NY Times Uncovers Conservative Attacks and Then Prints One of Its Own; Both Are On The Front Page

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/ny-times-uncovers-conservative-attacks-and-then-prints-one-its-own-both-are-front-page


The NY Times has many virtues and some important flaws. Both were evident on the paper’s front page this week and there is a lot to be learned by what did and did not appear there.

For decades, Republican conservatives have constructed and carried out extensive, well-planned, long-term communication campaigns to change public discourse and the way the public thinks. It has been done very effectively and, for the most part, not secretly. The NY Times finally began reporting on this effort on Thursday, November 21, 2013 in a fine piece by Jonathan Weisman and Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

The Times reported on the House Republicans’ memo on how to attack the Affordable Care Act through a “multilayered sequence assault,” gathering stories “through social media letters from constituents, or meeting back home” and a new GOP website. The Times also reported on the “closed door” strategy sessions, going back to last year.

It’s a start, and it’s about time. What the Times missed was the far deeper and systematic efforts by conservatives extending back four decades and the nature of the underlying general ideology covering dozens of issues that have been served by these efforts. The Times also missed the reason why the attack on the ACA is more than just anti-Obama politics, but rather part of an attempt to change the idea of what America is about. The Times missed the think tanks, the framing professionals, the training institutes, the booking agencies, the Wednesday morning meetings on both national and state levels, and the role of ALEC in the states — all set out in the Lewis Powell memo more than four decades ago and carried out since then as part of seamless system directed at changing the brains of Americans.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[octoberlib]

2. K&R

They're definitely better funded than we are. Republican= corporate.

[DirkGently]

3. The Lewis Powell memo has been thoroughly implemented.

[Eleanors38]

4. Reminds me of the 2 for 1 bin at Publix.

I'm glad the NYT has finally uncovered the highly sophisticated, highly intelligent RW newz netwerk. I'll wait for their obligatory analysis of the efforts on da Left. (I heard it has a Macintosh computer with printer, but that should serve as equivalency.)