In the past 15 years, the rise of cable news has spawned a class of pundits who are not leftists but play them on TV. As the watchdogs at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting have documented, political talk shows offer “balance” by routinely matching up representatives of the far right, like Pat Buchanan, with centrist Democrats and New Republic editors.… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (12)Page 1 of 1 pagesGood article! I love Ehrenreich’s stuff. Very original thinker.
Posted by Liz on Sep 30, 2005 at 11:06 AM Case in point: Taboo topics have been verboted on the corporate ‘news’ networks. Two blatant omissions are any discussion of the discrepancies in the official version of 9/11, and ANY mention of PNAC...the Project for a New American Century.
Ask any ten people/sheeple you know what these people all have in common:
Cheney, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Perle, Jeb, Feith, Libby, Armitage, Bennet, Bork, Woolsey, and Khalilzad, the new ambassador to Iraq.
Then ask them to name the leader of the pack (only some of whom are listed above).
And then....ask why the hell they don’t know....because these people PLANNED AND CARRIED OUT the wars in Iraq and Aghanistan....and may have pulled off the hoax of the century to get us there.
The greater tragedy is that progressives DO NOT KNOW. Most anti war and anti Bush people have no clue about who is in control. It’s NOT Karl Rove...he’s the puppeteer, not the master planner. Please, get the facts. Draw your own conclusions.
The answer iw Kristol clear; please read, or we’ll be in Iran and Syria very soon:
http://tvnewslies.org/html/kristol_clear.html
Posted by skipper7 on Oct 1, 2005 at 11:56 AM No....inform the sheeple. They’re clueless. Don’t know why the link isn’t working..... I’ll try again. Preview isn’t working....
Posted by skipper7 on Oct 1, 2005 at 8:18 PM >> Back then, Ehrenreich was known to readers of Radical America, Monthly Review and In These Times as an insightful analyst who controversially posited in a 1976 essay that a “Professional-Managerial Class,” situated uneasily between labor and capital, could play a vital role in ushering forward socialist politics. <<
Wonderfully, thankfully, mercifully we did not end up with a “Professional-Managerial Class” pushing communist solutions to our business problems. Since 1976, we have seen that communism was uspeakably murderous, corrupt, and inefficient, resulting in the collapse of the Soviet Union, not to mention the deaths of thirty or forty million innocents in the old Soviet state, and not to mention a few dead Hungarians, East Germans, and Afghanis, besides. And we see now that the current communist-lites of Old Europe are totally incompetent to solve their problems of high unemployment, low growth, stagnant productivity, and demographic decline.
Managerially speaking, democracy and free-market capitalism have a superb record of solving the problems that cause communism and socialism to flounder in inefficiency and corruption. Reagan solved the Carter Catastrophe, and Dubya solved the Bubba Bubble, for the two latest examples.
The only areas in which the leftist Liberals really have been able to assert power are in the media and academia. Sure as hell, old media is now revealed utterly corrupt and inefficient, as in the Rather forgeries and the blatant, and ineffectual, Old Media campaigning for Kerry–Edwards. But Old Media is losing readers, and viewers, and money; NYT just announced a layoff of 500 people in their operations, and network TV is floundering, as well.
The most prized virtue in academia is diversity except, of course, political diversity. Consequently, young students who go to school for an education are subject to unrelieved political indoctrination by Lying Liberals, which unsurprisingly, is causing a backlash among student, and parents, and voters/taxpayers that have to finance the leftist’s teaching of unworkable socialist schemes.
And when Liberal Media and Liberal Academia die of irrelevance, then what will Ehrenreich do? Who cares?
Posted by scorp on Oct 2, 2005 at 1:49 PM “The most prized virtue in academia is diversity except, of course, political diversity.”
This is a serious issue. But i am confident it is resolving itself as time goes by.
“Consequently, young students who go to school for an education are subject to unrelieved political indoctrination by Lying Liberals,”
I think the phrase “Lying Liberals” is not only unfair, but it is factually wrong. This type of “lying” is simply believing something that others do not, as opposed to spreading information you know to be false.
“which unsurprisingly, is causing a backlash among student, and parents, and voters/taxpayers that have to finance the leftist’s teaching of unworkable socialist schemes.”
I have not seen any real backlash, especially by students.
“And when Liberal Media and Liberal Academia die of irrelevance, then what will Ehrenreich do? “
I hope that the liberals come back. A single ideology is not good for the country. We need to continue to balance complex issues, such as personal freedom vs national security and many others. Two opposing sides are useful in these kind of debates, or so it seems to me.
And lets not forget the “death” of conservatives, until their revival under Reagan. Funny how most on the left still refuse to admit the obvious - RR won the cold war. . .
Posted by wolf on Oct 3, 2005 at 1:34 PM Wolf -
Thank you for the coherent, cogent, thoughtful input. You are rare company in these parts.
>> I think the phrase “Lying Liberals” is not only unfair, but it is factually wrong. <<
At least as far back as President Eisenhower, Liberals have labled every single Republican President as “stupid”. Do Liberals actually think this, or is this deceitful (or self-deceitful) propaganda? Now it is true that some Democratic Presidents have been thought to be utterly incompetent (Carter come to mind first), but Conservatives tend not to use blanket (and therefore obviously wrong) labels in this manner.
And President Bush is frequently called a liar, most often because of the unaccounted WMD. But before Bush was ever elected President, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Daschle, Pelosi, Levin, Reid, and Biden said that Saddam had WMD and was a threat to the United States. The USA passed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 making regime change in Iraq a matter of USA law. The Act was adopted by acclimation in the Senate, and only a handful of Congressmenn voted against it; even Kucinich voted for it. President Clinton signed it into law. Democrats and Republicans both continued to say that Saddam had WMD and was a threat up to the start of hostilities in 2003. There is no evidence that a single member of the legislative branch stood up and denied the existence of Iraqi WMD until after hostilities started. All the Democrats agreed with all the Republicans and all the major Western Intelligence Services that Saddam had WMD, but none of these Democrats are accusing themselves of dishonesty, even though they were saying the same thing that President Bush was saying.
We have witnessed a series of “anti-war” demonstrations, which are sponsored by ANSWER, a bunch of hard-core Marxist who are all in favor of war if it is being fought against American interests; Hungary, East Germany, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Grenada, etc. Marxist professors are active principals in these “anti-war” demonstrations.
The media dishonesty is overwhelming. Besides the scandals (Rather’s forgeries, soggy Koran) the non-reporting out of Iraq and the grossly incompetent Katrina reporting are examples of lying propaganda designed to reflect badly on President Bush, never mind that it reflects badly on the United States. Fortunately, the truth is coming out, but there is no doubt that some people in the world believed that New Orleans was disintegrating into a climate of rape, murder, and armed aggression by thugs. None of which was true.
So, yes, I think that the term “Lying Liberal” is entirely appropriate.
>> I have not seen any real backlash, especially by students. <<
Look again. There are more College Republicans in more campus chapters than there are College Democrats in their campus chapters. Harvard has a gun club. Check it out:
>> http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_1_campus_conservatives.html <<
>> I hope that the liberals come back. A single ideology is not good for the country. We need to continue to balance complex issues, such as personal freedom vs. national security and many others. Two opposing sides are useful in these kind of debates, or so it seems to me. <<
I agree with everything in this paragraph except the first sentence. The Liberals are still in the process of fracturing: labor, DNC vs. DLC, Soros’ money vs. principled values. And the more they fracture, the greater their election loses. Bush is resolutely risking his party’s future in pursuit of his own values, but everyone loves a winner. A repectable outcome in Afghanistan and in Iraq is a winning position, and is eminently doable. I think you will have to look elsewhere for a loyal opposition; the Liberals are too far gone.
Posted by scorp on Oct 3, 2005 at 7:38 PM Hi scorp - i enjoy reading your posts; i think you represent your point of view quite well. On the other hand, i am disappointed with many/most of the liberals who frequent this site and seem unable to form compelling arguments for their side. . . Ironic.
Posted by wolf on Oct 4, 2005 at 1:20 PM Hi ho,
Mercy me!Corporate networks slanting their coverage of events and manipulating discussion to divert attention from real issues!I used to be a big fan of Crossfire until I realized it was as real as pro-wrestling.
I am quite curious to see what Ehrenreich is allowed to say.I’m also curious,morbidly I admit,to see how she is discredited and silenced by the right once she gets to close to the issue of class disparity in America.One only hopes she is allowed to say enough.Having read Nickled and Dimed,all I could say was"It’s about time!Where was this book ten years earlier?"It’s nice to see that she is also exploring how the middle class is being sodomized by the right.Unfortunately,the middle-class anesthetizes the wounds with Fox News while singing"The Impossible Dream"to themselves and keeping in mind that if they weren’t so lazy,things would be much better.
W.W.H.A.D?
What would Horatio Alger do?
Posted by wwoods on Oct 5, 2005 at 6:16 AM Wolf, why do you take Scorp’s posts seriously? Scorp’s rants about Soviet communism, the Iraqi WMD’s, liberal media bias, and leftist academics are completely irrelevant to Barbara Ehrenreich’s book. If he wants to engage in that kind of ranting, fine, there’s always Free Republic, but not on this website.
Posted by Peter H on Oct 7, 2005 at 3:18 PM Ehrenreich rocks...but the author should have mentioned her column in the progressive...funny, informative stuff. Anyway, it really bothers me that conservatives are always whining and huffing and puffing about “radical” liberal people in the academic world. I grew up in the academic world, I’m in it now, and I will work in it when I’m done with all the education...point is: I promise you, up and down, that there is NO sort of conspiracy to brain wash america’s youth into joining some sort of wide-spread socialist revolt and/or love-in. There just..isn’t. In the social sciences you see a lot of liberals but...have you stopped to wonder why? A big part of it is because they have to look at FACTS and NUMBERS and objective measures/analyses of social issues/problems..the other factor is their constant exposure to various theories about social issues, which are judged primarily by how well they jive with quantifiable data. So...when you see all the liberal sociology professors, what you’re really seeing are people who have *BECOME* progressive and *REMAIN* progressive b/c you can’t teach social theory based on Horatio Algier myths and Ronald Reagan’s down-home pet phrases; you need numbers, baby, and you some bullet-proof, cogent theory if you’re going to make a science (and a career) out of social analysis. As for “brain washing” students...please. In my experience, students whine about being “brainwashed” when the prof dares to offer up a theory that violates their deeply-held beliefs or (gasp) makes them read something they find offensive. Yes, some professors are biased (this works both towards the right and the left), but most of them either don’t show their political opinions, or only show them a bit, so its easy for the astute student to see where the prof is coming from while also keeping their BS detector running effectively.
Posted by theresabetterway on Oct 23, 2005 at 8:11 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
register a new account »Posting Security
Posted by 
Also by Mark Engler
- Latin America Banks on Independence
The new Bank of the South shatters neoliberal economics - Americas Own Worst Enemy
- Hook, Line and Suckers
- When Lost Is Found
- Failures of a Hit Manђ
- No Better Place
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1972 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
462 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
426 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2005 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
