Ranger:
Good to see you taking the time, man!
Re: Are these people conservative...
You wrote:
In my opinion, the only conservative network is Fox. They claim to be fair and balanced but they aren't. They lean conservative
Glad to see you've taken the first step to salvation, my brother... But like most Americans you are still living under the misconception that the networks are somehow "liberal". We have to establish certain boundaries.
Reagan proudly proclaimed "communism is dead" (as if it had ever lived in the industrialized world; Russia was stuck at the "dictatorship of the proletariate" stage, and was never able to evolve/devolve, depending on your point of view, to the point where it was true communism).
As a result, our vision of the spectrum of reasonable political discourse shifted to the right. Suddenly, becasue there was no communism to represent the far left, liberal democrats -- ala Roosevelt in the 1930's -- were viewed as the most left folks you'd hang out with or even consider as legitimate thinkers.
During the Depression Franklin D. Roosevelt put salary caps on folks, forced his fellow rich countryclub boys to belly up to the bar and put Americans to work building dams, roads, and other public projects that enhanced the value of the entire country for all, and promoted the social security system that so many of our parents and grandparents depend upon to this day, and I look forward to collecting. Unionization expanded. Average americans went to work, and got paid a reasonable wage.
That was totally liberal for those days, but many of his ideas became mainstream for the next 40-some years , until Ronnie showed up.
(Oh, and by the way, all Republican defense mongers, it was a Democrat who was at the helm throughout the single greatest economic recovery in the 20th century. A Democrat in a wheelchair led us back from the greatest economic collapse this country had ever seen, to eventual victory in World War II, with a Democrat -- Harry Truman -- pushing the button, twice, unfortunately. Downer... But I digress...)
Let's keep in mind, Nixon -- no liberal by virtually anyone's definition -- signed the legislation that gave women the right to choose in this country in the 1970's. Nixon did a price freeze in 1971 or 72? THAT was a conservative guy in the 70's.
And then Ronne came along.
Instead of government being used as a safeguard to insure that greedy rich boys don't starve their workers and fellow citizens to death in the name of increasing profit margins, we saw the privitization of historically public domain resources, like power and water companies. Government became the periah.
I bought into that shit too.
But the point is, we're looking through a viewer that will only allow a minority of the total spectrum of political thought to be discussed. We're about as open minded as many cultures, but some ideas -- eating the rich, for example -- are just outside of the polite discussion. And "liberal" and "conservative" can only be discussed in terms of "in comparison to what?"
And our view of philosophical/political options is always sliding along a scale of left extreme (no money, no religion) to the right extreme (a couple of guys own everything and force others to work to make them more money). Like running a 4 inch wide open ended box along a 12 inch ruler.
(TANGENT: Fellow Americans... Here's how we are insensitive. I just gave an example in inches. The majority of the planet, and this readership, possibly, is on the decimal system. Much easier to master. Much cleaner. Much more intuitive. But when they said we were going to start learning the decimal system in order to join the rest of the world and agree on something when I was in 7th grade (1972-3), if memory serves me well, nothing happened.)
So, for stupid fellow Americans who can't visualize metrics, at any given moment you can only see 4 inches to 8 inches. And over time, that 4 inches slides to 3 to 7, or 4 to 8, or in extreme circumstances, slides far left into 1-4 (Russian Revolution; and for it's time, (1776) the American revolution). Or far right, 8-12 (Hitler/Megacaptialist Favoritism
http://www.encyclopaediabritannica.com/ebc/article?eu=389545&query=fascism&ct=)
You are most assuredly right that Fox is the most conservative of the big few, but the others are "liberal"? If that were the case, wouldn't they be more confrontational towards the current administration?
The average reporter on any of the networks does no invastigative work. He/she reads statements prepared by white house staffers and ads in a snappy quip about the presidential dog or the like to differentiate from the others. So maybe they aren't conservative at heart, but they're conservative by proxy.
They all keep their mouths shut so they can still be invited to press conferences, with the only consistent dessenter being ex white house correspondent Grandma Helen Thomas.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0880200.html) who has covered EVERY PRESIDENT SINCE KENNEDY FOR UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL (UPI) and others.
(For the unitiated, UPI and AP were the 2 primary sources local newspapers got that national and international news from for most of the 20th century.)
Bottom line, the gal is our grandmother, and she is the only one that has the courage to ask hard questions -- not even "liberal" ones, just probing for facts -- and she's no longer allowed to show at press conferences.
And anchor interviewers are worse than the beat reporters.
When's the last time you heard an interviewer push hard questions about socialized medicine, or union development, or investor/consumer protection, or expressed outrage over the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer?
Jennings called Michael Moore's statement's about Bush's military record "unfounded and reckless". Is that liberal?
Dan Rather hasn't asked a hard question since Afghanastan Vs the Russians.
Wolf Blitzer?! That headline grabber was on The Daily Show and Stewart fronted him out about CNN's/Network's soft treatment of Bush in the days before we invaded Iraq. His only response, "groupthink", and he was sorry, and he's hoping they'll do better.
Larry King: He's the guy that most of the intrenched in power go to first. Why do you think that is? Because he asks such hard questions? Stewart kicked his ass on his own show. Made him his bitch.
Roony's a joke. He's not a player in any political or commentary circles. He's never written a book. All he's done in the past 20 years is collect shit in his office and talk about how letters sure are shaped funny. Maybe humourous in a giant hairy eyebrows kind of way, but in no way influental, and not particularly thoughtful.
There's not a single one of them who asks questions like the reporters of the 1960's did, or that Nader is currently addressing. And no, he's not presidential material. But he's the only one speaking in worker/consumer oriented terms with consistency. And whenever he does get coverage, he's treated like a lunatic. Goofy looking? Maybe, but his arguments are always sound and attempt to bring more power into more people's hands.
The only one talking like FDR would talk.
I'll give the majors the nodd that they're only a bit right of center, but their behavior in no way indicates a substantial liberal bias when you look at the Fascist ideas that get airplay, virtually no real communist/socialist ones do.
Re: Obscure research. I try to get as close to the primary source as possible. You know, the ones that the media researchers are supposed to keep up with, but always tend to catch up to months or years after the fact. (See weapons of mass distruction, Iraq.)
Who do think is the most outrageous nutball left winger out there? Newsperson, or social commentator?
:hatsoff:
