Is the Cult of the "Beltway Media" Destroying America's Political System?
[Melissa Harris-Perry explains in great detail the origins of the full faith and credit of the U.S. government and why the U.S. debt should not be questioned (14th amendment) while recapping the debt ceiling debate]
Any rational person who follows politics understands that the debt-ceiling debate is a manufactured crisis, concocted by an insane Republican Party that is willing to wreck the American economy with the sole purpose of harming an Obama presidency and winning the White House in 2012. It has been enabled by a frightened Beltway media Village that refuses to give us honest analysis and historical context to go along with the debt ceiling process. President Obama sounded more like a Republican than a Democrat when he gave his presser the other night, once again making his case for a Grand Bargain, which he has admitted is a slap to Democratic principles. Is he playing a chess game with the GOP, hoping America will see the Tea Party for the radical right wing cult they are, to win the debate? That's for you to decide, but this is a precarious strategy nonetheless, since it's destined to be a huge setback for Keynesian economics and Progressive ideals, as Greg Sargent outlines in his piece.
Even so, the media should be able to explain to the American people that the problem isn't between both parties, but only one: the Republican party. Why do the media refuse to cover this story honestly?
Paul Krugman has a few thoughts on the matter:
Watching our system deal with the debt ceiling crisis — a wholly self-inflicted crisis, which may nonetheless have disastrous consequences — it’s increasingly obvious that what we’re looking at is the destructive influence of a cult that has really poisoned our political system.
And no, I don’t mean the fanaticism of the right. Well, OK, that too. But my feeling about those people is that they are what they are; you might as well denounce wolves for being carnivores. Crazy is what they do and what they are.
No, the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism.
Think about what’s happening right now. We have a crisis in which the right is making insane demands, while the president and Democrats in Congress are bending over backward to be accommodating — offering plans that are all spending cuts and no taxes, plans that are far to the right of public opinion.
So what do most news reports say? They portray it as a situation in which both sides are equally partisan, equally intransigent — because news reports always do that. And we have influential pundits calling out for a new centrist party, a new centrist president, to get us away from the evils of partisanship.
"Washington is broken" is the refrain we hear constantly from the Beltway media, a long-held talking point pushed by conservatives in the MSM. When one branch controlled by Republicans does break down, then the government does stop working. The debt-ceiling debate is exposing the GOP as truly being broken because House Speaker Boehner can't even get his own members to back his own "spending cuts" plan, even after President Obama has offered up the store in negotiations. But this story also strikes at the heart of the Villagers as much as the GOP.
What all this means is that there is no penalty for extremism; no way for most voters, who get their information on the fly rather than doing careful study of the issues, to understand what’s really going on.
You have to ask, what would it take for these news organizations and pundits to actually break with the convention that both sides are equally at fault? This is the clearest, starkest situation one can imagine short of civil war. If this won’t do it, nothing will.
And yes, I think this is a moral issue. The “both sides are at fault” people have to know better; if they refuse to say it, it’s out of some combination of fear and ego, of being unwilling to sacrifice their treasured pose of being above the fray.
It’s a terrible thing to watch, and our nation will pay the price.
Our nation has been paying the price of their news cowardice for decades (Clinton's impeachment, Al Gore's loss, and the Iraq War, to name a few) and now as this usually unremarkable procedural vote called the debt ceiling winds down and which has never been subjected to this type of political grand-standing closes in, our credit rating may fall and throw the US into a much deeper economic hole than we already are in---the beltway media stands by refusing to report what is actually going on. As Krugman says, this is a moral one facing journalism as a whole, but it's the American population that suffers.
I'm sure at least part of the answer is that a crisis increases audience share and sells advertising time/space. A million airline flights go safely, yawn. A single flight out of that number crashes? Bam! They're all over it, like flies on doo-doo.
ABSOLUTELY!
The center is actually outside of the current debate between Republicans (Obama) and crazy-assed Republicans (commonly known as the GOP).
Until we, all of us, organize and create a serious Progressive Party (that caucuses with the Dems when our policies align) we will have no clout, no voice. For starters, we need to primary Obama. Not in a nasty, meltdown type of battle, but in a serious, respectful debate about what it means to be a Progressive or a Democrat. Who might run? Not me, but there has to be someone capable of running against Obama as a Progressive alternative.
In the GOP your status is inversely proportional to your integrity.
...wouldn't it be great to stand apart from the dems? After all, at this point, at any point in the last 2.5 years, have they looked Progressive at all? The President has done a great job on NOT getting any bipartisanship and when the dems had the majority in both houses, it was like the right was the majority party.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Yes the beltway media is helping destroy politics but so is T-republican lying. FOX LIES in particular, but also the lies that all media helps propagate.
Something that might help is that as of today, for the first time, media is acknowledging that consumers drive the economy, not businesses. It's about bloody time they made this perfectly clear. What took them so long?
Sure other things drive the economy, but over 70% of the economy comes directly from consumer spending - without healthy social programs people will spend even less than they are now.
Until the T-Bircher-Baggers are out, all the way out, consumers will not have the confidence in their country to spend a dime. Until FOX hacker LIES channel is shuttered, consumers will not spend another dime on anything but the essentials.
The President has saved GM, and improved the economy while republicans obstruct progress and buy up default swaps, betting that they can crash the economy and blame it on the President. Republicans are betting we all look the other way when they are to blame for it all, including the beltway media.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
But without the beltway media giving cover, republican lies and talking points would be exposed for what they are, not leaving people confused and uncertain. Also, if the republicans, crash the economy to make a lot of money and try to blame it all on the president, they will fail. Most people don't think of themselves as rocket scientists, but they are not stupid. It could very well be like the government shutdown against Clinton. Pray tell, how well did that work out for the republicans?
paychecks will stop for Boehner, Congress, the Supreme Court as well as the Executive branch when - if the government shuts down.
...in the House and Senators in the Senate be the first to give up their paychecks in this time of crisis that they are perpetuating. I know, pigs flyin', all that.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Several weeks ago there were stories about how the President could go ahead and raise the debt ceiling without Congress, as it is justified by the Constitution. Not one of the usual media outlets reported it, I only saw it on the interwebs.
Can we just go ahead and do it already? The media is almost as irrelevant as the GOP is.
That came up today, and Jim Carney (white house press spokesman) announced that in the opinion of the White House, there is no authority for them to raise the limit, it must be raised by congress.
If correct then i accept this, because the President refuses to be an 'imperial' President like bush was.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
...however, I would sort of like to see him stand up to this nonsense.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Beltway media myth # _
The republicans won majority in the house in 2010 because they wanted to lower the deficit.
Wrong. most don't even know why they voted republican, except to obstruct the President. The rest listened to republican lies about creating jobs.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
More proof then, that the beltway media is harmful to the running of the nation.
. . . and accepting that framing concedes the corporate media's desired result. And that's true even when the point is that one side of the corporate media's constructed debate isn't being treated "fairly."
The debate between austerity measures (Hooverism) and increasing government spending to create demand (New Deal syle Democratic economic policy) during high unemployment isn't new and goes back ever before FDR and Hoover.
But one side of that debate is conspicuously missing. Obama and the New Democrats push multi-trillion dollar spending cuts with hundreds of billions in further cuts to what they call "entitlements." That's straight-up old-fashioned Hooverism. The Republicans also preach Hooverism (with a little in-your-face bigotry on the side).
The corporate media lap this up, and the debate is not Hooverism vs. New Deal; it's Hooverism vs. Hooverism. Much of the Netroots ,including C&L, accept that corporate media framing and seem to be worried only that "their side" in that framed debate is represented fairly.
New Deal Democratic economic policy has simply disappeared from the public discourse, (kind of like single-payer and the public option) without even a mention in the MSM and with a Netroots more concerned with positive spin for Obama than with the policies themselves.
Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare have been put on the chopping block along with trillions of dollars in further yet unspecified cuts, and the problem is that the corporate media haven't been treating "good cop" Hooverists well enough or the "bad cop" Hooverists critically enough?
Nobody wins the game of "good cop/bad cop" by taking the good cop's side. You lose just by playing
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Beltway media myth # _
Wrong. the debt ceiling must be raised to pay the debts that congress already racked up.
The President must insist that the congress sends him a one page bill on the 'debt ceiling increase' that he can sign. Nothing else must be placed in this bill.
They all agree that the bill to raise the debt ceiling must be passed.
McConnel, Boehner, Cantor, they all know they must get it done, in a one page bill.
One page clean debt ceiling bill. One page clean debt ceiling bill. One page clean debt ceiling bill.
One page clean debt ceiling bill. One page clean debt ceiling bill. One page clean debt ceiling bill.
One page clean debt ceiling bill. One page clean debt ceiling bill. One page clean debt ceiling bill.
Beltway media Myth #_
Wrong. A clean, one page debt ceiling bill into 2013 will pass the house and senate with or without the T-Birch-Bagger-Republicans.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Beltway Media Myth #_
Wrong. It may need higher premiums for a while as the boomer bubble passes through, but it is not an expense that needs to be cut.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
...FIXED.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Beltway Media Myth #_
Wrong. Medicare expenses will need to be brought under control in the future, but Americans don't want Medicare cut, they want to cut costs of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, so that Medicare is more economical, so that future generations can afford Medicare.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Krugman's column reminds me of a beer commercial that any NFL fan will remember.
Remember 'Louie The Frog'?
When Budweiser was phasing that ad campaign out, Louie The Frog (RIP) ridiculed the Clysdale horses, and taunted the CEO of the company.
At which point Louie's frog side-kick replied, "Ah, Louie, you're bucking for a pink slip".
No. It already has.
me-oww!
The republicans, the T-Birch-Baggers in particular, are pathological liars, and the Beltway Media are their enablers.
For example the T-publicans are now claiming they told their followers to call their congress persons and T-baggers are the ones that crashed the servers. They are claiming that the President is the one hoping for a crisis. That's pathological lying, out in the open, and everyone knows they're lying... pathological.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
I have said that when Obama was declared the President of the USA, the white Southern and Midwest, the poorest states in the US white could not accepted that a “Black intelligent man” could run this country. While W bush, the last president never elect, was the worst president in history and put us in deficits without never put a penny put it on the books the cost of those crazy wars
All seems to blame Obama as if he started our mess! Sad that W is not in the Hague for war crime with both Cheney and Rumsfeld
Given the technology and the population, the current system of centralized government is ripe for the corrupting influence of moneyed parties. Back in the founding father days, WE needed this centralized government, as not everyone could get off to Washington on their horse and buggy to do the work of lawmaking and power. So we sent someone to represent us, Right? Now we have 300 million people and rising represented by a few hundred people. People who look like they no longer represent the real population but the corporate overlords.
Really, IMHO, the president and congress are outdated. Yea so maybe it is a fantasy, but imagine what it would be like if everyone who wanted to participate in any issue would have a vote? You would get thousands and even millions doing just that in a very responsible way, on every conceivable issue... We now have the technology to accomplish this and the gestalt of it would be absolutely miraculous...
You know something like facebook could actually create a system like this on line that would potentially be a first step toward this kind of government. strictly as an experiment or some kind of reflective internet polling website that would show the will of the people in real time participation....there might be big money in that and lots of jobs for historians and data processors....also it would show the current politicians what the true pulse of the people is... just saying...
first sentence above....belongs a little further down... the gist is that given that, what we have now is 'old fashioned'...
...I would love to launch a Cable News Channel that actually reports news and stories in an unbiased manner as well as present opinions that support a country moving forward not backward.
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Sadly the biased Right-Wing media reports like teabaggers and are surely paid to lie or just not report the truth.
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