Robert Parry: Obama's War with the Right (& Media)

[laststeamtrain]

Obama's War with the Right (& Media)

By Robert Parry
February 28, 2009

In a startling ambitious budget message, President Barack Obama has thrown down the gauntlet to the American Right not only by tying the current economic crisis to the recklessness of the past eight years under George W. Bush but by tracing it back further to the anti-regulatory, anti-labor and anti-government policies of Ronald Reagan.

“For the better part of three decades, a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth has been accumulated by the very wealthy,” the 142-page budget message states. “Technological advances and growing global competition, while transforming whole industries -- and birthing new ones – has accentuated the trend toward rising inequality.”

Though Obama lays the bulk of what he calls “a legacy of mismanagement and misplaced priorities” at the feet of the Bush administration, there is no mistaking his larger message – that the problems which were “exacerbated” by Bush’s tax cuts and other pro-rich policies have been building since Reagan’s 1981 inaugural declaration that “government is the problem.”

Obama even made a glancing reference to that formulation in his preamble to the budget message. “We need to put tired ideologies aside, and ask not whether our government is too big or too small, or whether it is the problem or the solution, but whether it is working for the American people,” Obama said.

To the American Right, those are fighting words, and leading right-wingers have already trotted out their curious charge of “class warfare,” an ironic message given the fact that the growing disparity in American wealth reveals that “class warfare” has long been at the heart of Reagan-Bush policies – and the rich are winning.

Yet, while it may be audacious for the young President to take on the well-entrenched forces of reaction in Washington, there is another reason for Obama and his supporters to worry. The national news media remains largely enthralled by the pro-Republican rules of the past three decades.

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/022809.html

[PM Martin]

1. Everyone should read this.

The media monopolies must be broken if you want to get your message through.
Also, the internet must remain in it's current state.

[Uncle Joe]

2. If you believe the corporate media have been corrupted, thus abusing their power and responsibility

pay close attention to this bill in the Congress, I don't know all the details of the entire bill, but the House version is loaded with poison for the American People's First Amendment's Rights, and whistle blowers against corruption.

This Shield Law, the corporate media is pushing only protects those "professional journalists" of the type which are employed by the corporate media.

For some reason they believe if you get paid you deserve some protection, this is asinine and illogical as getting paid actually compromises your highest degree of integrity. You owe your allegiance to the corporation; which cuts your pay checks.

Reporting the truth or exposing corruption is irrelevant to making money from it and I believe this is a direct attack against the growing people power movement via the Internet.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/Americas/2009/feb/Congress-Considers-Journalist-Shield-Law.html

"CMLP points out that the House bill includes a clause that essentially says a person must be engaged in news gathering for a “substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.” The Senate bill doesn’t include any stipulations for livelihood or financial gain. The House bill also doesn’t explain what “substantial” means. Under the House language, many bloggers and freelance writers may not be covered."