Will the Spotlight Be Taken Off Chicago's Crime... (Union: wages, costs)

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by rvernsey

When you are a die hard bleeding heart liberal, your family and friends are liberal, you live in a liberal city, and you have been spoonfed liberalism your entire life - liberal bias comes off as truth and normalcy. It's not.

The other side is that when you're on the far right, you view media that is centrist or even moderately biased to the right as "liberal" because it's not as far to the right as you are. To paraphrase Steven Colbert, you're basically accusing reality of having a liberal bias.

The "center" has moved verrryyyyy far to the right in this country in recent years, to the point that some of the same things that were said and done by Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan are called "socialism" and worse if they're said or done today. Of course everything is going to appear "liberally biased" from such an extreme perspective.

Most of what gets called "liberal" in the U.S. today is considered centrist in the rest of the First World, and most of what gets called centrist here is considered conservative. Most of what gets called conservative here is viewed as batsh*t insane elsewhere, and understandably so.

[EJ3791]

Originally Posted by thegrid

plenty of examples on mediamatters.org

I will also say that rightwing memes or talking points travel through the media landscape faster and with greater longevity than similar leftwing memes/talking point. The right definitely knows how to utilize the media (the work of frank lutz, for example). I think this mostly can be attributed to simple but emotive phrasing and wordplay that tends to be binary; rightwing thought is easy to get and often without much nuance. Rightwing thought is a headline where left thought is in paragraphs. An easy example would be the Affordable Care Act vs. Obamacare. Not many know the in's and out's of the ACA, but nearly everyone knows all about death panels and evil socialism and penalties.

Are you suggesting that I try to figure out your thinking by picking out a couple of random stories on mediamatters?

For what else you have here, I don't think see any examples of right-wing thought. They're examples of partisanship, and they're coming from the GOP and it's allies, not the media.

In your ACA example, if people are penalized for not buying is insurance, or if a former VP candidate (not some random crackpot) says the ACA provides for the establishment of "death panels," both of those issues are newsworthy. In and of itself, reporting on those issues doesn't even exhibit partisan bias, much less ideological bias. The question is how the media covered them. As I recall, the media itself was critical of Palin's characterization of the medical oversight board provisions, and I would say that they're actually been fairly favorable to the ACA overall.

[nana053]

The myth of the liberal media

Daily Kos: How to Debunk the "Liberal Media" Myth

If the media are so liberal, where are all the Union-friendly news shows? I see lots of pro-big business & pro-investor shows. Where are the shows for worker interests? And, other than MSNBC, where are the pro-Union guests? I see lots of guests making the pro-corporate, anti-union arguments. Where are all the union defenders in the "liberal" media?

If the media are so liberal, why did they run the fake ACORN voter fraud stories & the faked ACORN video stings, then virtually ignore it when ACORN was vindicated and proven innocent of both?

[EJ3791]

Originally Posted by nearnorth

The other side is that when you're on the far right, you view media that is centrist or even moderately biased to the right as "liberal" because it's not as far to the right as you are. To paraphrase Steven Colbert, you're basically accusing reality of having a liberal bias.

The "center" has moved verrryyyyy far to the right in this country in recent years, to the point that some of the same things that were said and done by Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan are called "socialism" and worse if they're said or done today. Of course everything is going to appear "liberally biased" from such an extreme perspective.

Most of what gets called "liberal" in the U.S. today is considered centrist in the rest of the First World, and most of what gets called centrist here is considered conservative. Most of what gets called conservative here is viewed as batsh*t insane elsewhere, and understandably so.

I think you're conflating rhetoric with substantive thought and policy. On substance, the US center has drifted leftward over the course of my adult life. As we use the term in this country, "liberal" includes a wide range of thinking, which would include both the Western European center and center left. Whatever else you can say about the substance of what gets called "conservative" in this country, it's not conservative or especially right-wing.

[Vlajos]

Liberal in Europe is essentially a socially progressive republican, which really doesn't exist here anymore. There arent many in Europe either more than here though
Gays and minorities seem to scare Republicans for some reason.

[rubbersoul89]

Originally Posted by EJ3791

I think you're conflating rhetoric with substantive thought and policy. On substance, the US center has drifted leftward over the course of my adult life.

prisons for profit?
privatization of public schools (and pretty much everything else)?
the extreme widening of the inequality gap?
corporations are people?
anti-union measures at an all time high?

i don't know what to tell you.

political scientists, regardless of their own beliefs, seem to be in agreement that this country has shifted to the right in recent history.

[nearnorth]

Originally Posted by EJ3791

I think you're conflating rhetoric with substantive thought and policy.

That's nice. I don't.

[EJ3791]

Originally Posted by rubbersoul89

prisons for profit?
privatization of public schools (and pretty much everything else)?
the extreme widening of the inequality gap?
corporations are people?
anti-union measures at an all time high?

i don't know what to tell you.

political scientists, regardless of their own beliefs, seem to be in agreement that this country has shifted to the right in recent history.

All of your examples are economic... are you defining left-right only in economic terms? I think it's more about race, sex and sexuality these days, and this country has moved decidedly in the direction of social equality on those issues. Even on economics, the overall drift has been to the left, to the extent that most of the social democratic programs of the mid-20th Century have survived and become institutionalized to the point where they are defended by the center-right.

Some developments have been rightish. Privatization of public services was a rightish idea, although nowadays it might be more about pragmatism than ideology. Tax policy may have moved to the right in the early '80s, and never went back to the degrees of progressivity favored on the left, although by the same token, it hasn't moved to the flat tax model favored on the right, either.

Corporations as "people"... assuming you mean that corporations are legal persons, corporate personhood isn't a recent development; it goes back to the 19th Century and I don't think it was considered a rightish idea at the time.

I don't know what you mean about anti-union measures being at an all time high.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by EJ3791

All of your examples are economic... are you defining left-right only in economic terms? I think it's more about race, sex and sexuality these days, and this country has moved decidedly in the direction of social equality on those issues. Even on economics, the overall drift has been to the left, to the extent that most of the social democratic programs of the mid-20th Century have survived and become institutionalized to the point where they are defended by the center-right.

Some developments have been rightish. Privatization of public services was a rightish idea, although nowadays it might be more about pragmatism than ideology. Tax policy may have moved to the right in the early '80s, and never went back to the degrees of progressivity favored on the left, although by the same token, it hasn't moved to the flat tax model favored on the right, either.

Corporations as "people"... assuming you mean that corporations are legal persons, corporate personhood isn't a recent development; it goes back to the 19th Century and I don't think it was considered a rightish idea at the time.

I don't know what you mean about anti-union measures being at an all time high.

Sounds like you don't keep up with current events in the USofA.

[Ace Rothstein]

Originally Posted by EJ3791

I don't know what you mean about anti-union measures being at an all time high.

You had to type this out with a big smirk on your face.