audioguru

The question here is what to think and do about public media being used for ridiculously incorrect statements. Statements that the GOP will fabricate before information is available, and not change one bit after good reliable data is available.

When foul is called and discussions of regulating misinformation are surfacing the GOP mantra becomes all about the constitution and freedom of speech.

The public, especially religiously oriented middle aged people, has been raised to believe in institutions such as the medical community and doctors, our government, and the culpability of the news media to have to provide accurate and well validated stories. If they see it on TV it has to be true or it wouldn't be there. As soon as a politician wants to invoke rhetoric like trickle down economy, drilling for more oil, or erroneous tax and financial numbers these people are geared to believe it, believe in it and back it to the hilt exactly like they back their religion.

So, if people believe public media has to be accurately presented, the information really does have to be accurate. If it's not, misrepresentation becomes fraud because those knowingly perpetrating misinformation are deceiving their people that they know how to manipulate and deceive.

Now take a politician claims he was ignorantly misrepresenting erroneous facts, okay fine, you are then too stupid and ignorant to do the job you were elected to do. Elected office is the highest trust that can be placed on people in this country. They are charged with honestly representing the best wishes of their constituents, not deceiving them into the best interests of wealthy corporations.

Misinformation needs to be stopped hard. We have a country that is rapidly dividing between a well informed side, and an irresponsibly misinformed side.

And while we are on the subject of freedom of speech, the line of disrespect and treason against the President of this country has been trashed by Republicans who are designed to balance government. Whether one party's side has a president or not it is their job to support the office and administration as their job warrants, as a working part of government and good change. Instead Republicans by blatant disrespect and criticism as a strategy support change and taking over, taking back our government. It is represented as the office of president being a hostile takeover meant to destroy the country. There is a line that when crossed should be grounds for immediate removal from office. It is treasonous to obstruct and incite taking over a legally elected administration. A minority of self labeled patriots taking over the president elected by the majority has to be dealt with, so do those politicians openly undermining an administration.

pan6467

Well, when you see people or debate people pulling Limbaughisms or Beck/O'Reilly/Hannity/Levine/etc rhetoric remind them that the only way those guys can afford their private jets and multi million dollar mansions is to sell a pinch of truth with outrageous ambiguous statements that will garner them with ratings and free press because of the controversy they themselves created for ratings. Next ask the person you are debating when was the last time they flew in their own private jet or lived in a mansion with a private theatre watching movies that aren't released yet and BRAGGING about doing so on the air.... all the while trying to sell yourself as middle class and having the same problems with money that their followers have. I can almost guarantee showing them the bullshit will quiet them down. You aren't attacking the person and you are not saying anything these people themselves broadcast for the world to hear. Also point out, Beck failed badly as a Limbaugh clone and now is trying very hard to sell his repackaged manure as a Pat Robertson/everyman wannabe.

And if all else fails ask them if they believe Anne Coulter..... who believes radiation is good for people and only "31 people died in Chernobyl", even Bill O'Reilly tries to get her neck out of the noose. Hoping probably to save his own credibility. Just watch this is seriously funny shit that she is that arrogant and disgusting in her beliefs......



I also think the GOP is shooting themselves in the foot and self destructing. With Ohio, Wisconsin and so on having bad press with their GOP governors who are giving the ultra rich nice tax cuts while screwing everyone else over and trying very hard to destroy unions. The people ain't buying what they are selling anymore. I'd be surprised if Limbaugh/Levine/Hannity/Beck's radio ratings haven't started a decline. But they would just use the old standby.... the Arbitron ratings don't mean much. The monthly book is just a guess. BUT they will be more than happy to shout and praise themselves when they have a good book. These guys are nothing more than the Howard Sterns of politics.... Shock baby shock.

The Democrats did the EXACT same thing against W, and the GOP did it against Clinton, It started with Nixon and Watergate. Nixon did nothing that hadn't been done before. He just got caught and tried to cover everything up. This started the true chasm in US politics. The GOP has been out for blood since. They want to destroy the opposition and have a 1 party system that would have no checks or balances.

Like I said above the GOP aren't even attempting to hide their animosity towards the working class. You are "either with them or shall be destroyed through propaganda and flat out lies".

They are far more closer to dictators and totalitarianism than Obama is Communistic.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

GreyWolf

A lot of the problem lies with our education systems. We simply are not raising our children to think critically, to examine evidence, to decide for themselves. Two of my kids were approached by their schools' debating teams, even though neither had any interest in doing so. They all are prepared to ask questions about what they are being taught and not to blindly accept something because it is in print/on the internet. As an aside, I had an issue with a math teacher who called my son at home to complain her substitute teacher felt uncomfortable because my son was asking questions the supply teacher couldn't answer. I explained to the teacher and principal in a meeting that it was not to happen again. If the any teacher had an issue with him, they were to go to him at school, the principal, then me. The most ridiculous part of the whole thing was that none of the questions were considered out of line by either the regular teacher or the principal.

In any case, for democracy to work well, we need the people to be able to think for themselves.

A second requirement is that there be a reliable source of sound information. Without a media that can get to the core of a subject, that can provide an unbiased overview of a topic, then even the smartest population can be fooled. Look at any country with a high literacy rate, but strict government control of the media. You will find the support for the government's policies to be unreasonably high. Given the number of people in the US who rely on the laughable output of the FOX news network (according to the ratings anyway), it's not surprising that anti-Obama positions are so well received.

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The secret to great marksmanship is deciding what the target was AFTER you've shot.

pan6467

I wrote a book as an original reply agreeing with you for the most part, but lost it in cyber space. I'll just bullet my highlights:

- I agree on education but to improve would require more monies in to the systems, via grants and scholarships (tax free or somehow incentive driven privatized by companies), loans, tuition and book fee frezes (if you want tax payer monies keep college affordable to all or face the fact that no federally or state aided student will be going there, nor will the incentive driven grants and scholarship monies go to those schools). Also, fewer PA's and more professors truly involved in classes.

- Raise the bar on teacher requirements and licensing. Increase pay and benefits to get the creme de la creme into the profession.

- I am sorry to read you and your son went through that. It's unfortunately a snapshot of our educational system today where the students are smarter than the teachers.

- Increase funding for extracurricular activities in colleges and high schools. Make some things like a Chess club, Drama, Foreign language clubs mandatory (if a student wants to go to college they must have participated in either sports and or a club every year in high school).

- I agree that in order to continue our type of government the need is to have individuality, Unfortunately, society dictates that those who think outside the box and for themselves have to be nuts or anti-social.... when the opposite is usually the case.

- I agree with the media, however there are few outlets News Corp, Viacom/CBS, Disney, NBC/Universal, Sirius/XM, Clear Channel (which is privately owned so they don't have to publicly list ownership), ComCast, Westwood One, Gannett, E W Scripps, Reuters and so on. If you dig deeper and look into the ownerships you'll find that ALL of them are owned in part by the same institutional holders, such as State Street, Vanguard, Blackrock, Chase, Bank of America, PNC, Bank of NY/Mellon and so on. Is it coincidental that these same holding companies OWN the financial industry? I don't think so. So as long as we keep allowing this the media will continue to put the same bias on the air as news, literature, movies, tv shows etc. They control almost every aspect of media and financial institutions. The board members most of whom sit on supposed competitors boards also. We cannot allow this to continue if we are to remain a free society and wanting to promote individuality. BUT what can we do? If the government intervenes on behalf of the people these entities just put media out there and brainwash the people to distrust government and follow them. Plus those entities would cry 1st amendment violations of freedom of the press. As long as our news media is a for profit organization,run in part by the same people owning our banks, we will have this problem. The media has proven they can at anytime make us believe that times are good/bad economically. So what would prevent them from doing the same over government, education, health, every aspect of our life.

I am somewhat a conspiracist and paranoidal over government and multinational conglomerates. But as I dug deeper looking into all the ownerships it became apparent what most know to be true. Everything is owned by pretty much the same people, the oil companies, media, clothing, banks, etc. On the other side of the coin lies the arguments so what Institutional holders are just that, they don't have any say, and they invest money into everything they can that will give them a return. But why would Chase own a piece of Bank of America, their competitor? That would be like Henry Ford owning a piece of GM or Chrysler. It boils down to the same things we saw over 100 years ago, anti trust violations and monopolies. only this time, over the past 100 years they own the government and the media (every aspect of it, including the internet providers, websites and so on). If you look deep enough you'll find that these same institutional holders and mutual fund owners pretty much OWN majorities in just about every publicly traded industry. Why?

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

WhoaitsZ

pbs. npr. democracynow.org

ap, reuters, salon even though liberal bias.

also politifact is pure awesome.

educating kids is almost impossible here in ms.. the staff ignore rules of separation of church and state and the kids generally will argue with facts. our country is really, really fucked if we can't get people to separate fact from fiction.

As long as we have Beck or Okeefe are lying 24/7 and people believe them without investigating we are fucked.

I am curious to what news agencies receive the most hits online.

I also do not understand why Okeefe is allowed to continue his practicing journalism. he has devastated a company,, came close to destroying a woman's life, tried to trick a reporter to some kind of sex game and now posted more heavily edited video of the NPR guy..

free speech does not equal the right to slander...

ASU2003

I'm surprised the media never investigates 'The Media'... Why isn't there a documentary on this. The Daily Show tries to do this by showing clips of the most outrageous stuff, but still the saying goes, if you repeat the lies enough, enough people will believe it is the truth.

pan6467

Because the same people that own NBC and CBS and ABC and Fox own pieces of everything and when you add up what they own it's usually (not always) a voting majority. They can name who they want as PD's (program directors), editors, producers and so on. They own the top cable news networks and every other top cable channel. So who is going to do an expose on the media? The National Enquirer, Weekly World News, the NY Times?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"