Media and Refugees

I read an article from Der Spiegel today which claimed Angela Merkel has gambled away her power with her compassion for refugees. (They do not deserve a link) Only compassionate policies receive this type of hatred from the press and calls for referenda. I never heard people call for a referendum when the US invaded Iraq, when Southern Europe was devastated by austerity (which performed exactly as all economic theory predicts), or to push anti-gay laws in Eastern Europe onto the ballot. Only policies which try to make the world a better place get such attention. The way the media talks about such issues makes it sound like refugees from Syria in Europe or Mexico in the USA are causing all of our problems, when any accurate analysis proves that this is not true, and in fact a majority of Germans approve of these actions. 40% is a majority according to the media when the policy which has 60% approval makes the world a better place.

Europe has the resources to help the refugees from the Middle East, and frankly Europe owes it to the Middle East after standing idly by as religious extremists have destroyed Middle Eastern Culture in the Arab states after colonizing the world, particularly Britain. Germany didn't have colonies in the region, but Germany has the resources (and need for labor) to help people from the Middle East. If we show compassion towards those whose homes have been destroyed we could build a better world where all people see our common heritage as humankind to build a more peaceful world. Instead of punishing 4 year old girls whose homes have been bombed out by Wahabbi extremists and teach them to never trust the West (a lesson which fascists have taught them far too many times) by sending them back to the meat grinder we should show them compassion and give them a sense that we are good people and grow trust between our lands. This will reduce the threat of terrorism across the world for mutual benefit. If we choose instead to send them back to the meat grinder of Syria and continue invasions of their homelands what little trust and respect there is between our peoples will be eroded even further, and we will continue to see repetitions of the Crusades of the Middle Ages.

The media needs to stop making it sound like 10 year old boys are trying to kill everybody, and be more accurate in their reporting. We are seeing the media manufacture consent over this issue, and it is killing innocent people every day. The same media which makes it sound like 10 year olds are going to bomb the Kölnerdom then turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's abuse of women, the genocide in Darfur, Apartheid, the chaos in Israel/Palestine, and actual real problems which create the animosity and hatred which destroyed the Twin Towers, Pentagon and almost destroyed the Capital Building. I believe they want liberalism to fail.

There is a better path than this. It isn't hard if you try.

Deutsche Welle

Sanders and Media bias

Bernie Sanders is by far not my favorite member of Congress, and looking at the Senate and governors across the country, he doesn't even make my top ten candidates who I believe would make a fantastic president (Warren, O'Malley, Inslee, Whitehouse, Feingold, Wyden, are six politicians who I believe would make far better presidents off the top of my head) in terms of their ability to lead and stay consistent. But, Sanders beats all but one of these candidates in his current run for the President because he is actually running, and he is beating O'Malley not because of any major policy improvements he has (he is actually far less progressive than O'Malley given O'Malley's leadership in Maryland) but he has been able to pronounce a very angry and often inaccurate, such as his comment about the Iraq War and various incorrect economic statistics, message which people identify with in our current debate atmosphere as opposed to O'Malley's extremely well researched calm explanation about very distressing issues which he exemplified in the last debate. I do not want to see O'Malley be like Sanders, I'd much rather see Sanders be like O'Malley, but that is sadly what turns people on, which is not a new phenomenon in American politics. Going back all the way to the founding of our country we have frequently voted for personality over policy. (The Ultimate Guide to the Presidents) It is a great shame that O'Malley does not have the social media organizing team that Sanders has put together in an Obamaesque fashion. This is the only reason why O'Malley is not winning the election.

Despite this, there is a lot of talk about the media silencing Sanders as much as they can, which I find despicable. Yellow journalism is by no means a new event in American politics, it stretches all the way back to when George Washington was President and has been an integral part of American politics since then. Albeit, it demonstrates where the media's loyalties lie and that they do not lie with the American people. While I do not care for Sanders I like him far more than I like Hillary Clinton, and if he ends up being the nominee I will vote for him over any Republican candidate.

What is the solution to media bias? We cannot have the government shutting down publications it sees as too biased of course which raises all sorts of questions about who will get shut down versus who will not, and who will be the judge of who is practicing yellow journalism and who is reporting accurately. The only solution I can see is improving our history and civics education in this country so people have a better ability to understand various ideologies which these candidates are exemplifying, and learn how to find out the truth in these various issue in a meaningful way which is not prone to bias. This truly is one of the greatest challenges for a democracy, how to foster civil debate while also bringing forward the best and the brightest to lead the country.

Perhaps more than anything about the candidates, we got an excellent lesson on which media to trust for giving accurate accounts (NPR) and which media to toss for only reporting on their candidate and being biased. (New York Times for imbalance and CNN for deleting their poll on who won their debate after it showed a Sanders victory)

Fairness

First it was the existence of a German style health care system,then it was Benghazi, then it was the insurance exchange not working. 

The corporate media has been trying to get Obama on every little thing that didn't go just right, as long as it doesn't benefit their owners. None of them are looking at the real failures of the Obama administration, giving up the public option and other downright concessions regarding his most important bill, signing the NDAA of 2011 which is plain embarrassing, because each of these benefit the companies that donate to politicians campaigns and almost certainly have stakes in the private corporate media. They would put it as "holding the presidents feet to the fire."

What is really interesting also is that when it came to his predecessors decisions to invade Iraq, our the bill of rights on hold via the Patriot Act, the similar problems with Medicare part D's rollout, give the banks money they will never have to pay back, appoint extremely biased judges that have ruled that there is no limit to how much a corporation can donate to campaigns if they form a Super PAC hitch undermines our democracy and creates conflicts of interest for our elected officials, there was very little to none of this call for "accountability" when our bill of rights was put on hold.

It is so obvious to me how biased the media is and where their interests truly lie. There are problems they should be reporting, but since they serve their interest they get little to no screen time.

1. President Obama has made a number of concessions too soon, with the ACA, NDAA of 2011, and with a large exception of the fiscal cliff disaster (the disaster wasn't the debt, it was the closure of many government services that had a noticeable impact on our economy) has given a lot of ground to the republicans and got nothing in return, like how Clinton held the office (led is too strong of a word) back in the 1990s.

2. The Democrats have not made serious efforts to repeal the PATRIOT ACT, give justice to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other military prisons, give justice to immigrants being held in TSA prisons across the country, reform our immigration laws so we can have enough farm workers come here legally, repeal citizens united and implement mandatory public financing for political campaigns which will help destroy conflicts of interest and is used in New Zealand which is routinely listed as the least corrupt country in the world, renew the part of the Civil Rigts Act which requires some federal oversight in states where there is a history of gerrymandering, demand accountability on where and who we ship weapons to, making sure the process of who receives federal contracts is fair and accountable, or changing our tax code to be more progressive and help bring stability to our economy like exists in Australia. These types of actions will fire up the base of the Democratic Party and get people excited. There has been no progress on any of them. This is a major failure of the Democratic Party. The only 2 major bills the past 5 years have been watered down (even though neither one got a single Republican vote) and were very limited in scope. This isn't so much about appeasing the republicans as it is appeasing the corporate interests who are corrupting our system.

3. The surveillance of American citizens is unconstitutional without a warrant. There has been no serious effort by the President or his party to change those laws.

These are serious problems that threaten the ability of people to get fired up about the Democratic Party, I'm not very fired up personally after all of these concessions and am hoping for a third party if our electoral system would allow it.