Racism

Racists Are Upset About Looking Like Racists On Daily Show “Redskins” Segment

Posted by on September 20, 2014 at 1:50 pm. 6 Comments :

News Corpse would like to thank NewsBusters, the uber-rightist, ethically-challenged answer to Media Matters, for bringing to our attention an article in the Washington Post that describes a “tense showdown with Native Americans [and] Redskins fans.” The face-off occurred during the filming of the Daily Show who, according to NewsBusters’ executive editor Tim Graham, lied to the unsuspecting bigots assembled to defend the offensive NFL team’s name.

Rednecks

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The setup for the segment involved four Redskins fans who the Post reports “eagerly signed up, most of them knowing that they might be mocked in their interview with correspondent Jason Jones.” The problem arose when they were surprised by a group of Native Americans who confronted them regarding their support for a term that is widely viewed as derogatory.

The Post describes one of the team’s fans as so upset that “she left in tears and felt so threatened that she later called the police.” Seriously? This woman felt threatened by peaceful civil rights activists engaging her in conversation with cameras rolling for a comedy show? The police, of course declined to take any action since there was no real threat and no laws were broken. But the fact that she felt compelled to report this act of felonious funning as a crime speaks to her own guilty conscience.

The fans complaining about how the segment unfolded were fairly open about what troubled them. They did not seem to regret their support for the team name or their own offensive comments. In fact, the Post noted that “All four fans said they still would have gone on the show if the producers had told them in advance that there would be a debate.” What they objected to was that they were allegedly not told that they would have to face some of the people they were maligning. One fan said that he would not have worn his Redskins jacket had he known there would be Native Americans there (Isn’t that considerate of him?)

In other words, they were perfectly happy to use insulting slurs against Native Americans so long as there weren’t any around to hear them. It’s not unlike racists who routinely use the N-word, except when there are African-Americans in the vicinity. It’s the same reason that the KKK wear hoods to conceal their identity. Bigots know that their views are repulsive and insulting, so they take pains to keep from expressing them in the company of those to whom their hate is directed.

This is behavior with which the victims of prejudice are all too familiar. Although at times they also experience outright bigotry, such as occurred in a different part of the Daily Show segment. As reported by the Post…

“The Native Americans endured some abuse, too, when they were taken to FedEx Field on Sunday to interact with Redskins fans who were tailgating before the home opener against the Jacksonville Jaguars. That also got ugly. At several points, according to one of the Native Americans, Redskins fans yelled obscenities at them.”

Notably, while NewsBusters re-posted nearly the entire Washington Post article, they left out only that paragraph, and one other that they paraphrased instead. So NewsBusters’ account of this story deliberately withheld the evidence of the racism that is a common component of the Native American experience. The other omitted paragraph related the complaint of a fan that the Native Americans were more media savvy than the group of fans. NewsBusters regarded that as unfair, despite their approval of the same tactic when used by conservatives like notorious Fox News ambusher Jesse Watters.

It is a sad testament to the state of race relations in America when people caught expressing their prejudices are not upset because they were caught. They openly admit that they would have been comfortable with the interview had they not been forced to confront the objects of their hate. So being exposed as racists is fine, just as long as they don’t have to do it around “those” people. And for some reason, NewsBusters thinks this reflects badly on the Daily Show, not the racists.

Uh Oh. Did Sarah Palin Call Obama “Boy” On Hannity Last Night?

Posted by on September 12, 2014 at 12:18 pm. 13 Comments :

On Wednesday, President Obama spoke to the nation about his plans to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the ISIL organization that has embarked on a terrorist spree in Iraq. Sarah Palin must have been busy brawling at drunken rave in Wasilla at the time because she didn’t make it to Fox News until the next day. And based on what she said last night to Sean Hannity, she might have been better off going another round.

Fox News has been predictably critical of Obama’s initiative to defeat ISIL. Their post-speech analysis didn’t include a single Obama supporter. But few have gone where Palin just took the debate. In her introductory comments to Hannity she began by saying…

“Dear Lord, these boys are so arrogant and that’s getting in the way of sound policy that will keep America secure and our allies.”

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Fox News Sarah Palin

Is it too much for these rancid bigots to refrain from referring to the first African-American President of the United States as “boy?” If they want to call him arrogant or belittle his commitment to the nation’s security, that’s pretty much their standard hate-speech fare, but there are some lines that you would think they would not cross.

Palin continues her warped assessment of the situation by whining about Obama’s determination to protect American soldiers by keeping them from becoming cannon fodder for jihadists in the Middle East. She said…

“And now here we are saying it’s gonna take boots on the ground to win this thing, and yet we’re not gonna send boots on the ground? We’re gonna contract this thing out when there is no mightier power than the red, white, and blue?”

That’s right. We’re not gonna send boots on the ground. That’s because the rightful parties to wage this battle are the Iraqis and their regional neighbors. Why is Palin, and so much of the right, obsessed with spilling more American blood overseas, which is exactly what the enemy wants us to do?

Palin and Hannity spend the rest of the segment in a nearly incoherent dialog that is impossible to transcribe in proper English. They touch briefly on inane concepts like whether ISIL is Islamic, or constitute being a state, merely because they say so. Since when do we allow terrorists to define the world for us? Palin and Hannity appear to have more respect for the enemy’s judgment than their president’s. That shows where their loyalties lie. Here is a typical passage from the segment:

Hannity: Let me ask you this. When the President says that the Islamic State is not Islamic, when he says that ISIS is not a state but they have more territory, it’s bigger than the size of Belgium, so they have the money, they’re more brutal, now they have the territory, maybe not recognized by the United Nations, but they certainly own a lot of that territory, and the President said another thing, he said that ISIS has no vision, I’m thinking don’t they have a vision? Isn’t what they were doing in Mosul, either convert or die, isn’t that a vision for a caliphate where the world is dominated by their brand of Islam?

Palin: It’s not just a vision that’s so obvious, it’s an articulated mission that they’re on, and that is the caliphate. That is the take over of the region, and guess what…we’re next on the hit list. So like Barack Obama, like the rest of us, hear these bad guys, these terrorists, promising that they will raise the flag of Allah over our White House, for the life of me I don’t know why he does not take this serious, the threat, because yes, it’s more than a vision. They’re telling us, just like Hitler did all those years ago when a war could have been avoided because Hitler, too, didn’t hide his intentions. Well, ISIS, these guys are not hiding their intentions either.

The only comprehensible viewpoint that can be squeezed from that rhetorical mess is that Palin and Hannity believe that ISIL is capable of defeating and ruling the entire planet. They believe that ISIL’s 20,000 desert rats can prevail over America’s 2.2 million active and reserve forces (not to mention the rest of the world’s military). In what reality do those numbers make any sense? If they just wanted to assert that ISIL is capable of causing harm, they would have been on solid ground. But by insisting that the threat to raise the flag of ISIL over the White House is a serious potential outcome they are thrusting themselves into the realm of fools (where I am sure they would be quite comfortable).

Ending on a comedic note, Palin did relieve herself of some apparently long-suppressed guilt. She told Hannity that…

“As I watched the speech last night the thought going through my mind is: I owe America a global apology because John McCain – through all of this – John McCain should be our president.”

Indeed, an apology is definitely in order. Except it should be coming from McCain who saddled American with this addled-brained cretin. However, it is interesting that Palin is, in effect, confessing that she she was the reason that McCain lost the election. There was more to it than that, but this is the start of coming to grips with reality.

OOPS: Bill O’Reilly Advises People Not To Believe His Partisan Distortions

Posted by on September 4, 2014 at 10:55 am. 7 Comments :

Jon Stewart has been doing exceptional work ridiculing the systemic racism that was demonstrated so tragically by the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Last week, for instance, Stewart laid into Bill O’Reilly (video below) for returning to his program early from a vacation because he was “furious” – not about the the needless loss of life – but about how it was being reported. O’Reilly took offense at this and scolded Stewart for “distorting” his words. He then attempted to defend himself by playing a clip from his program showing him expressing some sympathy for Brown:

O’Reilly: “What happened to Michael Brown shouldn’t happen to any American. […] Eighteen year olds make mistakes … If Michael Brown did something wrong, it doesn’t mean that you end up dead in the street.”

OK, fine. But while O’Reilly managed to utter some rather tepid sympathy for Brown, that was not the reason he cut his vacation short and rushed back to the studio. He didn’t hurry back because he was furious that an unarmed black teenager, who witnesses say had his hands up and posed no threat, was killed by an over-zealous, white police officer. His fury didn’t compel him to get back on the air because of the militarized Police department response to mostly peaceful protesters, and even members of the press. Nope, he was “furious about how the shooting of Michael Brown, 18, is being reported and how some are reacting to it.”

So Stewart’s criticism of O’Reilly for being outraged about the reporting, but not the shooting, was entirely on target. The whole point of that portion of Stewart’s program was that O’Reilly’s fury only surfaced after he saw the how the media was covering the story. The story itself wasn’t sufficient to abort his holiday. O’Reilly’s defense never even addressed the reason that Stewart had mocked him in the first place, which makes O’Reilly’s smug satisfaction that, in his mind, he had demolished Stewart’s mockery seem pretty pathetic.

Well, O’Reilly’s fury at Stewart had the ancillary effect of clouding his mind to the point where he actually said something that was true, albeit inadvertently. His Tip of the Day was…

O’Reilly: When you hear something on a partisan program, do NOT believe it … Distortions are how some people make a living.”

Bill O'Reilly

Thanks, Billo. That’s excellent advice. Now we all know how we should regard the grade A crapola you dish out every day, not to mention the steaming heap that the rest of the Fox News crew shovels 24/7.

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FLASHBACK: Sean Hannity Speaks Out Against A “Government Gone Wild”

Posted by on August 19, 2014 at 3:56 pm. 14 Comments :

It was just four months ago that Fox News was covering the “second American revolution” at the ranch of tax-cheat Cliven Bundy. While the network was uniformly supportive of Bundy’s refusal to pay customary grazing fees, it was Sean Hannity who took the lead, featuring Bundy on his program numerous times, heralding him as a hero, and fiercely defending the militia movement’s embrace of armed opposition to law enforcement.

At that time, in the view of Hannity and other conservatives, it was the feds who were overstepping the bounds of decency and behaved like jackbooted thugs. To them it was the manifestation of a dictatorial state trampling on freedom and crushing liberty. Hannity milked the controversy for everything he could squeeze out in regular segments that he called “Government Gone Wild.”

Fox News Sean Hannity

From the right-wing perspective, the government went wild when it responded to a flagrantly delinquent white man in the cattle business who wants to mooch off of federal lands for free. Bundy has a vested interest in this as he owes over a million dollars in fees. Then, when this businessman assembles a posse of armed militia members to confront the tax collector, Hannity and his ilk line up behind the law-breaker and whine about government overreach. Here’s Hannity to Karl Rove:

“Let’s start with the Cliven Bundy situation. All right, maybe he owes grazing fees money. Do you surround his property with snipers and shooters, sharp shooters and tasers and dogs and 200 agents? Is that the way to handle it?”

“No,” says an obedient Rove. After all, it’s just a measly million dollars in grazing fees. And for the record, the federal agents of the Bureau of Land Management did not arm themselves until after they were confronted by Bundy’s militia who swore to kill those who came to enforce the law.

Jump forward to today and it’s the people going wild. The government is now believed to be acting appropriately by shooting an unarmed teenager to death. And his only crime was an allegation (unconfirmed) that he pocketed a few cigars. Then militarized police confront justifiably angry citizens who have no personal stake in the matter other than to insure that justice is brought to bear.

The presence of urban tanks, assault weapons, riot gear, tear gas, and other aggressive means of crowd control, are not considered to be indicative of a government gone wild anymore. Is it because the victim in this case is a poor, black kid, rather than a well-to-do white rancher?

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Bill O’Reilly: “These People Don’t Want Justice.” And Who Knows “Those People” Better Than O’Reilly?

Posted by on August 19, 2014 at 3:36 am. 5 Comments :

The turmoil in Ferguson, MO continues as another night of confrontation between residents and police brings tear gas, arrests, and Fox News’ demeaning characterizations of aggrieved protesters. Not surprisingly, the disparaging tone is set by Bill O’Reilly who enjoys nothing more than lecturing African-Americans on the moral decline of their culture. O’Reilly, who is on vacation, called into his own show to tell guest host Eric Bolling that he questions the sincerity of the protesters.

Bill O'Reilly

O’Reilly: “No justice, no peace? These people don’t want justice. What if the facts come out and say it was a justifiable shooting by the police officer? This guy was coming at them. What if they say that? You think these people are gonna accept that? They’re not gonna accept it.”

And there you have it. The definitive analysis by a recognized expert on the psychology of the angry black man. Clearly “those people” don’t want justice. And they won’t accept the results of a fair investigation because thugs like them are unable to employ reason and conduct themselves in a civilized fashion. And who would know better than O’Reilly who personally visited a restaurant in Harlem where he was surprised to learn that African-American patrons weren’t constantly screaming, “M-Fer, I want more iced tea.”

Elsewhere on Fox News, there was a story published on their website about the emergence of a video that Fox regarded as significant. Their headline said “YouTube Video Purportedly Captures Witness Backing Police Version In Ferguson Shooting.” Fox posted a link to the video along with a summary of the parts they considered important.

Fox News Video Backs Cop

For instance, the article reports that the video shows “a possible witness saying [Michael Brown] the unarmed 18-year-old charged at the officer who fired the shots.” That’s a pretty damning allegation, except for the fact that it occurs nowhere in the video. In the actual part of the video (Warning: very graphic content) that they quoted a background voice is heard saying…

(about 6:45) “I mean, the police was in the truck [sic] and he was, like, over the truck,” the man says. “So then he ran, police got out and ran after him. The next thing I know, he comes back towards them. The police had his guns drawn on him.”

There is nothing in there about “charging” the police. That characterization was invented by Fox News. In fact, the video account is consistent with other witnesses who said that Brown ran at first, then stopped and turned toward the officer to surrender. Of course, that version wouldn’t align with Fox’s more theatrical rendition of a raging animal on the attack.

From the outset Fox News has sought to portray Brown as a dangerous, possibly drug-addled, criminal. Likewise, they have cast the protesters in the most negative light. In a remote segment from Ferguson, Fox News reporter Steve Harrigan was particularly insulting, which did not go over well with a bystander.

Harrigan: “This is right now a media event, pure and simple. This is people running towards tear gas, running away from it. The dignified protestors went home at dusk. This is just child’s play right now.”

Bystander: “Say that shit. I don’t give a damn you’re on TV, say that shit,” the unidentified man cursed at Harrigan. “We see this shit every day. This is just child’s play? Who is the child playing with toys? That’s them.”

One has to wonder how Harrigan distinguished the “dignified” protesters from the children. Perhaps he had Bill O’Reilly on his cell phone giving him advice as the night wore on. Because a common thread runs through all of Fox’s programming. Those people are immature, violent, and unreasonable. Just look at how upset they get just because another unarmed black kid was shot by a white police officer. What do they want, justice? Well, no, according to O’Reilly.

Racist Guest On Fox News Is Offended That He Might Be Viewed As Racist

Posted by on August 18, 2014 at 11:40 am. 5 Comments :

This weekend’s episode of MediaBuzz on Fox News featured a segment about the press coverage of the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, by a Ferguson, MO police officer. Host Howard Kurtz booked Joe Concha, a conservative from Mediaite, and Keli Goff, a liberal from The Root, to debate the media’s performance during the aftermath of the shooting (video below).

Fox News

Concha immediately went into a defensive posture from the comfort of his TV studio. He took the side of law enforcement against the reporters who have been exposing the realities in the field, at great personal risk, where a militarized police department was harassing reporters and tormenting the residents they are sworn to serve.

Concha’s tirade began by condemning Wes Lowery, a Washington Post reporter who was arrested for doing his job. Concha accused Lowery of deliberately provoking the arrest and backed up his assertion by saying that Lowery’s media appearances afterward proved his self-interest.

Concha: “And here’s how you know that this was all about Wes Lowery expanding his television career. Right after he was released from custody, It was all about Tweeting out, calling Maddow Now (whatever that is), going on national television, went on CNN, MSNBC after that, Fox News as well. This was a media tour, Howie, that was only rivaled by Hillary Clinton’s. All in the effort to give Wes Lowery’s byline a microphone, a future career, and nothing more.”

Zing! Concha managed to slip in a slap at Hillary Clinton while defaming a reporter who is actually engaged in the practice of journalism, as opposed to Concha who is engaged in the practice of character assassination. And not even Kurtz would abide Concha’s slander and ignorance of the profession.

Kurtz: Alright, I think that’s unfair. Wes Lowery is a good, solid reporter. He was deluged with requests to appear on TV, including from me. He only did a few of those. I don’t think this was as self-promotional as you do.”

When a reporter is arrested while covering a news story with national prominence, that is in itself newsworthy. It is not proper or ethical for the police to target journalists in an effort to prevent them from gathering and providing information about matters of public interest. Apparently Concha thinks otherwise. Keli Goff eloquently explained why it so important to have reporters on the scene covering everything that occurs, including police misconduct.

Goff: “With all due respect to Joe, I would hate to hear the kind of criticism he would have doled out about fifty or sixty years ago to the reporters who may have been a little slow to pack up their gear when they were covering another crisis, which was known as the civil rights movement.

Goff correctly pointed out that there were a lot of reporters who were assaulted during the civil rights movement and that they risked their lives due to their commitment to keep the people informed. She described Concha’s criticism of Lowery’s efforts to record the police officers as bizarre. And she went further to say that it would be irresponsible to NOT record such activity.

Next Kurtz raised the question of whether the volume of coverage was exacerbating the tensions in Ferguson. Concha quickly agreed that the television networks and the Internet were “fueling the flames” and then focused his criticism on MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, who went to Ferguson to beseech the protesters to remain peaceful. Then Concha began an exchange that reveals much about what is wrong with television news coverage.

Concha: “The bottom line is that it is now a cottage industry when a white cop shoots a black kid. Or, we saw it with Trayvon Marin last year, CNN, HLN quadrupled their ratings because of these sort of events. And ISIS and Gaza is happening somewhere overseas. This is domestic. A cheap and easy narrative. And that’s why we’ve seen the coverage go where it has.”

Goff: You call it a cottage industry, those of us who have African-American men in our family consider it a crisis, Joe. It must be nice to have an experience in this country where you can dismiss it as simply coverage.”

Concha: “You don’t get to do that to me, Keli. You’re calling me a racist on national television?”

Huh? When exactly did Goff call Concha a racist? It is telling that Concha perceived this imaginary insult and used it to flip the whole segment to one where Goff was doing something to him. After belittling the significance of the shooting of Mike Brown, Concha is now the making himself the victim. This is where Kurtz jumped in to tell Concha that Goff had not called him a racist. Concha later apologized for “overreacting” with regard to the charge of racism, but he never apologized for the underlying remarks dismissing the shooting, disparaging the reporters covering it, and referring to coverage as “cheap and easy.”

It’s a good thing that Goff was there to counter the insensitivity and aversion to ethical journalism as represented by Concha. And it’s a good reminder of why it’s necessary to not only have journalists in the field who are devoted to informing the public, but to have them in the studio as well to smackdown jerkwads like Concha.

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Bill O’Reilly Wants To Know: Will Black America Speak Out Against Looting?

Posted by on August 13, 2014 at 2:42 pm. 8 Comments :

Fox News resident curmudgeon, Bill O’Reilly, has demonstrated his racial insensitivity too often to catalog here. Suffice to say that the man who was surprised that African-American patrons of a Harlem restaurant aren’t constantly screaming, “M-Fer, I want more iced tea,” is not the best example of racial tolerance.

So this week O’Reilly was promoting a segment on his program that would deal with the aftermath of the police shooting of an unarmed African-American. The promo asked a ludicrous question that sought to heap the responsibility of isolated crowd behavior unto the entire black population of America: “Will Black America Speak Out Against Looting?”

Fox News Bill O'Reilly

Is he serious? So whenever there is an incident that O’Reilly finds objectionable, he believes that everyone who bears any resemblance to the people involved are obligated to condemn it. Does that apply to the white police officer in Ferguson, MO who shot Mike Brown? Will white America speak out against officers killing unarmed citizens? Does it apply to George Zimmerman? Will white America speak out against murdering innocent black teenagers? Does it apply to governors who pass laws that subvert democracy? Will white America speak out against minority voter suppression? Does it apply to bankers who thrust the nation into near economic collapse? Will white America speak out against predator lenders and fraudulent mortgage schemes? Does it apply to judicial activists on the Supreme Court? Will white America speak out against the gutting of the Civil Rights Act?

O’Reilly and his right-wing comrades are constantly lumping their ideological foes into categories where they have collective responsibility, but he absolves white people of having any part in the actions of their ethnic fellows. Muslims, for instance, are required to condemn the terrorists acts of Al Qaeda (which they have done), but whites are not asked to do the same when innocent Muslims are killed by drones.

For the benefit of O’Reilly and his racist cohorts, black Americans have been prominently speaking out against any law-breaking in response to the Brown killing. His parents have called for people to “come together and do this right, the right way. No violence.” Al Sharpton told a rally of supporters that “To become violent in Michael Brown’s name is to betray the gentle giant that he was.” President Obama released a statement saying…

“I know the events of the past few days have prompted strong passions, but as details unfold, I urge everyone in Ferguson, Missouri, and across the country, to remember this young man through reflection and understanding. We should comfort each other and talk with one another in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds. Along with our prayers, that’s what Michael and his family, and our broader American community, deserve.”

These comments expose O’Reilly for the ignorant and deliberately race-baiting provocateur that he is. Does every black person in America have to make a public statement before he will be satisfied? O’Reilly isn’t actually interested in people taking responsibility. He is only interested in laying blame and disparaging African-Americans as thugs or supportive of thuggery.

America’s black population has no more responsibility to account for every other black American, than white Americans have to account for racists like O’Reilly. If they did, then I want to know if white America will speak out against the racist Fox News promo that asks if black America will speak out against looting?

Glenn Beck’s Vainglorious Brand Of Charity And The Ugliness Of His Fans

Posted by on July 15, 2014 at 12:11 pm. 6 Comments :

Much is being made of reports that politi-vangelist Glenn Beck is planning to deliver food and toys to the immigrant children that are suffering under harsh conditions in detention facilities in Texas. Beck’s convoy is expected to roll into McAllen, Texas this weekend. One wonders if it will be met by the same protesters who showed up to holler and spit at the buses of children seeking safe refuge.

Glenn Beck

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While it’s difficult to find fault with the result of his project, it cannot be left unsaid that the whole thing smacks of self-serving motivations aimed at improving his ultra-rightist image and reputation for prejudice, and openly expressed hatred for the very people he is pretending to help. In a video appeal last week, Beck said…

“Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire. And while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help. It is not either/or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts.”

Well, that sounds very nice, but it must be remembered that this is coming from the same conspiracy-rattled demagogue who just last month said that it was Obama who “engineered a humanitarian crisis in order to advance progressive policies on illegal immigration.” So the political crossfire of which Beck spoke is largely of his own making.

The way Beck has gone about promoting this gesture reeks of undisguised boastfulness and worse, near messianic posturing complete with allegations of death threats. Beck sermonized to his disciples that “I’ve never taken a position more deadly to my career than this.”

Really? After saying that President Obama has a “deep-seated hatred of white people;” that if America reelects Obama then God’s response must be that “we have to be destroyed because we will be a remarkable evil on this planet;” that the Obama administration “aided and abetted” the Boston marathon bomber; and agreeing with his guest that the only hope for America “is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

Beck has a long record of being dishonest, divisive, and downright dumb, which led to hundreds of advertisers refusing to permit their ads on his Fox News program. That, in turn, led to Fox canceling his show and relegating him to his current status as an Internet video blogger. Yet after all of that, and so much more, Beck believes that his initiative to provide relief to kids undergoing a severe hardship holds more mortal risk to his career than anything he’s ever done?

What does that say about Beck’s fans? Apparently Beck’s own opinion of the people who follow him (and who knows them better) is that they would be so outraged by this act of charity that they would respond by ditching him in droves. If Beck’s assessment is correct, then his audience is closely aligned with many others in the conservative ranks who have been viciously protesting these immigrant children with taunts and barricades and displays of hostility that surely frighten the kids who have no idea why they are the objects of such vile hatred from residents of a place that they believed to be the “shining city on a hill.”

Beck has already disclosed that his subscriptions have declined since the announcement of his charity drive. So the ugliness of his fan base is already surfacing. It remains to be seen if his relief trucks will be greeted by hostile protesters, or if that sort of repulsive behavior is reserved for frightened kids.

A Dose Of Reality: Children In Texas Are Less Likely To Be Immunized Than Immigrant Kids

Posted by on July 13, 2014 at 11:58 am. 3 Comments :

The saga of minors from south of the border migrating to the United States in large numbers to escape poverty and violence in their home countries is one of the most heartbreaking stories to emerge in years. These children are often alone and frightened and disoriented in their new surroundings.

Inflaming the tragedy further is the response from soulless right-wing hate squads that have protested these kids as they arrive at detention facilities for processing. Among the dehumanizing taunts that are cast at these innocents by protesters, as well as Fox News anchors and guests, is that the kids are dangerous agents of drug traffickers, terrorists, and gangs. They are described in terms that deprive them of their humanity, like invaders and tsunamis. This allows the haters to ignore that they are just children and transform them into forces of nature that bring nothing but chaos and destruction.

Immigrant Kids

One of the most scurrilous accusations being hurled around is that the immigrant children are menacing disease carriers who will infect our precious homegrown little ones and poison the purity of our Euro-American gene pool. They are threatening an epidemic of infectious maladies long thought to have been eradicated in civilized society. However, an article in the Texas Observer addresses this subject with the sort of facts and informed research from which conservatives recoil as if from the plague (irony intended).

The principle discovery in the Observer reveals that the occurrence of illness in the immigrant children is “wildly overstated.” In fact, if one were inclined to be nervous about the infectious status of a child, they would be better off shunning Perry’s Kids – aka the unvaccinated children suffering under the current GOP regime in Texas.

“Before demonizing undocumented children, we should look at the facts: The vast majority of Central Americans are vaccinated against all these [mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria] diseases. Governments concerned about health, and good parents investing in their kids, have made Central American kids better-vaccinated than Texan kids. We fear them not because they are actually sick, but because of powerful anti-immigration narratives that link foreigners to disease.”

The article goes on to note that many Central American governments cover the cost of vaccinations at 100%. Compare that to the U.S. where there are many states, including Texas, where routine health care is unavailable due to the political piggishness of Tea Party Republicans. The article states that “one in six kids in Texas is uninsured, and even insured families often must pay for vaccination.” By refusing to expand Medicaid programs, GOP governors like Rick Perry are tangibly lowering the quality and availability of health care and putting lives at risk. There’s your real death panel.

In addition, the tin-foil hatted movement to persuade people that immunizations are actually government sponsored plots to enrich pharmaceutical companies by mandating vaccinations that will cause autism or other debilitating illnesses, has found fertile ground in places like Texas. Consequently, many deluded parents deliberately refuse to have their kids vaccinated. This is making more of a health crisis in the state than anything that might be attributed to immigrants.

The Observer article goes into much greater detail and is well worth reading in full. It includes examples of media disinformation about both disease and immigrants (particularly exposing the lies broadcast on Fox News). It explores the historical attacks on immigrants as disease-carriers going back 200 years, when the targets of the allegations were often the Irish or Jews.

This story raises questions about the effectiveness and integrity of the media. While the Texas Observer deserves credit for doing their job, the rest of the mainstream press has been shamefully delinquent. They haven’t bothered to do the research necessary to serve their audience by keeping them informed. But they have pumped up the tabloid exploitation of phony protesters and pundits with obvious political biases. It will be interesting to see if the Observer’s article gets any national attention.

In the end, it is clear that what is motivating the falsehoods about immigrant children is nothing more than pure racism, fear, ignorance, partisanship, and even greed. This is a humanitarian crisis, not an immigration debate. If Teabagging bigots want to push their fixation with border fences and nativist outrage, let them do it after these kids are taken care of and the imminent risks to their well-being are settled.

Fox News Champions Right-Wing Bigots Protesting Against Immigrant Children

Posted by on July 2, 2014 at 10:39 am. 8 Comments :

The American conservative, as represented by the Republican/Tea Party, is so consumed with hatred that they are now forming blockades to prevent busloads of children from being transported to safe and secure facilities while waiting to be processed by immigration authorities.

Fox News Children Bus Protest

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After weeks of media reports showing severely overpopulated facilities in Texas, where young children and even infants are housed in prison-like conditions, sleeping on concrete, lacking air-conditioning, federal officials are attempting to provide some relief by dispersing the thousands of child immigrants to various locations so that they can be processed faster and under more humane conditions. And this act of compassion and responsibility is being met with opposition by right-wing, bigoted protesters who favor mistreatment of kids simply because of their immigrant status.

The protesters literally blocked the roads preventing the buses from arriving at their destination in Murrieta, California. The kids had already been traveling for hours, and now were forced to remain in the buses for an additional two hour trek to a different facility. They chanted “USA,” “Impeach Obama,” and “Deport,” with a hostility that could only have exacerbated the kids anxiety and fear.

This unconscionable behavior was reported on Fox News in glowing terms, elevating the protesters to heroes and patriots who had simply “had enough.” It was reminiscent of the Fox News glorification of the criminally deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy and his militia thugs. On Fox & Friends Steve Doocy introduced the segment saying…

“Now some people in one city in California have had it. There was a plane full of people flown from Texas to California and they were then put on a bus and they were taken up to Murrieta, California where they were gonna be processed. That was the plan. It did not go as planned.”

Notice that his intro left out entirely the age of the people on the buses. He and his co-hosts later acknowledged that these were children, but disparaged them as disease-ridden carriers of scabies, lice, Ebola, dengue virus, and Tuberculosis. To the extent that any of that were true it would be further justification for more humane treatment, not less. The Fox & Friends Krew seems to think that sick kids should be thrown back across the border to die.

Fox News continues to use repulsive language like their on-screen graphic that likened the kids in this relief effort to garbage by calling it a “Federal Dumping Grounds.” They also use the insulting term “illegals” even though almost every other media enterprise has banned its use. Note that wingnuts justify using the term because laws were broken. But drivers who speed are not called illegals. Patients who take medicine not prescribed to them are not called illegals. Bank presidents and oil companies executives who break financial and environmental laws are not called illegals. Apparently it’s term reserved to dehumanize immigrants alone.

It takes a special kind of bitter soullessness to protest children who are being brought to safety. These cretins apparently prefer that the kids remain corralled in hazardous conditions where they will suffer and be vulnerable to greater harm. And, ironically, the effort to transport the kids to other facilities is not only meant to ease their suffering, it is also necessary to expedite their processing. That would result in many of them being reunited with their families in their native countries, something the protesters ostensibly favor. But their actions, born of hate and ignorance, actually delay that. What a sad picture of American goodwill these vile protesters paint for the rest of the world to see and judge us by.