House of Eratosthenes

Loud protests by Wisconsin public employee unions against a budget reform proposal from new Governor Scott Walker have drawn considerable national network news attention since Thursday, the day Democratic state senators fled the state in a last-ditch gambit to prevent the bill from becoming law. A story-by-story analysis by the Media Research Center shows the Wisconsin protests are a perfect case study in the media’s longstanding double standard favoring left-wing causes while demonstrating much more hostility to the Tea Party and conservative protest.

Last March, as thousands protested on Capitol Hill in the days before the passage of ObamaCare, CBS’s Nancy Cordes slammed it as “a weekend filled with incivility,” while World News anchor Diane Sawyer painted the Tea Party as a violent gang, with “protesters roaming Washington, some of them increasingly emotional, yelling slurs and epithets.” In August 2009, ABC anchor Charles Gibson complained how “protesters brought pictures of President Obama with a Hitler-style mustache to a town hall meeting,” failing to mention that the signs were produced by Lyndon LaRouche’s wacky fringe movement, not the Tea Party or conservatives.

You know what James Taranto said yesterday about this?

It’s quite striking the way almost every lie the left ever told about the Tea Party has turned out to be true of the government unionists in Wisconsin and their supporters…

He went on to provide examples:

• Extreme rhetoric. The Wisconsin Republican Party has produced what Mediaite.org calls an “incredibly effective” video juxtaposing liberal complaints about allegedly extremist Tea Party rhetoric with unionist signs likening Gov. Walker to Hitler and other dictators. Left-wing journalists are making similar invidious comparisons: “Workers Toppled a Dictator in Egypt, but Might Be Silenced in Wisconsin” read the headline of a Washington Post column by Harold Meyerson last week. The other day on CNN we saw scenes of a Madison crowd chanting, “Kill the bill”–which was said to be violent and invidious a year ago, when “the bill” was ObamaCare.

• Violence. Blogress Ann Althouse, a state employee based in Madison, posted a video of municipal salt trucks blowing their horns in support of the unionists. A YouTube commenter responded (quoting verbatim), “whoever video taped this has no life and should be shot in the head.” Unlike Frances Fox Piven, Althouse has never advocated violence, but don’t expect the Times to give this the kind of coverage it gave Piven’s claims that she had received threatening emails.

• Partisan AstroTurf. That’s the Beltway term referring to a fake grassroots movement. Politico reported last week that “the Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America arm–the remnant of the 2008 Obama campaign–is playing an active role in organizing protests.” A blogger at the OFA website, BarackObama.com, writes: “To our allies in the labor movement, to our brothers and sisters in public work, we stand with you, and we stand strong.” We’ve also received emails from MoveOn.org, which says it’s holding a pro-unionist rally outside our offices later this afternoon. Sorry, MOO, we’re working at home today.

• Refusal to accept election results. Although Republicans have a majority in the Wisconsin Senate, Democrats have fled the state, taking advantage of the body’s rules to deny the majority a quorum. The Indianapolis Star reports that Democrats from the Indiana House are employing the same tactic. Even Barack Obama, when he was an Illinois senator, usually voted “present.”

• Stupidity. Remember “Teabonics,” a photo album of misspelled Tea Party signs? The unionists can’t spell any better–and some of them are teachers! Althouse got one photo of what we think is a woman holding a sign that reads ” ‘Open for business’ = Closed for Negotiatins [sic].” Also, some of the teachers’ tactics–in particular, fraudulently calling in sick and exploiting other people’s children by enlisting them as protesters–seem not only unethical but calculated to repel the public. One blessing of low standards for public school teachers is that it ensures many of them are not bright enough to stage an effective protest.

The one exception: So far we haven’t seen any evidence of racism by the Wisconsin unionists. But we’re watching for it.

Is there anyone, anywhere, who’s still engaged in the fantasy that mainstream news is providing to us a straight picture of what’s going on?

Is there anyone, anywhere, who’s still engaged in the fantasy that mainstream news is providing to us a straight picture of what’s going on?

Yes, all the people who still rely on the MSM for their news.

The comment section on the typical New York Times article, tells me all I need to know about the ideological bent of such people. Whether they’re blind to the bias or simply don’t care, I couldn’t tell you.
- cylarz | 02/23/2011 @ 12:12
I hate to break it to you, but it’s actually worse than that. I know lots of folks who think the media is biased in favor of the right. ‘Cause, you know, they’re all, like, corporations and stuff.

It’s too bad that leftists are all unionistas and trustafarians — if they actually ever worked an honest-to-God job, they’d quickly get over this idea they have that “Big Business” or “capitalists” all pull together like some giant fucking Ivy League rowing team. I mean, I’m all for nostalgia, but for pete’s sweet sake, the Pullman Strike was in 1894. It’s time to move on dot org.
- Severian | 02/23/2011 @ 14:54
I know lots of folks who think the media is biased in favor of the right. ‘Cause, you know, they’re all, like, corporations and stuff.

I’ve run across this bit of sophistry dozens of times myself, especially online where the real kook-fringe left-wingers live.

The “logic” makes your head hurt, doesn’t it?
- cylarz | 02/23/2011 @ 19:24
Oh yes. It’s the one true sign you’re dealing with a dyed-in-the-wool Marxist. Corporations are “capitalist;” therefore they, like all other capitalists, are out to screw “the workers;” and they’re all on one big e-mail list and have a Facebook page and all the CEOs go out for drinks together every Friday night.

They actually seem to believe this. It’s like they were kinda sorta paying attention in history class the day that one professor with the greasy ponytail and the ripped jeans said something about the Standard Oil Trust, and now they’re utterly convinced this is how “big business” really works.
- Severian | 02/24/2011 @ 05:38
Sev, I just love the way you put things. (grin)
- cylarz | 02/24/2011 @ 11:07
[…] commenter at The Blog That Nobody Reads Severian speaks. If you’re reading these pages looking for wisdom, I hope you’re here for him: […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/25/2011 @ 09:09

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Wisconsin Unions vs. Tea Party: A Classic Double StandardWednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Wisconsin Unions vs. Tea Party: A Classic Double Standard
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011