How to tell if it was good day.
Man turns 50, gets his AARP card, gets called up and deployed to Iraq. He retired from the military 15 years ago.
Health care prohibition on the way? I don’t see this happening. Once we socialize medicine, we’ll still have a tiered system. It’s just that the top tier will be prohibitively expensive for all but the very, very wealthy.
Read up on the 2008 DNA exonerations won with the help of the Innocence Project.
Conor Friedersdorf mourns the impending death of newspapers. I think he’s correct. Much as the right complains about the leftist slant of the major broadsheets (and they’re correct, too), newspapers serve a critical watchdog role that blogs and new media can’t completely fill. Their demise is something to be sorry about, not something to celebrate. And no, I’m not suggesting we give them a bailout. That would be quite a bit worse.
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on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 1:50 pm by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
*blinkblinkblink!*
You. Can. Not. Possibly. Be. Serious. Most of the American mainstream press is relentlessly corporate and hostile to the left. The “consensus centre” of the CMSM is waaaaay over to the right, as is most of the governing establishment. Ideas from the left that would be considered mainstream in every single other western country are ignored, derided or instantly dismissed for any one of a large number of reasons.
Whether one thinks that this is a good or bad thing is moot. The objective fact — viewed with some considerable degree of affection from the outside — is that the American press is of the political and corporate centre right. That is, the “centre right” by American definitions; by anybody else’s they are further to the right.
I should clarify that I’m talking about the corporate and GOP right, not the libertarian right.
Um, Seeker, do you, like, watch or read any media? The MSM are relentless cheerleaders of the bailout fiasco, SWAT team raids on innocent peoples’ homes, the drug war, anything and everything involving Obama, socialized healthcare, thoughtless “windfall” taxes, and the encroaching war on “terror.” Come to think of it, the MSM is fairly transcendant as far as left versus right goes. The divide there is more between statism and individualism, and the MSM almost universally rushes to fellate any idea that promotes government power over individual rights. On any given issue, if you can name a Czar for it or declare a war on it, the MSM will be there to pat you on the back.
The MSM are relentless cheerleaders of the bailout fiasco, SWAT team raids on innocent peoples’ homes, the drug war, anything and everything involving Obama, socialized healthcare, thoughtless “windfall” taxes, and the encroaching war on “terror.”
Actually, 4 of those 7 items are strongly supported by the right. American “conservatives” (Republicans) love government every bit as much as liberals do.
Read the rest of my post
“newspapers serve a critical watchdog role”
A role in which they have failed miserably.
Quote: He retired from the military 15 years ago. Unquote.
Re-read the article. It currently says that he failed to take retirement when he left active duty.
(The article indicates that it has been updated, so it may be that when you first read it, the information concerning his leaving the military was incorrect at the time that it was first posted.)
Brandon, pretty much everybody I’ve met personally or read who can be called “left” both here and in the USA hates drug laws, the militarization of the police, an ineffective and unfair tax system and loathes the “war on terra” with a shocking intensity. You criticize my observation skills but you yourself are utterly clued out on this. They are all big fetishes of the GOP and the Democratic right, and not of the left. If, however, you are using the tool of many on the American political right of noting something bad and just assuming that the big bad bogeyman left likes it and sticking a “left” label on it regardless of accuracy then you might actually have grounds for what you say. Otherwise you’re talking out of your ass. Sorry for the rudeness, but it’s true. It wasn’t the left that disappeared into its own fear after 9-11 and insisted that America invade Iran, it wasn’t the left who raped the Constitution, it wasn’t the left who got hysterical over bongs and weed… it was the right and its subs in the so-called centre.
As for socialized healthcare, there is something as a true libertarian you might want to consider: Americans have never been given a chance to have it. Libertarians are all about choice and market choice, but are strangely silent about giving voters a straight yes-no choice on having a Canadian or European style health care system. (Here in pink Canada the market has spoken: the quickest way for a politician to slit his electoral wrists is to suggest moving to a private health-care system.
In the USA, the media presents the matter as being a choice between private health care on the one hand and mostly private health care (with differing degrees of government intervention) on the other. The left would prefer “socialized healthcare” but isn’t really on the media, party or governmental tables.
To return to the civil liberties issues, I must confess that you’ve pissed me right off. The natural allies on the civil libertarian “leave me the hell alone” issue on matters of personal conscience and personal liberty are not amongst the right: they are on the left. In terms of personal (as opposed to market) freedom, Radley has far more in common with, say, Amanda Marcotte than he does with the Joe Scarboroughs of this world.
How many “liberal” commenters are there on mainstream TV, Brandon? Two. That self-satisfied windbag Olbermann and the far more intelligent Rachel Maddow. How many right-wingers are there? Too many to count. As for guests, you might want to look at Media Matters’ analysis of the hard-right tilt of them, too.
One of the reasons I care little about newspapers plight is the poor quality of writing,lack of research,and opinion posing as news.All articles seem to be opinion pieces. and many use the same source material.Some groups such as M.A.D.D have been elavated to such a high status they can not be questioned.Same with pro drug war groups,anti smoking,global warming and on and on.
Seeker,
You are obviously ignorant of men of the right like Bill Buckley who repudiated our laws on marijuana, and the fact that the most right-wing party in semi-mainstream politics, the Constitution Party, has strongly repudiated the way that our police are being militarized and rights are being lost to enforce the drug laws. The “right” you speak of doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as a “corporate right.” That faction, the corporatists, are, like their ideological progenitors, a third way in the fight between capitalism and socialism.
If you haven’t seen the left-wing slant, you obviously haven’t been reading the MSM. They slant everything from race, to the state of the economy to the left. Two good examples: the Jena 6 incident and the current economic problems which are supposedly a result of laissez faire capitalism, despite the fact that organizations like Freddie Mac exist because of the political system.
seeker6079: If you think the left didn’t rape the Constitution, then either you’re defining FDR as “right-wing” (which he may indeed be given the way you seem to define them) or you need to read up about his administration.
A majority imposing its will on other people by legislation does not constitute “choice.” If it does, then we’re all completely free, since a majority voted for the government that is in power. Four wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch does not constitute a free choice by the lamb.
Okay, Mike T, you’ve got some respect from me, but I don’t think it’s the kind yo were looking for. Anybody who can type “There is no such thing as a “corporate right.” ” without descending into a multitude of typos due to a fit of the giggles does have a great degree of self-control.
If you’re going to say that the current economic woes are somehow magically problems of the left, aren’t related to deregulation, aren’t related to corporate capitalism, then, really, you aren’t worth addressing. You’re existing in a land of belief rather than evidence, more of a religious libertarian than a reasoned one. Your counterparts were the old-school tatty marxists who said that communism had never failed. There can never be failure of the ideology!
Gary: you worship the Constitution in your first para, then basically write off the inevitable result of a legislative democracy in your second. They are symbiotic concepts, not opposites.
And, if, for example, a majority of people decide that an individual’s right to dump poisonous chemicals into a river need be curtailed, then by all means restrict the choice of the dumper.
What you have now in America is the worst of both worlds: you have government which is anti-market in that it exists to maximize corporate rape of your economy for a limited few, whilst being free-market enough to ensure that key government services that every other civilized country takes for granted never make it to citizens.
Do you have a second, independent source, for that deployment story? I suspect you might have a hard time finding another one to substantiate that story……..
How is a local NBC station not an “independent source”?
The article and video on the 50 year old vet leaves out too much out to be sure what exactly the deal is. My assumption is that he joined the Individual Ready Reserve, and just hoped that he wouldn’t be called up.
seeker, dude, you have to visit us at Hit & Run. Imagine the fun.
Somewhere in America there’s probably another, much younger, Paul Bandel who’s blissfully unaware of the bullet that just missed him. But I predict that even if he’s found, the military will now insist the Paul Bandel they’ve got is the one they wanted all along.
Andrew, jwh simply can’t bring himself to believe stories that don’t reflect well on the military. Several months ago, he asked us to name a single innocent person at Guantanamo, and when several were provided, he was unable to admit that he was mistaken.
Seeker, you seem awfully hung up on “left” and “right”, while ignoring that the problem is not defined in those terms: it’s defined as “statism” versus “individualism”.
The war on pornography has been a mutual effort between leftist feminists and right-wing religionists. The problem is not left/right, it’s liberty/statism.
Your beloved socialist healthcare is statist, and stomps all over individual rights to contract freely for medical services.
You’re also quite wrong that Americans have “never been given the chance” to try socialized medicine: tens of millions have relied on Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration for their healthcare. Not one of them wished they could run to Canada for better treatment.
@KBCraig: My father is retired USAF and he has been through the VA ringer. If there is a worse health care system in this country than the one run by the VA, I don’t want to see it.
@Les: I couldn’t tell you how many innocent people are at Guantanamo, either, but I don’t think that’s a relevant number. The relevant number is how many people are being held without even being formally accused of anything (at Guantanamo or anywhere else for that matter). Whether innocent or not, those people deserve their day in court, and if we’re not going to give it to them, we should release them.
Daschle will push for “health care prohibition” but he won’t get it. We will probably end up with a public/private health care system something like the our public/private education system.
Public education is free, but generally mediocre or poor in quality. Private education is expensive and generally only marginally better than public edcuation. To comepete, private education doesn’t have to be exceptional in this country because public schools set the standard and have set the bar so low.
Likewise publically funded “universal health care” will be miserably bad and private health care will be just a tad better, but it will be painfully expensive.
Socialism–let’s spread the misery evenly!
http://www.rightklik.net/2008/11/nation-too-ignorant-to-be-free.html
John, I completely agree with you. I don’t know how many people at Guantanamo are/were innocent (hundreds have been released), but we do know that innocent people have been held there and released. The way we’ve dealt with the prisoners there is, quite literally, a shame.
And like a good liberal, you fail to realize that an adjective changes the meaning of a noun. “Corporate capitalism” and “state capitalism” are largely the same thing. They are a third-way between socialism and capitalism intended to control the economy, but without the predictably messy outcomes of true central planning. It is the “carrot and machete” approach to encouraging certain behaviors.
I’m confused about what was so capitalist about the last eight years. Was it the increased role for government in providing healthcare? How about the increase subsidization of education and agriculture? Ooh, ooh, was it the increased regulation in favor of intellectual property owners against the rest of the marketplace? How about that massive transfer of wealth we just saw to every corporation with its tin cup out begging for some filthy lucre?
Excellent work, Radley. I enjoyed the previous fellow’s posts, but care to not get involved…..not ’nuff room. Now, as to a ‘good day’…. ” If I am not suffering some idiot trying to stuff his adgenda up my skirt, I have a promise to myself, to not un-sheath the total ire and fire-power at my fingertips….” Thank you, Radley. Your work speaks volumes, I am a long time reader, and they can call me what they will…. I do not care. BTW, nice looking pair of puppies you have there.
Why is there such a belief that large corporations are anti-leftist? For small businesses, the regulatory compliance costs imposed by the left are crippling, but because many of the costs are relatively fixed, the burden to larger corporations is comparatively light. The reduction in competition that results from the elimination of small players offers a benefit that far outweighs the costs imposed by most government regulations.
Something about that article on the guy getting recalled to active duty seems incomplete to me.
An enlistee’s total required service is between six and eight years. 10 U.S.C. § 651. After discharge from active duty, national guard, or reserve service, the enlistee serves the rest of his time in the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) component, which is largely just a list of people who still have time left. Until the end of the required service, the former service member can be recalled, but after that time he cannot be recalled unless he elects to remain in the IRR. DoD Directive 1235.13 (July 16, 2005), so the part of that story about the military being able to involuntarily recall you forever is not really accurate.
It would have been nice for the news outlet to produce the letter he received as part of the story so we could see under what authority the army issued the recall notice. I hope that he contacts a good lawyer who specializes in military law rather than just showing up because he got a letter. Once he gets there and signs all of the crap they are likely to put in front of him, it will probably be too late since those documents will contain waivers.
I don’t know that it’s bad that newspapers are going away. In fact, I think the smart ones won’t die but transform. I read newspaper articles online almost everyday. The newspaper has been obsoleted by technology, not their political views. If they don’t fight the change and figure out how to use the new technology, they will survive in some form.
I agree that new media isn’t ready to take the torch yet, but they are rapidly getting closer and should be ready by the time the newpapers die.
I’ve often wondered why newspapers and magazines (like Reason) don’t offer special online content for their paper subscribers, or offer reasonable rates for online only subscriptions.
I find it puzzling that the models examined for healthcare reform seem to be Canada and the United Kingdom, which are evolved systems.
The system used in the Netherlands, which is both universal and based on companys providing healthcare provision on a competitive basis, a modern and recently-created system is surely a better model to follow.
Yes, certainly it has socalist elements, in the tax-provided pool which offsets the issues with adverse selection (which plagues the current American system), and in the free provision for children, the elderly and unemployed but it is providing a very high level of care for a relatively low percentage of GDP.
It’s not ideal in some respects, but it’s an example of a different and highly successful healthcare system which relies on private, not state, patient care and while it mandates no-refusal for the oblitatory basic coverage there’s any number of additional packages at varying prices to purchase…
The part the papers missed is that the man is a CWO3, a Warrant Officer. Warrants and Commissioned are still legally on the hook unless they resign.
If he is a commissioned officer or a warrant officer, then unless he resigned his warrant or commission, he would be subject to recall. Frank, where did you read that he was a CW03?
Somebody has access to Army Knowledge Online…
If you watch the video, you can see his warrant officer rank insignia on the shoulders of his Class As, and on the lapel of his old BDUs. As Frank and J. Jenkins said, unless he resigned his warrant when he separated from the Army (and it looks like he probably didn’t), he is subject to involuntary recall until he does.
Health care prohibition on the way? I don’t see this happening. Once we socialize medicine, we’ll still have a tiered system. It’s just that the top tier will be prohibitively expensive for all but the very, very wealthy.
I just wanted to thank you for the link (within the link) to the DrRich blog, Radley.
He has some very innovative ideas and some truly wicked snark.
A minor quibble before this thread dies, but warrant officers actually receive a commission when they hit CW2. It is no different than the commission received by regular officers. In fact, chief warrant officers are becoming indistinguishable from regular officers. It is not uncommon for them to occupy positions traditionally filled by regular officers, or even to command.
The guy “called up” at 50 was gambling with the system. If he resigns his commission when he goes off active duty, that’s it. However, if he doesn’t, he can wait out his 20 and apply for retirement pay. The gamble is that he could actually have to do some more time in that interval. He lost.