Extreme Bias in the Media

For some time now, my wife has been following the GOP primary with some interest. You see, she’s an avid Ron Paul supporter. I tend to be a little more apolitical most of the time, but over these last few months I’ve been somewhat forced to take notice of what is going on.

I am not a citizen of the United States. However, I am a legal resident. I do have a green card and went through the immigration process. One of the drawbacks of not being a citizen is that I have no say so when it comes to the political process. What I mean to say is, I don’t have a vote. I cannot affect the result in anyway other than spreading information as I come across it.

One thing has become very clear to me over the last 6 months or so: the news media in this country clearly has its own political agenda! Throughout their coverage of the primaries, there has been one GOP candidate that the new media has systematically censored and misrepresented and that is Ron Paul!

This morning I turned on my computer and went through the usual routine of checking my Facebook feed, emails and a bowling forum I frequent. Facebook provides me with a summary of the top 5 stories my friends have read via Yahoo! Among them was a piece with this headline:

Ron Paul Wants Tornado Victims to Fend for Themselves

Now, my first thoughts were “That can’t be right? There has to be more to than that?” So I read the article. The article goes on to paint Ron Paul as an unsympathetic drone that wants people to quit holding out their hand for government help and buy insurance to cover stuff like tornadoes. That seems a little cold and some what counter to everything else I’ve read about Ron Paul. So, I took to the comments of the article and see what was being said by his supporters and hopefully shed some light of the ACTUAL story.

You can read the full article at http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-wants-tornado-victims-fend-themselves-211200352.html

As it turns out, Ron Paul didn’t say he wanted the tornado victims to fend for themselves. He didn’t say anything like that! What he did say was this:

CNN reporter

Is there a role for federal money in helping all of these citizens get their lives back together?

Ron Paul

Not really, because it’s not authorized and there is no such thing as federal money. Federal money is just what they steal from the states and steal from you and me. So there is no federal money unless you say, well, they can print it and cause internal problems.

But to say …you don’t support federal money doesn’t mean you don’t care about people, because FEMA is inefficient. I’ve lived on the Gulf Coast and I got re-elected constantly by criticizing FEMA because of people who had to put up with FEMA after the hurricanes, had nothing but frustration and anger with them….

There’s a much better way of doing this and helping it. The FEMA, I was constantly told by the people of my district, they just get in the way. They take over law enforcement. They take over and they hinder the voluntary group and they hinder the state organization, exactly opposite of what we should be doing.

Does that sound like he wants tornado victims to fend for themselves? No, not at all! What he IS saying is that FEMA is inefficient and ineffective when it comes to doing what it is they are supposed to be doing! FEMA has often stymied the local efforts and bogged down progress with politics and red tape. I believe there was a story recently where the local firefighters were ordered to stand and watch homes burn to the ground during a major fire outbreak in Texas I believe, because FEMA hadn’t created a strategy as to how to handle the fires yet. Do we really need this kind of politics during an emergency?

We need to start holding the news media accountable for what it is reporting and how it is reporting! All too often the news media is telling us parts of the story and leaving out the parts that give us the full context. Too often we hear snippets and half truths when it comes to the news media. A news media that is supposed to “fair and balanced” is far from it. It’s no wonder there is so much fear and paranoia in this country. The garbage we’re being told through the news machine is helping to create that environment! some 80% of us only get our world news from the US news machine! We need to look beyond those and find other sources. Maybe then, we will start to get a more complete picture.

Am I a Ron Paul supporter? Yes, I am! However, I always want the FULL context before I draw my conclusions. If a news story only provides half the story, the conclusions I draw from that will be incomplete at best. Until the news media does its job and presents the ENTIRE story, we will continue to be blindfolded and herded like sheep.


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