Why I Hate The Media Part: CXVIIDCM
Devil’s Tower point’s to the right-wing meme going around about FDR and the great depression – but the larger issue is that conservatives have learned how to manipulate the media.
Conservatives know that the media will accept anything… ANYTHING… that right wingers say as factual, provided they say it repeatedly.
Even the esteemed Allan Loudell let’s right wing meme’s slip right through as thoug they were actual facts all the time.
An Open Letter to the News Media
by Devilstower
Fri Mar 27, 2009 at 07:23:42 AM PDT
If Republicans were appearing on your news broadcasts and insisting that Barry Goldwater was the 38th president of the United States, or that the Chinese bombed Pearl Harbor, surely you would take a moment to halt the conversation and correct them. At least, I’d like to think so.
So why do you continue to allow Republican officials and conservative pundits to make statements such as “the Great Depression didn’t end until World War II” or “the New Deal prolonged the depression” without comment? These statements are as incorrect as declaring Idaho a sovereign monarchy — why are they constantly unchallenged?
Recovery from the Great Depression started in the first months of the Roosevelt administration and was directly attributable to the actions and programs that FDR undertook in his first 100 days. This is not an opinion. It’s the conclusive verdict of history. It’s a fact.
Yes, I wish someone would start calling them on this lie. We don’t want it to become a part of conventional wisdom.
Colbert said it best the other night. To paraphrase: Of course FDR’s massive gov’t spending didn’t end the depression. It took WWII and the massive gov’t spending.
Although the entire premise is baseless (as noted above), this should be the easy counter-argument. OK (insert dimwit conservative name here), how did WWII get us out of the Great Depression then?
DG,
The only government spending that is acceptable to Republicans is for war or war build-up.
I heard this on NPR this AM — from Paul Ryan who was on to spin his BS on the Republican budget business. The interviewer never called him on this and never asked anything about the numbers. she just let him say whatever he wanted even though most of it was the usual lies.
I write to these stations when I can and have occasionally gotten a letter read on NPR, but they are just to wedded to the faux objectivity.