People act like this is the first time there has ever been vitriol in politics and that it’s all the fault of one side or the other.
Of course it's not the first time. But the recent (last 40 years or so) of right-wing violence and anger is what I'm talking about.
There was a time when the far left was a spawning ground for political violence ... But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. Unless you count PETA as a terrorist group...
The right has had a monopoly on being the "bad guys" here in the states in the latter half of the 20th century.
I give you two "recent" examples:
1. MLK assassination
2. Timothy McVeigh
Couple that with the Bush/Cheney administration getting away with openly advocating torture as policy and...
In the United States, the "both" sides are equally bad argument is a false meme.
you don’t even have to study history just watch the History Channel once and awhile.
Lol. Those who don't watch the History Channel are doomed to repeat it?
I'm not talking about the Nazis or Pol Pot. I'm talking about the current political climate (hot and partly crazy).
As for unbiased news, you all are kidding right?
Not really. There was a time that "news" was supposed to be reported accurately and political slant was saved for the editorial section.
Unless right wing revisionism has somehow turned Walter Cronkite into a commie pinko, I was raised that news, to quote Sgt. Friday was "Just the facts, ma'am...", not a certain sides version of the facts.
Historically news papers often had direct affiliation with a political party. Often being named in accordance with their political beliefs like the “such and such Democrat” or how about the “The Arizona Republican” now “The Arizona Republic.”
Yellow journalism, William Randolph Hearst etc. But there was still a consensus that a story had "facts" and the job of reporting the news was stating those "facts".
And yes, news papers were often a reflection of who owned them. But today the media has been consolidated and very few of them are truly independent anymore. That's become the domain of the internet. The day they shut down the intertubes is the day we are screwed. The internet is probably the biggest "freedom fighter" around. It's getting harder to lie, distort and repress news (except in China perhaps), and the whole world is the better for it imo.
Look, I remember that one of the reasons the American people stopped supporting the Viet Nam war was the endless footage of carnage and death. Today the American public is shown sanitized versions of the events and "news" has devolved into short "sound bites" with little or no regard to the integrity of the journalistic pillars of "who", "what", "when" and "how". This has dumbed down the population imo.
Like I said before, the idea of a liberal media is bs. The media is only as liberal as the corporations that own them.
From the U.S. entry into WWII into the 1960 U.S. media was decidedly right of center (Hollywood too) with the changes accelerated in U.S. culture by WWII (civil rights, exposure of many American to foreign cultures, mass higher education (GI Bill), mass migration to the suburbs, the coming of age of the baby boomers) much of the media swung decidedly to the Left.
That's a very interesting and accurate insight there. But still, there needs to be a separation of "news" and "opinion". Everyone is entitled to their opinion but not their own version of the facts.
Like the civil rights era. The fact was, a race of people were being attacked by police, dogs, water hoses etc. because they had the audacity to march for equal rights, an opinion would be that they deserved it because they were being funded by communists in a plot to destabilize god's chosen country.
Only one of those statements is "true", the other is propaganda.
God, I really do miss having the commies to blame stuff on though, lol.
For the longest time there was really only one national conservative voice William F. Buckley.
Man, I miss them old school conservatives. You could do business with those s.o.b's! They made valid (if sometimes horribly wrong), rational arguments. Rush Limbaugh? Not so much. Listen to him for five minutes and then do an unbiased fact check on what he says. He is a propagandist, as is Murdoch and Fox news.
Hell, I even kinda miss Nixon! At least those old school conservatives seemed to respect laws and put the good of the country before ideological concerns. Mostly...
I think it started to go downhill after Watergate. And Ronald Reagan.
"Facts are stupid things" --- Ronald Reagan
With the success of the Republican “Southern Strategy” in the later half of the last century the Republican Party became for the first time a truly national, not just regional, party.
Interesting perspective there Grunt. I would say that the Republican's made their deal with the devil then (and later with the religious right in the early 80's) by absorbing the Dixiecrats and their racist beliefs/fears. It seems before that, the kooks were more "fringe" on the right ( eg. John Bircher) and not so open about radical beliefs. The McCarthy era was denounced by both the left and the right. Now the right marches in rigid lockstep while the left, well, the left is like herding cats. A lot of different views within the ranks of the left. We have very conservative Democrats to very liberal ones. Dissent is common place in the Democratic party.
Back in the good ole' days you could be a socially liberal and fiscally conservative Republican. Not anymore. Now you have to kiss the ring of Rush and bow down to the Christian conservatives. Witness the recent tea party kooks for further evidence that the grand old party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt has devolved into the party of "HELL NO!".
Things are going to get a lot worse if we continue with policies that stop growing the pie bigger for everyone as more and more of us turn to fighting each other for our “fair share.” Much worse, methinks.
Amen brother.
I take solace that I no matter who’s in power I’m on the side with the biggest guns.
That's why we Americans need to wake up to who our real enemies are...
I'm talking about that evil, sleeping giant right on our border... CANADA!
That's right, we know you guys are just waiting to take us over!
What, with your reasonably priced speakers and godless bacon and all...
Better dead than Maple, eh...
