Posted by Silverfuel:

I write this big post about the media not doing its job and 90% of your post is about healthcare. I must be doing a bad job of making a point.

Posted by Cash:

I disagree. In a situation with zero context, universal healthcare(in the sense of giving money to people that can't afford healthcare) is very reasonable, especially if you change that context to include us as a wealthy nation that can afford it. But, the reality is, is that we are 9 trillion dollars in debt with a failing economy. I wouldn't care, if these plans were accompanied with a plan to reduce costs in other areas. However, they are accompanied by plans to just increase taxes, not on the rich(inherited wealth), but on the people who make the most money. I can understand taking money from people who start off with a ton of it and have no idea what to do with it. But, when you take money from people who have earned it and know what to do with it, you are hurting everyone.

I don't want to turn this into a thread about health care. Our debt is at 9 million and our economy is in trouble because of the war. Had the media done their job and reported the mass corruption before and during the war they could have stopped the downward spiral. Had they asked all the hard questions instead of cowering in fear of the bush government, we could have limited the damage to the economy.

Michael Moore is a left wing sicko. The idea doesn't get much positive media attention because the vast majority agree that it is pretty stupid. What Michael Moore is talking about is not what most people refer to as universal healthcare so much as nationalized healthcare. That is a complete disaster, and if you really want to think it, I am not interested in debating it. Go live in Canada and wait in lines for months for someone to take care of your medical problem. I can't help you.

Ok, wtf? healthcare in canada and europe is not a disaster. I have experienced it first hand and I didn't have to wait in line for months. If you had a bad experience then you can stand back and enjoy the system we have in place now.

The reality is, is that healthcare is an important issue, and generally speaking it is a good thing for people to have. There are ways to reduce the costs of healthcare, to make it more affordable for more people(or just have to subsidize less). We just have to make hard choices, and these choices aren't things that get carried by the major networks. We can do things like reducing punitive damages and pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases. No one wants to say, lets just give poor johnny 250,000 cause he lost his leg. No, it is much more easy to not talk about it and give johnny 9 million through a jury(and then complain about rising healthcare costs). The thing is, this is the type of thing that is driving up healtcare costs(because the costs get passed on to us), which makes it unaffordable for people. Doctors have tons of incentives not to commit medical malpractice(it is obviously very embarrassing). And people need to understand that medicine is highly technical(and mistakes happen-nothing is guaranteed) and doctors are people(and make mistakes.)

Ok but none of this in anyway proves health care is a partisan issue. If it is, it shouldn't be.

And, the media probably doesn't talk to much about the bailout of Bears Sterns because it is not something anyone likes. This is the type of thing you do to avoid the collapse of the economy on a greater scale(which would hurt everyone).

Yea right. Bear Stearns could have gone under like Enron went under. You stop the economy from collapsing by stopping a war thats costing us $2 billion a day.

There isn't much of a story there.

Are you serious? This was planned! Employees lost serious money but the CEO gets to sell his stock 5 times higher?! Now he gets to stay on with JP Morgan? Where is the accountability? The whole subprime mortgage crisis that bear stearns heavily invested in is so shady. If only there was more media coverage, we could find out why $30 billion in loans were forgiven. non-recursive loan my ass! If there was more media coverage we would know why welfare is frowned on but it is ok for the Fed to give out money to JP Morgan?

What about all the fraudulent loans that were handed out? What about Lehman Brothers lawsuit that we find out about from a British news paper? Come on Cash, if you think the media is "fair" or "balanced" then you aren't being practical.

How would you explain the rest of the times the media dropped the ball?

Where was the so called bias in the liberal media when the government crippled stem cell research? Nothing happened with Valerie Plume being outed, or with the Scooter Libby perjury. Where was the liberal bias when we found out about the warrant less surveillance? There was little coverage of the torture and waterboarding.

The only thing the media got right was Katrina and that had NOTHING to do with partisan politics. How come the media does not hold the Bush government responsible for never finding Osama Bin Laden? They helped the republican senate go after Bill Clinton for getting head in the oval office but how come they aren't asked to answer for the manufactured evidence of WMDs in Iraq?

Yea, the media is not doing any reporting.

Posted by Silverfuel:

I write this big post about the media not doing its job and 90% of your post is about healthcare. I must be doing a bad job of making a point.

Posted by Cash:

I disagree. In a situation with zero context, universal healthcare(in the sense of giving money to people that can't afford healthcare) is very reasonable, especially if you change that context to include us as a wealthy nation that can afford it. But, the reality is, is that we are 9 trillion dollars in debt with a failing economy. I wouldn't care, if these plans were accompanied with a plan to reduce costs in other areas. However, they are accompanied by plans to just increase taxes, not on the rich(inherited wealth), but on the people who make the most money. I can understand taking money from people who start off with a ton of it and have no idea what to do with it. But, when you take money from people who have earned it and know what to do with it, you are hurting everyone.

I don't want to turn this into a thread about health care. Our debt is at 9 million and our economy is in trouble because of the war. Had the media done their job and reported the mass corruption before and during the war they could have stopped the downward spiral. Had they asked all the hard questions instead of cowering in fear of the bush government, we could have limited the damage to the economy.

Michael Moore is a left wing sicko. The idea doesn't get much positive media attention because the vast majority agree that it is pretty stupid. What Michael Moore is talking about is not what most people refer to as universal healthcare so much as nationalized healthcare. That is a complete disaster, and if you really want to think it, I am not interested in debating it. Go live in Canada and wait in lines for months for someone to take care of your medical problem. I can't help you.

Ok, wtf? healthcare in canada and europe is not a disaster. I have experienced it first hand and I didn't have to wait in line for months. If you had a bad experience then you can stand back and enjoy the system we have in place now.

The reality is, is that healthcare is an important issue, and generally speaking it is a good thing for people to have. There are ways to reduce the costs of healthcare, to make it more affordable for more people(or just have to subsidize less). We just have to make hard choices, and these choices aren't things that get carried by the major networks. We can do things like reducing punitive damages and pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases. No one wants to say, lets just give poor johnny 250,000 cause he lost his leg. No, it is much more easy to not talk about it and give johnny 9 million through a jury(and then complain about rising healthcare costs). The thing is, this is the type of thing that is driving up healtcare costs(because the costs get passed on to us), which makes it unaffordable for people. Doctors have tons of incentives not to commit medical malpractice(it is obviously very embarrassing). And people need to understand that medicine is highly technical(and mistakes happen-nothing is guaranteed) and doctors are people(and make mistakes.)

Ok but none of this in anyway proves health care is a partisan issue. If it is, it shouldn't be.

And, the media probably doesn't talk to much about the bailout of Bears Sterns because it is not something anyone likes. This is the type of thing you do to avoid the collapse of the economy on a greater scale(which would hurt everyone).

Yea right. Bear Stearns could have gone under like Enron went under. You stop the economy from collapsing by stopping a war thats costing us $2 billion a day.

There isn't much of a story there.

Are you serious? This was planned! Employees lost serious money but the CEO gets to sell his stock 5 times higher?! Now he gets to stay on with JP Morgan? Where is the accountability? The whole subprime mortgage crisis that bear stearns heavily invested in is so shady. If only there was more media coverage, we could find out why $30 billion in loans were forgiven. non-recursive loan my ass! If there was more media coverage we would know why welfare is frowned on but it is ok for the Fed to give out money to JP Morgan?

What about all the fraudulent loans that were handed out? What about Lehman Brothers lawsuit that we find out about from a British news paper? Come on Cash, if you think the media is "fair" or "balanced" then you aren't being practical.

How would you explain the rest of the times the media dropped the ball?

Where was the so called bias in the liberal media when the government crippled stem cell research? Nothing happened with Valerie Plume being outed, or with the Scooter Libby perjury. Where was the liberal bias when we found out about the warrant less surveillance? There was little coverage of the torture and waterboarding.

The only thing the media got right was Katrina and that had NOTHING to do with partisan politics. How come the media does not hold the Bush government responsible for never finding Osama Bin Laden? They helped the republican senate go after Bill Clinton for getting head in the oval office but how come they aren't asked to answer for the manufactured evidence of WMDs in Iraq?

Yea, the media is not doing any reporting.

Posted by Killa4luv:

Posted by Bonn1997:

BTW, if you guys are interested in politics and psychology, you should read Drew Westen's book "The Political Brain." He argues (convincingly in my opinion) that Democrats have been on the losing end for the past several decades because they (unlike Republicans) don't understand how to elicit the right emotional responses to their messages in the electorate. I think it's a great book. (You can get an audio version of it if you prefer that.)

[Edited by - bonn1997 on 04-16-2008 4:32 PM]

The media is controlled by people with ideological interests in presenting certain info and not others, or framing stories certain ways and not other ways.
Case in point, there is no liberal equivalent to FOX news, it simply does not exist. The super rich who own and run these companies lean heavily towards conservatism.
The pundits and personalites on political shows show conservatives and their view points are over represented. Talk radio is a virtual sea of conservatism, with a lone liberal station Air America. There is 1 New York Times, amidst the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Sun, and the right leaning tabloid papers like the Post and Daily News. The right has a firm grip on media ownership, because generally speaking, the richer you are, the more conservative you become.

I do, however agree with your point about Republicans being better propagandists. You wanna leave a war that was started under false pretenses, thats killing many and costing trillions and they can rebut you with 3 words: Cut and Run. They are geniuses when it comes to manipulating the less sophisticated among us. But they have more idealogical weapons in the mass media.