Jmac vs. UGA's College Republicans (sort of)
Well, not really.
They seem like decent enough people, but I came across the University of Georgia College Republicans blog this afternoon and was treated to a healthy does of propaganda, half-truths and outright false statements. To be fair, at least the College Republicans have a blog as the Young Democrats merely have an unimpressive web site.
Still, I'd like for both political parties to occasionally drop the standard talking points and cease this perpetuating cycle of painting the other side as a dark entity out to destroy America. Granted, I'm a good Democrat and I find little to anything appealing about Republican ideology, so I poke fun and point out my disagreements where it's appropriate. But I sincerely don't think Republicans are out to ruin the country. Rather, I just think it's their ideology which is faulty (love the sinner, hate the sin as my mother would say).
But it boggles my mind that seemingly fairly educated students could put out such assinine comments such as ...
• Once again lambasting Jack Murtha and belittling (without a valid reason, mind you) the Democrats 2006 national security vision (as an aside, I've got plenty of problems with Democratic national security vision, the primary one being they shift their goals around and don't stand and fight when elections roll around because 'Republicans are strong on national security' ... grrrr, this will definitely be a future post). First off, you can disagree with Murtha's proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately (I don't necessarily think it's a good idea), but it's downright disgraceful to call him a coward. This is a man who earned two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for valor in combat and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry ... not to mention the fact that he volunteered for service in Vietnam at a time when many of today's prominent leaders from both parties were doing everything in their power to get out of said service. If anyone has earned the right to speak his/her mind about military matters without being labeled a coward, it's him.
Second, J.P. Emanuel says it's impossible to double the number of our special operations forces. Now seeing how Emanuel himself was a special operations soldier, I don't want to speak out of turn since I'll make the safe assumption he knows a lot more about this than I do. But it seems to me there must be an appropriate procedure to increase the number of troops in our special forces without sacrificing or compromising the existing standards we have in place for their training. His criticism seems rather knee-jerk to me.
And, of course, it is silly for Democrats to say they have a plan to catch Osama bin Ladin. But it's quite obvious Republicans don't have one either.
• The posting concerning the immigration reform protests was the most unusual to me. Primarily because it blantly confuses media coverage of an important event to the Hispanic community with organizing and orchestrating a protest. There are apparently a handful of Hispanic and Latino radio personalities who had a hand in coming up with some ideas for the protest, but there is a distinct difference between the mainstream media and a radio personality (something which all too often is lost upon many of today's Republicans who equate someone like Rush Limbaugh to an actual journalist).
The CRs apparently missed this key passage:
Telemundo Chicago, a Spanish-language TV station, began its coverage blitz 1 1/2 weeks before a recent rally, though there was no urging that viewers attend, said news director Esteban Creste.
"We just told them what was going on," Creste said. "While we were not trying to mobilize people, it might have prompted people to decide to go there.
• Continuing their assault against the media, the CRs bash an ABC employee for a news memo which featured disparaging comments about President Bush. The memo was pretty foolish, but to play the 'liberal media card' again is ridiculous. As I've argued many times before, bias exists in the eye of the beholder. If you want to see a bias - be it liberal or conservative - you're going to find evidence to support your belief.
Regarding the memo itself ... sure, there is a definite possibility this employee disliked Bush. There also is a definite possibility this employee, as a member of the media, grew tired of a political leader belittling his profession and offering spin and spin when the media is seeking a definitive answer on important questions. Frustration happens.
• There's also criticism of the kidnapped Christian Peacemakers in Iraq, who after being rescued by American and British forces, offered their own criticism of the invasion of Iraq. You know, it's just kind of hard for me to comprehend pointed attacks against individuals dedicated to the Christian principles of peace and compassion ... so much so they risked their lives and were eventually captured by terrorists. To suggest they weren't thankful for their rescue (which is an out-and-out misrepresentation of their positions) and say they're responsible for the turmoil because U.S. forces can't focus on eliminating terrorists is absurd.
Political discussion is a pesky thing, and I don't appreciate irresponsible statements. And far be it from me to completely take the high road and cry innocent as I have all too often returned childish criticism with more childish criticism, but I think it's important for everyone to have an educated discussion of the issues which doesn't resort into name-calling and flame-throwing.
They seem like decent enough people, but I came across the University of Georgia College Republicans blog this afternoon and was treated to a healthy does of propaganda, half-truths and outright false statements. To be fair, at least the College Republicans have a blog as the Young Democrats merely have an unimpressive web site.
Still, I'd like for both political parties to occasionally drop the standard talking points and cease this perpetuating cycle of painting the other side as a dark entity out to destroy America. Granted, I'm a good Democrat and I find little to anything appealing about Republican ideology, so I poke fun and point out my disagreements where it's appropriate. But I sincerely don't think Republicans are out to ruin the country. Rather, I just think it's their ideology which is faulty (love the sinner, hate the sin as my mother would say).
But it boggles my mind that seemingly fairly educated students could put out such assinine comments such as ...
• Once again lambasting Jack Murtha and belittling (without a valid reason, mind you) the Democrats 2006 national security vision (as an aside, I've got plenty of problems with Democratic national security vision, the primary one being they shift their goals around and don't stand and fight when elections roll around because 'Republicans are strong on national security' ... grrrr, this will definitely be a future post). First off, you can disagree with Murtha's proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately (I don't necessarily think it's a good idea), but it's downright disgraceful to call him a coward. This is a man who earned two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star with Combat "V" for valor in combat and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry ... not to mention the fact that he volunteered for service in Vietnam at a time when many of today's prominent leaders from both parties were doing everything in their power to get out of said service. If anyone has earned the right to speak his/her mind about military matters without being labeled a coward, it's him.
Second, J.P. Emanuel says it's impossible to double the number of our special operations forces. Now seeing how Emanuel himself was a special operations soldier, I don't want to speak out of turn since I'll make the safe assumption he knows a lot more about this than I do. But it seems to me there must be an appropriate procedure to increase the number of troops in our special forces without sacrificing or compromising the existing standards we have in place for their training. His criticism seems rather knee-jerk to me.
And, of course, it is silly for Democrats to say they have a plan to catch Osama bin Ladin. But it's quite obvious Republicans don't have one either.
• The posting concerning the immigration reform protests was the most unusual to me. Primarily because it blantly confuses media coverage of an important event to the Hispanic community with organizing and orchestrating a protest. There are apparently a handful of Hispanic and Latino radio personalities who had a hand in coming up with some ideas for the protest, but there is a distinct difference between the mainstream media and a radio personality (something which all too often is lost upon many of today's Republicans who equate someone like Rush Limbaugh to an actual journalist).
The CRs apparently missed this key passage:
Telemundo Chicago, a Spanish-language TV station, began its coverage blitz 1 1/2 weeks before a recent rally, though there was no urging that viewers attend, said news director Esteban Creste.
"We just told them what was going on," Creste said. "While we were not trying to mobilize people, it might have prompted people to decide to go there.
• Continuing their assault against the media, the CRs bash an ABC employee for a news memo which featured disparaging comments about President Bush. The memo was pretty foolish, but to play the 'liberal media card' again is ridiculous. As I've argued many times before, bias exists in the eye of the beholder. If you want to see a bias - be it liberal or conservative - you're going to find evidence to support your belief.
Regarding the memo itself ... sure, there is a definite possibility this employee disliked Bush. There also is a definite possibility this employee, as a member of the media, grew tired of a political leader belittling his profession and offering spin and spin when the media is seeking a definitive answer on important questions. Frustration happens.
• There's also criticism of the kidnapped Christian Peacemakers in Iraq, who after being rescued by American and British forces, offered their own criticism of the invasion of Iraq. You know, it's just kind of hard for me to comprehend pointed attacks against individuals dedicated to the Christian principles of peace and compassion ... so much so they risked their lives and were eventually captured by terrorists. To suggest they weren't thankful for their rescue (which is an out-and-out misrepresentation of their positions) and say they're responsible for the turmoil because U.S. forces can't focus on eliminating terrorists is absurd.
Political discussion is a pesky thing, and I don't appreciate irresponsible statements. And far be it from me to completely take the high road and cry innocent as I have all too often returned childish criticism with more childish criticism, but I think it's important for everyone to have an educated discussion of the issues which doesn't resort into name-calling and flame-throwing.
posted by Jmac at 4:44 PM
5 Comments:
Gah. I could do without all the GRATUITOUS CAPITALIZATION on the Young Republicans' blog. SHOUT AT ME SOME MORE, WHY DON'TCHA???
(Oh, and I could do w/o the propoganda, too. But at least make it well-designed propoganda, peopele!)
"medium-
1. A means of mass communication, such as newpapers, magazines, radio, or television."
From dictionary.com...the definitions for media.
While I currently take no stance on the quality of the College Republicans blog, their statement that the media apparently orchestrated or organized these demonstrations is accurate.
Not to be obtuse, but I didn't see any mention of Murtha being a coward in their post. It merely states that Murtha didn't vote for his own proposal.
On an aside, this seems to be the way of the modern-day Democrat. Develop grandiose plans, but when it comes down to putting your balls on the table, you calmly take your seat and shut your mouth. I long for the days of Kennedy, when one was free to have a damn opinion and not disappear at the first sign of animosity towards it.
Anyway, about the liberal media. It is true that there are liberal media outlets, just as there are conservative media outlets. People are free to have their own political thoughts, and I don't have to believe there are some unpolitical robots behind some magic curtain that is producing my news without bias. That is silly and juvenile, and I take my news with a grain of salt. Just realize that an actual person is doing the news and actual people have actual thoughts and emotions and beliefs that might put a slight spin on whatever they are reporting.
The general criticism of the Christian Peacemakers was that they did not say "thank you" to the people who rescued them. They have since done so (on their website and in press releases), but it took them several days and much 'public pressure' to get them to do the right thing and say "thank you" to people who saved their lives.
They have every right to still object to the war, but the way they refused to recognize what soldiers did for them was reprehensible. But they've corrected it now, so it should be dropped.
I long for the days of Kennedy ...
So do I my friend. So do I.
I take your point regarding 'media' but you have to acknowledge the difference between journalistic media (actual news reporting) and political/cultural opinion media (pundits and talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken). I mean, Seinfeld is a form of 'media' but not in the way our society understands it today.
The term 'media' has taken on a different meaning, much as how, say, 'irony' has taken on a different meaning (few things are actually ironic, but everyone says 'hey, that's the irony of it all!').
So I don't necessarily think the CRs are referring to Seinfeld when they cry 'liberal media' or anything, but rather assuming that the newsreporting agencies such as the Associated Press or CBS have a liberal tilt in how the news is presented. I disagree with that assertion (on the whole). The intent of their statement was to imply that the Spanish journalistic media had orchestrated the protest, which I don't think is the case.
Is journalism perfect? Far from it. It's impossible to remove all biases from anything, but the industry has a strong system of checks and balances in place which help to whittle down inaccurate reporting and biases.
Regarding Murtha, they did not use coward, and for that I say I'm sorry. My mind kept flashing to the idiotic billboard in Barrow County which does call Murtha a coward, and that was foolish of me to connect the two without any evidence.
Still, there is little to no reason why they'd call Democrats 'the party of Jack Murtha' ... though I don't mind being linked with someone who went above and beyond in the service of his country and has taken a responsible and humane approach in his career as a public servant. I think again, and we all do this, is to falsely imply that Murtha wants to run scared from the war on terror and then link all Democrats to this mindset. I do take some issue with that characterization.
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