Tag Archives: Big Media/Big Tech
The Social Snobbery of Free Trade
7 March 2011
Mr. Ian Fletcher
Dear Ian:
In your latest essay at The Huffington Post, you allege that supporters of free trade are guilty of “social snobbery” (“The Social Snobbery of Free Trade,” March 7). You offer three, and only three, pieces of evidence for this proposition. The first is a quotation from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, and the second is a quotation from Barack Obama – each suggesting that working-class people too quickly blame trade for whatever economic misfortunes they suffer. The third piece of evidence is the fact that, while most members of the mainstream media are center-left on a majority of issues, they are well-paid and “lean right” on trade.
You masterfully massacre a straw man. Contrary to your explicit claim in the case of Friedman, and your implication in the case of Obama, the pronouncements of economically confused journalists and professional politicians aren’t even remotely appropriate examples of the best arguments for free trade.
Here’s a challenge for you. Search for examples of snobbery in the arguments for free trade made by scholars such as Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Jagdish Bhagwati, Henry George, Daniel Griswold, Douglas Irwin, Fritz Machlup, Martin Wolf, and other economists and researchers who are recognized authorities on trade. You’ll come up empty. (Note: pointing out that many people do not understand economics is not an instance of snobbery.)
If nothing else, you have chutzpah to pin the label “snobs” on free traders – who argue that individuals ought simply be left free to spend their money in whatever ways they choose – while you promote a policy of giving third-party strangers in Washington the power to obstruct, for some allegedly higher good, these private, individual consumption choices.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
(Read more from cafehayek.com)
Dick Morris’s notable exclusion
So, if you had to guess which much-discussed potential Republic presidential candidate was excluded from Dick Morris’s review of contenders, who would it be?
Here’s a clue from this Hannity interview:
Still confused?
Here Peter Schiff interview Dick Morris, who quits the interview, and mentions the unmentioned man — RON PAUL.
I think this interview reveals that Dick Morris, like most Republicans favored by big media, wants to replace Obama’s socialism with their own brand of socialism.
So it should be no surprise that Morris ignores true anti-socialist, Ron Paul. Ignoring Dr. Paul seems to be a common tactic:
Washington Post’s debate commentary 2007 excluded Ron Paul
Glenn “Bandwagon” Beck’s poll excluded Ron Paul
BBC’s election guide excluded Ron Paul
And the list goes on, and on, and on.
Check out my two earlier posts for more:
Censoring Ron Paul (then and now)
Censoring Ron Paul – Why the rEVOLution will not be televised
Hillary Clinton: “Our private media cannot fill that gap.”
Hillary Clinton was defending her department budget in front of the U.S. Foreign Policy Priorities committee this morning on C-Span.
She says a major reason the State Department needs money is because “we are in an information war and we are losing that war.”
Clinton said private media is not good enough to handle the job: “Our private media cannot fill that gap. Our private media, particularly cultural programming often works at counter purposes to what we truly are as Americans. I remember having an Afghan general tell me that the only thing he thought about Americans is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around in bikinis because the only TV he ever saw was Baywatch and World Wide Wrestling.”
Meanwhile she says Al-Jazeera, CCTV and Russia Today are killing it: “Al Jazeera is winning. The Chinese have opened up a global English language and multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English language network. I’ve seen it in a couple of countries and it’s quite instructive.”
Clinton says she is leading an effort to spread U.S. propaganda through new media, with twitter feeds in Arabic and Farsi.
She warns that Republicans want to cut the State Department budget by half. (Read more from businessinsider.com)
Arrest of CIA Agent Sheds Light on American Covert War in Pakistan, Straining U.S.-Pakistani Relations
Democracy Now is leans socialists on most issue. They propose government force as a solution to most problems. However, like many socialists, they are right about the problems, they just propose the wrong solutions.
* U.S. media goes along with the government lie.
FCC’s Copps calls on agency to address decline of ‘real journalism’
Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps made a case for a government hand in media policy in a speech to the FCBA on Tuesday.
“The commission can act now. It should have acted on the media before now. I am disappointed that it has not,” he said.
The decline of “real journalism” justifies federal involvement, according to Copps. “The news is suffering from a bad case of substance abuse,” he said.
The Democratic commissioner pointed to Fox News’ Bernie Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly as examples of the problem with today’s media landscape, saying the pair has taken his own words out of context.
“What you and I are getting these days is too much opinion based on opinion and too little news based on fact,” Copps said.
The key going forward, according to Copps, is “making sure there is media about, and originating from, the local communities a station serves.” […]
The commissioner also reiterated his call for a “Public Value Test” as part of the broadcasting license renewal, a process controlled by the FCC.
We have, as a country, tolerated the multiple infringements on “Congress shall pass no law” for far too long. No government official should ever be in the business of enforcing quality of journalism, and when one tries, he–and the agency he represents–should be run out of Washington on a rail. This is appalling on every level, and the fact that there’s a journalistic constituency for it–read this awful commencement speech last year by Columbia Journalism School Dean and New Yorker essayist Nicholas Lemann for a taste–makes me deeply ashamed of my chosen profession. (Read more from reason.com)
Stossel & Ron Paul: opting out of government
Ha! Fox “News” Apologizes for CPAC anti-Ron Paul deception
I don’t believe it was a mistake.
Here is the video which exposed the deception.
SA@TAC – Conservatives Hijack CPAC
Fox news uses last year’s footage to disguise support for Ron Paul!
Those bastards!
Fake vs. real popular movements — Iraq & Egypt
The Tea Party, The Patriot Act, and Big Media confusion over the breakdown of the left-right paradigm
One of my predictions for 2009 was the breakdown of the left-right paradigm. In retrospect, I think it only became evident in the minds of the many people joining the liberty movement. This is certainly significant. Perhaps these headlines are evidence of the breakdown finally spreading to the media.
www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/02/08/rachel-maddow-in-shock-tea-partiers-defeat-patriot-act/
Rachel Maddow is using her “report” on the Republican tea caucus blocking the extension of the PATRIOT Act to replay her “interview” with Rand Paul, and rail about abortion. Rant all you want, Rachel, but people are noticing that you haven’t even mentioned the Act several minutes into your tirade.
. . . .
UPDATE: Oh, and by the way, hours after the PATRIOT Act went down to defeat, Matt Drudge has yet to report it. Instead, we have the red-hot news that a Texas school district is having second thoughts about making the study of Arabic mandatory.
UPDATE 2: On the other side of the divide, the newly-AOL-ized Huffington Post headlines: “Beyond Left and Right: House Defeats Patriot Act Extension,” but the story doesn’t live up to its billing. Rep. Dennis Kucinich is quoted, but not a single Republican who voted “nay,” and the phrase “tea party” is nowhere to be found. Beyond left and right? Not quite.
UPDATE 3: The Washington Post got it right, for once:
“House Republicans suffered an embarrassing setback Tuesday when they fell seven votes short of extending provisions of the Patriot Act, a vote that served as the first small uprising of the party’s tea-party bloc.” (Read more from antiwar.com)
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The Tea Party and civil liberties
It’s long been clear that the best (and perhaps only) political hope for civil liberties in the U.S. is an alliance that transcends the standard Democrat v. GOP or left v. right dichotomies. Last night’s surprising (and temporary) failure of the House to extend some of the most controversial powers of the Patriot Act — an extension jointly championed by the House GOP leadership and the Obama White House — perfectly illustrates why this is true.
. . . .
But what happened last night highlights the potential to subvert the two-party stranglehold on these issues — through a left-right alliance that opposes the Washington insiders who rule both parties. So confident was the House GOP leadership in commanding bipartisan support that they put the Patriot Act extension up for a vote using a fast-track procedure that prohibits debate and amendments and, in return, requires 2/3 approval. But 26 of the most conservative Republicans — including several of the newly elected “Tea Party” members — joined the majority of Democratic House members in voting against the extension, and it thus fell 7 votes short. These conservative members opposed extension on the ground that more time was needed to understand whether added safeguards and oversight are needed.
The significance of this event shouldn’t be overstated. The proposed Patriot Act extension still commanded support from a significant majority of the House (277-148), and will easily pass once the GOP leadership brings up the bill for a vote again in a few weeks using the standard procedure that requires only majority approval. The vast majority of GOP members, including the leading Tea Party representatives, voted for it. The Senate will easily pass it. And the scope of the disagreement even among the Democrats opposing it is very narrow; even most of the “no” votes favor extending these provisions, albeit with the types of tepid safeguards proposed by Leahy. So in one sense, what happened last night — as is true for most political “victories” — was purely symbolic. The White House will get what it wants. (Read more from salon.com)
AP: Dow closes higher for the seventh straight day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111
The Dow Jones industrial average closed higher for the seventh consecutive day Tuesday. That’s the longest series of gains for the index since July.
McDonald’s Corp. was the biggest gainer of the 30 stocks in the Dow, rising 2.6 percent after reporting January sales that were higher than analysts expected. (Read more from news.yahoo.com)
IT’S THE INFLATION, STUPID!
CNN pushes Muslim Brotherhood angle on Egypt protests
I think the following picture is a much more accurate depiction of the protests:
Schiff, Southern Avenger on the State of the Union
* State of the Union will be known as delusional once the collapse comes.
* Congressional Budget Office upgrades this year’s deficit projection by $400 billion. (So much for Obama’s $100 million cut.)
* President’s central planning — education, high speed trains, etc. — is wasteful central planning. No one knows future.
* Fed voted unanimously to do more of the same: quantitative easing, 0% interest. Full steam ahead on financial suicide. Fed printing will soon eclipse tax revenue.
* Government panel on financial crises was a complete farce. Financial crises was used as excuse to grow government. Concluded housing bubble *not* caused by Freddie, Fanny, low interest, government forcing banks to make bad loans. Panel concluded instead it was a lack of regulation.
(Here the NY Times gives voice to the inquiries fraudulent findings.)
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Jack Hunter notes the response to the State of the Union, and the palpable shift of conservative rhetoric away from war and toward fiscal sanity:
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See also, Visualizing Obama’s Budget Cut:
“The president’s team is going to take 90 days to find some way to take this [1/4 of one penny], out of that [those thousands of pennies on right].”
I think an excellent start would be firing the team.