As Rachel Maddow so clearly stated during her show last Friday, there’s a whole lotta makin’ shit up goin’ on out there.
Yes, a great deal of it is coming from the FOX News machine.
But not all of it.
All you have to do is to look at the local newspapers across the country to see that. Today’s edition of the Livingston Press & Argus is Exibit A.
There it is in blazing headline font, top story, above the fold:
It’s a story about a man who is oh-so-very-skeered of giving too much information to the gubmint about his salary and house payments and such if he’s chosen as one of the 3 million Americans sent the 69-question American Community Survey.
Howell resident Ron Vealey feels he shouldn’t have to tell the government his total income from the past year…“They want the dollar amount put down there, and that’s just more information than I care to give them. That’s too much information for a census,” Vealey said…
“I don’t think there’s such thing as secrecy between federal agencies anymore. I feel that privacy is being violated,” Vealey said.
Well, tough, Mr. Vealey. You are compelled by law to do so.
The Press & Argus has a long history of drumming up fake outrage about conservative issues and today’s edition is a prime example of that. Buried in one the last paragraphs on the jump page are these quotes, one from a staffer for Congressman Mike Rogers and one from a representative of the Census Bureau:
[U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers press secretary, Sylvia] Warner said concerns with the American Community Survey have not surfaced in Rogers’ office. [Kim Hunter, spokesman for the U.S. Census Bureau’s Detroit region] said the bureau, also, hasn’t received many complaints.
But, hey, let’s not let the fact that only one paranoid teabagger is askeert stop us from printing a front page “article” stoking those fears, right?
But that’s not all. Also on the front page is an article trumpeting the local Tea Party groups:
America’s new health-care legislation isn’t sitting well with some Livingston County residents, who are planning at least two “tea party”-type events in the next two weeks…“This is a critical time in our nation’s history,” said RetakeOurGov founding member Wes Nakagiri. “All freedom-loving Americans must pitch in if we are to preserve our individual liberties…
It will be a “crucial time” for Americans, he said, and he feels it will be a “turning point in America’s history.”
“It’s kind of do-or-die,” Nakagiri said of the upcoming election. “If our side cannot take back at least one of our bases of government, we could go headfirst in a European socialist type of governing system. In my opinion, the vast majority of Americans do not want that.”
The article says RetakeOurGov has a whopping 120 members in Livingston County (population: 156,951.) They appear to feel that they represent “the vast majority of Americans”. And the Press & Argus is doing their part to help that along. The front-page article gives explicit details about the two upcoming teabagger events. In other words, they are basically running a free front-page advertisement for the teabaggers.
May I suggest that we all get out our trusty pens or computers and start writing letters to our local media? We can’t let them shape the message and we must get the opposing viewpoints out there. With fewer and fewer newspapers available all the time, it’s more important than ever.
UPDATE: Well, well. Looky here. The very next day and Press & Argus has not one but TWO more articles about the teabaggers, both from the Associated Press and one on the front page again. Go figure…
I’m just sayin’…
