Liberal Bent Newspapers Miss The Point

Many conservatives like to believe that the rapidly fading fortunes of the liberal-dominated print media is in large part due to conservatives turning to the alternative media for unbiased reporting and/or reporting with a more conservative spin.

While there is some merit to the conservative claim, it isn’t the decisive factor that many of us would like to think.

In this case, the conservative theory on the downfall of the print media is more schadenfreude, directed at an age-old antagonist, than actual analysis.

That’s not to say the media isn’t biased, because it is, and the conservative spurning of traditional media is real, and has had an effect.

The popularity and ratings dominance of Fox News on cable TV speaks for itself.

But there are bigger and even more revolutionary forces at work in the world of print journalism, and anyone with an interest in politics needs to understand what is really going on.

In a lengthy and important piece titled, >Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable, >Clay Shirky offers the best analysis of the Internet’s effect on the print media I’ve ever read.

I have been asked many times over the last few months why I’ve chosen to write a blog online for the Sun Sentinel instead of trying to get published in the print edition. The Shirky piece has the answer, and Shirky should be required reading for everyone in the media, and for those who regularly interact with the media.

According to Shirky: “ Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism,” and, “When we shift our attention from ’save newspapers’ to ’save society,’ the imperative changes from ‘preserve the current institutions’ to ‘do whatever works.’ And what works today isn’t the same as what used to work.”

So in my own small way, I’m trying to do “whatever works,” in service to conservatism, online, at the Sun Sentinel.

It is interesting to note that with only the rarest exception, everyone who has asked me the “why online instead of print” question has been over 50 years old. Hardly anyone under 40 has asked me that question. The under-40s don’t have to ask. They already know the answer.

Jack Furnari

Tea Parties

Editor’s Note: This blog was written prior to the Tax Day Tea Parties that took place all over the nation on April 15, 2009.  However, as the Tea Party movement continues and more tea parties are being planned for the near future, the thoughts of this blog are just a true today as they were prior to April 15, 2009.

Across the country, there are hundreds of Tea Parties being held this April 15^th.  These Tea Parties are being held for a variety of reasons, many of which can be found at: http://taxdayteaparty.com.

The original Boston Tea Party was held in Boston Harbor in 1773 predominantly to protest the British Government’s exorbitant taxation on Tea, which the colonists had to buy from Great Britain, but it was a sign of larger things, including, but not limited to violation of the colonists’ right to be taxed by their own elected representatives.

In our current political situation, many people are angered because our government has routinely and continually disregarded what many people believe to be common sense decisions by obligating our national budget for projects and actions that we do not believe in, and where no amount of “creative accounting” can come up with money to pay for, without obligating our children and grand-children for humongous debts. 

Other people are angered and frustrated by politicians who seem to want to be politicians because of the power inherent in the position, although I think a greater number of our current crop of politicians want to be congressmen because of the awesome benefits, including but not limited to, medical care, retirement benefits, and the fact that they are members of a very select group of people – out of 300 million citizens, there are only 435 representatives and 100 senators in the entire country.

Many advocates of the Tea Parties suggest taking the day off – the problem for most of us is that we all have jobs – you know, someone has to work to pay for all these things the government is promising to everyone.

Over the past few weeks, I have heard a variety of suggestions about how to conduct one’s self at these Tea Parties.  I have to be honest – I haven’t heard anything from any of the mainstream media, but I don’t watch much of the “big 3 news channels” because I have become tired of their continual leftward-leaning portrayal of everything from the weather to traffic to immigration to the Global War on Terror (yes, I know that it is now called something else, but “a rose by any other name, would still smell as sweet”, so I will continue to call it what it is).

As angered and frustrated as many of us are, I think we need to be careful about how we show our anger and our frustration.  There are rumors of groups of far-left liberals planning to crash the various parties in an effort to portray conservatives as far right (which we are), as illogical (which we aren’t), as uncaring (which we aren’t), and as out-of-touch (this is open to debate). 

In all of this, I think that conservatives’ biggest issue is that we don’t talk about what we want – we expect that other people will see our side, based purely on logic and common sense, not realizing that many people deal with politics from a much more “emotional” aspect – now I may be blowing smoke here, but I haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence to refute my beliefs.

Personally, I am going to the Tea Party in West Palm Beach, FL, to meet other people who are as frustrated as I am, and to show by my presence that I am angered and frustrated by my government’s refusal to look at the beliefs and knowledge of a large part of the country’s population.  I am not taking a sign.  I am not wearing a t-shirt with a logo about my lack of faith in my government. 

If asked why I am there, I will say “I want to show our elected officials that I am frustrated that they are not listening to me and to the hundreds of thousands of people nation-wide who believe as I do.”  I will continue with “I believe that people, and especially politicians, who do not know their history doom the entire country to repeat it – none of the situations we are currently facing are new – they have all been dealt with in the past, and from history we know what works and what doesn’t.  As long as we keep doing the same wrong things, we will continue to get the wrong results.”

 I might also add if it seems appropriate that I believe that each and every one of us has a God-given right to “… life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…”, but that comes with a couple caveats.  The first is that no one is guaranteed the right to be happy, only the right to pursue happiness.  The second is that someone else’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness MUST end when it starts infringing on my right to the same, and vice versa.

Happy Tea Party to everyone!

Charles Grett

Pay Tribute Where Tribute Is Due

On March 26th, at a press conference to announce that a Chinese Company was signing a lease for its new tower, the Port Authority of NY/NJ also announced that the 1776 foot tall tower would no longer be called the Freedom Tower, but instead would be called One World Trade Center.

The Port Authority claims that Freedom Tower isn’t marketable for them. But as someone who lost a loved one in the actual One World Trade Center on 9/11, I find this change completely inappropriate. It diminishes the memories of those who died that day. It also forgets that the actual footprints of the One and Two World Trade Center are not going to be built on. They will be a void of buildings as a reminder and memorial to the victims, as well as a place for people from all over the world to come, pay their respects, reflect, remember and for those who were not born yet to learn about what happened that day.

As former NY Governor George Pataki said, “The Freedom Tower isn’t going to be One World Trade Center, it’s going to be the Freedom Tower,” because no matter what the bureaucrats call it, it will be known as what the American People call it.

With that in mind, I encourage anyone who reads this and agrees that it is just wrong to use One World Trade Center as an address or a name for the Freedom Tower to contact your Congressman and Senators and urge them to protest this. Contact the Port Authority of NY/NJ, write letters to the editor and pass this note along to your friends, family and co-workers.

Less than 8 years after the attacks of 9/11, it seems that some have already forgotten what happened to NYC and the US. They seem to have forgotten that for many of us the memories of that day can still make us cry. That some of us will never forget and don’t want anyone else to forget. The phrase “remember Pearl Harbor” still resonates 68 years later. I hope that the phrase “9/11 Never Forget” will resonate for at least as long. I know it will for me.
September 11, 2001 is this generation’s December 7, 1941. It should be treated with the same reverence and respect, no less.

Steven Rosenblum

Dear Senator (Insert Name),

Dear Senator whatchamacallit (paste in your senator/representative’s name)

I heard today that President Obama is seeking the ability to take over companies that MIGHT fail.

It doesn’t matter that he only wants this power over companies “like” AIG – this is a travesty!

Please do your part to restore the free market to the United States and to help rebuild the independent spirit that built this nation.

We do not need more bail-outs, we do not need more assistance going to stop foreclosures on loans to people who never should have had them in the first place, and we most definitely do not need to increase the tax burden on people who are paying taxes.

The best thing you can do for this country, and for your constituents (who put you in office) would be to vote no on anything that detracts from the free market, detracts from capitalism in this country, or infringes on the freedoms of people in this country.

To this point, the Obama regime has grown the deficit by over 9 trillion dollars (more than 11 trillion according to the CBO) – that is more than $100,000 for each man, woman and child in this country. If you stop and think about it for a few minutes, there are people living in houses that cost less than one person’s tax burden, and whole households can live for 2 years or more on that amount.

Please look at any bill coming to you as if you were making less than $20/hour and you have to support a family on what your government leaves you.

Thank you

Charlie Grett

Ready, Set, Go… No Wait… Now… Hold On… OK Now Go

This appears to be the mantra of the new Obama administration every time they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  They say that they are going to monitor the new stimulus money to make sure that the companies receiving it uses it responsibly and do not waste it.  After all, it is taxpayer dollars being used.  By the way, shouldn’t every American receive shares of all of these companies as collateral or something?

 

Recently, AIG gave bonuses to some more of their executives for doing such a “great job”.  Some of the executives do not even work for the company any longer.  The language was put into the bill by Chris Dodd from Connecticut.  Wait a minute, doesn’t AIG have corporate offices in Connecticut?  I am sure that it is just a coincidence.  But, I do wonder who received the most campaign contributions from AIG during the last election cycle?  Let’s see, who could that be? That’s right, it was Chris Dodd, Mr. Countrywide mortgage deal guy himself.  I am sure that it was just another coincidence.  After all, Mr. Dodd is really tight with Barney Frank and both of them are financial geniuses who swore up and down that Fannie and Freddie were very sound financially, so I am sure that the campaign donations had nothing to do with the language in the stimulus package.  Yeah, right!

 

Well, at least our government is making sure that France does not get any of taxpayer’s stimulus money.  Oops again.  As it turns out, AIG gave $15BILLION to French banks.  I know, I know……..that’s what AIG does.  It insures banks against loses in investments that were touted as stable by Dodd and Frank.  But that was with private money before.  Now, it is with United States taxpayer money.  Our children’s money.  Why doesn’t France give AIG some bailout money, I mean stimulus money to bailout their own banks?  Then again, why should they when the United States will do it for them.

 

Now, Obama says that starting next time our government will make sure that we do not waste any stimulus money.  That’s right, there will be a next time because the stimulus plan will not stimulate the economy so Congress is considering, yet, another stimulus.  By the way, that is why they stopped calling it a stimulus package, it is now called something like the American reinvestment, no wait……..the American…….forget it, I can’t keep up.  It is like our government calling “global warming” climate change now because it has been getting colder.

 

Well, at least our new government came up with a reasonable budget…………wait for it……that’s right, it is the biggest budget in United States history.  My question is this, why do we need such a big budget if we just spent TRILLIONS of our children’s dollars?  I think that, at least, some of the money would have offset what would have been needed in our regular budget.  You really can’t blame the government because Timothy Geitner has been working really hard, after all, he is the only guy in his office.  People that are slated to work for him either back out or have too many problems to get appointed to his office.  The Treasury Department is like the Bermuda Triangle of government.

 

When are “we the people” going to realize that we have to stop electing and re-electing these “politicians”?  We have the power to change all of this but we must use it in order for it to work.  When are we going to realize that our “elected officials” are so in bed with the lobbyists and special interest groups that “we the people” do not matter to them.  They know that we are going to elect them again because that is what we do.  I said it during our last campaign and I am sure that I will be saying it during this campaign, “the only special interest group that should be in Washington, D.C. should be the American people.”

 

Thank you and God Bless the United States of America,

 

Edward Lynch

Outraged At The Outrage

Like most Americans, I’m outraged at the retention bonuses that AIG is planning to pay some of it’s top executives using our taxpayer/bailout dollars. But what I’m more outraged at is the feigned outrage coming from the President, the Treasury Secretary and the architects of this crisis; Rep. Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd. Do you mean to tell me that these four men, who were the framers of these bailouts, didn’t know that these contracts existed before they gave AIG the money? If that’s true, they should all resign immediately. If they’re that incompetent they shouldn’t be in positions of leadership.

The sad truth is that they probably knew all about it, but hoped that the public wouldn’t notice. Now they’re doing damage control. Barack Obama, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were top recipients of lobbyist money from companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG over the past 10 years, could there be some correlation? There is plenty of blame to go around for this crisis, on both sides of the aisle, but the Democrats have control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

What happens now and for at least the next two years, is in their hands. They’ve passed up chances to really change the way things are done on earmarks, the budget and bipartisanship. They have another opportunity here. Stop pretending to be outraged and just fix the problem. Admit your mistakes, learn from them and move forward. That would be change we can believe in.

Steven Rosenblum