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Monthly Archives: December 2016

A Warning that Should Be Heeded

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in Mainstream Media, U.S. Politics

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', Business Insider, Culture Wars, Mainstream Media, Media Bias, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tucker Carlson

tucker-carlson

Tucker Carlson, Host of Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight”

A couple of very thoughtful friends have chided me occasionally because I have had the temerity to post partisan pieces to social media. But despite my professional communications background, I do regard much of mainstream media with profound ambivalence. My personal view is superbly expressed by libertarian-conservative Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson in a recent Business Insider interview.

As I see it, there arguably is very little news that should be regarded as nonpartisan and unbiased. Borrowing from techie parlance, this is because the filters of even so-called elite news entities are as badly contaminated as others.

I, for one, subscribe to the digital editions of The New York Times and Washington Post and read those papers faithfully.  I’ll even concede that I find much of this reading deeply enlightening and informative.  But I take much of it with a grain of salt  and balance it with other sources regarded as partisan, most of which I garner from RealClearPolitics.com, an excellent source of political news.

As I see it, this sort of eclectic reading is required of all of us in a digital media age that more closely resembles the freewheeling reportage in the Age of Andrew Jackson than the slow, methodical, even plodding reporting associated with the age of Walter Cronkite.

Why?  Because I think that Carlson and other media observers make the strong case that so-called mainstream media are largely unreliable because they reflect the opinions of elites who operate with their own badly damaged filters.  They believe nothing “unless it comes from The New Yorker, [The] New York Times editorial page, or The Washington Post.” And to add an extra layer of complication to all of this, many of our elites operate with a profound contempt for many for many of us, namely the ones who occupy the deep-dyed red American heartland.

Yes, plenty of red state Americans despise the Establishment, but this animus is more than compensated by the contempt in which our elites hold us, as Carlson stresses in this interview.

Quoting Carlson: “What bothers me is the lack of self-awareness. I don’t know if I have ever met a group less self-aware than political reporters. They honestly don’t believe that there are legitimate alternative views of anything. And like most small-minded and dumb people they are very, very quick to dismiss anything they don’t understand as crazy.”

Hillary, You Are No Richard Nixon

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in Patriotism, U.S. Politics, Uncategorized

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Cook County, Election 2016, Election of 1968, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Jim Langcuster, Patriotism, Richard Daley, Richard Nixon

richard-nixon-crowdOur 37th president, the late Richard M. Nixon, was a terribly flawed man – a fact corroborated by many of the people closely associated with him during his troubled presidency.

But, of course, Nixon was also a complicated man, capable of as many soaring acts of brilliance and selfless patriotism as he was of petty and, sometimes appallingly destructive partisanship.

Henry Kissinger, who endured a full immersion in Nixon’s manifold complexities, described him as a man who, despite his flaws, almost invariably put the interests of his country first.

One unusually compelling chapter of U.S. presidential history reveals Nixon’s capacity for selfless patriotism.  As The Washington Times opinion editor David A. Keene observes in a recent column, Nixon had acquired compelling evidence that the Kennedys, working through Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s manipulation of Cook County ballots, had stolen the 1960 presidential election.

Illinois Republican Senator Everett Dirksen urged Nixon to take action.

In the end, though, Nixon refused to contest the election, fearing the effect a recount would have in eroding  the standing of the United States vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, which was competing with the United States to carve out a following among the emerging developing nations of Africa and Asia.

How times and personal standards have changed.

Dr.Jill Stein, the nominee of the tiny Green Party, which garnered a mere 1 percent of the U.S. popular vote, has demanded a recount in the key swing stares, apparently not so much with the goal of changing the election’s outcome but rather to raise her visibility and that of her party.

Never mind the effect this recount may play in undermining what remains of this nation’s standing as the world’s leading democracy and model for democratic government. She apparently is interested solely in building her and her party’s political viability.

And to add insult to injury, the defeated Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, has joined the fray, apparently with the that hope that this recount could throw the election outcome into the House of Representatives.  Throwing the election into the House would likely not alter the inevitability of a Trump victory – Hillary and her staff are undoubtedly well aware of that fact. But it would have the effect of eroding what legitimacy is attached Trump’s presidency.

 We have come a long way from the politics of the 1960’s, when even the most fiercely competitive and morally flawed national politicians still felt compelled out of a sense of patriotism to put the interests of the nation first.

Dr. Stein,  I may be a deplorable, but you are despicable – and as for you, Mrs. Clinton, you are no Richard Nixon.

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