Daily Archive

If we had a liberal media then it would look more like what this article from Alter.net describes.   Fact check time.   Are you seeing these types of stores in the bright vivid technicolour everyday, endlessly repeated so people know about them?  Of course not, they what a liberal media would *actively promote*.  What do we see?  Sensationalism, sports and weather;  the dross that is cheap to produce and perpetuates the status quo.

I’ve copy/pasted the first seven points, go to article itself to read the last eight and the conclusion.

If you know anyone who still believes in a “liberal media,” here’s 15 things everyone would know if there really were a “liberal media” (inspired by Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post):

1. Where the jobs went.

Outsourcing (or offshoring) is a bigger contributor to unemployment in the U.S. than laziness.

Since 2000, U.S. multinationals have cut 2.9 million jobs here while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg as multinational corporations account for only about 20 percent of the labor force.

When was the last time you saw a front-page headline about outsourcing?

Click to enlarge.

Source: Wall Street Journal via Think Progress.

2.  Upward wealth redistribution and/or inequality.

In 2010, 20 percent of the people held approximately 88 percent of the net worth in the U.S. The top one percent alone held 35 percent of all net worth.

The bottom 80 percent of people held only 12 percent of net worth in 2010. In 1983, the bottom 80 percent held 18 percent of net worth.

These statistics are not Democrat or Republican. They are widely available to reporters. Why aren’t they discussed in the “liberal” media?

Click to enlarge.

Source: Occupy Posters

3. ALEC.

If there was a corporate organization that drafted laws and then passed them on to legislators to implement, wouldn’t you think the “liberal” media would report on them?

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is such an organization. Need legislation drafted? No need to go through a lobbyist to reach state legislatures anymore. Just contact ALEC. Among other things, ALEC is responsible for:

• Stand Your Ground laws
• Voter ID laws
• Right to Work laws
• Privatizing schools
• Health savings account bills which benefit health care companies
• Tobacco industry legislation

Many legislators don’t even change the proposals handed to them by this group of corporations. They simply take the corporate bills and bring them to the legislative floor.

This is the primary reason for so much similar bad legislation in different states.

Hello … “liberal media” … over here!

They’re meeting in Chicago this weekend. Maybe the “liberal media” will send some reporters.

4. The number of people in prison.  

Which country in the world has the most people in prison?

You might think it would be China (with more than one billion people and a restrictive government) or former Soviets still imprisoned in Russia.

Wrong. The United States has the most people in prison by far of any country in the world. With 5 percent of the world’s population, we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners – 2.3 million criminals. China with a population 4 times our size is second with 1.6 million people in prison.

In 1972, 350,000 Americans were in imprisoned. In 2010, this number had grown to 2.3 million. Yet from 1988 – 2008, crime rates have declined by 25 percent.

Isn’t anyone in the liberal media interested in why so many people are in prison when crime has dropped? WTF “liberal media”?

Click to enlarge.

Source: Wikipedia/Justice Policy Institute Report.

5. The number of black people in prison.

In 2009, non-Hispanic blacks, while only 13.6 percent of the population, accounted for 39.4 percent of the total prison and jail population.

In 2011, according to FBI statistics, whites accounted for 69.2 percent of arrests.

Numbers like these suggest a racial bias in our justice system.

To me, this is a much bigger story than any single incident like Travyon Martin. Or, at the very least, why didn’t the “liberal media” ever mention this while covering the Martin story?

6. U.S. health care costs are the highest in the world.

The expenditure per person in the U.S. is $8,233. Norway is second with $5,388.
Total amount of GDP spent on health care is also the highest of any country in the world at 17.6 percent. The next closest country is the Netherlands at 12 percent.

As a liberal, I’d like to ask why the market isn’t bringing down costs. I’d think a “liberal” media might too.

7. Glass-Steagall.

Glass-Steagall separated risky financial investments from government backed deposits for 66 years.

The idea is simple. Banks were prohibited from using your federally insured savings to make risky investments.

Why is this a good idea?

Risky investments should be risky. If banks can use federally insured funds, there is no risk to them. If they win, they win. If they lose, we cover the cost.

Elizabeth Warren did a great job explaining this to the “liberal news” desk at CNBC.