“Some are more equal than others!” “Two legs bad,four legs good!” Such phrases from the writings of the British writer George Orwell, notably his two classics ‘1984’ and ‘Animal Farm,’ have entered the English language and describe how journalism and literature have been too often corrupted by a totalitarian mindset.
I often think of Orwell when I read the KC Star. Most recently I saw a wonderful example of the “Ministry of Truth” (i.e. “Propaganda Ministry”) mentality from ‘1984’ when the paper’s publisher, Mi-Ai Parrish (did I tell you that henceforth I wish to be addressed as “Kunta Kinte” Sutherland, after the protagonist of ‘Roots,’ the 1977 mini-series) published its mission statement in last Sunday’s paper.
There are actually five separate bullet points listed but for purposes of today’s post I will only deal with the first of them since it is so blatantly and outrageously false:
“TO HOLD THE POWERFUL ACCOUNTABLE AND GIVE VOICE TO THE VOICELESS.”
The current Star Editorial Board, like prior boards, are handmaidens of the city’s Establishment. The fact that past publishers of the paper have hung out at such populist stomping grounds as the Kansas City Country Club and the River Club gives the lie to any notion that the Star’s goal is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. (Jim Hale and Art Brisbane, call your office!)
In fact, their usual attitude towards the ruling corporate/banking/legal/political elite is one of groveling sycophancy. I should preface this by saying this is true only if one “Gets with the program,” i.e. accepts their agenda. My own background is from “deep within the belly of the beast,” but I have called baloney on the usual self-dealing and the self-congratulation that goes with it for some reason—and thus have become a “non-person” in the Star’s eyes.
Paul Morrison
In practical terms, the result of this outlook is very simple. “Liberal” Democrats are endorsed for virtually every office in Missouri. “Moderate” Republicans are endorsed for every office in Kansas. Partisanship is far less important than “Economic development” i.e. crony capitalism for the backers of politicians favored by the KC Star. Corruption and abuse of power are actively concealed by the Star if they threaten to embarrass their a- – h- – – buddies like Paul Morrison (disgraced former Kansas AG), Charles Carlsen (disgraced former Johnson County Community College President), and Harry Wiggins (disgraced former Missouri State Senator).
“Give voice to the voiceless?”
Every minority favored by the P.C. police is given a respectful hearing at the Star. And while African Americans were given short shrift in the past, it’s hard to say that they are completely voiceless since the mayor, congressman, and president are now all African-American.
Gay people are now treated with dignity and their achievements recognized (as well they should be by a major purveyor of advertising, since gays were the original double-income, no-kids couples). Hispanics, Asians, etc. are all recognized for their contributions to the community. (And this is all as it should be.)
However, this love of diversity extends to every group but one.
Working class whites are treated by the Kansas City Star as the “great unwashed.”
They have problematic political and social attitudes.(‘Duck Dynasty’anyone?) They don’t do what they’re told by their betters, i.e., go along with schemes of social engineering and taxation designed to benefit the groups the Star does favor. The next time you read a Star editorial or opinion column denouncing the “Tea Party” (as they routinely denounced the “Religious Right” and ‘neo-cons’ in the past), substitute the phrase “red neck whites” and see if that doesn’t work just as well.
By using such code words for social class differences, the Star shows the depth of its sincerity in seeking to “Give voice to the voiceless!”
Maybe D-wight would work or Dwightone?
While our politics may differ, though probably not as much as you suspect, you hit this one out of the park.
Lewis’ Fear-the-Colorado-Pot-Law-Here may be the biggest and dumbest assessment of the situation. Still early but he is the #1 seed.
I read The Star mainly to see how many days ago I read their “news” elsewhere.
I don’t think I’ve seen a real Liberal or Conservative politician since Bill Bradley and Barry Goldwater. Men who were sincere in their positions rather than grabbing a label for votes.
Dwight, you dont have to get up very early in the morning to realize you are very correct.
Bullseye.
Once upon a time (25 years ago), I referred to the star as “The Kansas City Republican”.
Not any more….
Wow, two contributions in four days. Prayers do get answered.
Refresh my memory, what did Harry Wiggins do to earn the label “disgraced” ? I didn’t read about it in the Star so it must not have happened. 🙂
Interesting piece.
The Star has gone through a series of convulsive changes since 1972 . To try and sum up its history with a lazy recycling of snark just shows how far and how long your thinking has been off course. DW, you are the fool jester of the few…
You are right on the statement that there have been multiple changes in both the management and ownership of the paper over the last forty years. What has been amazing is the continuity of the prevalent attitude-“We have a monopoly in this town and if you don’t like it, tough! Where else can you go? “(As both readers and advertisers!) There is a reason that newspaper publishers have held such a fascination as the ultimate egotistical moguls.No other business owners had such power in their communities. What other business could such dramas like “Citizen Kane” or “Front Page” or “All The President’s Men” have been about? The greeting card business ? The telecommunications business? The candy business? The,ahem…..lumber business? Changes in technology have rendered the traditional newspaper business obsolete or at least obsolescent. If you don’t believe me ask the Graham family,that just sold the Washington Post for a pittance,or the Sulzberger family, which has seen the value of it’s NY Times shares evaporate. (It took a bailout by the richest man in the world to save that paper. So much for doing something about “income inequality’!) So if the charge is snarkiness , yes, I not only plead ‘nolo contendere’ but glory in it! Given how arrogantly the paper has behaved over the years,under a variety of different owners and managers,it is richly deserved.
This is the kind of stupid vague comment you get whenever you discuss this pathetic whorehouse. There was a blog that featured information about McClatchy and its papers and everyday people would list very specific, detail comments about the chain and its various papers and this is the kind of drivel you get in return. Never a rebuttal of the facts, just the same thing they publish on The Star’s editorial page everyday, utter, useless bullshit.
What was interesting was that they would also post racist comments in an effort to discredit the blog, not realizing that the guy could tell where their comments were coming from.
I’ve met and had interesting coversations sharing notes with several left-wing and inner city Kansas City activists and the story is always the same. The Star is first and foremost a whore for the establishment, particularly during Art Brisbane’s tenure. How many times did we see front page articles telling us what the Civic Council’s goals were for the city (without ever telling us who the hell the Civic Council was, or why we should care)? Then there was another scheme proposed by the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, if memory serves, that was reviewed at length on the editorial page by two independent “journalists”.
And who can forget the endorsements? Drunken judge? Two thumbs up. How about a felon convicted of public corruption? Yessir, +1 on that candidacy, but a community activist with a quarter century old drug conviction when he was a kid. Get a rope, string him up.
Of course Art was there in the thick of it. He was a co-chair of the Partnership For Children (if you ever wondered why there were so many puff pieces about their grade card for schools) with a board full of bigwigs from a JOCO Phelpsian style anti-evangelical hate group when it got caught breaking the rules for partisanship.
It was also Art who gutted the WYCO Bureau, transferring Rick Alm a serious investigative reporter to the business desk where his work could be buried on page 19 of the business section, and replacing it with a happy chat staff that heard, saw, nor spoke any evil about the Marinovich regime. The Kansan, then on its last leg kicked the Star’s ass from one end of the county to the other not because they had a better staff, but because editor Roy Teicher allowed his reporters to write about what they saw, instead of spiking it. Oh, and did I mention that marinovich was on The Partnership board with Art and his hate group pals.
The bottom line is that Brisbane was little more than a shine boy at The River Club following in the family tradition of his namesake by mouthing leftist platitudes out of one side of his mouth while his tongue licked the establishment’s boots.
One could go on and on about protecting perverts like Groper Carlsen and Ralph Nader’s poster child for political corruption, DavidAdkins, but why bother when you can see the same crap everyday today. What other explanation for keeping on duds like Barb Shelly and Yael Abouhalkah while dumping award winning journalists except for their slavish devotion to establisment scams.
It bemuses me to see both DW and JV attack the corporate mode of operation that comes when a Wall Street organization comes in and ruins a formally local run business. When a public institution gets cashed in (Katz, Milgrims, Royals, Sutherland, KC Star, ) all in the name of “a better deal,” things change. When things change, life changes. When life changes, we look back and pontificate.
If our generation has lost the power to affect change or shape KC into a better and more fair place, it’s our generations own fault. Our parents somehow were able to agree on some basic concepts and compromise for the greater good. It’s starts with well run, locally supported public schools and continues into the media, arts and business world. That leadership HAS to come from leaders who come from the grass roots and are able to lead for the greater good, not the big CEO salary/buyout.
Unfortunately, leadership today comes from young people who are designated leaders by today’s current leadership group. They are groomed in schools that segregate them from the rabble always telling them they are special, the best and the brightest, sent to “leadership” camps, handed internships, often tokens chosen for reasons of gender, ethnic, balance, society whims, and have doors opened for them by private business and government insiders.
Whose fault is it? It is ours, fellas. We don’t organize our capital into power and influence for the greater good and instead, wait for that inheritance to show up at our doorstep. Being able to come together means leaving behind the “nut stuff” that each of us carries in our personal agendas. The KC Boomer Generation seems unable to do that today. Our time is quickly passing.
Is it too late? (I will contemplate that question when I see you at the next KC metro stoplight, ready to drive on to wherever…however, I will point out that we have a role model in Jimmy Fitz, who organized and stood up to the “research tax” scam…)
I am a big fan of the Fitz.
You make a good point,tangentially,but you make it nonetheless. Kansas City has become a branch office town,with more and more locally based businesses being acquired by national or international(e.g.Marion Labs)concerns. (For the record,Sutherland Lumber is still locally owned and has its headquarters here. Your charge is valid otherwise.) I would agree with you that the spectacle of trustafarians cashing a big buy-out check and then second guessing the new management can be irritating. That’s not what my gripe is, however(and its even less what John A’s is!) Our point was made very well a few years back by a clever ad on T.V. It showed a corporate C.E.O. in a posh executive suite telling his underlings that he was “going to stick it to The Man !”,when one of them nervously pointed out that HE,the C.E.O.,was “The Man”! The Star editorial board members are among the powerful in K.C. so why would they want to rock the boat? Finally, I completely reject the notion that the current leadership vacuum is the fault of our generation for failing to fund the schools. We’ve spent billions of dollars in Missouri and Kansas with modest results so please don’t insult our intelligence by dragging out that old chestnut.You can blame us for a lot of things but not that one.
Good comments, Lunch, based on what I am assuming to be an inside perspective.
Thanks for posting and don’t be a stranger.
It’s not all school funding, it’s school control and how to deal with the direct link between adult and learner where we often fail…because, (fill in 100 answers of “certain-tude” here, then throw them out)… And now reflect on your own experience while you remember the friends you had who were students that didn’t make it… (Or even your own children)…
Jeff Bezos, nascent owner of The Washington Post and captain of industry, will soon lose Ezra Klein for his (Bezos) refusal to pony up 50 Million Dollars for a website, affiliated with the Post, dedicated to “Explanatory Journalism”. Wouldn’t that be redundant?
I never make predictions, especially about the future, but guys like Klein, with the cajones to stroll into the boss’ office, demand and then get pissy, for not getting 50 Mil to further educate we hoi polloi with “Expanation Journalism” are in no danger of going extinct. The new army of nouveau riche billionaires populating the landscape will continue to make vanity purchases of formerly unattainable properties, which unitl now, were reserved for landed gentry with ties to the Gilded Age. The gravitas now available by way of ownership of newspaper entities with storied pasts, Nobels, whistles and bells is too much to resist for guys with Sun King wealth and brobdingnagian egos. At some point, as the Red Star continues to wither, Blue Springs Bob will purchase the KC Star and suplement “Yale’s” salary with an F150.
Even then, “Yale” will have to aquire a part time job to make ends meet. He will become a Farrier, a once dying profession that still survives. No stranger to making a living ankle deep in horsesh*t, he thrives.
LMAO had to look up brodbanigan though.
Let me agree with a comment complementing Jim Fitzpatrick. His blog and his efforts in fighting the latest scam (actually a competing scam) are top notch. Indeed, the top quality of his work now stands as mute condemnation to what he and many others could have accomplished if The Star’s leadership actually allowed their talented (formerly talented?) staff to convey truth to power.
Owing to its very status as a daily in a major metropolitan area, The Star will attract talented people and yet the product does not reflect that talent. Fitz is a talented editor and journalist. Mark Weibe was a very good writer and journalist and yet The Kansan ran all over them with far fewer resources. I cannot imagine that would happen if Art Brisbane allowed them to do their jobs.
This is the dumbest thing I’ve read in awhile. Another moron decrying the “liberal bias” in the media. To think that the Star is a bastion of liberalism is hilarious. It’s full of fluff and middle of the road politics, the kind that doesn’t offend its older readers much but doesn’t challenge them either. Of course the paper is controlled by locals with money and influence, but anybody complaining about the treatment of the white middleclass in the media lives in a fantasy world. According to you, racism has been solved in KC and America because there are black representative in office. Was that another memo from the GOP that I missed?
Are reporters biased? There is no doubt that — I’ve worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and worked here at Politico. If I had to guess, if you put all of the reporters that I’ve ever worked with on truth serum, most of them vote Democratic.”
— Politico’s Jim VandeHei during C-SPAN’s coverage of the GOP primaries, March 13, 2012.
“No person with eyes in his head in 2008 could have failed to see the way that soft coverage helped to propel Obama first to the Democratic nomination and then into the White House.”
— New York Magazine political reporter John Heilemann, January 27, 2012.
“When Newsweek was owned by the Washington Post, it was predictably left-wing, but it was accurate. Under Tina Brown, it is an inaccurate and unfair left-wing propaganda machine.”
— USA Today founder Al Neuharth in his August 19, 2011 column.
“If the 2012 election were held in the newsrooms of America and pitted Sarah Palin against Barack Obama, I doubt Palin would get 10 percent of the vote. However tempting the newsworthy havoc of a Palin presidency, I’m pretty sure most journalists would recoil in horror from the idea.”
— New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller in a column for the paper’s June 19, 2011 Sunday Magazine
The mainstream press is liberal….Since the civil rights and women’s movements, the culture wars and Watergate, the press corps at such institutions as the Washington Post, ABC-NBC-CBS News, the NYT, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, etc. is composed in large part of ‘new’ or ‘creative’ class members of the liberal elite — well-educated men and women who tend to favor abortion rights, women’s rights, civil rights, and gay rights. In the main, they find such figures as Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Pat Robertson, or Jerry Falwell beneath contempt….If reporters were the only ones allowed to vote, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, and John Kerry would have won the White House by landslide margins.”
— Longtime Washington Post political reporter Thomas Edsall in an October 8, 2009 essay for the Columbia Journalism Review, ‘Journalism Should Own Its Liberalism.’
I’ll bet that most Post journalists voted for [Barack] Obama. I did. There are centrists at the Post as well. But the conservatives I know here feel so outnumbered that they don’t even want to be quoted by name in a memo.”
— Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell in her November 16, 2008 column.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “The media has been really, really biased this campaign, I think….Is the media just in love with history here, Mark, do you think?”…
Time’s Mark Halperin: “I think mistakes have been made and people will regret it….If Obama wins and goes on to become a hugely successful President, I think, still, people will look back and say it just wasn’t done the right way.”
— MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 28, 2008.
“If you were going to events during the primaries, what you saw was that the executive editors and the top people at the networks were all rushing to Obama events, bringing their children, celebrating it, saying they were, there’s this part of history….The American people are smart, they can see this. That’s why Obama’s on every magazine cover…. There’s no question in my mind the media has been more supportive of Senator Obama.”
— NPR’s Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday, October 26, 2008.
“Many in the media have been one-sided, sometimes adding to Obama’s distortions rather than acting as impartial reporters of fact and referees of the mud fights…. We hear a lot less about Democratic sins such as President Clinton’s distortions of Bob Dole’s position on Medicare in 1996 and the NAACP’s stunningly scurrilous ad campaign in 2000 associating George W. Bush’s opposition to a hate crimes bill with the racist murderers who dragged James Byrd behind a truck.”
— National Journal columnist Stuart Taylor, September 20, 2008.
Host Howard Kurtz: “Are journalists rooting for the Obama story?”
The Politico’s John Harris, referring to when he worked at the Washington Post: “It wouldn’t surprise me that there’s some of that….A couple years ago, you would send a reporter out with Obama, and it was like they needed to go through detox when they came back — ‘Oh, he’s so impressive, he’s so charismatic,’ and we’re kind of like, ‘Down, boy.'”
— Exchange on CNN’s Reliable Sources, January 13, 2008.
“From a reporter’s point of view, it’s almost hard to remain objective because it’s infectious, the energy, I think. It sort of goes against your core to say that as a reporter, but the crowds have gotten so much bigger, his energy has gotten stronger. He feeds off that.”
— NBC reporter Lee Cowan in an MSNBC.com video about the Obama campaign posted January 7, 2008.
“If we wore our politics on our sleeves in here, I have no doubt that in this and in most other mainstream newsrooms in America, the majority of those sleeves would be of the same color: blue. Survey after survey over the years have demonstrated that most of the people who go into this business tend to vote Democratic, at least in national elections. That is not particularly surprising, given how people make career decisions and that social service and activism is a primary driver for many journalists.”
— Seattle Times Executive Editor David Boardman in an August 15, 2007 e-mail to his staff, posted by Poynter.org.
You miss my whole point-the Star may mouth liberal platitudes but in the end their primary allegiance is corporate. (If you’d put aside your reflexive skepticism of me as a conservative, I think we would find a lot to agree on). Do want an example? I’ll give you one. Right-To-Work has come up as an issue in this year’s Missouri General Assembly. The last time this came up was thirty-five ago ,when such a proposition was defeated decisively in a state-wide referendum. The Star was owned by Capital Cities at the time. Much to my surprise they came out in favor of such a measure. Given their generally liberal editorial policy , I couldn’t understand this until I remembered that Cap Cities had a terrible labor relations history;complete with strikes,scabs, lock-outs,the whole panoply of old time union busting. I’m less offended by their liberalism-which is not even worth arguing about since there isn’t even one token conservative left on the editorial board-than in the fact that,for all their posturing, they don’t dare “hold the powerful accountable”,which is the stated first priority in their mission statement published just a week ago.
Jeebus-Where did I say racism has been solved? My point was that the black community is now listened to in a way that was not true in the past. That’s a good thing but it’s also true that the community is no longer voiceless,they have earned and taken their well-deserved place at the table. You also say that it’s ridiculous to say that the white middle class is not catered to by the Star.But that’s not what I said ,is it? I said white WORKING class,the forty percent or more of the population that does all the tough jobs with very little reward or recognition. Go to a Mainstream Coalition Forum or any event where Star editorial board members are speaking(the crowds are”co-terminous “as they say in math).Tell me how many non-college educated,blue collar people there are at those events.
“I don’t know if it’s 95 percent…[but] there are enough [liberals] in the old media, not just in ABC, but in old media generally, that it tilts the coverage quite frequently, in many issues, in a liberal direction….It’s an endemic problem. And again, it’s the reason why for 40 years, conservatives have rightly felt that we did not give them a fair shake.”
— ABC News political director Mark Halperin appearing on The Hugh Hewitt Show, October 30, 2006.
“The elephant in the newsroom is our narrowness. Too often, we wear liberalism on our sleeve and are intolerant of other lifestyles and opinions….We’re not very subtle about it at this paper: If you work here, you must be one of us. You must be liberal, progressive, a Democrat. I’ve been in communal gatherings in The Post, watching election returns, and have been flabbergasted to see my colleagues cheer unabashedly for the Democrats.”
— Washington Post “Book World” editor Marie Arana in a contribution to the Post’s “daily in-house electronic critiques,” as quoted by Post media reporter Howard Kurtz in an October 3, 2005 article.
“There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it’s very dangerous. That’s different from the media doing it’s job of challenging the exercise of power without fear or favor.”
— ABC News White House correspondent Terry Moran talking with Los Angeles-based national radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, May 17, 2005.
“I believe it is true that a significant chunk of the press believes that Democrats are incompetent but good-hearted, and Republicans are very efficient but evil.”
— Wall Street Journal political editor John Harwood on the April 23, 2005 Inside Washington.
“I worked for the New York Times for 25 years. I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith….I think one of the real built-in biases in the media is towards secularism….You want diversity in the newsroom, not because of some quota, but because you have to have diversity to cover the story well and cover all aspects of a society. And you don’t have religious people making the decisions about where coverage is focused. And I think that’s one of the faults.”
— Former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a journalism professor at George Washington University, on CNN’s Reliable Sources, March 27, 2005.
“Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News….But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.”
— Former CBS News President Van Gordon Sauter in an op-ed published January 13, 2005 in the Los Angeles Times.
“Does anybody really think there wouldn’t have been more scrutiny if this [CBS’s bogus 60 Minutes National Guard story] had been about John Kerry?”
— Former 60 Minutes Executive Producer Don Hewitt at a January 10, 2005 meeting at CBS, as quoted by Chris Matthews later that day on MSNBC’s Hardball.
“I know a lot of you believe that most people in the news business are liberal. Let me tell you, I know a lot of them, and they were almost evenly divided this time. Half of them liked Senator Kerry; the other half hated President Bush.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney on the November 7, 2004 60 Minutes.
“The media, I think, wants Kerry to win. And I think they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards …as being young and dynamic and optimistic and all, there’s going to be this glow about them that some, is going to be worth, collectively, the two of them, that’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.”
— Newsweek’s Evan Thomas on Inside Washington, July 10, 2004.
The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz: “You’ve said on the program Inside Washington that because of the portrayal of Kerry and Edwards as ‘young and dynamic and optimistic,’ that that’s worth maybe 15 points.”
Newsweek’s Evan Thomas: “Stupid thing to say. It was completely wrong. But I do think that, I do think that the mainstream press, I’m not talking about the blogs and Rush and all that, but the mainstream press favors Kerry. I don’t think it’s worth 15 points. That was just a stupid thing to say.”
Kurtz: “Is it worth five points?”
Thomas: “Maybe, maybe.”
— Exchange on CNN’s Reliable Sources, October 17, 2004.
Jeebus is dead on the money, I don’t know where you morons get your info.
By the way, in order for African Americans to get elected, some white folks have to vote for them. I would submit, that if there is any racism associated with the election of an African American President, it might be the fact, that 96% of the African American vote went for Obama. In the opinion of this moron, African Americans would have voted for a Black Lab if it was running against a white guy.
Wow, Chuck knows how to use the internet. Impressive, but a collection of random quotes vaguely supporting your position doesn’t amount to much. Did you learn how to use the internet at a library class for senior citizens?
If I make any concession, it’s that the sad truth is that there just aren’t as many conservatives in education and journalism. And it has nothing to do with liberal nepotism or hiring practices. Conservatives and libertarians are more concerned with personal wealth and their own success, and frankly those are two fields that don’t translate as well to those sorts of goals. Why be a voice of the people or a public watchdog when you can make money hand over fist by serving large corporations or creating your own.
If the liberal bias in the media is so strong, how the hell did W. get elected?….Twice? Your logic only makes sense as far as you can throw it. Then it falls apart.
And Dwight, I think that claiming the minority or the proverbial “voiceless” now have clear and adequate representation is akin to casual racism. I don’t know of too many politicians serving the east side of town in much capacity. Even if the color of the representative’s skin is black, what progress is being made for black men in our city? Are we fixing any of the blight east of Troost; is the city encouraging new businesses to be built in that area or are they wasting it on the money-sink that Power and Light is; are we creating viable public transportation from the east to jobs in the city, northland or joco? It’s very shortsighted to claim that simply because we now have black representatives in this city and country, that minorities are no longer the voiceless.
If your complaint about the white middle class being underserved is in deference to the 1% then I can understand that, but then why even bring race into it? Why wouldn’t the black middle class be equally underserved? The wealth disparity and class issues go well beyond racial distinctions.
Insults as to my age and abilty with a computer are accurate. That said, your premise, as stated, that people are morons who detect a liberal bias in the press is categorically refuted by liberals in the press, as quoted above. In standard boilerplate reaction to verifiable facts which refute that same premise, you indulge in ad hominem attacks, refer to the quotes as “vaguely supporting my position”. Actually, those quotes, again, from well known and respected liberal members of the press are in no way nebulous and in fact, again, are categorical.
Conservatives are elected in spite of the 4rth Estate’s best efforts. I remember Peter Jennings, after a conservative wins in the 1994 elections, on National TV, exclaiming that the American people had “Just thrown a temper tantrum.”
Clicking your heels together might make dreams come true in the movies, but typing something you wish were true, does not make it so.
The laughable supposition, that the KC RED Star is a politically middle of the road fish wrap left me little doubt that your response, when it came, would be absurd and your position untenable.
You may return to your cozy unthinking myopia.
yes. The Red Star.
1959 called. They said to come back anytime.
Altevogt will meet you there.
And once again we get an example of the intellect of the typical Star supporter. In essence, we have a “newspaper” that, like this dipstick, is little more than a troll in our community and provides nothing of value.
By the way, I forgot to remind you all to get your Women of the Star pin-up calendar before they’re all gone. The cover shot of Derek Donovan in a thong is worth the price of admission and, fortunately, Barb Shelly has a bag over her head. (For some reason Miriam Pepper isn’t featured, she’s not there, sort of like her participation in the editorial page. Does she even “work” down there anymore?)
First of all,spare me the canard about “akin to casual racism”.(What is “casual” racism,making racist comments while wearing a tank top,cut off jeans and flip-flops?) We can argue semantics all we want. Just because someone doesn’t have a clear and effective voice doesn’t mean they are” voiceless”,anymore than not wielding power as effectively as you can or to the best results means you are powerless. Secondly,the triumvirate of the media,academe,and popular culture will claim to speak for the black community,as will the guilty white liberals who flock to see performances of “The Ballad of Trayvon Martin”(which had its premier at my alma mater two weeks ago) and “Twelve Years A Slave”.Every Democratic politician will cater to their every demand because African Americans are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Part. That’s why I said the Star and other media outlets don’t speak to the white working class. If they did ,why do they insist on “comprehensive immigration reform”,designed to open the floodgates to low wage Hispanic labor ? They’re doing it to get more Hispanic voters for the Democratic Party(or as Jay Leno said,there’s no such thing as” undocumented aliens” ,only” unregistered Democrats”.Finally the reason people are desperately poor on the east side of K.C.is not because the 1% is rich. Look at the fortunes made here over the last thirty years-not just Garmin,Cerner,etc but the Indian American kid from O.P.who just sold his software company for 50 million dollars How have the middle class or working classes been hurt by that?
Liberal bias in the media, can have devestating effects on ANY nation. In England, the destruction of the entire country is now underway by way of ill advised, liberal ideology which sponsored mass immigration.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10551618/Nick-Robinson-BBC-made-a-terrible-mistake-over-immigration-debate.html
For years and years, the English have polled negatively on national immigration policy. Now, it is too late. Politicians and the 4th Estate, bound together like Jonestown fanatics have rended the culture and identity of this island, this realm, this England into a multiculturalistic nightmare in which only blood can wash away their sins.
“The 21st century will witness “the withering away of central governments, the rise of tribal and regional domains, the unchecked spread of disease, and the growing pervasiveness of war”.
Living in the West will feel like travelling through a ghetto in a limousine; don’t dare open that door. “Outside would be a crowded planet of skinhead Cossacks and juju warriors, influenced by the worst refuse of Western pop culture and ancient tribal hatreds, and battling over scraps of overused earth in guerrilla conflicts that ripple across continents . . .
“War-making entities will no longer be restricted to a specific territory. Loose and shadowy organisms such as Islamic terrorist organisations suggest why borders will mean little and sedimentary layers of tribalistic identity and control will mean more.”
These quotes are taken from “The Coming Anarchy”, an essay by the foreign affairs analyst Robert D Kaplan, writing in The Atlantic magazine in February 1994. ”
It is, as it has always been, Thomas Wolfe’s “Back to Blood”. The better angels in our psyche are few and far between. Denying the truth is personal and natioanl suicide.
Back to Blood-
“So, my people, that leaves only our blood, the bloodlines that course through our very bodies and unite us. “La Raza!” as the Puerto Ricans cry out. “The race!” cries the whole world. The Muslims? Their jihad? Their Islam? All that is nothing but a screen, a cover story. What they are, is … Arabs! Forget the rest of it! Arabs! — once the rulers of all Asia and half of Europe! Once the world’s reigning intelligentsia- — and now left behind in the dust of modern history! Back to blood, muhajeen! They, like all people, all people everywhere, have but one last thing on their minds — Back to blood!” All people, everywhere, you have no choice but — Back to blood!”
Preserve your national identity and culture or deliver your children and children’s children to slaughter, servitude, oppression, contempt and this America to desolation. The liberal media’s worship of multiculturalism and identity politics has, is and will chip away at the foundations that have made us the greatest country in the world, to this point.
Hear the thunder?