In its ironically titled ‘Lexington’ section the Economist magazine attacks those who point at the influence of collectivist ideologies on American government policy. Rather than refuting the evidence and argument the critics of government policy produce, the Economist (in the best education system and mainstream media tradition) just ignores evidence and argument, and denounces those who point to Marxist and Fascist origins of much modern “Progressive” government policy.
One example of the Economist approach really caught my eye:
For years Glenn Beck has denounced wild spending Republicans (especially President Bush) and since moving to Fox News he has continued to do this. He has also (with the help of many people who have written scholarly books on these matters) continued to try and explain the influence of collectivist philosophies on American politics over the last century – from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama.
The Economist collapses all of this into – Glenn-Beck-claims-Obama-leading-the-United-States-to-Fascism.
If ‘Lexington’ was attacking me this would make some sort of sense, as I have often pointed out the Marxist background of Barack Obama (and Marxists sometimes evolve into Fascists – as this involves no rejection of their basic collectivism). However, Glenn Beck has clearly stated (many times) that he does not believe that that Barack Obama is a Communist or a Fascist – what Beck is trying to do is to show how collectivist philosophies have increasingly influenced American government policies over time, often without the leading politicians being fully aware of the origins and nature of the principles they try and put into practice.
Anyone who has seen the show, as opposed to tiny bits of the show taken out of context, would know this.
However, ‘Lexington’ would rather write about something without bothering to watch it – getting his “information” from the far left smear site “mediamatters” instead.
And the mainstream media wonder why libertarians and conservatives despise them.
Why do you assume they haven’t watched it as opposed to being deliberately misleading?
I had not heard of this Glenn Beck fellow until I saw this segment on the Colbert report, faking tears on national tv… who the fuck falls for that kind of stuff ?
[url]http://mountainsageblog.com/2009/04/09/stephen-colbert-rips-glenn-beck-building-his-career-on-911-video/[/url]
The Economist used to be a sensible paper. Pearson turned it into a typical PC- leftwing newsweekly.
Personally I gave it up a number of years ago when it became obvious that their solution to the MidEast problem was the extermination of Israel and a Second Holocaust.
“And the mainstream media wonder why libertarians and conservatives despise them.”
No they don’t. I’m pretty sure most journalists couldn’t care less what libertarians think about them – or anything else for that matter. If they did care, they wouldn’t write nearly as much mindblowingly stupid crap as they do.
Lefties suffer from a huge logic deficit.
For example Obama’s science guru who rails against man-made global warming proposes as a solution firing stuff into the stratosphere to bring about global cooling. Duh.
And then there’s the president himself who told Daniel Ortega at the recent Caribbean meet and greet fest – Hey don’t blame me for that I was only three months old at the time. So Obama wants a no-blame pass for himself but has no problem with trying to shakedown present day whities for slavery.
As I said logic deficit syndrome at work.
Shit.
I clicked on the link expecting to see endorsements for genital enhancements, and all I got was edu-pr0n.
… continued to try and explain …
Try and explain? Jeez, there was a time when at least The Economist could be relied upon to use proper grammar.
Ah, it’s not from The Economist…my bad
I personally used to hate Glenn Beck, but during the election he did win me over. At times, yes he is quite melodramatic, but he integrates history and a lot of other legitimate sources in what he says. That’s enough to appreciate him. Where the hell else in media are you going to find someone who knows their history? I believe it was during his inauguration that one of the commentators (Katie Couric possibly. I know it was either NBC, CBS, or ABC) as all whores to the media industry, glorified obama with a comment about how he was the first president to inherit a war. Did the fucking moron never hear of Nixon and Viet Nam? This is the consensus attitude of most people in America. They want their fancy, historical making black president and that’s that! Fuck logic, fuck a pissed off Glenn Beck, etc etc.
Little do they know that if Bush was handsome, eloquent, and black he would be barack obama. Actually he’d be worse. Our retarded former president spent billions clothing and feeding our troops in a wilsonian attempt to free a country and kill a dictator (though did so in a sloppy manner). obama has spent billions bailing out crooked presidents and CEO’s of companies that, by nature, should have floundered yet were “too big to fail”.
I hate to admit it, but if I were given my own show I would probably end up sounding a little like Glenn Beck. It doesn’t matter though, I’m waiting for the real chaos to start, and I’ll enjoy watching it with a clear conscience knowing that I didn’t put that fucking disgrace in office.
And colbert should stick to playing the retarded kid on “Strangers with Candy”, he’d argue his points much better that way.
“Faking tears on national TV”
This is like the charge about the “fake fainting” on the show – accept it turned out that the guest really had collapsed.
hennesli you admit you do not watch the show – and yet the emotion was “fake” because Stephen Colbert told you so.
If you actually understood how many TRILLIONS of Dollars the United States is being pushed into debt (by the wild spending ways of both parties) you would be in tears also.
Clue – “cutting” 100 million Dollars when you are adding TRILLIONS of Dollars is doing nothing at all.
It is not “white hot hatred” (to quote the absurd “Economist” magazine) of President Barack Obama to point out that this is the “fake” stuff.
The fake “fiscal responsibilty” and “cutting the budget in half” that the government’s P.R. people put out.
Why does not Stephen Colbert attack this faking?
Oh I forgot – Colbert does not attack it because he is a leftist conformist who pretends to be a rebel.
Tim Newman.
Would you prefer “continued to try to explain”.
Or will you just say that this is bad grammar also?
As someone I does not see anything wrong in “to boldly go” I suppose I am beyond help.
Not one link in this piece to anything?
WTF?
Here’s what The Economist said:
Here’s what Glenn Beck said (w/ video):
Mr. Marks —
“to try to explain” is correct; it indicates an attempt to explain.
“to try and explain” is grammatically equivalent of the wordings “to try and to explain”, “to explain and to try”, and “to explain and try”. That is, one is trying and one is explaining simultaneously, not making an attempt to explain.
Mr. Beck is clearly not trying “the influence of collectivist philosophies on American politics over the last century” — that doesn’t make grammatical sense. So “to try and explain” doesn’t make grammatical sense.
(However, on splitting the infinitive? It’s perfectly fine as a matter of grammar to boldly split any infinitives you like, though some dislike it stylistically.)
hennelsi is what Al Gore calls a “digital brownshirt.” I am sure he feels it is important work, as does goon Colbert. A goon is someone who personalizes political differences and attacks *individuals* for holding them as this is more effective than taking on their ideas.
Media Matters acts as a bird dog for goon wannabees and a link resource for digital brownshirts. Critical thinking only applies to enhancing the effectiveness of politics for these people.
Economist article is online at:
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13496418
Amusing how the Economist thinks its “a good week” for a politician because they give a pooch to their kids. Odd how Obama is not responsible for the state of the economy but is responsible for the training and operation of Navy SEALS.
The connecting of dots doesn’t have to point at Obama and say that he is a dyed in the wool fascist or marxist, it is merely to point out that soft-socialism will inevitably lead to hard-socialism. The rise of the State inexorably gathers and centralizes power and creates the rudimentary apparatus, which then grows and solidifies. It exists to manipulate the process of utilizing resources by force, which by definition is a misallocation or otherwise force wouldn’t have been necessary. Eventually the accrued results of years of misallocation leads to a downfall economically, but the apparatus remains, ready to be taken over by hardliners.
The Nazis successfully took over from WITHIN. That’s the major lesson I take away from the Nazi regime. Here in the US we have had a century of injecting socialism into our society to a point where the Feds control nearly every aspect of our lives, but it’s still the soft version as long as the smoke and mirrors have lasted. But now the end game is upon us. We either dismantle the apparatus or we will have the installation of hardliners within 10 years. And I don’t see either major party entertaining anything like a dismantling.
I subscribed to the Economist for about 24 years until about 3 years ago.
Over the last 3-4 years of my subscription, I kept noticing how they were getting some factual information wrong or strongly presenting one side an increasing statist arguement in areas I knew about.
I thought that if they were doing this in areas I knew about, I really couldn’t trust them in the areas I did not know enough to question their information.
The benefit of being able to get a nice world summary every week from an interesting point of view morphed into unrealiable information and a slanted viewpoint along the lines of Time magazine and Newsweek.
The Economist lost my trust and I would definitely not recommend them as a reliable source of information without several concurring data points.
One thing that is troubling me is: when did the economist turn to shit?
I vaguely remember it being a good “newspaper” but it seems so long ago now, can anyone remember?
The consensus seems to be that the decline began about 10-15 years ago, but has accelerated dramatically in the last 5 or so.
If they got reports over about 30 years of age, they actually might be able to ‘report’ something with a bit of actual knowledge about what they are ‘reporting’. The Economist has been going downhill since the week they reported that oil might sell for under $5 barrel!
Anybody got any theories about why the modern media trends left more and more as time goes on?
Would you prefer “continued to try to explain”.
Or will you just say that this is bad grammar also?Grammar Nazi here. I know that it’s fashionable to dismiss such concerns, but words really do mean things. Fuzzy wording leads to fuzzy thinking.
The construction “try and ____” (in the sense of “try” meaning “attempt”, not the in the judicial sense) in the future tense is nonsensical. By using the conjunction “and”, it presupposes that the attempt will be successful. But if success is a foregone conclusion, the word “try” is not appropriate. Simply state the successful action itself, leaving “try and” out of the sentence entirely.
One can “try (attempt) to _____”, and then either do or fail to do _____, but “try (attempt) and _____” is just wrong.
Glenn Beck may not say it outright, but Obama is a fascist period, end of discussion. I am glad that the Economist sees that this is the case, even if they falsely ascribe the opinion to Mr. Beck. 🙂
And what a pity that a magazine like the Economist should end up being like the BBC….an organ of propaganda for the left (and pop news).
Banjo,
You may be confusing ‘trending left’ with ‘trending statist’. It’s a survival instinct.
“There is no ‘try’. There is only do or not do.” – Yoda
According to the Wikipedia, Lexington is Adrian Wooldridge, the Washington Bureau Chief for the Economist. Its always useful to put a name to a column.
The Economist is often wrongly described as leaning moderate-conservative, but its really more in the neo-liberal camp (or what’s left of it). For example, I believe former New Republic Editor Michael Kinsley wrote the Lexington column for a while back in the late 80s.
Paul, there is nothing grammatically wrong with to boldly go. The whole lot of stupidity stems from the even more stupid injunction against splitting infinitives – i.e. putting an adverb between the infinitive marker ‘to’ and the infinitive itself – in this case ‘go’.
If you compare the two sentences – You should go and you ought to go – you will see infinitives being used with and without the infinitive marker ‘to’. The infinitive in both cases is’go’. I won’t go into the eye glazing over process of explaining the use of infinitives in English.
Suffice it to say that probably frequency of use has to do with the dropping of the marker. You can see a present day usage of marker dropping with the verb ‘help’ e.g. Help me to pack the car. And help me pack the car. Both are correct usage but one retains the infinitive marker and the other doesn’t.
Please henceforth feel free of grammatical abuse anquish as you continue to boldly go on with your life.
The Economist has been slipping since 1964
when they endorsed Harold Wilson for Prime Minister.
I’ve been hearing and occasionally listening to Glenn Beck for about five years. On the spectrum that has populists on one end and logicians on the other, Beck is pretty far over on the populist side, but still more logical than Sean Hannity. That’s not saying very damned much.
But conversely, The Economist has gone in the other direction. I’ve taken that magazine for about eighteen years. They used to be studious and careful, and always insightful about foreign (to UK) politics. Now they are not, especially with regard to American politics.
Millie is right about “to boldly go”. The rule against split infinitives is a silly notion held by those who wish English were Latin.
It is interesting that WJ lost trust in The Economist because it went in a statist direction. I lost trust because of its anti-government attitude — that is, its opposition to the Danish government defending freedom of speech in 2006. Since then, I realized that The Economist is willing to sacrifice everything: freedom of speech, economic freedom, sexual freedom, journalistic integrity; everything, to continue advocating “multiculturalism” and open borders, and to look cool.
I still read The Economist, but that’s because I don’t have to pay for it.
Fascism.
Whatever various definitions exist, to my mind “fascism” means dictatorial-unionism, i.e., one or a few rule by means of their reliance on a collective for political power. Hence Marxism is proletariat fascism, unabashedly so. Hitler and the Nazis were socialists differently deriving their political power from a differently constituted collective. Monarchs are fascists.
Taken to an extreme, all political parties are fascist. E pluribus unum is the sine qua non of fascism. Thus fascism per se, is not reprehensible, but rather practical. At some point fascism’s virtue or vice must be determined by it’s effectiveness in balancing order and liberty in it’s contribution toward a relatively just, albeit imperfect, society.
TTS
Paul A’Barge, The Monster: would you like your refunds in cash, or to be posted to the same credit cards you used when you subscribed to this service?
Thanks, TTS, that’s about as unhelpful a definition as I’ve ever seen. You’ve “defined” the word into utter meaninglessness.
Fascism was defined by Mussolini (and the other Fascist writers) back in the 1920s’ – “all for the state, nothing outside the state ….” and so on.
Mises and Hayek (in Omnipotent Government and The Road to Serfdom – and other works) examined the common roots of the various forms of collectivism and their differences.
The Monster – it would help it I was less tired, but that is not your fault. As it is I can not tell whether you are saying “continue to try to explain” is correct or not.
Mille Wood and Just.
I am told that in Latin to split an in… is not possible – hence the effort to establish the rule in English.
My father could read several languages – but (alas) I am ignorant.
The Economist:
Their old pal “most economists” came out in the “Lexington” section.
Seems that “most economists” think that the spending of trillions of Dollars by Bush and Obama is a good thing.
Which proves (yet again) that “most economists” know nothing about economics (of course they would have a hard time finding a job in a university or in a credit bubble “private” financial institution if they did express even basic knowledge of economics).
Still at least we did not have Paul Krugman trotted out as a “critic” of Obama (in some sort of Trotsky versus Stalin spat) the collectivism-should-be-done-differently stuff is as pointless as the socialist v fascist debates of the 1920’s and 1930’s.