Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Grand Outrageous Prevaricators

Driving to CT yesterday morning, I caught the news on National Pubic Radio. (Oh sorry, did I commit a typo?) Naturally, they mentioned Obama's weekly radio address, and that he said something about the Group of 20 meeting; then they played a long clip from Rep. Johnny Isakson's Republican response. He said (close paraphrase, I don't have the transcript), "Call it public option, trigger, or co-ops, it's all code for a government takeover of health care. Government run health care doesn't work in Canada, it doesn't work in England, and it won't work here."

Of course, there was no comment, context, or response to this offered by NPR "reporters" or by anyone else. I don't think I need to deconstruct this tissue of lies for my readers here. Consistently, without exception and with no redeeming social importance, our political discourse consists of one party that utters nothing but lies, which the corporate media simply transmit; and another party that at least includes a few politicians who generally tell the truth and try to make policy in the public interest, who the corporate media generally mock and deride.

That's it. We don't have debates over opposing analyses, value orientations, or goals. We have debates in which one side is lying, all the time. That's our "democracy."

3 comments:

Bix said...

omg.

I miss debate. A civil exchange, without the ad hominem arguments. When the invectives fly, I dig in, and that's not good.

Cervantes said...

It's not just ad hominem arguments. I'm calling Isakson a liar, but that's not an ad hominem attack, it's the truth. The problem is that they lie. All the time. Relentlessly, remorselessly, and without penalty.

C. Corax said...

NPR's coverage of the health care reform debate has been unabashedly slanted right towards the insurance industry. The NPR news division are a bunch of whores.

The pattern of reporting you describe is one I've heard on the network many times before: "Today, President Obama did such-and-such. But Senator Moneybags, a Republican from Texas, disagreed." Then they play a substantial clip of the lying sack of shit lying through his teeth, without any analysis or attempt to get at the truth.

The only NPR station to which I give money is the one whose general manager infuriates the rest of the network by openly, on local programs, criticizing NPR. Hint: It's not my local station.