Rawls does, however, include fair value of the political liberties within the statement of the LP in both PL and JasF. And since his argument for lexical priority is wobbly, and in JasF he withdraws his claim that FEO has lexical priority over the DP

should get some award, not sure what to call it yet though, any suggestions?

The Public Reason Award for Rawlsian Egalitarianism in Action?

One thing that the left, at least in my country, used to care about rather a lot was something called “public ownership of the means of production”. Maybe they were wrong to do so, but this was (perhaps by definition) a soc1alist concern, not a “liberal” one. abb1’s opening comments on this thread appeared to be saying—it is often not clear to me what he is arguing—that it doesn’t really matter whether media corporations are under public or private ownership because they will of necessity be but weapons of the “establishment”. That doesn’t sound very “radical” or “right on” to me, on the contrary, I think it’s extremely narcissistic and a recipe for political inertia, as well as being factually mistaken (the BBC really is a hell of a lot better than Fox News, as you or abb1 would surely recognise if you had watched them both, notwithstanding the fact that it has strong pro-establishment biasses of its own) and it seemed especially annoying as a flippant response to what seemed to me an interesting and well argued piece.

One thing that the left, at least in my country, used to care about rather a lot was something called “public ownership of the means of production”. Maybe they were wrong to do so, but this was (perhaps by definition) a socialist concern, not a “liberal” one. abb1’s opening comments on this thread appeared to be saying—it is often not clear to me what he is arguing—that it doesn’t really matter whether media corporations are under public or private ownership because they will of necessity be but weapons of the “establishment”. That doesn’t sound very “radical” or “right on” to me, on the contrary, I think it’s extremely narcissistic and a recipe for political inertia, as well as being factually mistaken (the BBC really is a hell of a lot better than Fox News, as you or abb1 would surely recognise if you had watched them both, notwithstanding the fact that it has strong pro-establishment biasses of its own) and it seemed especially annoying as a flippant response to what seemed to me an interesting and well argued piece.

“Powerful institutions are generally much more successful at indoctrinating the masses than less powerful ones. It’s that simple.”

Ah, those poor masses. Incapable of thinking for themselves. So much better if we, the enlightened ones, decided things for them.

Is there a better illustration of the pathetic lack of intellectual power of the libertarian world view? And simultaneously of how willing they are to sell their own power (as members of a social system, as consumers, and as workers) down the river for a small tax cut?

Pathetic.

Nobody, of course, is talking about protecting/shielding anybody from “wrong ideas”, quite the opposite in fact – introducing into the mainstream ideas people are (mostly) being shielded from now. Obvious example: the “class war” idea is routinely rejected by the mainstream media (in the US at least, but I suspect the BBC isn’t much different) as a wrong/harmful one. A lot of the US foreign policy matters can’t be discussed, of course. Pretty much anything negative about Israel, obviously. And so on. I don’t think the government (in the US, at least) can help here, simply because the government is a part of the problem. At least in the US, at least at the moment. But it’s probably inevitable (to a degree) in any liberal socio-economic system.

The dubious part of this belief, lest I’m unclear, is not so much the presumption that the public is gullible. They are, to some extent. It’s the belief that giving the government the power to regulate speech will result in the public being protected from wrong ideas. Rather than merely being shielded from ideas those running the government happen to dislike.

IOW, the speakers themselves are not necessarily liars and manipulators, it’s just that different POVs get different play, based on what’s beneficial for the most powerful. It’s a natural thing, you don’t really need any conspiracy.

Isn’t the entire advertising/marketing industry predicated upon at least a weak assumption of this point? That a mass of people (not all usually) can be strongly influenced by the proper input signals? Or, for another example, the concept of a talking point—repeat something over and over again and eventually you’ll persuade, through sheer repetition, a sizable number of people. Catapulting the propaganda, in the President’s words.

I guess it comes down to a vision of human rationality. A gulf has seemingly come into play; on one side, individuals are presented as less than ideally rational in that they can be manipulated by shiny images on a television or, in a more halycon period, eloquent words from a forceful orator. The other side, best examplified by cjcjcj, seems to presuppose the oppsite: that the “masses” have ample mental resources to combat these overtures (please correct, cjcjcj, if I am misreading you).

I think, on the whole, the first point has greater force to it (see the advertising example, for instance). Human beings are not the truly rational creatures we think ourselves and we are quite open to manipulation, both subtle and overt. [To steal a quote concerning William Seward that I just read in Eric Foner’s “Free Soil…”: “Mr Seward is a power in the state. It is worth while to understand his course. It cannot be caprice. His position decides that of millions.” This is similar to the point made about Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart earlier in the thread. Suffice it to say, that the influence of these individuals isn’t gained through a rigorous logical proof, but usually through appeals to an intuition that leads to a rational justification.] In such a world, populated by such creatures, I think it obvious that we should be concerned with how our public discourse is managed—who gets the biggest seat at the table and what their interests are, how costly is access, the form our discourse takes (as Al Gore laboriousy argues in his most recent book) and so on.

In such an environment, I think it makes sense for a plurality of voices, of cross-cutting pressures upon our opinions, to be nurtured. The proactive method for any government would be funding an alternative (the BBC, etc). The defensive posture would surely involve some sort of limitation on how many stations or avenues of access one gets to purchase; as there are indeed present in the United States, although watered down from previous years, in the prevention of one person/company from owning both a TV station and, I think, a radio station in the same market (although perhaps I’m misremembering the actual rule).

Democratic societies have to be attuned to concentrations of power, wherever they occur. The American constitutional writers were so attuned to political concentration of power and thus attempted to diffuse it (Federalist 10 beinig the Bible of that cause). Economic concentration, by the time of the Jacksonians at least, in the form of corporations, were next under target (at least rhetorically, at first, but eventually through labor laws and anti-monopoly rules). That concentration of media power, in our 24/7 media universe, should also be considered something to regulate should not seem too controversial, even if some methods do.

PBS / NPR in the U.S. have done some good things, but in the last decade or so they have also been deeply influenced by right-wing pressures through teh political system.

This is not a question of a superior mind, mine or anyone else’s. My mind and yours and Einstein’s can only process what has been entered into it. If you have a superior mind and you’ve been living in a dark soundproof closet since you were born, you will never rise above the dark closet. Does it make sense?

Rather he almost certainly thought

It makes no difference what he thought. He spent $65,000,000 to indoctrinate (persuade? educate?) people and he got decent results, considering. What does it matter what he thought? He probably thought that a little Martian living in his head wanted him to do it, for all we know.

There you go again – assuming that the “masses” – ignorant as you obviously believe them to be -simply do as they are told.

Yes, but we are talking about millions of individuals. If Rupert Murdoch controls all 100% of the information channels, then all 200 million individuals are being fed the same stuff and most of them will be indoctrinated accordingly. If Rupert Murdoch controls 50% of the channels and Fidel Castro controls the other 50% of the channels, then you should expect to see a Che bumper sticker about as often as a Bush-Cheney one. And if the power is distributed sufficiently, you probably won’t see a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker ever; I just don’t see them getting any kind of following without a highly coordinated and extremely expensive PR effort.

abb1 – what feels unpleasant to me is your patronising approach. Of course, you know what’s best, and that’s what the masses should be taught.
After all only a superior mind – such as yours – can rise above the Murdochian propaganda.

As for Perot’s campaign, well, do you really believe he thought to himself: I know, I’ll spend lots of money to brainwash people into voting for me.

Rather he almost certainly thought: I bet there are quite a few people who will like the sound of my agenda. Let’s have a go and find out.