Greetings from New Zealand!

[Hyperborea]

I recognize what FDR accomplished and I am grateful
for SS.  But, don't forget that is money that I and my
employer paid in over many years.  So, it's not a freebee.

You are right that the cash may not be completely free since some of it came from you but the forced financial planning was free. Judging from the tales you've told I imagine it too would have been gone with the rest of your money over the years on wine, women, and song if not for the forced savings. That would have left you collecting welfare and food bank supplies instead of social security while still thumping on about individual self reliance and the "evils" of society.

 

[John Galt]

Hyperborea, you are basically correct. If SS had not
been forced upon me, who knows what kind of hole I'd have dug for myself? So, although I don't care much for the concept, I admit it has bailed me out from my own lack of planning. And, I am properly grateful, even while I lament the necessity of the whole thing.

John Galt

 

[dex]

Hyperborea,
I think we are each trying to make differnt points.
My points are:
1. What is right/center/left is subjective
2. Generally the US media has left point of view - those with positions the the right of theirs are marginalized by taging them with titles such as extream conservative/right etc.
3. The "bias" is not a reflection on those that are labeld "extreamist" but on the media itself.
4. I do not believe the media is in touch with a large portion of the US public for several reasons - read the book menioned earlier.
5. I belive in the US public - in the final analysis a label of right or left does not fit them. They love freedom and respect people and their opinions.
6. Fox, CNN, MSNBC do not really have large audiences.
A quick google search turned up the attached - good enough for now.
http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/politics/cablenewsratings.htm

NBC: 5.9 / 13 share / 6,349,000 HH / 8,271,000 viewers

ABC: 5.5 / 12 share / 6,014,000 HH / 8,071,000 viewers

CBS: 4.8 / 10 share / 5,207,000 HH / 6,687,000

I'm not trying to convince you of my opinion, just to question the media.

 

[johnblake]

To balance the view read Noam Chomsky's 'Manufacturing Concent'. Definitely left leaning, and brilliant.

Basically he describes how the corporate media works to support the power structure in the US.