Let’s get some truth into the discussion.
Right-wing blogger, Kevin McCullough, in yesterday’s (Sunday, February 8) edition of Townhall.com (http://townhall.com/columnists/KevinMcCullough/2009/02/08/the_hope_and_change_of_arrogance_and_thuggery) argued against the administration’s proposed economic stimulus package by stating, “An economy that heals by allowing the workers and producers in this nation to keep what they have earned, invest it in new growth, the adding of jobs, and the expansion of production in America, would be the greatest thing liberal party leaders fear.”
McCullough then reported, “At a dinner party in Chicago this past friday [sic] evening I asked the four couples gathered around the table what they would do with that amount of money coming back to them from the government. Each of them mentioned housing projects, fix-me-up stuff, goods they were in need of, and some mentioned paying off debt. There were also mentions of new home electronic big ticket items, and the ladies around the table all day-dreamed momentarily of being able to do a spa day. Long story short, every item they talked about would have employed someone like a contractor, plumber, or electrician. They would have added to the welfare of commerce--big ticket items, new transportation, etc. And some would have even helped solidify the crumbling credit market by paying off credit card balances and putting cash back into the system.”
Two things, before moving on to other Right lies and nonpartisan facts: The first, for eight years, the Right had their way. And the disastrous tax cuts that were disproportionately weighted in favor of those who neither asked for nor needed them, in tandem with abject, unthinking disparagement for any level of regulation, whether it was to inspect the food we consume, or to review the books of the finance industry, or to ponder the wisdom of unchecked corporate mergers, has put us and the world at the brink. Conclusion: If tax cuts worked, we’d all be driving to country clubs in our new BMWs and Mercedes Benzes.
Two, every noteworthy economist along the political continuum has stated that what Americans would do with monies via such cuts is to pay down their outstanding debt to whatever extent those funds permitted. Anything left over would go toward some FDIC insured savings plan. What they would not do is spend the money.
Facts, baby. Facts. And even according to the god of the Right, Ronald Reagan, they can have their own opinions, but not their own facts.
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Now, what I wanted to hit on: The neo-Nazi Far Right’s preemptive barrage, asserting that any and all who are even the least left of them, somehow want to burn the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech and press by reintroducing the Fairness Doctrine.
One truth that is little known to many Americans is that the airwaves do NOT belong to any person or group, other than the American public. In other words, neither Clear Channel nor anyone else has an inherent ownership right to any spot on the radio dial. (Word of Caution: Do not confuse cable or satellite transmissions with the airwaves.)
Another truth is that it has been one of the Republican agendas for several decades to seize control of the airwaves via mergers that facilitate crowding out disparate voices. The Bush administration provided the added thrust that has made it possible for listeners from Bangor to Burbank to tune in to Rush or Sean or Bill or Neil or Glenn or Michael at three or four, or more, locations in every market. Progressive talk, a relatively recent phenomenon, has been relegated to 3d and 4th tier frequencies with very limited range and frequently very poor reception.
Let’s exchange one Right wing fallacy — or, more accurately, bald-faced lie — with another truth of the matter. The Right likes to claim how, via the dailies, listeners repeatedly manifest their preferences for them, over the progressive programs. Progressive talk personalities, Stephanie Miller (See PS below), Ed Schultz, Tom Hartmann, and Randi Rhodes, time after time after time generate greater patronage than do Rush and sidekicks in the markets where they can be heard! The distortions that weigh heavily in favor of the Righties are entirely because of the way the mergers noted previously make it so incredibly difficult for potential listeners to find a station that carries anything from the progressive perspective. It’s as close to a vertically integrated monopoly as one can conjure.
Regardless that so many choose to, it’s rather difficult to take with any honest level of seriousness a claim that one side is preferred over another when the latter is denied by the former anything close to an equal field upon which to compete.
— Ed Tubbs
(PS re Stephanie Miller. In a C-SPAN interview with the station’s Brian Lamb, that aired yesterday, Sunday, February 8, (http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1218), Stephanie Miller, daughter of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1964 vice-presidential running mate, Congressman William Miller, was asked questions concerning what the Right alleges is the Left’s efforts to close down conservative arguments via reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine. As you can hear and see for your self, Ms. Miller made it clear that it would be an undesirable step rearward, that not a single progressive commentator has remotely argued for it, and that what is needed is not a governmental requirement the public’s airwaves be employed fairly, to foster robust debate available to listeners across the country. This, Miller insisted, was a policy the mega-broadcasting corporations ought to institute as a civic responsibility, but not one the federal government should get involved with.)
