On Sunday (12/18/11), ABC‘s This Week presented an installment of what it’s calling “The Great American Debates.” What it really was, though, was a perfect example of how corporate media adopt right-wing assumptions when framing a discussion.
In this case, it was a debate over Big Government. The show’s opening sounded like a Tea Party rally:
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: This week, a special program on the defining issue of 2012. Has Uncle Sam become too big, too powerful? A bailout bonanza, a welfare state? A tax-and-spend Goliath crushing the entrepreneurial spirit when America can’t afford to fall behind? That’s the rallying cry of the Tea Party, the mantra of Republican candidates everywhere.
GOV. RICK PERRY, R-TEXAS: Washington doesn’t need a new coat of paint. It needs a complete overall.
AMANPOUR: At the heart of Ronald Reagan’s famous declaration.
RONALD REAGAN: The government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.
AMANPOUR: Today, ABC News and the Miller Center of the University of Virginia present The Great American Debate. Facing off here in Washington, the intellectual heavyweights of both parties. For the right, Congressman Paul Ryan and ABC‘s own George Will. And from the left, Congressman Barney Frank and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
About all you can say about this is that it’s relatively balanced in terms of ideology.
But all the rhetoric about a “welfare state” and a “tax-and-spend Goliath” are staples of right-wing talk radio. Has the government gone on a spending binge in the Obama years? Not really, as Paul Krugman has explained a few times. Government spending as a share of GDP has gone up, but there are reasonable explanations–a massive recession, the cost of unemployment insurance–that have nothing to do with enterpreneur-crushing Big Government.
Reich tried to point out the flaws in the framing of this discussion at least once: “The idea of big government as a framing device in terms of a debate such as this inevitably sets it up kind of in favor of the side that doesn’t want big government.”
To suggest this is the “defining issue” of 2012 is rather remarkable. Most people think there’s a jobs crisis, and understand that government spending might be the most efficient way to fix the problem. But I don’t expect ABC to convene a “Great Debate” that is premised on a question like, “Why isn’t the government spending enough money to create jobs?”
If Ryan and Will comprise the right wing of that bird, and Frank and Reich the left …
It’s in for one hell of a nosedive.
Reagan expressed a concept now widely endorsed on the right, particularly among the current Congressional freshman class, that the government is the problem. In essence, the concept is and always has been a statement of treason.
Similarly, the pledge not to raise taxes is a refusal by more than 270 Republican members of Congress to fulfill their legal obligation to consider legislative remedies to problems that confront the United States and its people. More treason.
Then there’s the refusal by a Republican majority in the House to pass any measure that would mitigate the recession — and thus alleviate the suffering of Americans now and in the future — in order to defeat the President in the next election. What else is this but treason?
Paul Ryan and the far-right water boy George Will are not merely liars, as so many by now have come to see. They are part of a clear and present attempt to bring down the government. In other words, they are traitors.
If the government is the problem, why do all these jokers want to run for office?
BRAVO, Mr Bloyce. Well said. This point is simply not made often enough.
Over the past several years, the Republican Party has been evolving (if they could actually saying such a thing without choking). In the Bush years, they were a MENACE to America freedom. As the moronic drumbeat of “Be afraid” started to finally die out, they desperately tried to extend it by becoming TERRORISTS â┚¬” trying to spread fear of everything from the government to Middle-Eastern Nations that haven’t even attacked anybody in over 100 years. Now, with the recession the #1 issue in the nation today, they have become TRAITORS to the Constitution and to the people of America.
But what can be done until the Right-Wing’s stranglehold on the media â┚¬” traditionally the bastion that stood against the things that would destroy America â┚¬” has been broken?
Concentrated, corporate media is responsible for our cultural decline, poor education outcomes, toxic politics, sanitized history, predatory advertising, and insane public policy. Thanks to Republicans, nothing much can be done about it. As I watched the Republican debates, here are some things that came to mind:
http://www.seconnecticut.com/vetorepublicans.html
I totally agree, the media was supposed to be the information provider that would allow the people of the US to make informed decisions that would lead this country forward.
I believe the founders knew this so well that the post office was created to make sure that people could spread information freely and easily.
But today our media is not worth anything.
Theres very little good reporting left, it is in fact, not simply lacking information, its abundant in lies and dumbing information.
Sadly it cant be fixed. The US has become too partisan amongst other problems with fixing the system.
I am too cynical to think anything but a collapse will have a chance of solving our problems.
Reagan’s father fed his family during the Great Depression by working a New Deal created job in the Works Progress Administration. So, when Ronald Reagan did smite “big govmit”, he was smiting his own dependency. Relative to the size of the economy, our government is quite small here in the USA, and taxation and regulation here are much less onerous than in any other western country. People don’t know this because the media-miltary-KStreet narrative preponderates over the airwaves owned by Murdoch, Disney, Viacom, and General Electric.
Jeff Thompson, you asked my question. I’ve often wondered why Republicans want to run for office if government is so evil. Somebody should ask them that at a debate (I’m not holding my breath…).
“Big Government” IS not a problem in this country. But “Big Problems”, such as high, long-term unemployment, stagnant wages, high-handed, non-regulated corporate greed, a crumbling infra-structure, loss of manufacturing, increasing pollution, sustainable energy needs, declining funds for education, increasing costs of heath care, a dysfunctional Congress, the high costs of political campaigns, the undemocratic and skewing influence of corporate lobbyists on Congress, the increasing inequality gap, etc. ARE the problems.
Anyone who actually looks at the numbers during the Ronald Ray-Guns years will notice that overall size of Government increased. What decreased was government helping anyone but the already rich to more giveaways. Government also continued to increase under Bush (both of them) but again, only for more military spending, not for average Americans. We are the Government. If the Military had to live on what we the people do, then we would have No problems what so ever. A very detailed study done in the mid 80’s showed that the Military could take a 40% cut and not effect actual readiness. Even in out tight budget this year, the Military gets an increase! Outlandish, wasteful militarism!
“Most people understand that government spending might be the most efficient way to fix the job problem?”Show me one libertarian,conservative,or Republican that believes THAT!”Has the government gone on a spending spree during the Obama years?…Not really”In what universe has he not spent like a drunken sailor?More in his first 8 months than all the presidents combined.If you want to say he is not the only one- I am with you.Pat that, you must be hitting the bottle pretty hard.
The Tea party wants a new Template.Not Reagan,not Clinton,not Bush ,or Obama.A new way ..before we lost our way,and better than all of them.Cut spending.Cut taxation.Cut regulation (that is just another tax.)Let the entrepreneurial spirit come alive.I would say Obama ,and Bush(es),and Clinton,and Reagan and Carter have had their say.It may be time for a new face in town.
I completely agree with Mr. Bloyce and can’t understand how a group of congressmen can take a “Pledge” with a private individual, Grover Norquist that prevents them from doing their job!
Shouldn’t that be a reason for firing them? It’s mind-boggling to me!
Grover may be one man but he represents where the conservative movement is going.And that voting block will be big enough to remove this president.He is simply a mouthpiece for conservative,Republican,Libertarian goals.Anti -the liberal bids to engorge the Feds power over our lives through taxation.
Yes, strange, isn’t it, Carole? Norquist is a well-fed millionaire lobbyist who has absolutely no use for democracy–this is easily discernable by reading what he’s said and written, and of course by simply watching him in action. Get Thomas Franks’ The Wrecking Crew for a revealing look at Norquist and other crazed American right-wingers in action, busy (very busy) destroying our already faltering democracy with money and stupidity.
The “pledge” these imbecile congressmen have taken shows just how much they truly despise representative democracy. They’re like spoiled children who won’t get the big piece of cake if they cross Big Daddy, so they promise, promise, promise to never piss off Mr. Grover by thnking for themselves. A sorry-ass gang of losers and crawling, boot-licking sychophants. They’re part of a “conservative” movement? They’re part of a “movement” like an exceptionally stinky turd is part of a bowel movement.
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