The Muppets - Communist Puppets?

Remove all ads!

Don't be ridiculous. Next you'll be trying to suggest that the Pope is Catholic.

 

I remember reading about that story and the flaws in it. It all depended on your definition of "new and recent events". As an example, people who get there news from MSNBC, CBS, ABC, or NBC probably have never heard of Solyndra, however I doubt there is a person who watches Fox who doesn't know everything about it. I think this board is further proof of it as we never had a thread about Solyndra, whereas if the exact same thing had happened to Halliburton when Bush was in office the usual suspects would have raced to the alleys to start a thread about it.

 

This post makes an excellent point. What's wonderful about it is it is a point you never intended to make.

First of all, for all the complaining you do about the lamestream media you apparently never watch them. MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and NBC all covered the Solyndra story. All of them. They covered it, by and large, as exactly what it was: a company that received $535 million in loan guarantees from the government under the Bush administration, in a program expanded by Obama‘s 2009 stimulus package. It was touted by the Obama administration as a shining example of the potential for a green energy. They made a bad bet, obviously, as the company was mismanaged and it went bankrupt. $500 mil, in government spending terms, isn't a whole lot of money. Still, every news outlet you mentioned reported this as a black eye for the Obama administration. Even Fox News reported on the fact that Solyndra pushed hard for the Bush Administration to give them the green light before they left office.

Was the Solyndra story a scandal? Absolutely. Should there be an investigation? Of course. But most of the media came to the conclusion that in light of the facts, overall, it's not exactly earth-shattering.

But in the conservative media? SH*TSTORM!! It was the biggest crony capitalism scandal of the century. Senate Republicans selectively released emails making it appear as though the Bush Administration were trying to stop Solyndra's loans (they didn't). They pegged this as the smoking gun that proved Obama's stimulus was just money lining the pockets of his friends in green energy while also blaming him for the thousand or so Solyndra workers who lost their jobs as a result of the bankruptcy.

Conservative news outlets also conveniently left out the fact that over 40 projects were funded by the program in question, and Solyndra was the only one to have not been successful as a result. That's a 3% failure rate. Not many government programs are such unmitigated successes. But to hear conservatives tell it, it was hell on earth.

As for why Halliburton was scandalous and Solyndra not so much: leaving aside the obvious that no one in the Obama administration was the former CEO of Solyndra, as an accountant I'm sure you would agree that Solyndra's $530 Million windfall is a drop in the bucket compared to Halliburton's making over $17 Billion in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 alone. That's 3200% more money. TAXPAYER money. You should be furious.

Perhaps the problem here isn't the media, but rather, you, your skewed perspective, and the news sources you rely on that reinforce that skewed perspective. You seem to live in a world where everything is black and white, right vs. left. A magical land where corporations, bankers and other successful types never do anything shady or unethical, liberals fundamentally hate business and effort and responsibility, the media villifies the successful, and Sarah Palin knows what the hell she's talking about.

I don't really expect a response, since it appears you're doing your whole ignoring me thing again - which is fine. All I ask is that you give it some serious thought. There's a whole world of information out there not filtered through the prism of Michelle Malkin's blog and your e-mail in-tray. I think you'd experience a lot less friction around here if you gave it a chance.

 

why is this channel allowed to be called "News"? news doesnt factor into it, it should be "fox idiot opinion funtime"

 

Freedom of speech and all

"

Business, period? I don't think so. Many politicians on the left want to limit some business practices, but how integral these restrictions would be are to business success is another matter.

 

This automatic dismissal of anything said on Fox News is a bit troubling to me. Surely anyone with any academic standards should judge each instance of reporting or opinion independantly. Shouldn't they? (Likewise MSNBC, etc.)

Being as Fox News, like most any media, has a significant element of opinion pieces and programs (arguably moreso in TV than in newspapers, but AFAIK newspapers are still thought to be the 'real' news), much of their content is obviously going to be similarly based on a given perspective, so what's the big deal? Sorry, but I think that just writing them off across the board is lazy and cheap, and it smacks a bit of intolerance, TBH. No one's at liberty to decide that someone else's opinion doesn't count. Ignore it if you like, but you're better off trying to debunk it if it offends you that terribly. Saying "you suck" doesn't really carry any weight.

People everywhere are going to say things you don't like or don't agree with. IMO the integrity-based way of dealing with that is to maintain a higher standard, not to attempt to discredit them through playground insults and nominal "we all know" categorizations, which are quite clearly an appeal to lowbrow group dynamics where the insider is rewarded for his obediance and the ousider is ostracized.

Anyway, I know I'm being preachy here, but here's an example:

"Fox News said X and I disagree with it for the following reasons ..."

is better than

"Fox News said X but we all know they suck LOL so I don't need to make a case for why I disagree, let's just all agree that they're wrong. FU Fox News!!!"

Besides, 'Fox News' doesn't really say anything. O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck et al do, and they are really not 'them,' they're individuals.

/end Preach

 

I cannot tell you have many people I know watch those guys, and believe they are watching the news. Just the other day at my in-laws house, they were watching TV when we got there, and passively said they were watching the news. What was on TV? The O'Reilly Factor. Nuff said.

 

I see what you're saying, Geaer. But you're simply missing the boat here.

Fox's conservative perspective isn't the problem. Truth be told, I like that certain news organizations report from a certain perspective. "Bias" isn't really a bad thing, and as long as our news is gathered by human beings instead of robots, we will always have bias in one form or another. But if something is billed as "news," it should at least be accurate.

The problem with Fox and what differentiates them from other networks is their blatant misrepresentation of just about everything - from the positions liberal figures take, things they say, even the bullsh*t body language experts they bring in - to the bias in their story selection, the fact that their "opinion" journalists (whom you rather naively insist are just "individuals" and not "Fox News") are regular, predominant analysts in news pieces, etc. Fox News will only report news that can be presented as a victory for conservative ideology, and will fudge facts to do it. In short, they lie to their audience on a daily basis, have been caught doing so countless times, and use the lame "opinion vs. news" excuse to avoid retracting anything. What's really troubling is how regularly Fox News stories and narratives trickle out into the rest of the media, which we're constantly told is so hopelessly liberal.

Fox is biased and misleading entertainment packaged as news. Their viewers come away believing things that simply aren't true - and I can site thousands of examples of this, some of which has been posted (and debunked) on this very forum.

Being an exclusively conservative network is fine and dandy. There is nothing wrong with opinion journalism that openly proclaims itself to be just that. But Fox pretends bills itself as straight news while blatantly advancing a political agenda by way of comically inaccurate reporting, cherry-picking nuggets of information that show their political enemies in the worst possible light while actively ignoring the bigger picture. I can post dozens of examples of this if you really need them. The other networks simply do not do this to the magnitude that Fox News does it. The closest thing on other networks to what Fox does is probably Ed Schultz on MSNBC - and he's a buffoon, the Sean Hannity of the left. Keith Olbermann, for all his hyperbole and self-righteousness, was actually accurate most of the time. Rachel Maddow goes out of her way to give voice to both sides, does her due dilligance and always admits fault when she needs to. You'll NEVER see that on Fox.

 

Gaear's just being Gaear, so people can feel free to ignore him.

 

When my in-laws have Fox News on the tube, I can quite honestly say that half the crap I hear on it is so obviously false it is not funny. Usually I don't even care about the topic they are delivering the "News" on, but it really makes me laugh. Some of hte falsehoods they spit out are so blantatnly obvious it's horifying to think that there is a following of people who believe that crap.At least it has entertainment value as comical to a degree. When watching any other news outlet, whether its CNN, MSNBC or any of the other major networks it feels more like the "News" to me. I don't categorize myself as either on the left or right as I think both sides have major flaws. I find myself somewhere in the middle or better yet, outside of their realms, but Fox is definitely "Out There".

 

"We all know" that!

@DR, thanks. I don't particularly agree with everything you said, but I do appreciate you going to the trouble of articulating it and I'm content that we've both had our say.

 

The Sesame Street Muppets espouse ideas about sharing, fairness, consideration, kindness, cooperation and confidence.

The Muppet Show Muppets were a little harder edged, and did some pretty wild stuff. One could argue that Sam the Eagle is a parody of a psychotic Republican Patriot.

The Muppets from the films tend to be kinder and gentler, constantly looking for self-actualization and freedom from unfair constraints.

The villain in the first movie was a capitalist restauranteur. Kermit didn't oppose him on communist grounds, he just didn't want to advocate the death of his fellow frogs -- or suffer that death himself!

Now maybe the new movie is a little too green in nature -- I'm not a fan of the green indoctrination of our kids by films like WALL-E or Happy Feet, but I really don't think that watching the Muppets is going to make kids Commies. The more likely explanation is that having an evil polluter as a villain is just so common these days that the Muppet gang decided to jump on the bandwagon.

 

Even Miss Piggy hates Fox News:

 

You don't have to hate something to point out how much of a joke it is.

 

It's less interesting to watch a powerful hero defeat a weak for.

The exictment of a story comes from an underdog hero overcoming a stronger opponent.

A millionaire bank manager beating up evil tramps for 2 hours wouldn't make a great film.

 

The moral of the story, folks: don't mess with the muppets, even if you are Fox . Right now I'm trying to imagine how it would sound if Ms. Piggy would do it in a rap format a la Eminem, complete with a hood makeover. It could be awesome.

I said you don't (beat) wanna f..k with Piggy (beat),
('cause why?)
'cause Piggy (beat) will f.....g kill you (beat).
(Haiiii-yah! /karate chop)