Our view: In wake of bitter battles: Call for unity
November 6, 2012 at 6:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Do you feel that calm? Do you hear that silence? It’s over. It’s finally over!
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Our view: In wake of bitter battles: Call for unity
22 Comments
Thank you for the sentiment. Please forward to Fox News, Grover Norquist, and dear Rush and report on their response. They will be the real barometers of whether healing can begin.
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Exactly!! I spent some time watching Fox news, (sadly, the most-watched news program on morning television), and was saddened to see the way they are already planting those seeds of hatred. Can’t they simply report the news, as they DO say they are a “news program”? Why must they continually hide little digs and sarcasm and yes, actual hatred, in their morning program? How can we heal with that being shoved down apparently ignorant viewers who swallow everything they are fed?
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Yeah because folks like Rachel Maddow, Keith Olberman and the other networks are completely unbiased. They’re ALL biased one way or the other. Name one network news agency that isn’t slanted one way or the other.
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Don’t let the media influence you. Turn that crap off.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Nice use of the typical liberal tactic of name calling. Everyone, click thumbs up if you think Katherine is “apparently ignorant” in her analysis of Fox viewers or thumbs down if you agree with her.
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Ranger and Katherine: Here is where the problem lies. Am I speaking with regard to Fox News? No. I’m speaking about the two of you. Here you go immediately pointing your fingers towards one group. Is Fox News the only network who has opinion segments that are negative? I think not. Others who immediately come to mind are Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, and Rachel Maddow, and there are more. I don’t believe these individuals are from Fox News – am I correct? If you truly want the negativity to stop, stop being so selective in your finger pointing.
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Ranger – I stand correct on you only picking on Fox. You also selectively pick only conservatives and right-wing talk show hosts.
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I would agree, Ed Schulz is part of the problem…..but Mathews and especially Rachel Maddow seem to go out of their way to confirm their sources and verify facts. I cannot say the same for what I heard on Fox news this morning. It would appear that Fox simply uses snide language and sarcastic tones to influence people, while the two I spoke of above use a plea to educate ourselves. And to top it all of, Fox does NOT have “opinion segments”, they are propaganda 24/7. There IS a difference. When a non-partisan group finds that Fox viewers are less factually informed than any other network, we have a problem in our country. I guess my point is: Why are so many human beings driven to look for the negative? Compromise is not negative, and working together is what needs to happen.
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Wow. The only response I can make here is, “Give me a break.” This, people, is why there will never be unity, because there are those who will refuse to ever admit that the problem exists on both sides. Good day.
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Katherine, you are right on the mark. Schulz was a radio host before he got on television and talk radio is a cesspool filled with hateful rhetoric. Even in Duluth, we have a local host who didn’t have the guts (or he is actually crazy) to challenge callers who claimed the president was born in Kenya. Republican radio is all about personal attacks. I don’t know how people can listen to it.
It is a false equivalency to compare Fox News to MSNBC. Fox News is the tail that wags the dog (the GOP). David Frum said two years ago that the party works for Fox News. The MSNBC connection to the Democratic Party doesn’t compare to the Fox News GOP connection.
The Daily Show does a great job of showing the absurdity that is Faux News. This is one of my favorites:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-27-2011/gop—special-victims-unit
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Case and point.
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wait, wait, wait: I said Ed Schulz was one you were CORRECT about! How can you say I fail to see it on both sides? I also pointed out that some on MSNBC prove their facts. YOU failed to prove that Fox does the same. Oh, and you have a break: it’s called a fully democratic congress in MN, so you can relax and watch all the propoganda you would like while the democrats fix the mess the GOP left behind.
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It is at the point where you suggest that Maddow and Matthews are responsible, unbiased journalists that you lose ALL credibility.
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And some would say you have no objectivity left after consuming too much right-wing rhetoric. So, sir DanJ, I hereby concede defeat. You win. You may continue to live in your own bubble. Someone else can take a shot at pricking it……I have far more valuable things to do: my Grandbabies are coming!
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it is going to be very hard to achieve unity when certain basics are either not reported on or not understood by the general populace. first among these in my opinion is the national debt. we should all be able to agree that greece is the canary in a coal mine-we’re not greece? hmm..our debt/gdp ratio is roughly eqivalent. and can we agree that the debt is EVERYONES problem-no pointing fingers now. spending levels ARE unsustainable-its the math. asking for less from government is something we ALL can do. the dependency culture is very real and does in deed seem to be promoted . rural folks just don’t see the extent of largesse that is prevalent in large metro areas of the USA. can we all KNOW that a dollar spent by govt circulates in the economy a 1:1 ratio only.(it must first be removed in order to be spent and an administrative skim is taken out before it reaches the people it is supposed to help). a dollar spent in agriculture on the other hand circulates on a 7:1 ratio i am told. John Adams stated that there were two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. one is war and the other is debt. believe it.
as for the media news channels lets acknowledge that alot of it is watched for the entertainment value. there is good reporting out there-i would recommend reuters-lets do some READING. tv-i watch news from the
BBC.
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No, I can’t agree with you. And I suspect that very few economists would either. Some politicians (on both sides of the aisle) might, but there are also quite a few of them that still believe in supply side economics (despite the mass of evidence to show that it is not just wrong, but 180 degrees wrong).
The weak growth of our economy is our #1 problem. In 2009, our #1 problem was avoiding a depression. We did, but the stimulus spending we went with was relatively small and we seem to be suffering from the same general economic malaise that Japan went through after the bursting of their housing bubble in 1990 (the so-called lost decade) following that playbook. As to the ratio of debt to GDP, it is indeed something we have to watch, but it is also a number that has been higher before (notably during WWII). Our federal government is not like a corporation or household. As the depression demonstrated, the urge of business to tighten the belt actually exacerbates the effects of recessions and can turn them into much worse. What we learned from the depression is that governments MUST deficit spend to keep money flowing. No credible economist disagrees (not even the conservative ones).
The interesting thing about the Greece case is that what we are seeing is that the governments that have shifted to extreme austerity (as in Greece) in Europe have been the ones hardest hit by the Great Recession. Paul Krugman (the guy who started warning us about a housing bubble in 2002 and suggested it could send us into a Japan-like recession) has written several articles on this lately.
Maybe I should revise my view of our #1 problem. We know how to deal with a weak economy. Raising taxes (mostly by closing loopholes and going back to the rates of the Clinton era), investing in our crumbling infrastructure, investing in education, etc. all are proven techniques that work. Our #1 problem is that we have a significant number of folks in the senate who do not have any understanding of economics (and even worse, a small but vocal group of folks calling themselves tea partiers advocating policies guaranteed to hammer the country). They are our #1 Problem.
Referencing the other part of this discussion, I understand that in Fox world there is a false equivalence between Fox and some of the MSNBC folks, but unfortunately, the tactics that work in the conservative world don’t work on progressives. You cannot give most progressives truthiness and get them to believe it. You can’t use the code phrasing of Fox (“People are talking about” means “We want to say this but have no credible support”, etc.). Progressives tend to fact check. If you have actually watched Maddow, Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, etc. you know they enjoy taking Democrats to task almost as much as they enjoy doing it to Republicans. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to Rush and O’Reilly, but I don’t listen to them for facts. But they are very entertaining.
Put another way, the debt of the country grew massively during the Bush era when we were supposedly doing very well, it is also growing (though less quickly by percentage) during the Obama years. Yet somehow, the deficit and debt crises of the Bush era never made the radar on Fox, right up until President Obama was elected. Now that we are in active cleanup mode for the second worst economic catastrophe of our history and the Republicans and Fox suddenly wants to throw out everything we learned from the depression and other more recent economic crises.
So, to repeat, no, I don’t agree.
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A call for unity is a call to herd up the sheep and cattle. Leave me out…the resistance continues.
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As long as you compromise to the socialist ideology your fine, try to be a non socialist democrat govt reliant drone, than you are attacked and demonized your labor confiscated for redistribution to govt welfare slugs, thats the socialist version of compromise, you will be assimilated.
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as opposed to the fruits of your labor being purged from workers by so called “makers” and “job creators”? lol if companies actually paid wages commensurate with their productivity there would be no need for the government to have to take care of some in society. wolverine you are so wrong its absurd….if you think we are anywhere near a socialist country you are delusional,, if anything we have compromised the way towards what conservatives want which is towards fascism. Please do tell me…what modes of production does the pubic own?? and dont tell me public utilities because they are only public because private cant do it without the government putting up initial entry and startup costs. Socialism is government control of ALL capital and means of production…please tell me again where in america you see that besides rich people being taxed at a rate they used to pay before???
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OK,,, So, whats with all this discussion regarding unity???? The people of America voted, they have chosen Democratic. Now it is up to those we put our faith in. Don’t start this “Pre-excuse” discussion now….. I can already hear it from the Left…. “The Republicans wouldn’t do this, or that”….. B.S. Its time to Lead!!! The real problem is that long ago,,, the politicians have chosen to vote for party rather than country. Until we can develope a SERIOUS 3rd party, you can bet your last dollar that WE ALL will be playing political ping pong ….. No message was sent this November…. So, brace yourselves!
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So we are to unite behind a president and democrat party that will bring us decline to bankruptcy and further moral decay. Sorry, no thanks. I turn off the tv whenever Obama comes on because I can’t stand the sight of him.
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Can’t we all just get along here in New Zimbabwe?
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