Manufacturing racist charges to cover up racism

[Skeptic Ginger]

"They were looking for the result they got yesterday," she said of Fox. "I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person." Shirley Sherrod interview with Media Matters

http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201007210037

She certainly knows her audience. The victim in search of someone to victimize, but not the Obama Administration, which fired her.

So Sherrod should not blame the right wing slime machine, she should blame the people who apologized to her for falling for the right wing slime machine?

The reality you folks live in is one strange place.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

"The NAACP, the group to which Sherrod was speaking to in the video, also stepped up to condemn her."

"With the cable networks then able to peg the video to statements from the NAACP and Vilsack, the clip exploded on each of the cable networks — before producers had seen the full video — and was introduced with very little context or a response from Sherrod."


Sherrod neglected to mention the NAACP, Vilsack,and the Obama Administration for her firing, and all those other cable channels that ran the video clip and that FOX News' Beck defended her. The only thing she could recall to Media Matters was what her PR flack, leftysergeant, told her: "Breitbart and Faux News are evil."

Cicero, in case you missed it, the left is appropriately criticizing its own here for allowing itself to be manipulated by known liars. I know this may be a foreign concept in the right wing media to actually take an honest look at right wing mistakes, but your posts are not revealing anything new in the story.

What you are redundantly pointing out does not negate the slimey actions of Breitbart, Fox news, or the other right wing slime time players that belong to the propaganda club.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I won't quibble with any of the rest of the post, but I think this part deserves a comment. I'm sorry, but to me, this is just apologia. Using force to take what you want from others is human nature, but somehow I was able to teach my daughter at a very young age that human nature can and will be overcome in that regard.

Racism is human nature. I don't think that something being part of human nature is enough to give it a pass.

And before you respond by stating you were just explaining and not justifying, you included a normative judgement in there: 'Why shouldn't people...'

So having your father murdered by the KKK, and a major portion of your life shaped by discrimination against black farmers doesn't come into play here, right? Be a good little pickaninny and move along.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Magnum, have any scientific evidence that racism is human nature?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Magnum, have any scientific evidence that racism is human nature?

While I don't agree with Magnum's overall comments, I do think one need not look far to find the human nature component that at least contributes to racism. People have an innate sense of 'us' and 'them' which you see time and time again contributing to wars and ethnic conflict.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

For a bunch of committed radical Marxist revolutionaries, this Administration sure is spineless when it comes to defending its own.

Well in their defense, Commies have a pretty good track record of wiping out all of their associates when they have outlived their usefulness.

Russia's first 25 years were full of mass purges.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...
C. Partisans on both sides will go to any extent to put all the blame on the other side and non of the fault on their side,when in reality NO ONE comes out looking good in this.

This comment has been agreed with by many people in the thread. I'm not one of them.

I'm watching Anderson Cooper now on CNN tout the 'balanced' approach CNN has chosen as their latest theme vying with Fox and MSNBC for market share. (For those not familiar with the US TV news market, Fox sells to the right, MSNBC to the left and CNBC, which gets less attention and has a limited news focus of just the business news, to the Libertarians.)

But as Cooper makes an effort to equally criticize the left and right he only has the example of the right wing slander. I'm reminded of the way the news media treats one sided scientific arguments by giving 'balanced' coverage allowing the woo credibility where none should have been allowed. Every scientific 'controversy' is reported on as if there was a 50:50 split opinion, when typically the only controversy are between the actual scientists and a few flakes within or an uninformed group outside the scientific community.


Of course there are left wing nut-jobs out there. But the difference is those nut-jobs are not being embraced by the mainstream progressive community or the Democratic Party. Yes, MSNBC has all progressive/liberal political commentators in their prime time programming. They chosen to go after that market share. But MSNBC doesn't actively manufacture news and while they might gets some things wrong, they don't have a mission of political propaganda the same way Murdoch and Ailes have publicly admitted to on the Fox news channel. MSNBC doesn't inject progressive talking points into daily programs they describe as news programs. "We report, you decide" and "fair and balanced" are not advertising slogans for MSNBC.


My point is the egregious behavior is not equal on both sides. And while one can say neither side is perfect, it is inconsistent with the facts to claim the distortions and offenses are balanced on both sides.

Obama's reaching out to the right wing has been totally unproductive. The right claims no compromises when they've been given compromises on every major piece of legislation, even in spite of the Democrats seeming to get nothing in return for the compromises.

The NAACP called for the Tea Party leaders to denounce the individual racists signs and comments. Because the Tea Party leaders have not done so, they've been called a racist group by some liberals. This just does not reach the level of dishonesty and the description of "will go to any extent" as is being claimed by people who seem to want to be fair, but are not basing that position on the facts.

Here is a link to the text of the NAACP resolution against the Tea Party.

The resolution condemns the bigoted elements within the Tea Party and asks for them to be repudiated.

Is anyone seriously claiming there were no "bigoted elements within the Tea Party"?

The resolution goes on to say:

“We take no issue with the Tea Party movement. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy. What we take issue with is the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements.

How can they be more clear? Does the official NAACP resolution really fit dudalb's description of going to "any extent to put all the blame on the other side..."?


Let's be fair here, but let's not be fair at the expense of the facts.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Well in their defense, Commies have a pretty good track record of wiping out all of their associates when they have outlived their usefulness.

Russia's first 25 years were full of mass purges.

As has been the case with numerous right wing military dictatorships.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Tu Queque. Stop using it.

 

[Mumbles]

This will come as a shock to POTUS Obama.

"President Barack Obama has turned to Mr. Sharpton in recent weeks to answer increasingly public criticism in the black community over his economic policy."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...404191464126.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

saw that absurd piece. I love how the Wall Street Journal turned a spat between Sharpton and Tavis Smiley into Obama somehow deploying Sharpton to squash criticism from "the black community".

 

[Lurker]

Hardly. Shirley is merely disappointed in POTUS Obama and his administration. She reserves her venom for Breitbat and FOX News, while excusing CNN, MSNBC, etc and NAACP.

Um, how did the edited video get to light originally? Who first called her a racist on the basis of the video?

Oh, that would be Breitbart. No, I don't see any reason why she would be mad at Breitbart....

 

[Lurker]

Since Byrd voted against the major civil rights bills of the 20th Century, his post "work" as a U.S. Senator to erase racism's harmful effects were too little too late.

So I guess at the end of A Christmas Carol you were booing Ebenezer Scrooge?

 

[Lurker]

The analogy to Dan Rather is worth considering. When Dan Rather went with a source of information without checking and corroborating said source the public uproar become so strong that he ended up being fired.

When Andrew Breitbart went with a source of information without checking and corroborating said source the public uproar turned against those who dared to believe Breitbart. Breitbart remains in his position somewhat scathed but I predict the right wing news agencies will have him on in the future and will continue to use him as a source. Evidence to suggest this is the right's embrace of plenty of criminals and journalists who practiced malfeasance all still having guest gigs on FoxNews.

 

[Newtons Bit]

The analogy to Dan Rather is worth considering. When Dan Rather went with a source of information without checking and corroborating said source the public uproar become so strong that he ended up being fired.

When Andrew Breitbart went with a source of information without checking and corroborating said source the public uproar turned against those who dared to believe Breitbart. Breitbart remains in his position somewhat scathed but I predict the right wing news agencies will have him on in the future and will continue to use him as a source. Evidence to suggest this is the right's embrace of plenty of criminals and journalists who practiced malfeasance all still having guest gigs on FoxNews.

The difference is that Dan Rather was supposed to be a unbiased respected news anchor who put objectivity in front of bias. Everyone already knows Breitbart is a right-wing activist. Imagine, for a moment, that the Bush administration fired a non-political appointee based on what Rachel Maddow said without verifying Maddow's sources/story. People would be justifiably angry at Bush as well as Maddow.

 

[leftysergeant]

Hey quiz kid, Vilsack, at the behest of the Obama Administration, fired Shirley before FOX News even aired the video.

On whose orders?

The POTUS himself?

 

[Lurker]

The difference is that Dan Rather was supposed to be a unbiased respected news anchor who put objectivity in front of bias. Everyone already knows Breitbart is a right-wing activist. Imagine, for a moment, that the Bush administration fired a non-political appointee based on what Rachel Maddow said without verifying Maddow's sources/story. People would be justifiably angry at Bush as well as Maddow.

I don't think objectivity enters into the equation. It is a question of journalistic integrity. Rather went with a story with bad sourcing. Breitbart went with a story with bad sourcing. Both stories were explosive and would have ramifications, it behooved them to corroborate their source. I am surprised that Rathe did not. I am not terribly surprised that Breitbart did not.

Breitbart epitomizes gonzo journalism run amok and treated as real journalism. the line has been blurred between real journalism and this gonzo journalism.

And my final point of what will happen to Breitbart remains to be seen. Rather was fired and shunned by major news agencies. I sincerely doubt Breitbart will have a similar fate. I predict he will be on FoxNews sometime in the future with a new story, all old sins having been forgotten.

 

[leftysergeant]

Breitbart epitomizes gonzo journalism run amok and treated as real journalism. the line has been blurred between real journalism and this gonzo journalism.

The news has been cancled so that Faux News may continue to bring you the preceding propoganda.

I predict he will be on FoxNews sometime in the future with a new story, all old sins having been forgotten.

The good thing about working for Faux News is that he hasn't far to fall.

 

[Newtons Bit]

The news has been cancled so that Faux News may continue to bring you the preceding propoganda.

Oddly enough, the White House insisted that she be fired before Glenn Beck aired the story on his show. He was the first person on Fox to air it. And even then, Glenn Beck defending her.

The good thing about working for Faux News is that he hasn't far to fall.

He owns his own company, he's not even a Fox News employee.

 

[headscratcher4]

Beck, actually, wasn't the first. OReily was. But he tapped in the afternoon when she was still guilty, Beck had the advantage of taking his show onto the air after it was increasingly obvious that the heavilly edited tape was suggesting exactly the opposit of what Mrs. Sharrod's comments were, and Beck had the advantage of the White House and USDA already taking a cowardly position. I wouldn't feel too sanguine about Beck's call for justice here...though I am glad he understood that injustice being done and called for it to be corrected...he is more than responsible for enough factual whoooey to more than make up for a brief, fortunate and well timed moment of sanity.

 

[leftysergeant]

I wouldn't feel too sanguine about Beck's call for justice here...though I am glad he understood that injustice being done and called for it to be corrected...he is more than responsible for enough factual whoooey to more than make up for a brief, fortunate and well timed moment of sanity.

I think Beck was Plan B, or C. He was supposed to either gloat over the administration's being caught with a racist whom they did not want to fire or, if the president got rid of Sherrod, count coup for another good public servant canned because Breitbart and Faux News had found them dirty. When Vilsack canned her, and then found out what had happened, Beck had to deflect the blame away from their favorite compost supplier.

There was no way the thugs were going to let Obama win.

These creeps don't care who gets hurt, as long as Obama can be made to look bad.