Skip to main content

Michael Hiltzik article in LA Times puts a filter in the conservative media noise machine

This column from the LA Times by Michael Hiltzik (see his Twitter profile) admonishes readers about thinking and analyzing all of the hogwash concerning health care reform that is being sold as truth in some media outlets.

Three interesting things about the article: historical reference, this isn't the first time that ground-breaking public policy aimed at saving the Republic from certain ruin is attempted to be put down by bad-faith politics (another reason why political science without history has no roots, my students should take note); conservative junk-logic, half-truths without evidence captivates the attention of media and the public, who should know better, to quote Hiltzik,

"Into the vacuum of information poured supposition masquerading as fact (certainly a familiar phenomenon today)";

and, third, debating 'incompetence' meaning how Democrats are still looking for a way to effectively countering conservative opposition to health care reform instead of just doing it.

Fine article indeed. Tell me what you think...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

E.J. Dionne Jr. - Mike Castle's defeat -- and the end of moderate Republicanism

In this article we see not only a reflective tone, but a word of warning of the dangers of extremism.  If both parties are threatened by the Tea Party's media and financial savvy it is the GOP who stands to lose more from it.  As this lunatic fringe dominates the Republican Party's ideological agenda moderates and centrists within it are either moving out of the party or increasingly afraid to raise their voices to speak out against the polarizing forces that will put this republic on shaky ground politically and socially speaking. Politics not only deals with the exercise of power through decision-making and the formulation of policy.  It also deals with how we live with one another (cohabitation or in Spanish convivencia ) after the taking of those decisions and interacting socially with civility.  The Tea "Party" does not stand for that.  It does stand for the continuing atomization of American society.  It displays a pathological hatred of government ...
1 comment
Read more

Remembering Senator Edward M. Kennedy

This extended article from Associated Press (see below) lists all the legislative achievements and political life of this man whose career expanded nearly five decades in the United States Senate and became the head of on Irish-American political clan that deeply influenced American politcs. It also mentions the tragedies endured by this family. Thank you Senator Kennedy. May you rest in peace. Mass. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy dies at age 77 http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16026/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=aysplNAU Sent from my iPhone
Post a Comment
Read more

A deep nail in the coffin of this Island-Nation: the assault on PR's Bar Association and other reflections on the banality of Puerto Rican politics

On the evening of October 13 (Black Tuesday) governor Luis Fortuño signed into law a nefarious piece of legislation, which eliminated compulsory membership fees for Puerto Rico's Bar Association. See coverage from El Nuevo Día , Caribbean Business , and El Vocero . It is a punitive measure directed at this institution for expressing solidarity towards laid-off government workers on September 25, 2009 (Black Friday). It is also a long-awaited measure by New Progressive Party lawyers, activists, legislators, and fanatics intolerant of dissent, and who have always considered the PRBA a constant irritant, a thorn on their side. As jubilant as some members of the governor's cabinet, legislators, supporters, and fanatics might feel, remember this: as functional or deficient a democratic society might be, it cannot be complete without civil society institutions and dissent. The weakening of the Puerto Rican Bar Association achieved just that. The PRBA might still exist, true, but it...
1 comment
Read more