Most of what passes for newspapers these days are embarrassingly
partisan rags and feature, above all else, totally irresponsible wingnut opinion detritus hardly worth a second glance.
In many ways today’s newspaper industry is like some
Rube Goldberg contraption gone terribly awry. A collection of pay
websites, digital and, oh yes, the actual print product. Newspapers
change hands more often than Larry King exchanges wedding vows and, just
like a King marriage, many are teetering on the edge of extinction.
Most of what passes for newspapers these days are
embarrassingly partisan rags and feature, above all else, totally
irresponsible wingnut opinion detritus hardly worth a second glance.
U.S. dailies are little more than repugican propaganda sheets.
My local offering, the Spartanburg Herald Journal,
is buried in yet another hot-potato exchange of ownership. It seems to
be an every couple of years or so occurrence, locally and around the
country. One Worcester, Massachusetts paper changed ownership 3 times in
16 months.
No matter the owner, the content stays true to the
extremist line. Let me give you a flavor of what I’m stuck with as my
primary local reading matter. Let’s start with three recent
representative editorial page cartoons. We begin with a Dana Summers
by-lined insult showing the president inking in the word “stupid”
between the ‘the’ and ‘People’ in the “We the People…” preamble of the
Constitution. The next cartoon acquired from the Sacramento Bee depicts a
tree trunk (representing tree-hugging environmentalists) stuffed into
the end of a pipe. The word “extremism” is etched into the tree trunk,
and “jobs” printed on the pipe.
The last cartoon is the second Dana Summers
contribution via the Tribune Content Agency. It’s titled “Porous
Borders.” A bulldozer driven by the president has crashed through two
fences. One marked “Separation of”, the other “Powers.” Summers
conveniently ignores the fact that five days before the appearance of
his partisan inking, the Senate failed to end the Democrats blockage of
the repugican lawmakers favorite project, the Keystone XL pipeline.
Included in that bill, Congress would usurp White House (executive)
authority over the project. So, what Summers has misleadingly done is
lay the onus of a proposed Legislative branch interference on the
Executive branch.
Wingnut propagandists, George Will, Walter
Williams, Michelle Malkin, Cal Thomas, Charles Krauthammer and Paul
Greenberg (he describes the Affordable Care Act as an “elaborate gizmo”)
show up all the time. Occasionally the paper will feature an obscure
partisan from a distant land like Texas, as was the case with Cynthia
Allen, a columnist with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The only criteria
for such an appearance is a column ripping Obama or any other
high-profile Democrat. Her contribution was the familiar renouncing of
the Affordable Care Act. To wit, in her words: “In fact, the opacity
employed in drafting, passing and then marketing the law is one of the
reasons why cynicism about Obamacare remains so high.” Propaganda catnip
to the huge litter of Southern racists, Obama-baiting pussycats.
Clarence Page, a reasonable and objective
progressive moderate will sneak in from time to time just to balance out
the boatload of his opposite number.
As for Letters to the Editor, I have managed to get a
few of my contributions printed in that space. Congressional
Representative golden boy, Trey Gowdy, is off-limits however. Criticisms
of Gowdy of even the most minor stripe rarely make it into Letters to
the Editor.
The real censor is a local column by a guy who will
allow awesomely misleading and deceptive wingnut contributions and
refuse to print rebuttals of same. I should know; it’s happened to me
over and over.
One of my rebuttals that was deep-sixed addressed a
November 11th column by a writer who informed readers that according to a
study by an academic, Dr. Martin Fiebert, from Southern California
University, “men are victims of domestic violence at greater rates than
women.” The good PhD surveyed more than 300 studies on domestic violence
and found that women were more aggressive than men, especially within
lesbian relationships.
Supposedly women’s physical viciousness is hidden by
supporters of the Violence Against Women Act so VAWA programs can
continue to be funded.
Knowing my chances for publication of a refutation
were near zero, I nonetheless sent in hundreds of words in opposition
after researching this obviously bogus take on what the studies and
numbers were really about. Here is my response in one block as the
column is not written in paragraphs:
“To read a November 11th column from a fellow from
Gaffney, that suggests that women are like a pack of wild dogs just
waiting to commit “violence” on their unsuspecting male prey (WAP! POW!)
was eye-opening to say the least. Of course these women were
characterized as feminists, apparently a goodly number mired in the
“violence” of female/female relationships. Darn those liberal lesbians!
The core premise was that contrary to women being the victims of
violence, “The truth is that men are victims of domestic violence at
greater rates than women.” The writer attributed his “facts” to an
assessment by a Dr. Martin Fiebert at Southern California University of
more than 300 studies of domestic violence. The PhD supposedly concluded
that women were more aggressive (violent) than men. Erroneous fact
number 1: Fiebert was a faculty member of Cal State Long Beach at the
time of the study. Erroneous-fact number 2: There were not 300 studies
on domestic violence. The breakdown included, 117 scholarly
investigations, 94 empirical studies and 23 reviews and/or analysis.
There are also a couple critical caveats here that change the whole
tenor of the story. The academic inquiries were conducted 15 years ago.
Many references date back to the mid-1980’s. The basic group that was
studied might be of interest as well; college kids, even high school
students. There were exceptions, but a number of those cases examined
involved dating and/or boyfriend/girlfriend experiences. Yes, the male
was occasionally smacked on the kisser, and likely for the same reason,
but rarely was there physical injury. When struck by a man, there was
the strong likelihood of injury to the female victim. Fiebert admitted
that most of the female “violence” was, by definition, of the emotional
kind; yelling, screaming and demeaning words. My challenge to our
Gaffney friend; give us the latest domestic physical violence facts from
last year, or even the last decade. And for your next piece, please
include the salient facts of the dates of the studies and the primary
subjects. Otherwise, it would be wise to update your research. If it’s
objective, the conclusions will be the reverse of what you would have us
believe. All domestic violence is concerning, but to deal with the
problem, objectivity is a must.”
This response failed to pass the muster for
publication. This is outright censorship, obviously blessed by the
high-ups at the paper. Whenever I send something in, I’m told to source
everything, right down to the last comma. And yet, if it’s misleading,
deceptive wingnut pap, it goes sailing through, usually as the lead
contribution.
Now you know what it’s like to live in a land of repugican make believe. You also know why people vote as foolishly as
they do since the media makes damn sure that only extremists are given
opinion columns. Real facts are rarely in evidence.
Hate speech radio is even worse!
