Bill Maher responds to Stewartcon/Colbertcon

[Teebs]

And it isn't in any other state's future. There's only one place suitable in the US for High Speed Passenger rail -- the NEC between Washington and Boston; due to Amtrak owning the entire stretch.

Elsewhere; Amtrak has to deal with freight railroads who own the track. The best you'll get out of that is a more consistent 75 MPH by better scheduling so the track is open more of the time; and less time spent waiting on sidings for freights to pass by Amtrak.

To get actual high speed rail you have to build the track specially anyway, so who owns existing track is much less important.

[Patrick Degan]

So, I suppose the House of Representatives is not, by your "logic", now controlled by hard-right wingers?

It's not. It has a Republican majority, but most of them are typical middle of the road Republicans (most of whom were just taking back their seats lost to conservadems in the 2008 swing!). Most the Tea Party candidates for the House lost their elections.

btw, what the hell does "logic" have to do with it? This is a simple matter of fact, not deduction. The election results are public record.

"Middle of the road Republicans"? And who would these be? There are no "middle-road Republicans" anymore. Not among the candidates for office and not among those who got elected. This is the Party of NO we're talking about.

For every five tea partiers you name who won, I can name six who lost. For every one you name who won by a large margin, I can name two who lost by a larger margin.

Big deal. That doesn't erase the fact that the next congress will now be chock-a-block with hard right Republicans dedicated to unraveling what little Obama has managed to accomplish and to whom "compromise" means the other side bows in abject surrender.

No, Destructionator, it is you who's going to get your dumb ass out of this thread —unless you can demonstrate that there actually is some "vast majority" of "true conservatives" who are so appalled at the radicalisation of the Republican Party that they're doing something to purge the whackaloons and krypto-fascists and return the GOP to a saner political orientation and that therefore my charge isn't a valid one.

Of course you'd move the goalposts. We were talking about "conservative Americans" and now you've shifted it to "true conservatives" - goes back to my first paragraph of this post. If you define the nuts as being only those who are nutty, no wonder the majority of them are nutty!

No, we are not talking about moving the goalposts. We're talking about how you didn't even bother to read the fucking thread before jumping in with your little bandwidth-wasting bit of snark. My original exchange with Simon Jester involved his argument about the alleged "vast majority" of "true conservatives" who supposedly oppose the increasing rightward drift of the GOP but for which there is astonishingly little evidence of effort on their part to actually do anything about it.

Let's look at the facts:

a) About half the country is conservative or leans conservative, based on the average Presidential popular vote. (And the popular votes for the Congress tend to be in the same ballpark too, with about 50% voting Republican in the Senate for 2010 and about 53% for the House.)

b) More than half of far right candidates - those who campaigned on the Tea Party platform or were endorsed by people like Sarah Palin, etc. - lost their elections (according to ABC news), despite the average popular vote leaning Republican.

c) More people voted Republican to express distaste for the job Obama is doing than those who voted in support of the Tea Party (37% vs 22% according to a Pew poll). This is typical of midterm elections - if the economy is in the shitter, the incumbents and the President's party both tend to suffer. The economy has a bigger effect than ideology.

Again, big deal: none of that erases the fact that the next congress will now be chock-a-block with hard right Republicans dedicated to unraveling what little Obama has managed to accomplish and to whom "compromise" means the other side bows in abject surrender.

These results might be enough to say "about half of American conservatives are a bit looney", but if a "vast majority" of them were, this election would have been much farther to the right than it was. All in all, it was pretty typical. A lot of the same people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 turned around and voted for Republicans in 2010. Did these people radicalize to the right, unlike anything ever seen in history, or are they just unhappy with how the economy has been run, voting with the historical trend?

You misread the results of the 2008 election as well as this one. Barack Obama's victory was due to Democratic groups turning out in numbers that haven't been seen in years and which weren't seen just last week because Obama and the Democratic Party apparatus didn't bother to try to mobilise them until a mere two weeks before election day:

I basically agree with Kevin Drum's take on the overall election results: Most of the losses were predicted by structural factors, but not all of them. Democrats lost at least 15 more seats than the basic model would've predicted, and though you can try and explain that away (they were holding seats because of a demographically unique election in 2008, or the model doesn't account for extreme economic conditions), it's not really worth doing: Democrats lost a lot of seats. Even more than the economic conditions would've predicted.

The question, of course, is why. And the basic answer is that Republican groups came out to vote and Democratic groups didn't. The exit polls tell the story:



The gender breakdown didn't change much. And nor did the racial breakdown. But the age of the electorate changed dramatically: Seniors went from 16 percent in 2008 to 23 percent in 2010, while voters between 18 and 29 fell from 18 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2009. Seniors, of course, are the most conservative voters -- they were the only age group to back John McCain in 2008. And young voters are the most liberal. They were the only age group that favored Democrats yesterday.

There's going to be a lot of soul-searching among Democrats after this election. Most of it will be about whether they should've been more liberal or more conservative, more ambitious or more modest, more confident or more empathic. But perhaps the most important question isn't what they could've done to make more Americans like them, but what they could've done to get more young voters to the polls.

Voter turnout for the recent bi-election nationwide was around 42% (comparable with 2006), as opposed to the 61% turnout for the 2008 election. And while turnout will be higher for presidential election years, the data still point to the Democrats failing to get more of their vote out.

And this isn't even attacking your unsupported assertation that the "rightards are actively trying to unravel sanity, civility, and even organised society itself". For every nutjob who carries a gun to a political rally (all of whom have done so legally, as far as I know, and none of whom have tried to use it) there's a thousand regular folks attending and acting perfectly normally.

There's been no assassination attempts, no riots. The worst we've gotten is some uncool words and, the worst of all is some stones thrown at empty offices by a handful of assholes during the healthcare bullshit. But, by far, the majority of people don't even attend these events, much less participate in the crime.

If their goal is to unravel civilized society, they're sure going about it in an awfully civilized way. I'm sure you'll point to one teabagger who won on a platform of dismantling the government, but I'll remind you again that the majority of people running on that platform lost the election.

I don't need to point to a Rand Paul or a Mark Rubio. I can point instead to crowds which are becoming increasingly radicalised by propaganda about "Obama the Socialist Dictator" which NONE of the so-called "responsible" Republican leadership are doing a thing to try to cool down; instead smiling and nodding as it pumps out in ever-increasing volume. I can point to a Republican leadership who are positively looking forward to a government shutdown, no matter how much disruption it might cause. I can point to a whole state (Texas) which is detaching itself from objective reality with state leaders openly babbling about nullification and even occasionally secession while the state school authorities are warping the school curricula to teach a false history with the aim of ensuring that the kiddies all turn out as goodthinkful little conservatives (whatever that term now means, since it certainly does not mean anything by its classical definition any longer). You've got a building apparatus of "alternative" facts: history, science and religion, and all to ensure that rightwingers don't have to taint themselves with ideological impurities. "Middle-of-the-road" Republicans? In a party in which, today, Barry Goldwater would be considered a socialist and Teddy Roosevelt an outright communist? Back in 1994, Rick Santorum was the poster-boy for radical. He is what today would be a "middle-road" Republican. And now, you've got around 25 million Americans being primed to see millions of their fellow Americans as enemies, egged on by a right wing media apparatus and leadership who are doing everything in their power to destroy the consensus that democracy and civil society depend upon to exist and split this country along factional lines. With that sort of stew brewing, violence is an inevitability. There have already been sporadic incidents: such as the clown who flew his plane into an IRS office building during working hours last year and who was later justified by a Republican congressman. And you don't necessarily need mass-riots or assassinations to destroy civil society; just enough violence by the bully-boys to cow everybody else into silence and submission. The result is no longer a civil society but a prison-yard society run on intimidation. That technique worked very well in the South during the days of Jim Crow and also during the first Red Scare as an adjunct to the official police state measures carried out by state and federal authorities under the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917.

[Phantasee]

Reading that graph tells me that we just need more patience. Those old white people are going to die off soon enough, and the young people who came out hard for Obama are going to be your main source of votes. It's inevitable. Why worry so much? The US isn't going to die in two years, or four. I'm pretty sure you could even hold out eight years.

[Simon_Jester]

No, Destructionator, it is you who's going to get your dumb ass out of this thread —unless you can demonstrate that there actually is some "vast majority" of "true conservatives" who are so appalled at the radicalisation of the Republican Party that they're doing something to purge the whackaloons and krypto-fascists and return the GOP to a saner political orientation and that therefore my charge isn't a valid one.

Of course you'd move the goalposts. We were talking about "conservative Americans" and now you've shifted it to "true conservatives" - goes back to my first paragraph of this post. If you define the nuts as being only those who are nutty, no wonder the majority of them are nutty!

No, we are not talking about moving the goalposts. We're talking about how you didn't even bother to read the fucking thread before jumping in with your little bandwidth-wasting bit of snark. My original exchange with Simon Jester involved his argument about the alleged "vast majority" of "true conservatives" who supposedly oppose the increasing rightward drift of the GOP but for which there is astonishingly little evidence of effort on their part to actually do anything about it.

All sneers aside, you totally misread what I was saying:

This is where that "I disagree with you but you're probably not Hitler" thing comes in. I can tell the difference between someone I disagree with (even if I think they're pushing colossally bad ideas) and Hitler (someone who can reasonably be presented as a movie-grade villain).

There are people on the right who really do need to have their policy goals blocked for the sake of the public interest, in my opinion. But saying "Conservatives are trying to destroy civilization!" is neither an accurate statement of their objectives nor a useful one. Not unless all you want to do about it is sit at a computer terminal and try to one-up your peers by saying how bad they are.

Now where in that am I talking about conservatives trying to oppose Stupid Policy X?

I'm not saying shit about that. I'm saying that it is not a goal of "conservatives" to destroy civilization. And that asserting such a thing to be true is stupid on many levels, as it convinces anyone who doesn't already agree with you that you're a useless ass who isn't worth listening to.

That is all I say on the subject. If you disagree with that, well that's your problem.

[Thanas]

People are doing things about the rightward drift - they aren't electing the majority of the more extreme candidates.

That is a really bad argument. The country still shifted right - seeing as how positions held by Reagan are now considered to the extreme left of the GOP.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Just because it has shifted right doesn't mean that no effort has been put into moderating that shift.

No, it just means that not enough effort has been put in, which is the point everyone is trying to get through to you.

[Bakustra]

Just because it has shifted right doesn't mean that no effort has been put into moderating that shift.

No, it just means that not enough effort has been put in, which is the point everyone is trying to get through to you.

That's a very different thread from the one I'm reading. I'm reading a thread where a full third of American politics is apparently actively trying to destroy the country and is nigh-universally mentally incompetent. There's a difference between "nation has shifted to the right but not without moderation" (which I am doubtful as to the full extent of) and "Rethuglikkans are literally bugfuck!!".

[Ritterin Sophia]

Just because it has shifted right doesn't mean that no effort has been put into moderating that shift.

No, it just means that not enough effort has been put in, which is the point everyone is trying to get through to you.

That's a very different thread from the one I'm reading. I'm reading a thread where a full third of American politics is apparently actively trying to destroy the country and is nigh-universally mentally incompetent. There's a difference between "nation has shifted to the right but not without moderation" (which I am doubtful as to the full extent of) and "Rethuglikkans are literally bugfuck!!".

Then either we have different interpretations of the thread or are indeed reading different threads across parallel dimensions.

[Illuminatus Primus]

There is no serious or systematic hysteria industry on the left. There most definitely is on the right. False equivalency is bullshit.

The laughable words of a fanatic, sir. And definitely untrue. The left has a massive hysteria machine, just like the right. Remember when we lost the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act turned the US into a police state? Wait, neither of those things happened, regardless of what I heard from commentators, politicians, and the media.

That wasn't the "left"; that was establishments newspapers of record, like the New York Times, and institutions dedicated to defending standing interpretations of incorporation of the Bill of Rights through the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, like the ACLU. A conservative organization, by the way, by any sane evaluation, as it defends jurisprudence on limitations of state power going back fifty years or more, versus the reactionary right which wishes to roll things back to the Gilded Age.

The War in Iraq was not lost; it was argued consistently, like Nazi Generals when the Eastern Front turned against them, that the "cost now outweighed the benefits." That's not the same thing as opposing a war on principle, that would be: "This war is fundamentally wrong and should be ended immediately." Incidentally that view was correct, even allowing for the farcical caricature law of the Bush Administration justifying pre-emptive war (in fact, by Nuremberg precedent, the supreme war crime), as we know now (as much of the international media did) that the pretexts for war were exaggerated, misstated, or manipulated in order to persuade a passive and misled domestic public. Show me where whole news operations paraded from the beginning of the war, that it was fundamentally wrong. It didn't happen. Contrariwise, it does happen on the right.

If you think that the Democratic Party, one of the largest and most powerful organizations on the planet, doesn't use media manipulation and it's own brand of manufactured hysteria, you're just fooling yourself. Actually, it's that kind of political blindness- where you're always right and the other side is just stupid or mislead- which is REALLY fucking up this country. No Republicans can admit that their politicians are often corrupt and incompetent, and no Democrats can admit the same about their own party. That's the reason the systemic inefficiency in modern US politics isn't getting addressed, that's the reason our financial plan is to spend more money than we have pretty much forever- because it's always "their" fault.

I was at the Rally and it seemed to me, the message wasn't "Lets go for the middle", it was more "It's alright to have opinions and to be strongminded about them, but don't go for exagerrations or outright lies" He's saying it's alright to be against Scot Brown, but you don't need to call him a racist homophobe who hates women, it's alright to think socialized medicine is a bad idea just don't talk about death panels, it's okay to think the Republicans have a horrible healthcare plan but sayingthey should want everyone to drop dead isn't helpful.

That's what it seemed like to me, too- and it's a vital fucking message too many people are willing to ignore. Everyone on both sides of the aisle is too busy frantically masturbating to their own side's targeted propaganda to make any useful changes.

Yeah, you're right, the climate change, extrajudicial assassination of Americans abroad, extrajudicial detentions, decaying economies, and an unsustainable civilization with intolerable risks to the greater global, and poor, majority. What's there to be excited about.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I don't need to point to a Rand Paul or a Mark Rubio. I can point instead to crowds which are becoming increasingly radicalised by propaganda about "Obama the Socialist Dictator" which NONE of the so-called "responsible" Republican leadership are doing a thing to try to cool down; instead smiling and nodding as it pumps out in ever-increasing volume. I can point to a Republican leadership who are positively looking forward to a government shutdown, no matter how much disruption it might cause. I can point to a whole state (Texas) which is detaching itself from objective reality with state leaders openly babbling about nullification and even occasionally secession while the state school authorities are warping the school curricula to teach a false history with the aim of ensuring that the kiddies all turn out as goodthinkful little conservatives (whatever that term now means, since it certainly does not mean anything by its classical definition any longer). You've got a building apparatus of "alternative" facts: history, science and religion, and all to ensure that rightwingers don't have to taint themselves with ideological impurities. "Middle-of-the-road" Republicans? In a party in which, today, Barry Goldwater would be considered a socialist and Teddy Roosevelt an outright communist? Back in 1994, Rick Santorum was the poster-boy for radical. He is what today would be a "middle-road" Republican. And now, you've got around 25 million Americans being primed to see millions of their fellow Americans as enemies, egged on by a right wing media apparatus and leadership who are doing everything in their power to destroy the consensus that democracy and civil society depend upon to exist and split this country along factional lines. With that sort of stew brewing, violence is an inevitability. There have already been sporadic incidents: such as the clown who flew his plane into an IRS office building during working hours last year and who was later justified by a Republican congressman. And you don't necessarily need mass-riots or assassinations to destroy civil society; just enough violence by the bully-boys to cow everybody else into silence and submission. The result is no longer a civil society but a prison-yard society run on intimidation. That technique worked very well in the South during the days of Jim Crow and also during the first Red Scare as an adjunct to the official police state measures carried out by state and federal authorities under the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917.

Bingo; and this is why the United States today has no civilized universal health care or other First World standards: in fact, America's working class is a Second World country, demographically and by health statistics, tying with post-Soviet states like Latvia or the like. This is all a pretext in a time of economic, social, and environmental strife, to abandon the ground-rules, come up with some blood-and-soil populist excuses to rollback the facts of the popular struggles to build the civilized society in the last 200 years, and have some red scare or worse. And why? Its always the same: to make sure the Modest Many do not expect too much from the Privileged Few.

EDIT: (MISTAKE ON PREVIOUS POST)

If you think that the Democratic Party, one of the largest and most powerful organizations on the planet, doesn't use media manipulation and it's own brand of manufactured hysteria, you're just fooling yourself. Actually, it's that kind of political blindness- where you're always right and the other side is just stupid or mislead- which is REALLY fucking up this country. No Republicans can admit that their politicians are often corrupt and incompetent, and no Democrats can admit the same about their own party. That's the reason the systemic inefficiency in modern US politics isn't getting addressed, that's the reason our financial plan is to spend more money than we have pretty much forever- because it's always "their" fault.

I'm not a Democrat, you fucking idiot. As it says in my signature, I am a socialist. I know the Democrats are propagandistic: their purpose is to draw a line in the sand for those asking questions and unhappy about their situation, and as if to say, "Here and no further", may you question. They lie incessantly about their role in Cold War in apologizing and aiding state terror and atrocities, as well as preventing development, throughout the Third World. They also concoct fantastic lies about history and especially their state's history, where the government nicely and benevolently overheard the angry masses and did right this time, as it always does, and that's how you change things. I'm non-dogmatic though, I still think the Democratic Party promotes fewer dangerous untruths than the Republican Party: name anything like denialism in evolution, climate change, social and demographic change and trends, economic problems, racial strife, socioeconomic inequality, and also resource constraints? What is as ridiculous as "Drill Baby Drill", "I'm Not A Witch", "Its Cold Outside So There's No Global Warming", "Black People are born like that, they need Jesus", "Obama is a Socialist" and "We Came Back Unarmed, This Time" are the Democrats spewing to the public right now? Hmm? Perhaps this time you could provide some examples, instead of just speaking spookily of them allegedly elsewhere. Got a criticism: state it clearly and plainly. Tell me what your answer is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

There isn't a significant anarchist, socialist, or green voice in our media because there aren't significant numbers of anarchists, socialists, or greens in the United States.

Wrong, in order to get a media audience you have to be work for and be owned by a large conglomerate, including large defense contractors, and participate in a very narrow large media oligopoly and remain functioning and competitive by means of being appealing to and arranging and selling audiences to businesses - also mostly large semi-to-non-competitive oligopolistic conglomerates - which wish to advertise to them, and be practically dependent on elite sources like the government and the heads of businesses for access to information, vice directly their constituents or stockholders for practical purposes (in essence elite institutions subsidize the cost of producing compact and deliverable news), and lastly, somehow be able to fend off hysterical coordinated political attacks from whole constellations of tiny largely business-or-state-funded institutions and individuals from political organizations, academic clubs, fund-raising committees, intellectuals, endowed chaired academics, etc. (all of whom ultimately depend on business or state funding as their sine qua non of existence, not their organic or preceding popularity) if you do stray outside the lines which are preferred by those occupying the most decisive agglomerations of highly-concentrated decisional authority in society.

[Thirdfain]

That wasn't the "left"; that was establishments newspapers of record, like the New York Times, and institutions dedicated to defending standing interpretations of incorporation of the Bill of Rights through the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, like the ACLU. A conservative organization, by the way, by any sane evaluation, as it defends jurisprudence on limitations of state power going back fifty years or more, versus the reactionary right which wishes to roll things back to the Gilded Age.

The War in Iraq was not lost; it was argued consistently, like Nazi Generals when the Eastern Front turned against them, that the "cost now outweighed the benefits." That's not the same thing as opposing a war on principle, that would be: "This war is fundamentally wrong and should be ended immediately." Incidentally that view was correct, even allowing for the farcical caricature law of the Bush Administration justifying pre-emptive war (in fact, by Nuremberg precedent, the supreme war crime), as we know now (as much of the international media did) that the pretexts for war were exaggerated, misstated, or manipulated in order to persuade a passive and misled domestic public. Show me where whole news operations paraded from the beginning of the war, that it was fundamentally wrong. It didn't happen. Contrariwise, it does happen on the right.

I don't know what editorials you were reading, but I heard almost nothing except volley after volley against the war, for a vast variety of reasons, ranging from the practical to the moral to the economic. I'm not sure how you missed those, because I was pointed to a huge number from this very forum, to which you are obviously a frequent visitor. Some of those arguments were farcical and propagandistic, and some where not- but if you don't think that there wasn't a major political, media, and academic effort to paint the Iraq War as a quagmire, then you're totally off your rocker.

Yeah, you're right, the climate change, extrajudicial assassination of Americans abroad, extrajudicial detentions, decaying economies, and an unsustainable civilization with intolerable risks to the greater global, and poor, majority. What's there to be excited about.

I think you're getting some froth on the screen and occluding parts of my post, because you don't seem to realize that I am familiar with the fact we have huge fucking problems with our system of government.

Your own position as a socialist has jack shit to do with this, by the way, because socialists have pretty much zero capacity to change the American political system. I don't give three fucks about your personal political bugaboos. I want these problems fixed within the framework we have because I actually want to see them fixed, not ranted about by pamphlet-waving keyboard jockeys.

I'm not a Democrat, you fucking idiot. As it says in my signature, I am a socialist.

Anyone who's bothered to wade through even one of your posts knows that; but I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that when you talked about the Left, you meant the actual, relevant American Left. You know, the roughly 50% of the population represented by the Democrat party? Because using "the left" to refer to a tiny fringe movement like the Socialists seems to be distorting the phrase until it's no longer meaningful to a discussion about American politics. The same way I'd assume that if you said "The Right" you'd be referring to the Republicans and their affiliates, as opposed to the American Nazi Party.

As for the proportion of "dangerous untruths" each side spews, then we face a little problem. I'm not sure how to practically measure degrees of dangerous untruthfulness, but I will point out a relevant fact: I spent much of the Bush administration in college, and I heard a lot more leftist hysteria than rightist; and now that I'm out of school and getting most of my information from mainstream news sources, I'm hardly hearing a similar outpouring of vitriol on President Obama and his policies. So at least from my perspective, the "Leftist" machine was far more effective particularly during the vital formative years of a member of the educated classes than the Tea Party is doing now.

Wrong, in order to get a media audience you have to be work for and be owned by a large conglomerate, including large defense contractors, and participate in a very narrow large media oligopoly and remain functioning and competitive by means of being appealing to and arranging and selling audiences to businesses - also mostly large semi-to-non-competitive oligopolistic conglomerates - ... (snip rest)

I've always found socialists pretty funny when they rail against monopolies, because there is no monopoly more powerful than a centralized government. And you want EVERYTHING to be directed by a centralized government? Better a semi-competitive oligopolistic conglomerate than the Central Committee For Information.

[K. A. Pital]

Anyone who's bothered to wade through even one of your posts knows that; but I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming that when you talked about the Left, you meant the actual, relevant American Left. You know, the roughly 50% of the population represented by the Democrat party?

How does the Democrat Party become left simply because they are slightly left of Republicans? If American politics do not have any meaningful power that is left, perhaps it is relevant when talking about American politics.

Better a semi-competitive oligopolistic conglomerate than the Central Committee For Information.

An oligarchy is better simply because it is competitive? How does this follow? Two thugs competing for power over the media are better than one? I do not think that by multiplying the number of "oligopolistic" thugs on top or increasing the competition between them the situation is improved in any fashion, and I wonder why would a person even think that. I would assume a sensible person would say that there is little difference for the common person to have a semi-competitive oligarchy controlling the media, or a single entity. The oligarchy might or might not be better, but it should be judged on its own merits and shouldn't get free points merely for having a capability for infighting.

Some of those arguments were farcical and propagandistic, and some where not- but if you don't think that there wasn't a major political, media, and academic effort to paint the Iraq War as a quagmire, then you're totally off your rocker.

IP said that the reaction was not that the war was wrong and should be immediately ended and the people who caused it put under trial. Painting the war as a quagmire is not the same as painting it as a fundamental wrong. Besides, people only started painting it as a quagmire when it de-facto BECAME one. IP was asking if there was a stream of articles opposed to the war fundamentally at the very beginning. I would also be curious to see if there were any. Because I remember that lots of people even on this board were totally rallying behind the Iraq war. And this board is not, by and large, representative of the mainstream, general media space of America, it is perhaps the farthest thing from it.

[Thirdfain]

How does the Democrat Party become left simply because they are slightly left of Republicans? If American politics do not have any meaningful power that is left, perhaps it is relevant when talking about American politics.

Because usage is the most important part of language, and in US discussions, the Democrat party's agenda, which includes a large number of what would be called Social-Democrat positions in Europe, is referred to as the Left.

An oligarchy is better simply because it is competitive? How does this follow? Two thugs competing for power over the media are better than one? I do not think that by multiplying the number of "oligopolistic" thugs on top or increasing the competition between them the situation is improved in any fashion, and I wonder why would a person even think that. I would assume a sensible person would say that there is little difference for the common person to have a semi-competitive oligarchy controlling the media, or a single entity.

On the contrary, the semi-competitive oligarchy provides a variety of viewpoints and allows for public debate on a huge number of matters. Rather than having a single government-controlled source of information, there are numerous sources of propaganda, news, and information.

Also, the American system provides for the existence and legal propagation of a huge number of smaller publications aimed at a vast number of audiences; any political view or course of action can be espoused, and the powers-that-be can not quash them with government force because the law forbids direct intervention of the government into free speech. Organizing the media along Socialist principles by definition puts the dissemination of information into the hands of a centralized organization, which is free to use it to whatever ends it desires. Russia's own experience with the matter is pretty illustrative of that problem. Eventually, the media was no more than a completely untrustworthy propaganda establishment which had no one who could legally call them on their bullshit. At least in our little oligarchy, whoever controls the White House can't just shut down any dissenting voices.

This is far, far from optimal- but it beats the shit out of every major socialized media system in history.

IP said that the reaction was not that the war was wrong and should be immediately ended and the people who caused it put under trial. Painting the war as a quagmire is not the same as painting it as a fundamental wrong. Besides, people only started painting it as a quagmire when it de-facto BECAME one.

I lack the time or resources to gather every single article on the matter, but I'd heard a huge number of arguments, often from media sources, which I was linked to by this very website which decried the war as fundamentally and morally wrong, both from Republican non-interventionist parties and from Democrat moralist parties.

The idea that preemptive war is just plain wrong is hardly a fringe belief in the United States, especially among the most educated segments of society.

[K. A. Pital]

Because usage is the most important part of language, and in US discussions, the Democrat party's agenda, which includes a large number of what would be called Social-Democrat positions in Europe, is referred to as the Left.

The Democratic party can't even make up their minds on creating universal healthcare and education. Their party is way to the right of European SD.

On the contrary, the semi-competitive oligarchy provides a variety of viewpoints and allows for public debate on a huge number of matters. Rather than having a single government-controlled source of information, there are numerous sources of propaganda, news, and information.

Okay. How does a variety of viewpoints help when neither of those viewpoints is beneficial to the commoner? Oligarchy allows for public debate (and actually, so does the single-entity, be it government-controlled, church-controlled or a private organization) only so as long as said debate is not threatening the existence of the oligarcy or its power. However, in all cases where a member of the oligarchy, no matter how low-ranked, enters into a conflict with the society, social activists get dealt with. As a recent example, there has been a string of murders and murder attempts that let people (activists and journalists) utterly disfigured in the Khimki suburb of Moscow, where the government was planning to cut out the forest to get bribes and kickbacks from private entities who would then control the area cleared for construction. It did not really matter at all for the people that there was a huge number of various oligarchic thugs involved in the operation, and some of them had conflicting interests. A conflict of interest may also happen in a single organization. If each of the oligarchs is not close to being benevolent, there is no functional difference between one evil oligarch and ten. Their infighting would only exacerbate the problem, as it would lead to mafia wars.

Also, the American system provides for the existence and legal propagation of a huge number of smaller publications aimed at a vast number of audiences; any political view or course of action can be espoused, and the powers-that-be can not quash them with government force because the law forbids direct intervention of the government into free speech.

I applause that. In fact, I have not argued against free speech here, I said that an oligarchy-controlled media is not free speech and is in no way better than a state propaganda arm (in fact, even worse in some aspects, because the state is a social-contract organization meant to service the people, the private company is not meant to service all citizens' interests, merely those of its shareholders). Isn't mainstream media so tightly concentrated that it is, effectively, controlled by the oligarchy? I mean, yeah, there are alternative venues like websites and stuff, but how many people actually read them? In my view, they have no greater influence on real politics than kitchen-talk, pardon my utterly Russian comparison.

I lack the time or resources to gather every single article on the matter, but I'd heard a huge number of arguments, often from media sources, which I was linked to by this very website which decried the war as fundamentally and morally wrong, both from Republican non-interventionist parties and from Democrat moralist parties. The idea that preemptive war is just plain wrong is hardly a fringe belief in the United States, especially among the most educated segments of society.

In the very beginning, the public opinion was heavily slated towards support of the war. Do you really believe this is possible just on it's own, without heavy media brainwashing?


There is also a good article which details the failure (and I'd say, utter failure) of the U.S. media regarding the Iraq war:
http://north-america.waccglobal.org/New ... q-war.html

In January 2003, ‘68% expressed the belief that Iraq played an important role in September 11, with 13% even expressing the clearly mistaken belief that ‘conclusive evidence’ of such a link had been found’ (Kull et al, p. 2). The end of major bombing in Iraq, or what is generally referred to as the war’s end, was declared on 1 May 2003. Following that time, in June-September 2003, PIPA found a slight decline in perception of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, but the figure remained at a remarkably high 57%. Another striking finding was that even immediately after the war had ended, with no WMDs found nor evidence produced of an ongoing WMD program, 34% of Americans said they believed that the U.S. forces had ‘found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction’ (Kull et al, p. 4).1

The heavy reliance on official sources by the major U.S. television news networks during the war was documented in a study conducted by the media watchdog organization, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). The study covered news programs during a three-week period following the first day of bombing in Iraq (20 March 2003) on six television networks and news channels: ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports, Fox’s Special Report with Brit Hume, and PBS’s NewsHour with Jim Leher. The following are among the notable findings of the study, which focused exclusively on news stories about Iraq:

* A total of 1,617 on-camera sources (interviewees) appeared in the stories.
* 63% of all sources were current and former government employees, either civilian or military, more than half of whom were current or former U.S. officials.
* U.S. sources comprised 76% of the total.
* 64% of all sources, and 71% of U.S. sources, supported the war.
* 10% of all sources were opposed to the war, but only 3% of U.S. sources did so. The latter finding contrasts with polls that found 27% of U.S. citizens opposed the war.

So no. I believe IP is correct on this. And you should really think why such a small percentage of people had a correct understanding of the war. The US media not only completely bought all the lies about the Iraq war, it massively propagandized them and opposing vierpoints were a drop in the bucket at the time of the invasion.

[Samuel]

Your own position as a socialist has jack shit to do with this, by the way, because socialists have pretty much zero capacity to change the American political system. I don't give three fucks about your personal political bugaboos. I want these problems fixed within the framework we have because I actually want to see them fixed, not ranted about by pamphlet-waving keyboard jockeys.

His point is that they cannot be fixed within America's current framework.

I spent much of the Bush administration in college, and I heard a lot more leftist hysteria than rightist; and now that I'm out of school and getting most of my information from mainstream news sources, I'm hardly hearing a similar outpouring of vitriol on President Obama and his policies. So at least from my perspective, the "Leftist" machine was far more effective particularly during the vital formative years of a member of the educated classes than the Tea Party is doing now.

You do realize the logical (and blatantly idiotic) flaw in that argument- assuming that both sides are equally bad. Bush:
-invaded a foreign country without cause
-okayed torture
-banned federal support for stem cell research
-fucked up Katrina
-managed to piss off Iran and make them oppose us
-managed to piss off everyone
-ended efforts to promote family planning with foreign aid
-promoted abstience only
-expanded police powers and then ignored the warrent restrictions
-held people without trial
-sponsered faith based iniatives
-endorsed Federal Marriage Amendment
-downplayed global warming and tried to get scientists to do the same
-produced the highest defecit in US history
-banned partial birth abortions
-opposed Euthanasia
-put a tarrif on Canadian steel and lumber
-tax cuts
-repealed estate tax

Maybe Obama will manage to be as bad. But lets be honest- he has pretty big shoes to fill.

I've always found socialists pretty funny when they rail against monopolies, because there is no monopoly more powerful than a centralized government. And you want EVERYTHING to be directed by a centralized government? Better a semi-competitive oligopolistic conglomerate than the Central Committee For Information.

Government monopolies are different from private monopolies. Even if you assume the government is not efficient compared to the market under a monopoly the optimal strategy is to restrict supply to drive up price. The government doesn't do that because the managers don't really care how well the company does.

[Simon_Jester]

I applause that. In fact, I have not argued against free speech here, I said that an oligarchy-controlled media is not free speech and is in no way better than a state propaganda arm (in fact, even worse in some aspects, because the state is a social-contract organization meant to service the people, the private company is not meant to service all citizens' interests, merely those of its shareholders). Isn't mainstream media so tightly concentrated that it is, effectively, controlled by the oligarchy? I mean, yeah, there are alternative venues like websites and stuff, but how many people actually read them? In my view, they have no greater influence on real politics than kitchen-talk, pardon my utterly Russian comparison.

Out of curiosity, in your opinion what keeps the media relatively more functional in democracies outside the US, where it is still by and large owned by rich people?

[Thanas]

You do realize the logical (and blatantly idiotic) flaw in that argument- assuming that both sides are equally bad. Bush: Obama
-invaded a foreign country without cause - perpetuated that war and still has not managed to stabilize Iraq while shielding the crminals
-okayed torture - still operates torture centers and still uses rendition to countries that torture while shielding the criminals
-banned federal support for stem cell research
-fucked up Katrina - messed up Golf Spill, though to a much lower degree
-managed to piss off Iran and make them oppose us - continues with that
-managed to piss off everyone - approval rating of Bush II
-ended efforts to promote family planning with foreign aid
-promoted abstience only
-expanded police powers and then ignored the warrent restrictions - Does exactly that
-held people without trial - same thing here, plus also announced that he would kill US citizens without trial
-sponsered faith based iniatives
-endorsed Federal Marriage Amendment
-downplayed global warming and tried to get scientists to do the same - admits problem exist, but has not done anything
-produced the highest defecit in US history - His deficit is even worse, though admittedly not entirely his fault
-banned partial birth abortions
-opposed Euthanasia
-put a tarrif on Canadian steel and lumber
-tax cuts - which he has not repealed
-repealed estate tax - which he has not reinstated

Maybe Obama will manage to be as bad. But lets be honest- he has pretty big shoes to fill.

For two years in, he has managed to do quite a lot, I say.

[Bakustra]

I applause that. In fact, I have not argued against free speech here, I said that an oligarchy-controlled media is not free speech and is in no way better than a state propaganda arm (in fact, even worse in some aspects, because the state is a social-contract organization meant to service the people, the private company is not meant to service all citizens' interests, merely those of its shareholders). Isn't mainstream media so tightly concentrated that it is, effectively, controlled by the oligarchy? I mean, yeah, there are alternative venues like websites and stuff, but how many people actually read them? In my view, they have no greater influence on real politics than kitchen-talk, pardon my utterly Russian comparison.

Out of curiosity, in your opinion what keeps the media relatively more functional in democracies outside the US, where it is still by and large owned by rich people?

The presence of prominent, publicly-owned news media services, like the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporations, France Televisions, and ARD in Germany . Apart from the question of whether serving the public interest directly affects the professionalism of the reporters, they are not as tightly motivated by profits and therefore do not have the pressure towards sensationalism that private media have. One particular advantage is that these services are not directly operated by the government, but are instead government-owned limited corporations, which limits the control that the government has. Of course, this is still dependent on a functioning public, but it could be argued that the news media in the US is complicit in damaging the functionality of the American public. At least, that's what I think.

The US does have PBS, which is marginalized, comes under regular attack, and is not known for its news programs. But it still remains the most trusted public institution in the country. Odd, that. EDIT: Its major news program, Newshour, does have about 2.7 million viewers daily, though.

*snip* approval ratings *snip*

I will dispute that being particularly meaningful. Clinton had similar numbers at around this time.

[D.Turtle]

[Out of curiosity, in your opinion what keeps the media relatively more functional in democracies outside the US, where it is still by and large owned by rich people?

In addition to what Bakustra said, I'll add that we don't have such a dominant (in the US not by viewership, but by influence) 24-hour news media. The major sources for news are still newspapers, magazines, radio, and regular news broadcasts once a day of about 15 minutes or so. We don't have the commentary style daily broadcasts or talk radio either.

This does not mean that there isn't sensationalism, but there is a lot less.

I would also add that there is a lot higher expectation of journalistic integrity from journalists themselves. A Fox News-like propaganda channel would be quite unthinkable here.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Ironically, it seems in democracies with a right wing slant, demogogy is more common in the news media?

[Shroom Man 777]

Media is like any other industry and caters to the wants and needs of audiences/customers. If audiences want celebrity shit, then the media will focus on that, like our news channels that are just jam packed of loser Filipino celebrities nobody gives a fuck about. If audiences want ring wing ideologically correct lies, then the media will focus on that, like Fox? The media becomes politicized and inaccurate because the people themselves have become politicized and inaccurate? Comparing media should also include comparing the people who watch the media, and the sociocultural whatevers inherent to those different people.

[Bakustra]

Media is like any other industry and caters to the wants and needs of audiences/customers. If audiences want celebrity shit, then the media will focus on that, like our news channels that are just jam packed of loser Filipino celebrities nobody gives a fuck about. If audiences want ring wing ideologically correct lies, then the media will focus on that, like Fox? The media becomes politicized and inaccurate because the people themselves have become politicized and inaccurate? Comparing media should also include comparing the people who watch the media, and the sociocultural whatevers inherent to those different people.

PBS Newshour goes in-depth and avoids sensationalism, and draws as many viewers as O'Reilly. So I think that any such differences are minimal. This also only applies if you consider the news as identical to commercial industries. I consider it more like a public utility. I don't support banning private media, but I do support a viable, prominent public media.

[Thanas]

I would also add that there is a lot higher expectation of journalistic integrity from journalists themselves. A Fox News-like propaganda channel would be quite unthinkable here.

Indeed and when Murdoch tried it, he was pretty much told by the entire political establishment to go screw himself.

Another thing is that in a multi-party system, there is no real incentive to become a demagoge unless you want to be relegated to a national joke. It does not really benefit any party to demonize another party because chances are you are going to need them to form a coalition in the near future.

[Hillary]

It does not really benefit any party to demonize another party because chances are you are going to need them to form a coalition in the near future.

That's an interesting point for us in the UK, as for the first time in living memory* we now have a proper coalition government. The Tories and (especially) the Lib Dems are having to backtrack significantly on a lot of what their parties stated in the campaign. If (and it's a big if) we actually get some form of PR installed during this parliament, the parties will have to think long and hard about how they campaign in future to avoid a repeat.



*The Liberals propped up the Callaghan government for a brief period, but it was hardly what could be called a proper coalition.