Weirdly enough my father-in-law, a Greek immigrant so far to the left of the political spectrum that calling him a Communist isn’t that far off, does exactly the same thing!

One can just as easily draw the conclusion that readers go to those media outlets which support their prejudices. A paper or opinion magazine plants its flag in one camp or the other and those who want to hear what they say from that perspective rally around.

Certainly the history of media in the 20th Century bears this out. Luce and Hearst made their political positions known at the outset. Publishing was the means to promote their preferred policies. We see the same thing these days in the blogosphere. Markos started dailyKos to promote his agenda of getting Dems elected.

Krempasky, et al, started Redstate to support the Republican agenda. They then attracted true believers (and is some cases banned opponents).

And the terminology is not favored by those who used to be part of the readership.

Every word of that socialist rag is propaganda.

Incredibly, here they’ve taken to spin their spin.

1. The economics “Nobel” prize is, in fact, not a Nobel Prize, but a misnamed prize given by a Swedish bank. It’s like the Oscars, a bunch of people in a trade group get to pat themselves on the back.

2. Friedman’s monetary policies are no longer “operative” they were abandoned during the Volcker tenure as counter productive. You can look it up. William Grieder documents this in his book “Secrets of the Temple”.

3. Friedman’s social ideas are pure libertarian bunk. However, there is no arguing with libertarians since they have found the one true religion. I heard Friedman say on his last Charlie Rose interview: “Private industry can do anything that government does at half the cost”. Statements like that are so absurd that one has to question anyone who follows Friedman as to whether they have ever really studied his social philosophy.

Why libertarians are so passionate about their Utopianism is a puzzle to the rest of the world. The one saving grace is that no government pays any attention to their ideas. The right does use them as a smokescreen to cover the actual rapacious policies they put in place. So a bunch of “think tanks” come out with “studies” which prove that the world is better off if we have unlimited economic freedom. As in the freedom for the Walton family to collect $80 billion and not have to pay any estate taxes on it.

If you want to discuss these issues in depth there are many better blogs to do so. There is a discussion on just this topic going on right now at the TPMcafe site, for example.

But do keep attacking empirical economics for not following the qualitative TRUTH that Galbraith and Keynes pronounced. Preach it comerade Feinman!

The crap that they put out is so mind boggling that it is a wonder that anyone listens to them. Since when are universities supposed to have a political agenda? I blame it all on Milton Friedman. Not only did he promote bogus economic theories, but his wacko libertarian ideas infected all the social science departments as well.

The faults with the methodology are glaringly obvious.

Now that General Freidman has come out and said that:

“We need to set a date, a clear and defined date, circled on the calendar, for us to leave there.”

Will you do likewise Pvt. Jarvis?

Growing up in NY you saw the masters of the emotional headline. They know how to push buttons to get the commuter to drop a dime (quarter, 50 cents, dollar) at the newstand.

Bloggers who play the linkbait game could learn a thing or two watching the post and the news in action.