my point. If we assume the public really wants accurate information than all the rest follows. But of course they don't.
Excellent! I was beginning to get a little bit worried about you.
Page 11
The psychological disciplines are finally ceasing to be a fantasy of individual researchers and becoming a real science. NOTE : I said, beginning to...
Page 12
Perhaps the most primal function of reasoning was to understand other's motives in a complex social group. How do I protect myself? How do I cheat and get away with it? How do I keep others cheating me?
Page 13
Speaking of mental maps, it is also beneficial to be able to understand the seasons in order to know where to go exploit available resources. Exploiting seafood seasonally makes an excellent example -- Neanderthals in one area did not, modern humans in the same area did.
Page 14
Bottom of the page-and there's the research that nails it. Emotions are fundamental, reasoning is an add on.
PAge 15
S1and S2--Thing one and Thing 2. Not a cat in
hat in sight! Excellent idea! It strikes me, on an intuitive level, that S1correct
But, in terms with which you should be familiar, having listened to me for a few years now, S1 is the cognitive autopilot while S-2 is the copilot whose function is to make certain that the pilot knows what he's doing and where is going. .
Page 16
In other words thinking is hard work.
Page 17
A pre-constructed mental space--love that.
Page 18
And this makes me think of the individual whose name escapes me, who makes millions of dollars by convincing people to do the wrong thing simply by changing the terms used. The most classic case. of course, this changing the name of the inheritance tax to death tax. Everybody hates taxing death, so what is actually an inheritance tax, aka just an income tax, becomes a horror show plot.
Page 19
This is interesting in relationship to the problems with patients who have damage to one side of the brain or a severed corpus callosum impeding communication between the two halves of the brain. You're probably familiar with the classic case in which an individual is shown pictures and then asked to choose the tool appropriate to handle the problem shown in the pictures. An individual whose nonverbal side of the brain sees a picture of a snowy driveway picks a snow shovel, even though the other side of his brain sees a picture of a broken window ( not the actual example) But the verbal side of his brain didn't see that picture and so generates elaborate and very confusing rationalizations for choosing a snow shovel.
Page 20
Illusion of objectivity-– and that explains creation science.
Which is a more scientific and documented way of saying what I say quite often-man can reason but most often man rationalizes. A biologist might say man is a faculative reasoner and an obligate rationalizer.
page 21
Rather sanguine indeed . I don't want sound like Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut but I think that's overstating the case and being too generous to us hairless apes. The human brain is always making compromises, taking shortcuts, and constructing a sense of reality. It actually does this surprisingly well, but not as well as that statement would indicate. Evolution makes do with the raw material it has on hand, human reasoning could be much better designed.
Page 22
This is why it's so important for us to choose carefully with whom we intimately associate. It especially is important for us to choose carefully whom we except as a leader, or former of opinions.
Page 23, 24
In other words, the Greeks' cherished belief, and subsequent Western thought, is mostly wishful thinking in regards to man the rational animal.
Page 26
Well said! Well written.
Page 27
The first paragraph-Obama seems to be finally beginning to realize this. He was the penultimate rational man. In an irrational world, he was I'm trouble. Reminds me of me and the school board...long story
Page 31
Not much to say about the preceding pages. Making the case well, describing the attitudes of others well. I'm glad to see you moving toward pointing out the flaws of some researchers inherent assumptions. Too many people think far too highly of human capacity and desire to be accurate and factual. Ask anyone in high school, belonging and fitting into the right group are much more important than facts or even reality itself.
Page 32
Interesting point! I hadn't realized the lack of correlation between the WMD deceits and and support for the war.
Page 34
Trusted elite cues, exactly the point. We are a species of followers. If we ceased being that we would cease being human. We're not a flock of sheep as so many writers have suggested-we are a troop of apes. But that doesn't mean we don't follow our leader.
Page 35
A sad, but accurate view of human nature. You're hinting at some hope on the next page. Well I hope so!
Page 40
It sounds good. But I think the likelihood that ever happening is vanishingly small. It was only government regulation, agreed upon by both sides in a bipartisan manner, that prevented this current state of affairs until Ronald Reagan gutted the regulatory process, allowing the wealthy to poison the news media. See my quote from Fukuyama on the entrenchment of the rich.
Page 41
But Americans strongly tend not to vote. I think our greatest hope lies in movements like the occupy movement. Unfortunately, such movements arise only at moments of desperation. We let the system go corrupt and practically fall apart, then desperately repair it, only to watch it descend into corruption all over again. Not a very hopeful view, on the other hand it is a view that allows for the system to continue to survive and function, if poorly. Still, reforms are hard to undo. From Reagan on the Right has attempted to undo FDR's legacy, and failed. Blacks are not likely to be reenslaved, etc.
Plurality of outlets. Yes, exactly. But that's what we've lost. We need to reregulate the media. A guest on Bill Moyers tonight mentioned a book by another author who referred to the free enterprise system as a garden. A garden is not simply allowed grow or die depending whatever happens. It isn't just planted and abandoned. It is regulated, controlled, watched, watered, weeded, nurtured, et cetera.
An excellent paper. The opening was heavy on data and jargon, unavoidable in the scholarly medium. Once through that obligatory groundwork, you made your case smoothly and convincingly. I find your conclusion overly hopeful, but very defensible.
Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed.
.
And so:
THESIS
Notes for Bobby
What I'm going to do, Bobby, is just make recordings here on Dragon as I read your paper. That means it'll be rather chaotic, but consider it an going one-sided conversation. I'll make comments in the middle or at the end of each page, not reading ahead.
Page 1
On the marketplace of ideas. It seems to me that conservatives frequently refer to the benefits of the marketplace as benefits which accrue because of what is, after all, a form of natural selection! Considering their enmity towards science and most particularly toward the theory of natural selection this is quite remarkable! Indeed, if taken at face level as they themselves present it, this suggests a literal state of anarchy.
It can only be accurately descrdined as Social Darwinism. Darwin hated social Darwinism, but the zealots have seized upon it since the days of the Monkey Trial to condemn the unrelated science. It was Spenser who created the actual social movement BEFORE Darwin's theory of natural selection was created. He simply coopted the science to support his already declared twisted view of human nature-- a view utilized by William Jeenings Bryan, Hayek, Ayn Rand, the GOP, Reagan, Thatcher, the Tea Party, etc. to attack the unrelated science. So they utterly hate Social Dawinism, but desperately want it adopted as our economic and health care systems. I mist say again, considering their devotion to law and order, to anti Dawinism, and supposedly, to Jesus, this is quite a strange position for them to take.
Page 2
If we accept market demand as an essential ingredient, it also occurs to me that means that the free market says we should certainly totally legalize drugs as well. The market demand is there isn't it?
Page 5
Do individuals really value truth over falsehood? We all say we do, but I seriously to question whether this is in fact.
Page 6
This all reminds me of the theory that everyone acts rationally in the marketplace, therefore you should simply carefully calculate these rational human responses and you will be a great success. The group which practiced this were referred to as quants, or quantifiers, on Wall Street. They are the people who destroyed our economy with their foolish misunderstanding of human nature.
Page 7
The independent media? You mean like FOXNews? Rigorous, disinterested; I wonder where you can find things like that?
The rational public? A very tiny minority.
The most fundamental problem of the whole free-market concept is that the free market sells what people want to buy. On what basis do all these academics assume that people want to buy facts or accurate information? What people want to buy is reassurance, comfort. excitement, and emotional highs. They don't want facts. That's the last thing on their agenda.
Page 8
I can't help but make a contrast between the situation in World War II in which FDR was forced to attempt to convince the American people that the danger was real and that keeping our national head in the sand would not make the scary Nazis go away and the Iraq war in which the majority of the American people supported the war which was clearly and obviously going to be a complete disaster. Clearly, the power of the president is at once vast and almost nonexistent depending upon many other circumstances. FDR faced the problem that Americans felt cheated and tricked into World War I and therefore we're about to be tricked again whereas Bush had the advantage of having had 9:11.
The public seeks accurate information? No, they don't. At no point in the process do the great majority of the people seek accurate information. That is simply a baseless concept. You might just as well say that people going to the local drug dealer are seeking a nice safe medication to cure their illnesses. The so-called news media today or more in line with sports events than a history class. People watching football may display concern about facts in regard to statistics but only to support their team.. People watch the news for the same reason they watch the Superbowl -- emotion. They seek excitement and pleasure from watching their team win and the other team lose.
Page 9
At the top of the pager making my point. If we assume the public really wants accurate information than all the rest follows. But of course they don't.
Excellent! I was beginning to get a little bit worried about you.
Page 11
The psychological disciplines are finally ceasing to be a fantasy of individual researchers and becoming a real science. NOTE : I said, beginning to...
Page 12
Perhaps the most primal function of reasoning was to understand other's motives in a complex social group. How do I protect myself? How do I cheat and get away with it? How do I keep others cheating me?
Page 13
Speaking of mental maps, it is also beneficial to be able to understand the seasons in order to know where to go exploit available resources. Exploiting seafood seasonally makes an excellent example -- Neanderthals in one area did not, modern humans in the same area did.
Page 14
Bottom of the page-and there's the research that nails it. Emotions are fundamental, reasoning is an add on.
PAge 15
S1and S2--Thing one and Thing 2. Not a cat in
hat in sight! Excellent idea! It strikes me, on an intuitive level, that S1correct
But, in terms with which you should be familiar, having listened to me for a few years now, S1 is the cognitive autopilot while S-2 is the copilot whose function is to make certain that the pilot knows what he's doing and where is going. .
Page 16
In other words thinking is hard work.
Page 17
A pre-constructed mental space--love that.
Page 18
And this makes me think of the individual whose name escapes me, who makes millions of dollars by convincing people to do the wrong thing simply by changing the terms used. The most classic case. of course, this changing the name of the inheritance tax to death tax. Everybody hates taxing death, so what is actually an inheritance tax, aka just an income tax, becomes a horror show plot.
Page 19
This is interesting in relationship to the problems with patients who have damage to one side of the brain or a severed corpus callosum impeding communication between the two halves of the brain. You're probably familiar with the classic case in which an individual is shown pictures and then asked to choose the tool appropriate to handle the problem shown in the pictures. An individual whose nonverbal side of the brain sees a picture of a snowy driveway picks a snow shovel, even though the other side of his brain sees a picture of a broken window ( not the actual example) But the verbal side of his brain didn't see that picture and so generates elaborate and very confusing rationalizations for choosing a snow shovel.
Page 20
Illusion of objectivity-– and that explains creation science.
Which is a more scientific and documented way of saying what I say quite often-man can reason but most often man rationalizes. A biologist might say man is a faculative reasoner and an obligate rationalizer.
page 21
Rather sanguine indeed . I don't want sound like Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut but I think that's overstating the case and being too generous to us hairless apes. The human brain is always making compromises, taking shortcuts, and constructing a sense of reality. It actually does this surprisingly well, but not as well as that statement would indicate. Evolution makes do with the raw material it has on hand, human reasoning could be much better designed.
Page 22
This is why it's so important for us to choose carefully with whom we intimately associate. It especially is important for us to choose carefully whom we except as a leader, or former of opinions.
Page 23, 24
In other words, the Greeks' cherished belief, and subsequent Western thought, is mostly wishful thinking in regards to man the rational animal.
Page 26
Well said! Well written.
Page 27
The first paragraph-Obama seems to be finally beginning to realize this. He was the penultimate rational man. In an irrational world, he was I'm trouble. Reminds me of me and the school board...long story
Page 31
Not much to say about the preceding pages. Making the case well, describing the attitudes of others well. I'm glad to see you moving toward pointing out the flaws of some researchers inherent assumptions. Too many people think far too highly of human capacity and desire to be accurate and factual. Ask anyone in high school, belonging and fitting into the right group are much more important than facts or even reality itself.
Page 32
Interesting point! I hadn't realized the lack of correlation between the WMD deceits and and support for the war.
Page 34
Trusted elite cues, exactly the point. We are a species of followers. If we ceased being that we would cease being human. We're not a flock of sheep as so many writers have suggested-we are a troop of apes. But that doesn't mean we don't follow our leader.
Page 35
A sad, but accurate view of human nature. You're hinting at some hope on the next page. Well I hope so!
Page 40
It sounds good. But I think the likelihood that ever happening is vanishingly small. It was only government regulation, agreed upon by both sides in a bipartisan manner, that prevented this current state of affairs until Ronald Reagan gutted the regulatory process, allowing the wealthy to poison the news media. See my quote from Fukuyama on the entrenchment of the rich.
Page 41
But Americans strongly tend not to vote. I think our greatest hope lies in movements like the occupy movement. Unfortunately, such movements arise only at moments of desperation. We let the system go corrupt and practically fall apart, then desperately repair it, only to watch it descend into corruption all over again. Not a very hopeful view, on the other hand it is a view that allows for the system to continue to survive and function, if poorly. Still, reforms are hard to undo. From Reagan on the Right has attempted to undo FDR's legacy, and failed. Blacks are not likely to be reenslaved, etc.
Plurality of outlets. Yes, exactly. But that's what we've lost. We need to reregulate the media. A guest on Bill Moyers tonight mentioned a book by another author who referred to the free enterprise system as a garden. A garden is not simply allowed grow or die depending whatever happens. It isn't just planted and abandoned. It is regulated, controlled, watched, watered, weeded, nurtured, et cetera.
An excellent paper. The opening was heavy on data and jargon, unavoidable in the scholarly medium. Once through that obligatory groundwork, you made your case smoothly and convincingly. I find your conclusion overly hopeful, but very defensible.
Thanks for sharing! I enjoyed.
.
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