Getting Things Right This Year!
I was thinking out a blog when I discovered a parallel in the Krugman Op-Ed below. The past year has been one in which misinformation -- downright lying -- has been given equal standing with the truth. The pattern of TV comments -- left/right 20 second hits with interruptions -- has left a majority of Americans totally confused as to what is true and what is merely false opinion to be given equal or even superior status to the truth. What medical reform means is a clear example of this pattern.
Other situations are more complicated and without certainties, e.g. should we stay in Afghanistan to stabilize Pakistan and avoid another India/Pakistan war -- this time with nuclear capacities?
I hope this year we can begin to get to the facts and get the facts as best we can to a puzzled and worried public. We may have an uphill battle here because the big guys are grabbing and distorting our media outlets. Teddy Roosevelt saw the hazards at the beginning of the last century and called for reforms then -- particularly anti-trust laws to prevent control of things by pure wealth. These laws are being ignored with obvious results -- the medical profit makers are trying to write our health reform bill; military profiteers are trying to tip as much of our resources their way as possible - even if that requires phony wars and threats of same.
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The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Let's bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero -- the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28krugman.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]
Other situations are more complicated and without certainties, e.g. should we stay in Afghanistan to stabilize Pakistan and avoid another India/Pakistan war -- this time with nuclear capacities?
I hope this year we can begin to get to the facts and get the facts as best we can to a puzzled and worried public. We may have an uphill battle here because the big guys are grabbing and distorting our media outlets. Teddy Roosevelt saw the hazards at the beginning of the last century and called for reforms then -- particularly anti-trust laws to prevent control of things by pure wealth. These laws are being ignored with obvious results -- the medical profit makers are trying to write our health reform bill; military profiteers are trying to tip as much of our resources their way as possible - even if that requires phony wars and threats of same.
*********************************
The Big Zero
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Let's bid a not at all fond farewell to the Big Zero -- the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28krugman.html?th&emc=th
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent [blind copies]
posted by Ed Kent at 7:21 AM
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