People of the Light?

Not talking about Mass Media Podpeople whenever “people of the light” are mentioned.

See Orson Scott Card’s article at The Rhincerous Times of Greennsboro, NC. A taste:

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

by Orson Scott Card

October 20, 2008
An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President’s Men and thinking: That’s journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It’s a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can’t repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can’t make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them…

…It’s not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices…

More, much more, at the LINK.

Interesting that it would take a lifelong Democrat to upbraid the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind so unequivocally. Maybe, if there remain even a few more–a remnant of honest, decent men and women–such people in the Democratic Party (and hopefully a few in the Replublican Party as well), just maybe there is hope for the republic of the Foun ders that once was.

I’ll not hold my breath, though. Rather, I’ll use it to cheer such folks on. Way to go, Card!

h.t. Jerry Pournelle’s mailbag

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