This isn't a matter of opinion...

[kpete]

FRI JUN 15, 2012 AT 08:00 AM PDT
This isn't a matter of opinion
byJed Lewison

?1339766579

Dear media:
This paragraph from today's New York Times editorial isn't opinion, it's fact...

Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites. The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.) The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.) Spending is out of control. (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents.) He says these kinds of things so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/opinion/the-political-contrast.html

...and it's okay for journalists to report on Romney's lies as if they were news.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/15/1100255/-This-isn-t-a-matter-of-opinion

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Can hardly believe that even appeared in the NYTimes.

[Wounded Bear]

2. I would extend that statement to the whole Repub party.

It's pretty much how they operate, coupled with their standard projection line of accusing their opponents of the same.

[snappyturtle]

3. I'll bet that if we knew more about the newscasters and their

corporations behind them we'd fully understand why the
rmoney lies are not only spread but tolerated.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Conservatives lie, that's how you can spot them.

Unrepentant liars who lie with ease and when confronted with the lie, they just lie some more. That's the mark of the right wing.

[rhett o rick]

7. I am convinced that they are all sciopaths. They lie even when the truth would do. nm

[madashelltoo]

5. Rmoney's lies are so blatant and abundant that

the media is getting squeamish about standing directly behind him. They will be hit with the shit from the fan too. They might not run a campaign of calling Money on his lies, but they want it on record that they did mention it. The lies can only support Rmoney so far, and then, oops. The sleeping people wake up and smell something rotten . . . real rotten. All of them have lied from time to time, but this guy's entire schtick is a string of lies that make absolutely no sense. Plus, the public is starting to chant that the media has become an echo chamber for his lies, implicating them in the scheme. I read somewhere this morning (dailykos most likely) that several media outlets have reported on the Rmoney lies today.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/14/1100010/-Republicans-say-job-killer-Traditional-media-fails-to-challenge-or-fact-check-Then-repeats-it

[grantcart]

6. This election really is a referendum on whether or not the American media is worth shit or not.

[Wounded Bear]

8. True that ^...nt

[abelenkpe]

9. It's not nt

[malthaussen]

12. Funny how that came about

'twas not so long ago that every town had a newspaper with its own political slant, and you were free to support the one that said what you wanted to hear. 'twas not so long ago that reporters reported, rather than smiled and read stuff that was handed them by people behind the scenes. You can't blame it all on money -- thought the temptation is there -- it's not as though the liberals don't have some money, too. Not all rich people are corporate fascists, but somehow the ones that aren't have lost their voices, except in unusual circumstances.

-- Mal

[Uncle Joe]

16. I believe you can blame it all on the corruptive power of money and not just from Citizens United

but the money required to own and run a television network which came about long before the CU decision.

I don't believe it to be a coincidence that the First Amendment came under direct attack from the McCarthy Era witch hunts with the rise of television's "Golden Age."

Capitalism became the predominant train of thought over any notion of democracy as to what the nation stood for in the national conversation promoted by the owners of this powerful, one way, top down megaphone, democracy was only primarily used as a propaganda, fig leaf to wage war.

Television; magnified McCarthy's power and when his usefulness had expired that medium lead the way in tearing him down.

By taking those "every town newspapers" and consigning their legion of information gathering and dissemination ability to a handful of national television networks and media conglomerates, the American Peoples' deliberative ability and choices were placed in to an ever shrinking mental box.

Within this box the Democratic and Republican Parties have been squeezed and pushed in to an acceptable right wing, corporate supremacist, privatized everything is good, public is bad only conversation and in turn ideology.

The primary difference being the Republican power structure is outright owned and certifiably insane while the Democratic Party is only dominated, they have essentially become hard sell versus soft sell in regards to corporate supremacy but they're heading down the same path.

The one silver lining with the potential to alter or expand this limited corruptive, fascist leading dynamic of centralized thought, conversation, deliberation and dissemination of information is the the Internet but that's also why many of the same plutocratic, corporate supremacist actors are busy attacking the people power of the Internet by whatever means possible in order to weaken or control it.

The people must remain forever vigilant.

--Joe

[malthaussen]

17. Fundamentally we agree

But the corruptive power of money has always been present, yet wasn't able to achieve dominance as it clearly has now. Centralizing the media and creating television dominance of information enabled the possessors of money to more-efficiently project that power, but what leaves me wondering is why the "good" side weren't able to create a corresponding niche. Somewhere along the line, I think the fanaticism and organizational ability of the Right as compared to the diffuse, often flaccid organizational ability on the Left has to be taken into account.

-- Mal

[Uncle Joe]

18. Yes, centralization of the media

not only had a magnifying effect on the corruptive power of money but the the business model itself created an extremely friendly environment if not paradise for the money first mentality crowd to flourish.

If a "good side" created a niche in such an environment, they would either be bought out, passed over, marginalized or fired.

In the end the sheer cost of running television especially on a national scale as a network or conglomerate combined with Wall Street's idolization of short term profit doomed TV to being predominately if not only about the money.

As an institution,"show me the money" is their true motto, and a "good side" stands about as much chance in that arena as a pacifist in a gladiator fight.

--Joe

[cliffordu]

14. Yep.

[uponit7771]

19. +1!

[AnotherMcIntosh]

10. That's not the entire foundation. He also supports the pending wage-lowering "free-trade" agreement

Trans-Pacific negotiations have been taking place throughout the Obama presidency. The deal is strongly supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the top lobbying group for American corporations. Obama's Republican opponent in the 2012 presidential elections, Mitt Romney, has urged the U.S. to finalize the deal as soon as possible.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/obama-trade-document-leak_n_1592593.html

The super-rich will continue to support Rmoney and other Republicans who support shipping more American jobs to foreign countries for the benefit for those who have invested in and receive their money from Wall Street.

[hfojvt]

11. except two of those three seem to be true

"the stimulus failed" - well if failed to create a vibrant recovery - because it was not big enough, and because it relied too much of tax cuts, and because it was not continued, but it still did fail.

"Spending is out of control" - Well, if that is false, isn't that largely due to the Republican Congress? Further, with the huge deficits of today, it seems like Obama and Democrats are all also saying "the deficits are a big problem" and yet Obama and Democrats seem also to be taking significant tax increases off the table. So we are left with Obama saying 1. The deficit and debt are a problem and 2. We are not going to increase taxes for 95% of taxpayers. Which leads inevitably to 3. We need to cut Government spending.

My point being that people like Pelosi need to quit suggesting that we only reverse the Bush tax cuts for people making less than $1 million a year, and even Obama's threshhold of $250,000 is way too damned high (just like the rent).

[Ghost of Huey Long]

13. Record $$ spent on elections,WE allowed our public airwaves to become corporate manufactured consent

But I wish to warn you now that nothing that has been done up to this date has taken one dime away from these big fortune-holders; they own just as much as they did, and probably a little bit more; they hold just as many of the debts of the common people as they ever held, and probably a little bit more; and unless we, my friends, are going to give the people of this country a fair shake of the dice, by which they will all get something out of the funds of this land, there is not a chance on the topside of this God's eternal earth by which we can rescue this country and rescue the people of this country.

[The Wielding Truth]

15. Surprise.Blatant lies can be seen by those outside the FOX brainwash bubble. Romney is so like Palin