Media "Control" of the Elections?

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Mike Holmes
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Post by Mike Holmes »

A young man went to work in a factory. After talking with his managers for a while, he became ashamed of his mother who worked for the labor union, convinced that they were trying to bilk the company out of it's profits.

He confronted his mother about it one day, and she said, "Do you work hard at the factory?" The son replied, "Yes, I got employee of the month last month. I've been working overtime when they request me too, and so my social life is suffering. But you taught me to work hard."

"And what about your buddy Frank, the Manager in Accounting?" his mother asked. "Oh, Frank goes golfing most afternoons, and I hear that he really doesn't do much work. But the bosses like him, because he throws good parties."

His mother said, "Well, why don't you take a pay cut, and give it to Frank? That'll ease the inequity of the labor union, right?"

The son retorted, "But I work hard for my money, I deserve it. Frank doesn't!"

The mother slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Democratic party."

-----

Its easy to paint yourself as being more deserving by saying that the other side is lazy. Are liberals lazy because they are trying to get money from the rich? Or are they altruistic because they're trying to give it away to the poor? Are conservatives lazy because they don't want to share with other hard working people, or are they simply sensibly trying to keep the fruits of their labor?

How about we look at the relative effectiveness of the policies, rather than trying to ascribe greed to the other side as the motive?

Mike

jgarry
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Post by jgarry »

[quote="ravingdave"][quote="jgarry"]I withdraw my previous apology. The sky is green, grass is red, Murdoch is liberal.[/quote]

Red States are Blue, and Blue States are Red...

Sorry, this just occured to me or I would have mentioned it earlier.

Red is the color of Communism/Socialism, Blue is the color of Royalty or Nobility. The old Traditional divide between the Left/Right in the Pre-Napoleonic French Legislature. The Peasants and Intellectuals against the Royals and Nobles.


For years, the media alternated the colors used to assign states, but starting with Bill Clinton in 1992, the Media stuck the Republicans with Red, and the Democrats with Blue, and in my observation have stuck with it ever since.

Now I have seen articles on line which state they have alternated since Bill Clinton, but My memory is that they did not do this.

Red is the color of the left , and Blue is the color of the Right.

They should put them back the way they are supposed to be and then leave them alone.

David[/quote]

Not sure what I'm doing wrong with quotes here?
But what did happen here? Surely we bomb throwing lefties are best depicted as red.

jgarry
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:02 pm

Post by jgarry »

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111967642552909.html

Ok here's an example. This recent piece in the WSJ denounces the "funny" business in the hotly contested senate election between Franken and Coleman.
But what is exactly is the funny business supposed to be? All the decisions on the part on the convassing boards and such were unanimous. GOP and Democrats were represented on all these boards. There is no hint on scandal in any of this. Mr Coleman is free to contest the results in court, and perhaps there has been an error in the count. In point of fact I would be surprised if there weren't, considering the complexity of the effort.
But their saying that there is funny business involved is simply unsupported by any evidence.

Mike Holmes
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Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:15 pm

Post by Mike Holmes »

Murdoch's outlets, some of them at least, are conservative, or so I've argued. Is it then your assertion that an outlet cannot have a bias different from that of it's owner? Again, as somebody cited, Murdoch has said at times that he's "embarrassed" by Fox sometimes.

I mean, my other cite clearly shows that he has some control over his outlets, too. But it's not impossible that he merely owns them because they make money, and lets them do what they think best. Not impossible.

So showing that his outlets are conservative is a different point. If your point is just that, then I agree with you, completely. Conservative outlets do exist, and Murdoch owns some. I'm not sure what this says about Murdoch, however, with any certainty.

Mike

gblaze42
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Post by gblaze42 »

Mike Holmes wrote:A young man went to work in a factory. After talking with his managers for a while, he became ashamed of his mother who worked for the labor union, convinced that they were trying to bilk the company out of it's profits.

He confronted his mother about it one day, and she said, "Do you work hard at the factory?" The son replied, "Yes, I got employee of the month last month. I've been working overtime when they request me too, and so my social life is suffering. But you taught me to work hard."

"And what about your buddy Frank, the Manager in Accounting?" his mother asked. "Oh, Frank goes golfing most afternoons, and I hear that he really doesn't do much work. But the bosses like him, because he throws good parties." -
His mother said, "Well, why don't you take a pay cut, and give it to Frank? That'll ease the inequity of the labor union, right?"

The son retorted, "But I work hard for my money, I deserve it. Frank doesn't!"

The mother slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Democratic party."
Well..okay... but it sounded like the son was a republican to me.

I'm sorry but this almost sounded like early twentieth century labor union.

jgarry
Posts: 109
Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:02 pm

Post by jgarry »

Mike Holmes wrote:Murdoch's outlets, some of them at least, are conservative, or so I've argued. Is it then your assertion that an outlet cannot have a bias different from that of it's owner? Again, as somebody cited, Murdoch has said at times that he's "embarrassed" by Fox sometimes.

I mean, my other cite clearly shows that he has some control over his outlets, too. But it's not impossible that he merely owns them because they make money, and lets them do what they think best. Not impossible.

So showing that his outlets are conservative is a different point. If your point is just that, then I agree with you, completely. Conservative outlets do exist, and Murdoch owns some. I'm not sure what this says about Murdoch, however, with any certainty.

Mike
Ok, so Murdoch, the owner is liberal, and is embarrassed at his misbehaving child, which, coincidentally, has not been hitting the same numbers it did at one time. Murdoch- liberal that he is- in spite of the fact that it is against his business interests and goes against his own politics, continues to allow Fox to operate the same as ever.

jgarry
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Joined: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:02 pm

Post by jgarry »

May I add as well that there are a number of liberal sites devoted exclusively to media reform and the debunking of shoddy, biased reportage by the corporate media. I am not aware of anything like an equivalent effort by conservatives. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is perhaps suggestive of my original contention: the corporate media serves its own interests very well, thank you.

Mike Holmes
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Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:15 pm

Post by Mike Holmes »

Oh quite. That's been my point. That the media follows the money, first and foremost. If there was no money in liberal reporting, there'd be no liberal bias. Fact is, as I've said, that people are willing to purchase media despite it's biases. Because they understand that news is biased, and deal with it.

That doesn't mean that the bias doesn't exist, however. For those who reject liberal bias, well that's why Fox has been so successful in the past. They are a miniority in terms of stations with that bias, while the constituency that prefers the bias is around 50%. It isn't so much that they'r reporting is better that explains Fox's popularity as an individual venue that they aren't splitting their market so many ways. Before Fox, if you wanted to watch talking heads, you had to accept a liberal bias for the most part.

I not only like that Fox exists to balance out the liberal bias, I wish there were more stations like Fox, so that they would have to choose between being more moderate or radical. As it is, they can go out on a limb pretty easily, because there's no alternative. They need some internal competition.

Overall, however, I'm satisfied with reading the National Review when I want a well thought out conservative take. Or the economist for financial matters. There's just so many sources out there.

Mike

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

Mike Holmes wrote:A young man went to work in a factory. After talking with his managers for a while, he became ashamed of his mother who worked for the labor union, convinced that they were trying to bilk the company out of it's profits.

He confronted his mother about it one day, and she said, "Do you work hard at the factory?" The son replied, "Yes, I got employee of the month last month. I've been working overtime when they request me too, and so my social life is suffering. But you taught me to work hard."

"And what about your buddy Frank, the Manager in Accounting?" his mother asked. "Oh, Frank goes golfing most afternoons, and I hear that he really doesn't do much work. But the bosses like him, because he throws good parties."

His mother said, "Well, why don't you take a pay cut, and give it to Frank? That'll ease the inequity of the labor union, right?"

The son retorted, "But I work hard for my money, I deserve it. Frank doesn't!"

The mother slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Democratic party."

-----

Its easy to paint yourself as being more deserving by saying that the other side is lazy. Are liberals lazy because they are trying to get money from the rich? Or are they altruistic because they're trying to give it away to the poor? Are conservatives lazy because they don't want to share with other hard working people, or are they simply sensibly trying to keep the fruits of their labor?

How about we look at the relative effectiveness of the policies, rather than trying to ascribe greed to the other side as the motive?

Mike

The analogy would be valid except for one thing. Ownership.

The people who become the owners of property, get to say what is done with it. The money earned by a company gets distributed by the owners of the company in whatever way they see fit, be it fair or not.

In the same manner, money earned by the individual ought to be distributed in whatever way that individual sees fit to distribute it. If the individual wants to spend $ 500.00 to get a tattoo, it may be stupid, but it's their money. In the same light, if they want to give it to the poor, that's fine, but if they grab money from another individual, and say "hey, i'm giving your money to the poor, " that's not within their rights, and it is in fact THEFT.

Suppose a bunch of individuals get together and decide that they are going to make EVERYBODY give money to the poor, and because they are a large group they can force this idea upon others. This is still theft, using a gang, and with fear and intimidation as a weapon.

If the group is LARGE enough, we call it a government, and we either roll over or suffer.


David

Mike Holmes
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Post by Mike Holmes »

You don't vote for gangs. Government, presumably, we did vote for. You can call democracy mob rule if you like, but then what do you propose we replace it with?

In my analogy, the thing owned by the individual is their labor. And they have a right to negotiate any price for it that they like. No? Sure, if the group gets large enough you could claim that they destroy free markets because they're a monopoly. But that's not the same as saying that deciding how we share profits that we've all helped produce is extortion.

In any case, I'm not advocating one side or the other. I'm just saying that there are more and less rational arguments for and against each side. It was, in fact, my point that the joke in question held little in the way of rational appeal. Instead it's a fun modern tactic, called Ironic Plausibility. Which people tend to take for proof these days for some reason.

Mike
Last edited by Mike Holmes on Wed Jan 07, 2009 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ravingdave
Posts: 650
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Post by ravingdave »

jgarry wrote:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111967642552909.html

Ok here's an example. This recent piece in the WSJ denounces the "funny" business in the hotly contested senate election between Franken and Coleman.
But what is exactly is the funny business supposed to be? All the decisions on the part on the convassing boards and such were unanimous. GOP and Democrats were represented on all these boards. There is no hint on scandal in any of this. Mr Coleman is free to contest the results in court, and perhaps there has been an error in the count. In point of fact I would be surprised if there weren't, considering the complexity of the effort.
But their saying that there is funny business involved is simply unsupported by any evidence.

I have perused several articles regarding this. My understanding of the story, at least from the perspective of the right is that ...


WSJ wrote: [T]he board has been flagrantly inconsistent. Last month, Mr. Franken's campaign charged that one Hennepin County (Minneapolis) precinct had "lost" 133 votes, since the hand recount showed fewer ballots than machine votes recorded on Election Night. Though there is no proof to this missing vote charge -- officials may have accidentally run the ballots through the machine twice on Election Night -- the Canvassing Board chose to go with the Election Night total, rather than the actual number of ballots in the recount. That decision gave Mr. Franken a gain of 46 votes.

Meanwhile, a Ramsey County precinct ended up with 177 more ballots than there were recorded votes on Election Night. In that case, the board decided to go with the extra ballots, rather than the Election Night total, even though the county is now showing more ballots than voters in the precinct. This gave Mr. Franken a net gain of 37 votes, which means he's benefited both ways from the board's inconsistency.


I personally wouldn't mind if Al Franken won. I likewise wouldn't mind if the Democrats knocked off a few more of the Liberal Republican senators.

I have always said I would much prefer a Liberal Democrat to a Moderate Republican because at least a stark difference can be drawn.


David

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

jgarry wrote:May I add as well that there are a number of liberal sites devoted exclusively to media reform and the debunking of shoddy, biased reportage by the corporate media. I am not aware of anything like an equivalent effort by conservatives. While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it is perhaps suggestive of my original contention: the corporate media serves its own interests very well, thank you.
Media Research Center ran by Brent Bozzel, (last time I checked.) Been around at least since 1992.

On Murdoch, how about this. He is not clearly understood, and posses characteristics that are not clearly defined as right or left.

He may not have a consistent philosophy, he may have just developed a lot of notions without really thinking them through in philisophical terms. I believe this is true of most people.


David

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

Mike Holmes wrote:You don't vote for gangs. Government, presumably, we did vote for. You can call democracy mob rule if you like, but then what do you propose we replace it with?

Ha ha ha ha... that's easy ! A Republic ! Same as we were founded.
It is probably not well known that the founders were DEATHLY afraid of Democracy, and considered it to be the opposite extreme of Monarchy.
They did regard it as mob rule, and they established guidelines in law in an effort to prevent the country from tipping towards Democracy.

Mike Holmes wrote: In my analogy, the thing owned by the individual is their labor. And they have a right to negotiate any price for it that they like. No? Sure, if the group gets large enough you could claim that they destroy free markets because they're a monopoly. But that's not the same as saying that deciding how we share profits that we've all helped produce is extortion.

It's about freedom. Yes, many individuals may have produced the profit, and the owners may have done nothing. But the owners did one important thing. They obtained an agreement from other individuals to perform tasks that resulted in the owners making lots of money, and the individuals making some.

Yes, individuals have a right to negotiate any price for their labor that they like, and if they choose not to work at that price, then that's the excersize of their freedom. The owner, however, has a right to make an agreement with someone else then.

As long as people respect the laws (both Moral and Legal) against coercion, and freely excersize their basic rights, then who should gainsay them ?
Mike Holmes wrote: In any case, I'm not advocating one side or the other. I'm just saying that there are more and less rational arguments for and against each side. It was, in fact, my point that the joke in question held little in the way of rational appeal. Instead it's a fun modern tactic, called Ironic Plausibility. Which people tend to take for proof these days for some reason.

Mike
Amen!


David

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

They planned for nothing but the rose tinted mirrorshade scenario, and froze like deer in the headlights when that went bad. Incompetent weakness bred contempt and killed all the early gains.
Let me see. That would be analogous to Lincoln and the 3 month war.

And don't forget: Bremer and the State Dept: "The military does war, we do peace, Chalabi is a crook"

Evidently Bush got some bad advice from the liberals at State. While the leftys at CIA were actively working against him.

===

Note: I read on an Iraqi blog that there is a coda to the withdrawal document that says we will be training the Iraqi Air Force and providing aircraft until about 2016 or 2020. The report was only in Arabic.

You have to wonder why we don't get all the news in America?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

ravingdave
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Post by ravingdave »

message deleted.


David
Last edited by ravingdave on Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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