Obama Administration Promises "Thorough Review" of USTR Policies 78
After all of the uproar surrounding some of the Obama administration's recent decisions, trade officials have promised a thorough review of the USTR policies regarding transparency. In an effort to ensure that the review includes all possible angles, the USTR is urging groups to make other proposals as well. "KEI is very impressed with the USTR decision to undertake a review of USTR transparency efforts. They are taking this much further than simply reviewing policies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or recent controversies over the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. The review offers the possibility of more transformative changes, including pro-active measures to enhance transparency, covering all aspects of USTR operations, including multilateral, plurilateral, regional, bilateral and unilateral trade policies and negotiations. We are also grateful that USTR is offering to have a continuing dialogue on this issues. KEI will offer additional suggestions on transparency to USTR, and we encourage others to do so also."
Re:Easy as hell (Score:5, Interesting)
Media is biased in so many ways, not strictly on "liberal" (a term I use loosely) or "conservative" (another meaningless label). For instance, when is the last time you've seen a reporter say:
"Listen you dumb shits, stop buying things you can't afford, get out of debt. No, you don't need that new flatscreen HDTV. Shop less, consume less, and save more."
Of course you never hear that, even with the profanity edited out. Because sponsors would have a fit and the network would lose revenue. There's no way the producers would allow that. Just like you'll never hear:
"We're headed for another Great Depression. Could be worse than the last one."
For the same reasons.
Well, ok, there's at least one guy [youtube.com] saying these things on the air, but nobody likes him much; they tend to cut him short.
You'll also never hear anything that's anti-government in a bi-partisan way: about how 85% (or more) of the legislation that gets passed these days is inherently unconstitutional; about the insane 4th amendment violations [aclu.org] across the nation; about how the "War on Drugs" is causing more problems than it (supposedly) solves; about what we did to make terrorists hate us in the first place.
And you'll certainly never hear anything about crazy IP laws going into effect or the RIAA cases (unless they win in court), because the media isn't about to serve up anti-media stories.
All commercial media has a pro-establishment, status quo bias, because that's who's in charge. The majority of our politicians, Republican or Democrat (I prefer the term "Republocrat"), are pretty much the same - they're all right-wing fascists when you take into account the full political spectrum that's available. Any "liberal" or "conservative" bias you may attach to it is meaningless compared to the bias that actually exists.
Re:Right, change my ass (Score:3, Interesting)
[quote]Blah blah. Fill in typical slashdot posting about how he's the same as the old boss, etc.
What the fuck is with this site? Was there this much focus on every single fucking thing the Bush administration did? Or did the coverage then just focus on the really egregious shit?[/quote]
I'm reposting something someone else wrote on this subject to answer you (with his permission):
George W. Bush had something going for him his last term. Those who hated him had written him off. There was no need to pay attention to what he was doing because everything he was going to do was going to be steeped in failure. By the time this recent Presidential Election got started, he only had the hearts and minds of 1/5th of the country. And one has to assume that many of those are probably party loyalists who feel it is their sworn duty to support ANY Republican President. It seemed like somewhere along the way, a majority of Americans, though they loathed W's performance as a President, decided, "Meh, we'll just wait him out", and then tuned out in favor of Dancing with the Stars.
So now we have this new guy coming in. And in some sense, he still is a relative unknown, when you compare him to the typical life-span in DC politics. It's clear that there are many who desperately want him to succeed. I suspect even some of the fifth who still like W, would love to see Obama succeed, thought they'd be loathe to admit it in public. There is a collective weight on our shoulders in the form of this failing economy. We desperately want someone to come along and lift it. We want someont to come along and succeed in lifting it.
But the key will be remembering that this is our burden to share with him. The biggest role we have is to support his efforts. That is, to support them by paying attention. We cannot allow this "Hope for Change" to become insulation. We cannot put so much trust in Obama that we stop paying attention. Holding his feet to the fire when he walks astray will be our best contribution. And we know the fifth will do that anyway. The rest of us need to represent the rational and reasoned response.
At least, that's how I see it. - Reverend What's-His-Name?