Now were kicking reporters off of Guantanamo for reporting information that was already public. It turns out that all Presidents in favor of the free flow of information . . . unless it is inconvenient. As this article concludes: "[N]othing says 'kangaroo court' quite like banning the free press."
How many times a day does it happen that someone tells you something that is purportedly factual, yet it is totally or partially untrue? It happens dozens of times every day. For instance, someone says that the meeting is at 2, but it's really at 2:30. You ask someone directions and they get it terribly wrong. Someone claims that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Lots of falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims fly whenever people try to sell you something. Untruths occur even when experts make claims, even within their expertise. Lack of accuracy happens when people who don't know lack the courage to say that they don't know. It happens when politicians tell us that we can drill our way out of the energy crisis. It happens when people allow hope to triumph over the truth. You see it where people aren't careful or when they aren't self-critical (maybe that's redundant). You see it where someone's memory is faulty and whenever they are overwhelmed with emotion. It often happens on homework assignments and tests, even after the students carefully study the topics before providing their answers. It happens where people conjure up imaginary worlds and beings for their eternal protection. It happens when people substitute words for knowledge. It happens when people don't understand what they are talking about, or when they assume. You see it and hear it whenever someone's intellectual reach is greater than his or her grasp. I hear it all the time at work, even during sworn deposition testimony. I hear lots of white lies by kind-hearted people. I hear the untrue words of people trying to save face. I hear the untrue sentences of parents trying to spare their children from complex or intense truths. You hear untrue statements even when people are trying their hardest to be accurate. Just listen, for instance, to the number of times well-meaning people correct other well-meaning people during ordinary conversations. Bottom line: A lot of things that are said during the day are not accurate, from coast to coast. Of course, many of these inaccuracies are not intentionally incorrect. I'm not claiming that most of these inaccuracies are the result of lying, although a huge chunk of it is due to paltering. After this thought occurred to me today, I walked out into the hallway and sprung the following question on two unsuspecting attorneys:
What is the percentage of purportedly factual statements spoken by every person living in the US over the past year that are completely true by any reasonable measure of truth?
When I asked the question, I was assuming that my acquaintances would answer with something like the number that I had in my head: 40% One answered 15% and the other said 10%. Gad. I hope that neither of them is correct.Federal TARP watchdog Elizabeth Warren is warning that the Republican proposal for a "consumer protection agency" is anti-family.
"I'm tired of hearing politicians claim to support families and, at the same time, vote with the big banks on the most important financial reform package in generations. I'm deep-down tired of it."The current Senate bill, sponsored by Democrat Christopher Dodd, which would house the new consumer agency within the Federal Reserve,
adheres to Warren's four tests: a chief appointed by the president, an independent source of funding, the authority to write consumer rules and the ability to enforce them against unscrupulous lenders. The unit, thus, focuses squarely on consumers. Ensuring banks' profitability is left to banking regulators. The Republicans' counter-proposal, released this week, fails all four of Warren's tests.Warren describes the Republican proposal as follows: ""The whole idea of the substitute is to take a bunch of regulators that already failed and throw them in a committee together."
At the Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan presents Noah Millman's 3-axis political taxonomy system:
liberal vs. conservative (attitudes toward the individual and authority) left vs. right (attitudes toward social/economic winners and losers) progressive vs. reactionary (attitude toward past and future)My reaction? We need something like this. We need better labels (than "right" versus "left"), to enable better dialogue.
I just watched a Fresno local news report regarding a Tea Party protest of William Ayers. Watching this TV report reminded me of the adage about a tree falling in a forest: If Bill Ayers simply came to California to give a talk, but there were no Tea Party demonstrators in sight, you wouldn't hear anything about it on the news. But when a smattering of Tea Party folks comes out to protest Ayers' right to say anything, it becomes news. Once again, we can see that raw, visceral, uninformed conflict is driving our news--not ideas and certainly nothing productive. The bottom line take-away from this report appears to be a reinforcement of the Manichean world view. This TV display of lots of heat and not much light is standard fare for television news. Hence, my term, "conflict pornography." This type of consciously-injected agon is furthered by flashy banners and the sound effects, as well as terms like "Action News!" All of these media tricks smoothly tap into that inextricably deep human misconception that "Movement is Progress," combined with our deeply rooted xenophobic impulses: Keep moving! Outsiders are threatening you! Keep fighting! Pay attention! Buy this! Buy that! But back to this TV news report. Consider the opening line of the news anchor in the video: "One of the leaders of a radical movement of the 60's and 70's . . ." Note the sarcasm dripping from her voice when she reports that Ayers is claiming that "he has something in common" with the protesters. I think that it's time for these reporters to take a deep breath and focus on the bigger picture: what was the context of the "radical" actions of Ayers? I would suggest that many (maybe most) modern Americans would agree with most of the principles of his "radical movement" (that "Terrorism was what was being practiced in the countryside of Vietnam by the United States." And see here). On the other hand, I would agree that most Americans would disapprove of the use of any sort of bombs, even where the bombs were carefully planned to explode in empty offices, so as not to cause any injuries. And further consider the failure of this report (and most others about Ayers, especially during the Obama campaign) that Ayers has repeatedly questioned his own tactics.