The One About The Danger Of Blind Allegiance.

[Toriach]

This article originally appeared at The One About...

So apparently President Obama committed the one unpardonable political sin. He dared to open his mouth and make a blunt statement. He called Fox news on the fact that they are not a news organization at all, but rather an unofficial arm of the Republican party.

Now as to be expected the fine fucks at Fox had a little bit of a big problem with this. After all there's nothing that a liar and a cheat likes less than being called a liar and a cheat. What has been unexpected is the way that others in the mainstream media have rallied to Fox's defense. They seem to be adhering to the kind of “an attack on one is an attack on all” thinking that one often sees in professions such as law enforcement and medicine.

Frankly I am not a fan of that kind of thinking. In my experience it usually results in the scum fucks of the world getting away with murder (figurative and sometimes literal) while the decent folk they've conned into defending them usually wind up getting the shaft.
I have seen this effect first hand. My father has worked in the timber industry his entire life. When he started it was a booming industry wherein it was possible to make a good living. At this point it has largely gone the way of things like steel mills, being down to only the largest companies, making millions, if not billions, and the few fringe operators, eking out a living.

My father, like most people who work in a natural resource oriented industry, was very proud of his work, and quick to defend it against people who would demonize it.

I can recall during the eighties that attempts were made to introduce legislation that would have reined in the amount of timber that could be harvested at one time, especially through the process known as clear cutting. Every time such legislation was up for consideration the industry giants, such as Weyerhauser and ITT Ranier, would start agitating against it. They would attempt to whip all the mills, even the very small ones into a frenzy using the “attack on one is an attack on all” logic. And they were usually successful.

Meanwhile the reality was that the amount of timber being harvested was so great that American mills did not have the ability to use it all. So the industry giants were selling it to places like Canada and Japan, thereby making themselves a hefty profit. The Canadians and Japanese, then proceeded to put large metal bolts in the wood and sink it.

Moving forward about ten years, the amount of available timber is greatly reduced, and much of it is under government control. Now laws have been passed that put much stronger controls over how much can be logged and in what ways. There are a wide variety of hoops to be jumped through. Now who do you suppose has the money and the means to jump through all those hoops? It certainly isn't the small independent operators. Oh no. Rather it is those very same giants, who were busy clear cutting every acre they could, while fighting legislation they knew to be inevitable. So while they are still able to do quite well for themselves, what do you suppose the independent operators are left with? If you said the wood sold to the Japanese and Canadians, you are oh so very right. Wood that had been under water for sometimes over ten years. Have you ever seen a piece of wood that has been left to soak for a good long time? Suffice to say, it is not the best looking nor most useable wood to be had.

There are a great many people like my father who have been out of work, or only been able to work intermittently, all because back when they could have played a part in reining in these out of control giants, instead they took their side and came to their defense.

Something similar is likely to happen to the mainstream media. In fact it may already be happening, and it might just be too late to stop it.

You see most of us are not exactly stupid. We may not be able to describe the smell of bullshit, but boy do we know it when it hits our noses. To most of us Fox has smelled of bullshit for a long, long time now. And these other groups, when they rush to Fox's defense start to stink more than a little bit themselves.

My advice is for other news organizations to simply report the facts of the situation, and then step away from Fox and let the chips fall where they may.

Having said that, however I do have to join with John Nichols over at The Nation in wondering if maybe, just maybe our President's time might not have been better served using some of that blunt talk on the insurance companies.

Of course I'm sure the fact that Fox news has never contributed to Obama's campaigns, neither for Senator, nor for President and the insurance/health care industry has, has nothing at all to do with that.

Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!

The following resources were used in the creation of this article:

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/101988/Anderson_Cooper_Media_vs_Obama

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/26-9

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