Distortions

2003-4-5 14:16:00

Paula writes:
I just wanted to ask an honest question, as it has been on my mind since I read this. How is finger pointing worse than other finger pointing? Or name calling worse than other name calling? How is something more distorted than just distorted? I have always thought that something was either distorted or it wasn't...

JJ:
Is hot and cold just hot and cold with no degrees in between? Is a hot day of 90 degrees F the same as a hot day of 115 F degrees? Is a cold day of 20 degrees F the same as 20 degrees below zero? Is a hot 100 degrees here on earth the same as a hot 10,000 degrees on the surface of the sun?

Is finger pointing and calling someone "misled", the same as finger pointing and calling someone a "nazi racist pig?"

Does a piano slightly out of tune produce the same irritation as one that is terribly out of tune?

I think not.

The trouble with seeing the black and white as merely black and white with no degrees is that it removes the power of judgment, the second key.

Severian writes about newsmax.com:
The site made me very sad. I had no idea that such harsh language and "The USA vs. The World" mentality even existed.

JJ:
I check out this site once in a while and it does indeed have a conservative slant, but I wouldn't call it any harsher or "darker" than the New York Times or the L.A. Times are with a liberal slant. These latter two have many times the influence being the two largest papers in the United States.

Overall I have found the Newsmax articles to be informative without inflammatory remarks. Maybe one in 20-30 articles will have an attack phrase such as you quoted. I'm referring to the news articles, which are about all I read there. Overall, I have found their data to be as accurate as most of the popular newspapers.

Below is a list of the current feature articles. Most of them merely present the news similar to AP or UPI. In fact, much of the information comes from there.

CIA Informants Killed in Baghdad Report: Iraqi Leader Executes Deserters U.N. Debates Iraq Future Regime Urges 'Martyrdom' as Allies Near U.S. Finds Chemical Warfare Site Hero Journalist Michael Kelly Killed 'Saddam' on TV: 'Strike Them' Bush: Let France, Germany Profit From War Car Bomb Kills 3 Soldiers Myers: No 'Siege' Planned for Baghdad The U.S.'s Tear Gas Quandary in Iraq Brave Iraqi Helped Rescue Pfc. Lynch Bush to Meet Free Iraqis Iran Abets Iraq With Paramilitary Russian Military Rushes to Help Saddam NewsMax's Boycott Rattles Paris Top Secret: How Iraq Faxes U.N. Remember the Fallen Liberators

On the other hand there are hundreds of "news" web pages slanted to the left of the New York Times and these do much more than present the news with their slant.

Here are some of the stories from one of these at: http://falloutshelternews.com/indexnormal.html

Bu$h's terrorism: Anthrax, 9/11: Demanding a Congressional Inquiry of 9/11 (report) The CIA's Role in the Anthrax Mailings: Could Our Spies be Agents for Military-Industrial Sabotage, Terrorism, and Even Population Control? Petition to the Senate to Investigate Oddities Involving 9/11 Terrorist Attacks (please sign!) GUILTY FOR 9-11: BUSH, RUMSFELD, MYERS "Home Run" Electronically Hijacking the World Trade Center Attack Aircraft Bush Body Count Sept 11: Unanswered Questions Democrats.com 911 Investigation Democrats.com News Links to September 11 Investigation Police State USA? Extreme Ashcroft Avoiding the Facts of 911 Bushology Interactive 9-11: The New Facts whatreallyhappened.com Bu$h Police State: Military Order on Detention, Treatment of Non-Citizens U.S. Newswire 13 Nov 19:13 (2001) War on Terrorism? Or War on Truth? Questioning 9-11... Stop Fascism! Legacy Of A Nazi Asshole Named Bush

"Legacy Of A Nazi Asshole Named Bush" What a head line! This makes Newsmax look like children's Sunday School.

The thrust of this and many other sites slanting to the far left is an obsession with proving that Bush is a Hitler worse than Saddam Hussein.

Lately we have had a number of posts cut and pasted from these sites that we have had to reject. Not only have they been off topic, but they have been very hateful and lacking provable facts.