Fox News Channel vs CNN and MSNBC

[John]

I see John's point in the article about Walter. But what struck me about that article, really, was how harsh it was, particularly for a man who has died. Even people blinded by ideology or even generational forces are people too.

You're right - I've turned into a really grumpy person in my old age. But Walter
Cronkite is in good company -- I'm pretty grumpy about everyone.

John

[burt]

I'm pretty grumpy about everyone.

Just a friendly note: being grumpy makes us (everyone) too ideological, so it could make you going TOO FAST in your conclusions.
You have the full right of being frustrated and grumpy, just think about consequences.
And I come to my question: Generational theory is a great theory, the only trouble is to APPLY it, so selecting the useful information.
HOW TO DO THAT, how to select what is important or not?
Being grumpy stop our very very very small brain (we are only stupid little monkeys with a great mouth and a very little brain, really a poor machine, never to forget)

You do a wonderful work about politics, what about finance where time is so manipulated, and where money is so virtual (time AND money are virtual as it was fully demonstrated at the beginning of the 19th century, sorry I forgot the author, but I can find it again...)

Regards and friendly thinking to your work AND to yourself
Burt

[aedens]

Wait till they do the math John.
Town hall meetings are always nasty since when
have they not been ?
We knew this buzzsaw was coming and
how much longer is the public going to
walk in circles drinking cool aid is the question to more issues.
Really just do the math people and what value can the Economy
provide in terms of GDP. GDP measures activity, not wealth.
We know where that is going.
Millions running out benefits. Over decades we decline and there
pissed about 30 days of dialog in Washington to?

I like the aphorism I heard a few years ago: "Liberals think that
conservatives are evil, and conservatives think that liberals are
stupid."

CNN and MSNBC are being gratuitously offensive to millions of ordinary
people, and this is costing them dearly in ratings. If that isn't
stupidity, then I don't know what is.

Sincerely,

John

[Oakwood]

I nearly bust a gut when you said Fox is "the only mainstream news channel that presents both sides of the health care issue." Fox gives the appearance of presenting both sides, but they are the most biased network bar none. You seem to be equating their popularity with the idea that the American people can somehow recognize that they're the best outlet for the unvarnished truth. Glenn Beck? What a melodramatic moron. We can assume it was Fox who promulgated the idea that the Health Care bill contained provisions for death panels, later emotionally amplified by Sarah Palin that she's not going to let anyone kill her baby with Down's Syndrome. Did Fox try to present both sides of the death panel story (let alone the truth)? Sarah Palin--I would bet that 90% of her supporters watch Fox exclusively, because to anyone else the notion that she should be president is as funny as the idea that Fox is fair and balanced.

[John]

> Did Fox try to present both sides of the death panel story (let
> alone the truth)?

Ummmm .... Yeah.

I get most of my tv news from the BBC, CNN, and occasionally MSNBC.
On those channels, the assumption is always that any questioning of
the health care proposal is wrong, and objections are not even worth
discussing. Instead of discussing the objections and the issues,
they spend their entire time doing what you did -- they discuss the
objectors, mostly Boomers. The describe the objectors as dumb,
emotional, and racist. They call Glenn Beck a "melodramatic moron."
They describe Sarah Palin in words that can barely be repeated in
polite company. Or you have Chris Matthews (MSNBC's Hardball) saying
that anyone who opposes Obama is someone who doesn't like a black man
as President. This is the sewer that the mainstream media are
swimming in today.

I don't watch Fox News all that much, except for a few selected
segments from O'Reilly factor. But that's the ONLY place where I've
heard a serious discussion of the issues -- whether you can reduce
Medicare by 40% without depriving seniors of some medical care. For
the most part, this has been an honest discussion on Fox News,
whereas the segments I hear on the mainstream media are mostly
hysterical.

I have to admit to enjoying some Schadenfreude, as I watch the same
people who spent 8 years calling President Bush a hick from Texas, a
Hitler, a moron, etc., etc., suddenly skewered and hysterical because
Sarah Palin used the words "death panel" on her Facebook page. If
there's ever a group of people that fully deserve what they're
getting, it's the Obama supporters.

Maybe it's not so surprising. In my view, the health care bill is
such an economic disaster, for reasons I've stated several times,
that's it's really impossible for its supporters to defend it. The
only choice they have is to make hysterical attacks on the people
objecting.

When my mother was in her 80s, she fell and broke her hip. She had
hip replacement surgery within a few days. What would have happened
to my mother under the Obama plan? I have no idea, and neither do
you, neither does Nancy Pelosi, and neither does Barack Obama.

John

[Oakwood]

Presumably your mother would have the same care she had then--Medicare. There are no plans to change Medicare. In fact, detractors of health insurance reform blatantly contradict themselves because they say government can't run anything right, but they're afraid Obama is going to change Medicare. As for hysterical media, you must have missed the segments where Glenn Beck compared Obama's health care plan to Nazi eugenics (while showing an overlay of Nazi video montages). Only at Fox can an "ultra-liberal" become a murdering fascist. That is moronic. By the way, the whole idea of voluntary counselling for end of life care (not death panels) was put in the original bill by a Republican. As for both sides of the story, I have not heard Fox mention that they're really is no mention of death panels in the bill and that the provision was inserted by a Republican (which I have heard on CBS and NBC).