Monday, December 29, 2003

Conservative life in the Philippines

This was a response to an e-mail discussion about conservativism.

--- In pinoywriters@yahoogroups.com, Resty Odon wrote:
> Hi. thanks for the link, though my opinions might not feel comfortable
>in your blog. The reason I got so interested about alleged left-wing bias on
>the dispensation of 'truth' - according to former WOW (LA?) president Tammy
>Bruce - is that Bruce is coming from an insider's perspective. She was
>associated formerly with the Left - lesbians, feminists, etc. etc.

~~~
I must admit I don't know who Tammy Bruce is. So I checked the internet.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh121603.shtml

An amazing amount of liars (that's what I call them when they misrepresent the truth) come from the conservative movement. Among these liars are pople like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and others mentioned in Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Lie" (or something like that). Hell, there is even a Filipina who is joining the conservative ranks. I believe her name is Michelle Malkin.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin1.asp

I prefer to check up on reports like the dailyhowler because they actually do research on Nexis-Lexis which is a transcript service. They check their facts. Something that is so simple, but conservatives don't seem to master it.

>She saw how someone like Laura somebody (forgot her surname)
>could be pressured to quit her job just because she claims to be
>conservative, while a badmouth like Eminem received nothing of the brickbats Laura had.

I believe there is a fallacy in argumentation in this one. One is comparing how a conservative person is forced to quit a job to Eminem who is a rap singer/artist? (am not really a fan?). One is comparing apples to oranges. As for Eminem, freedom of speech applies for everyone. Sometimes, people say ugly things. And damn, I'm forced to defend their right to say it.


>Then there's the Rodney King case and the LA riots, a
>simple case that devolved into racism and ethnic violence,
>no thanks to the spin given by the local media.

Heh. Race in America is never simple. The history of slavery and the amnesia which many people who happen to be white have about slavery and the forced integration of the South is something that requires books. Let's look at a simple case of conservative thought process. When the South was forced to integrate it's schools in the 1960's due to the Civil Rights Law passed by congress and Pres Johnson, the state of South Carolina added the confederate flag symbol as a sign of protest. (By the way, before integration, white children went to different schools than black children. Actually, the practice was called segregation: separate but equal. Unfortunately, the black schools were not very equal to the white schools.)

The confederate flag was the one used by the Southern states during the Civil War. Over time, it has become a symbol of white supremacy and oppression of black people to many minds. The people of South Carolina put a symbol of oppression in the sate flag. Freedom of expression? Sure. But what would be something similar? I would put forth the idea that this would be akin to putting the swastika on a state flag in Germany. (I'm reaching a little bit when doing that because I am equating the Holocaust with slavery, but I would think that the overall cost in human lives is something that is so similar that I am willing to risk my name on it.)

Normal people would think that having a symbol that is very divisive is a bad idea. Nope, not the people in the South, specifically South Carolina. They call it their culture. Fine. What has happened is that some African-Americans have asked for a boycott of South Carolina because of the state's insistence on continuing the use of the confederate symbol. If this does not sound familiar, one of the reasons that the South was forced to integrate was that the blacks started boycotts of restaurants, buses, and other white owned businesses during the 1960's which caused said businesses to feel economic pain. A boycott of South Carolina by Hollywood would result in a lot of economic pain for that state.

The manipulation of information does not only happen with liberals. Al Franken's book "Lying Liars…" shows that there is no liberal bias. I have read the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. Those newspapers are conservative.

What I have noticed is that conservatives tend to tell more lies. Then they cover it up with pathetic excuses.

By the way, the other blob to the equation of the Rodney King case was the fact that the white police officers were "Not guilty" in their trial. The trial was held in a city Simi Valley in Los Angeles that did not have too many black people. I believe that their jury did not have one black person in it. Now, is that a coincidence or is that racial prejudice? I always laugh when people complain about blacks crying racism and then I see whites practice it in front of everyone else. Come on, the world is not stupid. The riots began after the trial.

And since I'm on the roll. When the state deployed the soldiers from California's National Guard, the line was held at Beverly Hills. The message could be interepreted by someone like me to be "It's okay to riot in areas like Korea town and Watts because poor people live there. But if you go to white areas like Beverly Hills, you will be stopped."

Again, these are my opinions on life in the United States. It's not that simple.

>The novel and movie Bonfire of the Vanities tackled this theme.
>The latest example among these vicious disortions of truth is taht
>of Michael Jackson, whose child molestation case could receive the
>same racial discrimination spin. Don't you hate the very
> fact when news becomes PR! Bruce, in her book, exposes that
>such double standard in telling the truth can be traced to who's
>funding which org. So there.
>message have been removed]

I tend to believe that when Michael Jackson sleeps with children, he does not sexually molest them. I tend to believe from watching some biographies that he is trying to recapture his youth that was taken away by his fame.

Heheh. Some people believe that the district attorney for santa barbara has got something against Michael Jackson and that is why he is pursuing the case. I personally believe that the DA is so incompetent that he will not be able to prove the case. As for the racism charge, as a lawyer, it is in your client's interest to use all the cards that one has. Is it nasty and wrong? Sure! But America was builty by many, many billionares who did really nasty stuff. Are we going to change the system now that a black billionare can take advantage of the system? Wouldn't that be racism?




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