Letters to the Editor
-
Hitlery
Dogmatically follow your leader, Hitlery.
Don't think sensibly for a minute about whether he could be wrong.
That, after all, is a 'liberal' stance. (to doubt the gov't)
Don't go there.
you, my friend, will never understand
all of you out there....vote against this insane war, please
vote for the democratic candidate
let him or her take the blame for ending this insane war
you and your sons and daughters will be thankful
-
Fair and Balanced
I am certain that Fox Television will also censor scenes of brutal torture and gunshots to the head in the new season of "24" because that would be "Fair and Balanced".
-
yeah, whatever
fark war
long live peace and happiness
-
Fox sucks ass
A few things:
(1) Sally Fields' overall speech, and her personality, get low marks from me. But that is not what this is about.
(2) Sally Fields' comment that "if mothers ruled the world, there would be no wars" is debatable. But that is not what this is about.
(3) Fox has the right to bleep out the word "goddamn" if they do so consistently. But that is not what this is about.
(4) The Emmys are an awards show and not the best forum for political statements, true. Yet there is no rule that people giving speeches can't interject political opinions. In any case, that is not what this is about.
(5) Sally Fields probably wasn't really the best actress in her category. Most of the acting I've seen by her hasn't been all that great. But that is not what this is about.
WHAT THIS IS ABOUT is that Fox TV completely wiped out her entire final statement regarding the war. To me, this was perhaps the most interesting and non-insiderish thing she had to say. The audience watching the Emmys deserved to see this part of the show. When you sit down to subject yourself to all the awards-show ritual, you expect to see the whole show. Not some selectively chopped up version that excises key sentences from otherwise continuous speeches.
Also, it's not like this happened in a vacuum. Fox TV has pulled crap like this time and time again. Their entire news division has become a de-facto propaganda branch of the Executive Branch of our government. Follow the names, follow the money -- this is no conspiracy theory, it's demonstrably true. Fox TV has no independence, no integrity.
So you can spend all the time you like ripping on Sally Fields. Rip on her acting, rip on her speech, rip on the content of what she said. Knock yourself out.
There's still no denying that Fox TV censored her statement like pathetic cowards.
-
Fox? More like Box o' Rocks
@ Xrandadu and ..."Fox TV censored her statement like pathetic cowards."
I'll join this chorus: THAT is what this is about! If people were really paying attention, they'd not get so distracted by all that superfluous sparkly stuff. Presentation is not always the point.
I'd like to add that it is the artist's job to shake things up, however inappropriate, and to make others think about things in different ways. Regardless of how people view Ms. Field, I'd say she's doing a damn good job!
-
Look let's get realistic here
Fox muzzles Sally Field.
But Salon is covering America while pretending marijuana doesn't exist. And even worse -- they're pretending medical marijuana doesn't exist and none of the science exists.
FOX doesn't muzzle marijuana. When there's a big medical marijuana science story -- they generally cover it. And surprise -- they generally cover both sides fairly.
So whose side do people think I ought to choose in a debate over muzzling political topics between Fox and Salon?
JESUS CHRIST PEOPLE
WHY WHY WHY on Earth would I ever side with Salon??????
Fox covers medical marijuana fairly.
Salon muzzles the subject completely and acts like the science doesn't matter and everyone can just go die.
Oh yeah, that evil Fox. How dare they.
-
Who are we?
So it's okay for the Canadians to hear such occasional cursing as "goddamn" on their tellies, along with whatever political speech may be a part of it, but not here in the good ole U.S.S.A. Not here in freedom's land and liberty's homestead. That's because Canada is a grown up country full of grown ups and we are not a grown up country. No, we are not a grown up country at all. And we are certainly, less and less, every day a free country or one that practices and upholds the rights of free speech. More and more, every day, we're a goddamned fucked up country.
-
Fox Boycott: The Smartest Democratic Move in Decades
The decision has nothing to do with gutlessness, but with the nature and underlying purpose of Fox’s corporate existence. Fox is in no sense a legitimate news organization, but a front meant to further two objectives of the truly execrable Rupert Murdoch, disseminating Republican Party propaganda and promoting the bigotry, authoritarianism, and religious fanaticism of the Republican base.
Nope, when it comes to gutlessness, you’d have to concede that few organizations on Earth can challenge the record the Democratic Party. And yet, inexplicably, there is one thing – exactly one discrete, isolated thing – the Democrats have done completely and unambiguously right in the seven years since Bush has been wiping his ass with the Constitution on a daily basis: its decision to boycott Fox News. Indeed, it’s difficult even to fathom how that decision could have come about, as I can recall no other instance in recent memory when Democrats have found the intestinal fortitude to take such a stand.
The wisdom of the Fox boycott is readily apparent in both the sputtering indignation it inspires in the Republican base, and their incoherent and fantastically stupid assertion of its futility (“If they can’t stand up to Fox, how are they going to defeat Al Qaeda?”) Although it’s not as though anyone took Fox seriously before the boycott, it has subsequently become absolutely explicit that the organization is anything but a remotely credible source of objective reporting. Moreover, the boycott has also exposed the complete impotence of the right to do a damn thing about this challenge to Fox’s legitimacy. Are we to imagine they’re going to institute a similar boycott of The Times and NBC? Not hardly. On the other hand, perhaps they’ll merely continue their incessant whining about how terribly mean and unfair the left is. There are few things more laughable than listening to Republicans complain about how “angry” liberals are, which is a good deal like listening to Larry Craig complain about “the homosexual lifestyle” with a big dick in his mouth.
What is vitally important about the Fox boycott as well is the message it sends to the Republican base, who are not – it should be kept in mind – those who merely vote for Republicans, or distrust the Democrats, or hold specific positions on any number of particular issues. No, the hard-core base refers to the something-on-the-order-of-one-third of the American electorate that actually approves of the job George Bush is doing. In other words, they are those who – as I read in a post the other day – wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “Thank God, George Bush is our president.”
Just as they thank God that Bush is president, the Republican base genuinely trusts Fox as an organization of real integrity, and as the only reliable source of honest and truthful reporting about current events. Accordingly, boycotting Fox is essentially like spitting in their face, not unlike ridiculing the President they sincerely love and respect as a grunting baboon that is unfit to shit in a White House toilet, much less serve in the Oval Office. More broadly, it’s implying that the beliefs they hold sacred, the ideals they cherish, the institutions and people they respect are all worthless shit, and are worthy of nothing but derision, ridicule and contempt. In short, boycotting Fox is yet one more way of telling the Republican base that this country would instantly become an immeasurably better place if every one of them would pack up and move to New Guinea, or simply disappear from the face of the Earth altogether.
In other words, it is a strategy that is as deeply satisfying as it is effective, and it is critically important to make sure that the Democrats don’t back off the single smartest, most principled decision they’ve made in years, once the pressure is turned up for exposure and competitive advantage during the heat of the election. At every news conference, every campaign stop, every meeting with Party contributors and supporters, every one of the Democratic candidates should be questioned as to whether they intend to continue the boycott of Fox, or whether they will compromise their principles yet again in the pursuit of short-term and short-sighted gain.