Comments on: Who speaks for justice?

By: arthuralpert

arthuralpert — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:35:46 +0000

Dear Lord, Leonidas, your view of reality is almost as skewed as your tone is vulgar.
It's true that both major parties indulge corporate America. (The GOP is a 99 percent-owned subsidiary. The Democrats harbor a significant minority of, well, democrats, but they rarely prevail in intra-party debates.)
In that context, we see President Obama bolstering corporations in some areas. I don't like it but I understand why – he's trying to avoid a depression and further unemployment. If both are real prospects, and they are, it's in large measure because of deregulation promoted by corporate gifts to our elected representatives and facilitated by libertarian theorists who – guess what? – live well on (more) corporate welfare.
I hope your statement that Obama is looking out for “the interests of Citigroup and AIG” represents ignorance of what would happen to our economy if they were to collapse rather than partisanship or cynicism.
As for Cheney, as a representative of the rightist authoritarian strain in American politics he is not unimportant.Please read the Frank Rich column in the New York Times today, Sunday, May 31, a useful treatment of the former VP's cynical use of 9/11. (Rich's analysis was heartening, a reminder that others share my fear and loathing of Cheney's tactics. I would feel even better if conservatives reacted similarly, but many are soft on neo-fascism.)
You might also benefit from reading babyfatt's informed and carefully reasoned comments below. If, that is, you agree that “informed” and “carefully reasoned” are words of praise.
Arthur Alpert

By: arthuralpert

arthuralpert — Sun, 31 May 2009 18:35:46 +0000

By: arthuralpert

arthuralpert — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:35:46 +0000

By: arthuralpert

arthuralpert — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:35:46 +0000

By: Leonidas56

Leonidas56 — Sat, 30 May 2009 18:29:46 +0000

Dear Lord Arthur where does one begin with this pablum?

Obama is nothing more than a shill for the corporate interests which infect Washington. 600,000 US workers a month are losing their jobs, one out of every eight American homes are either in foreclosure or are 90 days or more behind on their mortgage payments and all Obama can do is look out for the interests of Citigroup and AIG.

But we'd never know that from anything you write as you're to busy attacking Cheney.

By: babyfatt

babyfatt — Fri, 29 May 2009 22:17:05 +0000

When the media assert (as they have done nonstop recently) that we are a "center-right" nation, what they really mean is that they are a center-right media. They mistake what they see in the mirror for "the people."

The radical right wing has been enormously successful in "gaming the refs" (Eric Alterman's term) for the last thirty years, and forcing the media to spin right in order to correct for their own alleged liberal bias. They have allowed themselves to be put on the defensive by the radical right wing of the Republican party, for which cowardice I personally can never forgive them.

Today, the media is fundamentally right wing, even alleged centrists like Broder or liberals like Dionne. Issues are always framed in Reaganesque terms, thus government is by its very nature clumsy and ineffective, while the market is always fundamentally efficient (except when corrupted by a few 'bad apples'); regulation always hampers creativity; deficits are always bad; Social Security is forever in crisis; and other nations respect us only when they fear us.

This right wing frame for every issue is the secret--the Rosetta Stone of our idiocracy--to deciphering everything from Albuquerque Journal headlines to Associated Press "analyses", and 95% of what the punditocracy writes. It is also one of the reasons why the newspaper and magazine industry is dying: it is suffering the death of its own credibility.

The radical right wing of American politics has been shattered by reality. From Iraq, to Katrina, to Wall Street, the philosophy that has guided government and media for the last 30 years has been proven conclusively to be a lie and a sham (and ineffective to boot). That the media have yet to apprehend this reality is the most damning fact of all.