YES … IT’S A TWO-WAY STREET
|| By FITSNEWS || We don’t pay much attention to Fox News … but there’s an important column from Howard Kurtz this week addressing how millions of Americans feel “marginalized by the media” in the wake of the latest Confederate flag flap and the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.
“If you are an American who is opposed to gay marriage or respects the Confederate flag, you barely see yourself reflected in the coverage,” Kurtz wrote. “The message is that you are clueless, out of touch, a lost cause. And in some quarters it’s worse: that you are a bigot, a homophobe and a racist.”
This is true … and something we believe needs to be addressed.
This website has consistently advanced the belief that marriage is none of the government’s business. And recently, we amended our status on state government’s prominent display of the Confederate flag from “indifferent” to “oppose.”
With good reason …
But Kurtz is correct in arguing that the press has been one-sided and borderline judgmental in its treatment of these issues. And he’s right. Our excuse? We’re an opinion site with the slogan “Unfair, Imbalanced” emblazoned on every post.
We’re not trying to be objective …
The mainstream media’s excuse? LOLz. Don’t be silly.
“In the future, when same-sex marriage is widely accepted and the Confederate flag fades as an issue, most people may look back and wonder what the fuss was about,” Kurtz wrote. “But for now, the media ought to practice something they have long preached, and that is tolerance.”
True.
Just because someone flies the Confederate flag (or supports flying it from the grounds of the State House) doesn’t mean they are racist. And just because someone opposes gay marriage doesn’t mean they are homophobic.
Many are … but many aren’t.
Many are tolerant people who simply disagree on these issues for reasons that have nothing to do with bigotry or intolerance.
Also – as we noted in this post referencing a planned Ku Klux Klan rally – freedom of expression dictates that we tolerate (note: we didn’t say “endorse”) even racist and homophobic views as part of the marketplace of ideas.
Here’s the bottom line: Poor and middle class whites and blacks, gays and straights, Jews and gentiles, men and women are all in the same boat. They’re getting screwed. In fact poor and middle class blacks have been colossally screwed by the administration of Barack Obama in the same way poor and middle class whites are getting colossally screwed by “Republican” leaders like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.
All of us live – together – in a country where government is materially inhibiting our liberty and prosperity. Given how much harder this is making our lives, many of us are looking for someone to blame.
But race? It’s a scapegoat. Sexual orientation is also a scapegoat.
And these convenient “enemies” are being served up by a mainstream media that’s loyal to the status quo … eager to sow division among the “unwashed masses” instead of unity. Because let’s face it the more blacks and whites, gays and straights, etc. etc. argue along racial lines … over symbols that ultimately do not materially impact either their liberty or prosperity … the less likely they are to unite against the politicians and special interests screwing them over in Washington, D.C.
In fact this tweet from @SCPolitico sums it up perfectly ….
Hey @fitsnews pic.twitter.com/txF8aWr47o
— Justin Evans (@scpolitico) July 1, 2015
Yup …
One of our favorite Rage Against the Machine songs is “Know Your Enemy.”
Well there’s never been a more important time to “Know Your Enemy.” And know that defeating that enemy … and restoring liberty and prosperity to all Americans is an effort that’s going to require unity among all Americans.
RAPID REACTION
@fitsnews "tolerance" doesn't mean "equal coverage" …they've been "tolerated" for a long long time…and are still being "tolerated"
— russ webb (@jamweb9425) July 1, 2015
39 comments
There has been no one who has done more to promote gay rights than Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church. How could you possibly find a better way to turn conservative middle class Americans into gay supporters than to curse America and protest at the funerals of soldiers killed in action, claiming they would go to hell for fighting for a nation that allows gays in the military.
Fred Phelps was a gift to gays and their media supporters. Any opposition to gay rights was completely discredited by his actions. If you don’t believe me, just Google “Thank you Fred Phelps”
http://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&ei=LfqTVcv5OYL9tQXnwa2ICg&q=thank+you+Fred+Phelps+&oq=thank+you+Fred+Phelps+&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.12…5752.28829.0.29994.34.26.8.10.10.0.494.6460.0j9j11j3j3.26.0….0…1c.1.64.mobile-gws-hp..12.22.2272.3.9T4lgEY74rA
Dylann Roof and the sscheduled protest by the KKK will perform the same service in bringing down the Confederate battle flag.
You think his behavior is better explained by untreated rattlesnake bites rather than repressed love for gays?
If you mean Phelps, the snakes are in his head. He doesn’t handle them. They’re not part of that particular cult. They are a cult all their own.
repressed love for gays?
Ask any CDV perpetrator. There’s a fine line between love and hate that is easily crossed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-cU7qfIMF8
I was thinking more like this.
I know lots of Gay folks and have never, ever heard any of them talk about Fred Phelps being a gift – asshole maybe – but not a gift.
And you think Dylaan Roof was a gift to black folks? I know nine of them that would not consider him a gift – if they were still alive.
Might want to reconsider some of that thinking my friend.
Paraphrase much. I never used the phrase “black folks” or anything close. I said the “Confederate battle flag.” There are many opponents, including myself, who are white.
It not only represents racism, but also rebellion against my country.
I know a few gay folks myself.
American culture is run by corporate media interest. Their programming is regurgitated everyday as the talking points for the left or the right. Out political leaders deal with the media firms as if they were gods, and of course, they are.
I want to be as serious as I can with this next statement. it will draw ridicule, but here it is.
If you love America and our way of life (of course noting that there are flaws aplenty!), you will discontinue your corporate TV services and as many of your internet services as possible. If not, the zillion dollar multinational corporations that dominate our lives will further encroach into them until is precious little of anything worth having.
The Left, nor the right is happy, nor can they be. America is no longer an organic mix of people, their lives and their needs. It is a culture spoon-fed nonstop nonsense disguised as news so that the richest and most powerful people in the world get even richer and more powerful.
It will never stop till we say no thanks.
Great post.
I turned my cable off last year and it was the best thing I ever did.
I canceled apps, shut down the “cookies” on my computer, discontinued most of my optional services, bought a simple flip phone (dumping my IPhone) endgame my laptop to Sister Care. I quit using Google (owned by the devil BTW) and did more that I just can’t recall.
Now I read, i have time to talk to friends and co workers…and am a hell of a lot happier.
Agreed.
Gave up TV four years ago next month. Never been happier. Best decision I ever made. On the rare occasion where I do watch it (traveling, etc.) I am amazed that anyone watches the programming or can tolerate the “news.”
Are you posting from a garbage can with wi-fi?
He must be hauling his cpu, monitor and keyboard from Starbucks to Starbucks.
Excellent
Your tactics have not changed. This website, like almost all media, has promoted hate as fiercely as the old Democrat racists of the past loathed black people. You just hate whites and heterosexuals, now. It’s your party’s calling card.
Cool meme, for when you have an idea to dumb to express in words
Wonder if Howard Kurtz would say the same thing about Nazis and anti-Semites, that we should be tolerant of them as well.
Ahh yes, I’ve been waiting for this. Thank you for revealing just what happens when you let liberal PC groupthink start to creep in. You see, this is where we are at. The debate is over. There is no longer such thing as reasonable disagreement any longer. If you are not onboard the “change” train, you are as good as dead, marginalized to the corner with Hitler and his gestapo. Unless you subject yourself to the same knee-jerk reactions of the left spurred on by the actions of a mass-murderer or the romantic (non-legal) reasoning of a supreme court judge, you must go the way of Stalin and Hitler as the pariahs of history. You no longer have a voice. Tolerance is not tolerated. You are to submit to the new imposition of ideas or you are banished. Hmmm….
You guys have been calling Obama a Kenyan Muslim, Nazi, Communist, dictator, labeling him out to destroy America, un-American, etc. etc. for six years. You have been calling people who don’t agree with the right wing of the Republican party, libtards, Nazis, socialist, America haters, Anti-Christian, dumb, stupid, sluts, evii, lazy, takers,etc, etc forever. So forgive me if I find your comments more than a little hypocritical. The right is responsible for all the anger and hateful language out there. Mindless Wingnut groupthink has been here for a long time. You reap what you sow.
Hyperbolize much?
No one (save for a very small minority of yahoos) has called Obama any of the aforementioned names you cited, save for maybe “Muslim”. That refers simply to his heritage and his ideology (and his attempts to separate himself from it). It’s really beside the point, though. You really don’t want to get into a back and forth about which side throws out more unhinged ad hominem attacks (I don’t condone any), so spare me the talk about hypocrisy and the schizophrenic notion that “the right is responsible for all the anger and hateful language out there”. I’m referring to the fact that left has separated legitimate alternative viewpoints into a corner as worthy of criminal punishment. You’re no longer allowed to respectfully disagree on things such as the confederate flag, gay marriage, or Obama’s worldview. You either follow the leftist path or you get painted as an enemy of the state that must be silenced. It’s really that simple. Not only that, but the so-called attacks of the right are maximized and placed on a pedestal for all to see, so that you liberals have a caricaturized version of who conservatives are. Meanwhile, liberals and their despicable smears get covered up in a media blackout.
The far right has separated legitimate alternative viewpoints into a corner as worthy of criminal punishment. You’re no longer allowed to respectfully disagree on things such as racism, gay marriage, health care for all, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, paying politicians millions of dollars to vote the way you want, whether Corporations are people, whether money is speech, public education, the war in Iraq, global warming and general Republican worldview. You either follow a rightest path or you get painted anti-American, lazy, taker, godless communist, the equivalent of breeding animals, perverts, thugs, Nazis, libtards, dimms, anti-Christians, who should not only be silenced, but should be imprisoned because they are destroying America. Its really that simple. And if you deny that you are obviously not reading the comments on this blog very often.
And the far left uses the same MO as the far right, there is no middle ground for either.
Give me a few examples of liberal hate speech. I have been looking and really can’t find anything significant.
I am going to have to agree with Terry on this one. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The vitriol released by the right wing media, like Fox, Rush, Beck, etc, against Democrats and anyone who supports anything they deem liberal or leftist and anything Obama does has been horrendous. I am very middle of the road, and try to listen to both sides, but I really have not seen nearly as much hate and anger from the left as I have from the right.
I would really be surprised if you could find a significant number of major left wing media outlets that use any were near the caustic speech and derision used by the right wing websites and media outlets.
With all due respect, if you honestly believe that then you simply don’t pay attention. Either that or you are just a passive observer and you spit out what the mainstream pack-think feed you. You throw out the typical bogeymen of Fox, Rush, Beck, etc without any substantiation and think that throwing them out there makes your point. I don’t watch much Fox News, but anybody who thinks they are unfair and hateful but that MSNBC is something less than that is willfully ignorant. Also, as an avid Limbaugh listener, you clearly don’t listen to him and just believe the secondhand stuff you hear about him or quotes attributed to him that are grossly out of context. You can call it “vitriol” all you want, but the truth is that he and others like him call liberalism out for the failure it has been. That’s the only reason everything Obama does is “horrendous”. It has nothing to do with anything except for the fact that Obama’s guiding principles are deeply rooted in the failed ideas of liberalism. We conservatives just want to defeat liberalism with truth and logic, nothing else. We don’t want anyone jailed or fired or stifled in speech. We simply want the lies exposed. The fact that you haven’t seen the mountains of hate and anger coming from the left is a testament to the work that the media has done on you. It is evident in every sentence. The stuff said about Bush doesn’t compare with the stuff said about Obama, yet at every turn conservatives are berated for the any little criticism of Obama. We can’t even remotely get to the bottom of scandals like Benghazi and the IRS due to constant drumbeats that it’s motivated by racism.It just never ends. The more failures mount, the more we conservatives are put in between a rock and a hard place. We have to point it out, but the more we do, the more it looks like we are unhinged in criticism. The truth is that the lies and corruption continue unabated with a willing media as accomplice behind them.
That seems like a fairly typical wingnut diatribe. Its the vast left wing conspiracy of the press to hide all the facts put out by right wing media. Bengaziiii!! Emails!!! Rush defending his traditional third marriage. Of course MSNBC is left wing. Though not nearly as left as Fox is right and their viewership is minimal. CNN and the major networks are very middle of the road. Which is, of course, far left to the far right.
The far right never offers facts. They just attack people. Their view of history is largely skewed by a political philosophy not based in reality. For example, Social Security and Medicare have been phenomenally successful programs. Prior to the enactment of Social Security 50% of people over the age of 65 lived in poverty. Prior to the enactment of Medicare 50% of people over the age of 65 had no health insurance at all. Today only 10% of people over the age of 65 live in poverty and almost everyone over the age of 65 has health insurance. Prior to the enactment of Medicare Part D, more Americans were going to Canada for a portion of their health care than Canadians were coming to America. But you will never hear any of that from the right wing media. Its all about takers, gays, perverts, the war on Christians, etc. etc. The welfare programs they blast as evil and failures are a miniscule part of our budget, but you would think that was bankrupting the country; Instead of war, defense spending, corporate handouts, and tax cuts for the mega wealthy.
The late 1800s and early 1900s were very dark times for the average American. A nation dominated by a few very powerful Oligarchs who maintained power by buying politicians at the local and federal level. A small middle class and very large number of poor people and subsistence farmers. Factory workers were left to work for slave wages 60 hours a week. Children as young as 5 worked in the factories beside their parents. The children of factory workers and even worse black people were barely educated. They were expected to take the place of their parent, and were regarded as little more than a machine part.
The golden age of America was 1930 to 1980. During those years the middle class boomed. Real freedom spread to all Americans, including women and minorities. No more was the nation all about making a few wealthy powerful people richer and oppressing others who sought a voice in government. Because of programs designed to break the stranglehold the monopolies had on the nation’s finances, and campaign finance reform, the Oligarchs lost their political power. Because of social programs designed to support people when they were too old and too sick to work, the Oligarchs lost the threat of starvation in old age to keep their workers in line; and America experienced its greatest period in history.
But rest assured the forces of the Oligarchs did not die. They were simply beaten back and now they are coming back with a vengeance. Citizens United has freed them to once again start using their wealth to buy politicians; and they are bent on destroying all the programs that freed the average American to live a life not dominated by fear of starvation, that educated the children of everyone, that allowed poor and middle class children to attend colleges and universities, that allowed the American family to look forward and concentrate on the success of their children rather than how they would support their parents; and even to curtail the policies that brought the right to vote to minorities.
What you see as failed liberal policies, I see as great success. What you call libtards, socialists, and dimms I see as people fighting to keep America a place where the average American would want to live; A place where we all have a chance to live a happy successful life; An America where there is more for the average guy or gal, than constant fear of poverty; an America that educates all of its people and allows them to achieve their maximum potential; An America where the health care you receive is not measured by the size of your pocket book; an America that looks to the future and not the past; an America that invests in science and technology that will benefit everyone, and not just a few; and an America where a wealthy successful middle class brings prosperity to everyone.
To me that requires restoring the now dying middle class to its rightful place as the people who lead this country; the best infastruct in the world, the best education system in the world, and the best health care system in the world. It also means we need a commitment to scientific and health care advances, and to renewable energy sources that will allow us to no longer need the oil of the middle east. But more than anything else it requires cooperation toward national goals that will benefit all of us, not just a few.
And I agree with you that lies and corruption goes unabated with media accomplices. We may however disagree on which media is doing the most cover up, lying, and history rewriting..
The caustic left is out there if you just listen.
Examples please.
I think anyone crazy enough to get married should be able to. Good on gays, straights, Mormons, skinheads…whoever. But at the same time I recognize there are a LOT of people who, for a number of reasons, are opposed to this on a very personal level. To see the White House lit up as a rainbow flag…that had to be a slap in the face of the large number of Americans who do not agree with this decision and who now, rightly, believe the government no longer represents or even respects their views. Hell, at least stay neutral.
The longer the left can keep US fighting among our selves the more of their agenda they can get past US. The Bush Obummer cartoon above says it all. This administration has had US fighting among ourselves for six years and has done irreparable damage to our once great country while no one was looking. We have gone from being respected as the only super power to the laughing stock of every third world dictator on the planet. When the cat is away the mice will play. Truer today than ever.
Total BS of course. What you described is the Republican southern strategy, the people in the south have been subjected to since Nixon. Pit white people against black people and they will be so busy hating each other they will not notice Republican policies that are screwing all of them. First it was blacks, then they added hispanics, then gays.
Republicans are tools of their wealthy donors and are screwing average americans. Don’t be fooled. Its not 42% they don’t care about, its 80% they don’t care about, and that is not going to change.
Fortunately most of them are old. So the rest of US only have to hold out for a little while longer.
That is what the left has been saying since 1964. Been there done that. It was a total lie then , a total lie now. Wise up.
Its been true since 1964.
Sure, if all you want to believe are gross caricatures about republicans and you want to believe democrats are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow.
Nobody believes any politician is clean or pure. But there are degrees of corruption, and the Republican Party is more corrupt than the Democrats, because it is difficult to be corrupt when you aren’t advancing the interests of very wealthy people. Corruption requires a person with money and a person willing to take that money.
As for the Republican southern strategy, that is very real and very well documented. The strategy was to divide America into racial camps, on the belief that if the Republican party could become the party of white people would thereby be dominant. As Lee Atwater said, over time you have to become more and more careful as to how you make your appeal, but the overall goal is the same. If white people feel threatened by minorities, they will support the party they believe will protect them from the minorities. Even if that party is largely promoting the interests of a select group of very wealthy people.
They strategy worked beautifully in the south.
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Flash back to 1967. There are people in the streets who honestly believe that interracial marriage infringes on their religious freedom. They, too, are marginalized by the press. Because they are on the wrong side of history, just like the folks you mention above.
So racists and bigots are playing the victim card. How is this news?