The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
Despite David Cameron's efforts to rein in spending, the British government still spends more today than it ever has before--including vast sums on social services. If I know this, so do the editorial writers at the New York Times. Yet on the Times website at this hour, you will find an opinion piece introduced as follows:
The riots across Britain are the result of an austerity program that has cut everything from libraries to the local police.
This is willful, and perverse--a sheer, blind assertion of an article of the liberal faith (riots arise only from the failure of governments to spend enough to please the New York Times), in complete disregard of reality. Cuts have scarcely yet taken place, and, even when they do, will still leave in place a vast welfare state. But think about it. People are rioting to demand...more police? Or extended library hours? Absurd on the very face of it.
I suppose I should have gotten used to it by now, but every so often the ignorance at the Times still astounds me.
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Jun '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
The ignorant among us are not so ignorant that they don't understand what their primary skill is, what they can do better than others. They can form uninhibited mobs to destroy civilization and make level-of-violence the measure of success. The first crucial step was accomplished long ago--reject God. On to step two....
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Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
Not ignorance, Peter, but deliberate disinformation. It is not called Pravda-on-the-Hudson for nothing. You should drop your subscription. By keeping it, you are helping to fund the disinformation campaign.
May '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
I'm with Paul. Spending a dime on ANY of this nonsense only aids it. They must be shunned! We like to tone down our retoric these days and call it "establishing and controlling the narrative" but it's nothing but the same old propaganda.
Jun '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
"Must . . . maintain . . . the . . . narrative >gasp<. Must . . . keep . . . the power."
Jun '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
...or situational ignorance. They lie sometimes, but just ignoring inconvenient subjects or ignoring any rebuttals can amount to the same thing. Of the hundreds of unfounded smears of Sarah Palin, I wonder how many the New York Times fact-checked later...for the sake of history? And if I only read the NYT, I'd probably believe that every Catholic hates the Church, because in the NYT's coverage, what's to like? I'd wonder why the lights are still on in the parish on Sunday Mornings.
Apr '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
A man is making X in benefits from the government. The government promises that next year he will make X+10. The man lives this year as if he was making X+15. Next year comes and the Government only can give him X+5. The man is making 5 more then before but sadly is 10 poorer. People think projections and 10 year budgets are legally binding contracts. To be promised 100billion is the same as to be give 100 billion. No one seems to remember that "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." So progressives can keep selling people "two in the bush" and then blame Republicans when the birds aren't there and so people have to settle for "one in the hand".
Apr '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
I just returned from London. It's as if the NYT has no one on the ground over there. The riotors are flash mobs of teenagers who saw the shooting of a drug dealer in Tottenham as an opportunity to grab some new Addidas and Toshiba big screens. And why not? An emasculated Metropolitan Police force closed off the areas and watched the looting and arson occur. One of the preliminary responses to the Tottenham rioting was a spokesman from the Meteopolitan Police asking parents to call their kids and tell them to go home. Diminishing austerity programs? Really?
Dec '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
Life isn't about stuff. You can't get stuff and be happy. Welfare recipients, lottery winners or trust fund babies are not happy because of all the stuff they have. In fact, they're the least happy people we have.
Life is dynamic. Literally. It's about aspiration. It's about striving.
They also seem to have no external moral authority.
So they have nothing to aspire to and no higher power to consult. No wonder they despair.
Aug '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
International law requires international media, maybe they're limbering up for the postMurdoch takedown which was an opening event. This is an international community effort, and the admin and the NYT are both heavily invested. I think we should be consulting with the UN before making any snap judgements and rash cutbacks in gear and electronics allocations. We're so far behind the Euro community,they are so advanced and progressive. Pity that they might think twice about letting us in the EU and letting us drop the dollar to go on the Euro. You know that if Britain had done that, there would be less problems.
Apr '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
The Washington Post is just as uncurious in its assessment of the London riots. The legacy media only have one way of looking at things: the liberal way.
Apr '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
The Grauniad and many of its readers in Britain are just as guilty. For a good example of this check out former editor-in-chief of the Observer Will Hutton on Australia's ABC (i.e. public) radio:
The fact it's most acute in Britain because I think that fairness is a really important value in Britain and secondly I think the scale of the unfairness, the speed with which the incoming coalition government has launched expenditure cuts so that for example in Tottenham where these riots took place, the local authorities simply eliminated, virtually eliminated, in a matter of weeks all the youth services.
Societies can't take that kind of hit; they just can't take that kind of hit. They can take it over time or they can take it if it's carefully managed, but you can't just brutally cut off arms and legs of a society and expect there to be no reaction, particularly if the whole environment in which things are being done is felt to be so unfair.
May '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
There are many changes that Great Britain can make that will reverse the course they have been on and they probably will make some significant changes but they won't allow citizens to own guns ever again just like they will never entirely scrap their dysfunctional health care system. There are some things that if you give them up (and maybe most freedoms are that way) you can never get them back.
Edited on Aug 11, 2011 at 1:53pmMar '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
Yeah, right, I am sure the youths are rioting over the closure of libraries - it's doubtful they have ever been in em.
Ironically, the riots are likely to reverse the decline in the UK police forces - a disagreement between the conservative mayor of London and the liberal-conservative prime minister that the mayor is likely to win.
Dec '10
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
Peter, you have an innocent and beautiful soul if you can still be astounded by the ignorance (or deliberate disinformation) of the Times. They are preparing the narrative for when the riots break out here when the historic first black president becomes the historic first black ex-president.
Jul '11
Re: The Grey Lady, Blind--Willfully Blind
I agree completely with you about the perversity, Peter--but I don't think they are dishonest. These people actually believe this stuff. My restaurant is a popular place for Times editors and reporters and six of them are weekly regulars and about twice that number come in at least monthly. I can tell you honestly from hearing them speak among themselves that they are utterly sincere (although I haven't heard anything specifically about the London riots). I kid you not--last week the conversation was about the Tea Party holding the government hostage and Obama's fear (the word cowardice was not used, but certainly implied) of standing up to it. Liberalism is their God, the Times is their Church, and they are its clerics.