Fox News Watchdog

Media conservatives, led by Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, are comparing a Florida church’s plans to burn Qurans on the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks to plans to build an Islamic community center in Manhattan.

Florida church plans to
burn Islamic and Jewish religious texts

AP:
Christian
minister “vowed” to “burn copies of the Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.” A September 8
Associated Press article reported,
“A Christian minister vowed Tuesday to go ahead with plans to burn copies of the
Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks despite warnings from the White
House and the top U.S. general in Afghanistan that doing so would endanger
American troops overseas.” AP continued:

Pastor Terry Jones of
the Dove World Outreach Center said he understands the government’s concerns,
but plans to go forward with the burning this Saturday, the ninth anniversary of
the attacks.

He
left the door open to change his mind, saying he is still praying about his
decision, which was condemned Tuesday by an interfaith coalition that met in
Washington to respond to a spike in anti-Muslim bigotry.

Gen.
David Petraeus warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that “images of the
burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan – and
around the world – to inflame public opinion and incite
violence.”

State Department
spokesman P.J. Crowley echoed that, calling the plan to burn copies of the Quran
“un-American” and saying it does not represent the views of most people in the
U.S.

Miami
Herald: Pastor “also
plans to burn copies of the Talmud, a sacred Jewish
text.” A September 5 Miami Herald article reported
that the Gainesville Dove World Outreach Center also plans to burn copies of the
Talmud.

Right
wing compares burning Qurans to building a community
center

Beck: “It’s just
like the Ground Zero mosque plan.” In a September 6 blog
post to his
website The Blaze, Glenn Beck wrote:

I’m on vacation
and trying to unplug but the news can make that hard. I just read the story about the Florida church planning to burn
copies of the Koran.

What is wrong with us?  It’s just
like the Ground Zero mosque plan.   Does this church have the right?  Yes. 
Should they?  No.  And not because of the potential backlash or violence. Simply
because it is wrong.

Palin: Quran burning “is
insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at
Ground Zero.” In a September 8 post to her
Facebook account,
Fox News contributor Sarah Palin wrote:

Book burning is
antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to burn a
Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary
provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

I would hope that Pastor Terry Jones
and his supporters will consider the ramifications of their planned book-burning
event. It will feed the fire of caustic rhetoric and appear as nothing more than
mean-spirited religious intolerance. Don’t feed that fire. If your ultimate
point is to prove that the Christian teachings of mercy, justice, freedom, and
equality provide the foundation on which our country stands, then your tactic to
prove this point is totally counter-productive.

Our nation was founded in part by
those fleeing religious persecution. Freedom of religion is integral to our
charters of liberty. We don’t need to agree with each other on theological
matters, but tolerating each other without unnecessarily provoking strife is how
we ensure a civil society. In this as in all things, we should remember the
Golden Rule. Isn’t that what the Ground Zero mosque debate has been
about?

Barnes: “[T]his
is similar in one way to the Ground Zero mosque.” On the September 7
edition of Fox News’
Special Report with Bret Baier,
Fox news contributor and Weekly
Standard editor Fred Barnes criticized plans to burn the Quran, and claimed that
“Islamophobia” was “not sweeping America.” Barnes further
claimed:

But look, this is similar in one way
to the Ground Zero mosque, the mosque that is planned to be built on the fringe
of Ground Zero. And that is, it is what Sarah Palin called an unnecessary
provocation. And this is a provocation, and that’s what General Petraeus is
worried about.

Beck guest host
Glover: “[T]his burning the Quran issue is very similar to building the
mosque on ground
zero.” During the
September 8 edition of The Glenn Beck Program, guest host Dave
Glover said that the debate over
whether it was appropriate to burn copies of the Quran was “about wise choices”
and that “this burning of the Quran issue is very similar to the building of the
mosque on ground zero.” Glover further claimed, “Just because you have the right
to do something doesn’t mean you should.”

Bolling and
Geller agree: “The sensitivity issue” of Islamic community center and burning Qurans is “the
same.” During the September 7 edition of Fox Business’
Money Rocks, host Eric
Bolling claimed, “The sensitivity
issue seems to be the key here for the mosque. Is it not the same issue with the
Quran burning on Saturday?” He then asked, “So therefore, if you don’t want them
to burn the Quran on Saturday, why wouldn’t Muslims — moderate Muslims —
simply say, ‘Hey, it’s too sensitive an area downtown; move the mosque?’”
Guest Pamela Geller, who has helped lead the push against the Islamic
community center, said that the two were “the exact same issue.” Geller also
said that “the burning of books is wrong.”

Boehner
lumps in “Pastor
Jones” with “those who want to build the mosque.” During the September 8 edition of ABC
News’ Good Morning America, host
George Stephanopoulos asked House minority
leader John Boehner (R-OH) about Jones’ plans to burn copies of the Quran.
Boehner invoked the Islamic Community Center in Manhattan in his response:
“Well, to Pastor Jones and those who want to build the mosque: Just because you
have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to
do.”

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As many of you know, I have been obsessing lately about the way in which truth and facts have seemingly become irrelevant and missing from the public conversation of politicians and our news media. It’s not about whether one agrees or disagrees with the point of view of another. It’s about the way issues are framed in a way that often has nothing to do with the truth and, more often than not, in a way that makes no sense.

This will be the first in a series of articles entitled “Let’s Be Honest.” Each article will deal with an important issue which our news media and political leaders are framing in a way that is so dishonest and misguided that it makes rational discussion impossible.

For example, reasonable people can disagree about whether Barack Obama is doing a good job as president. But they can’t disagree about whether he is a Muslim (more than 30 percent of Republicans believe he is) or was born outside the U.S (more than 40 percent of Republicans believe he was). Those are simply lies.

The same would seem to apply to any reasonable assessment of where our economy and job situation stand right now and whether our president’s policies have helped or hurt. Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom and long-term impact of Obama’s policies but, as with so much else these days, the news media and politicians have chosen to make rational conversation almost impossible by filling the airwaves and print with so many lies and distortions that useful give-and-take can’t even get started.

We are constantly hearing about the horrible condition of the U.S. economy and how Obama’s socialist preoccupation with redistributing wealth and taxing us to death is killing business.

But let’s be honest. When Obama became president the economies of the world were in an American-induced death spiral. We were drowning in debt that could not be repaid. Stock markets and commodities prices were in free-fall, our economy was shedding 800,000 net jobs a month, credit was not available to most companies at any price. General Electric and Goldman Sachs had to pay Warren Buffett 10 percent interest and provide an equity kicker just to get a loan which should give you an idea how impossible it was for mere mortals to borrow. There was a very real risk that hundreds of major companies and financial institutions would disappear. Many actually did.

We still face enormous economic challenges, but let’s be honest. It is now 18 months later and the stock markets in the U.S. and around the world are 50 to100 percent higher. With federal help, General Motors and many other companies staved off bankruptcy and are now able to sell stock to new investors. Millions of jobs that were thought to be at risk were saved. Commodities prices have recovered broadly and credit is widely available to a broad range of credible borrowers.

We have enormous debts to repay once we get the economy on better footing and we face lots of other challenges. But the sequencing of the “experts” is backwards. We already had the economic crisis they are predicting for the future and it had nothing to do with Obama, taxes, or socialism. It was due to good old American greed and free-market capitalism run amok.

We are also told that making the richest Americans pay the same level of income tax as they did during the boom times in the ’90s would kill the recovery in its tracks. But let’s be honest. How many millionaires do you know who are putting off purchases and denying themselves stuff that they would run out and buy if they only had an extra few grand?

Most people are buying less because they are worth less than they used to be, their homes have gone down in and value, they are earning nothing on their savings, and/or they are heavily in debt. And most others are just nervous about the future–in part because they are told all day in the media and by politicians that they should be outraged and afraid. It has nothing to do with uncertainty about a proposed small increase in taxes for a handful of the wealthiest Americans.

The one problem that remains very real for far too many people is jobs. Most companies downsized their work forces during the economic meltdown but now that business has come back–in many cases stronger than ever–they are not hiring new workers. In most cases, they haven’t even hired back the ones they laid off during the crisis.

The U.S. unemployment rate is hovering just below 10 percent and the number of people who are holding jobs that pay and require skills far below their qualifications is at least as high. We are told by financial “experts” and politicians that Obama is to blame for reasons that make no sense.

They claim that corporate CEOs are not hiring more workers, even though many of their companies are doing great business and are flush with cash, because they are “uncertain” about the impact of health care reform and tax increases they fear may be coming in the near future. These paralyzing uncertainties are simply the icing on the Obama anti-business, anti-America socialist cake which is yet another reason why the Republicans will take over both houses of Congress in a couple months. Or so the story goes.

But let’s be honest. Back during the Clinton years when taxes were much higher and when health care costs were going through the roof each and every year, companies were hiring like crazy. Many, like my employer, offered big bonuses to any employee who referred a prospect who ended up being hired by our firm. It had nothing to do with certainty about the future or tax rates or socialism or health care costs.

It was all about our CEO’s belief that we were missing out on a lot of business because we didn’t have enough people. So our company hired more people.

Today many companies that survived the financial crisis are flush with cash and very profitable. But instead of hiring back the workers they laid off, they are investing in new equipment and productivity technology that will enable them to do more business with even fewer employees in the future. They are also using their huge cash hordes to buy other companies so they can lay off even more workers in the future and become even more profitable–at least in the short run.

And when companies make more money, their CEOs (the same ones who decide whether to hire or fire more workers) make lots of money. A recent report issued by the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the 50 companies that laid off the most workers last year saw their profits go up an average of 44 percent. And (surprise surprise) the CEOs of those companies made an average of $12 million last year–almost 50 percent more than average CEO pay at America’s 500 largest companies.

So let’s be honest. There’s not a thing that Obama or any other politician can do to lower unemployment in the private sector as long as CEOs and shareholders of our largest companies are getting richer and richer because of mergers, productivity gains, and layoffs. And our free market capitalist system–which I heartily support and have earned my living managing for more than 30 years–guarantees them the right to do that.

So, if we’re going to be honest there is a lot to talk about and figure out. It will be tough and it will be complicated. It is so much easier to create villains and phony issues to keep people busy being outraged and afraid. Maybe that’s why so many of our politicians and media celebrities are going that route instead of giving us the facts and trying to help America.

Read more: Taxes, General Electric, Right Wing Media, CEO Pay, Stock Market, Economy, George W. Bush, Economic Crisis, Institute for Policy Studies, Jobs, Right Wing, Consumer Spending, Recession, Barack Obama, Bush Tax Cuts, Goldman Sachs, Investing, Deficit, Job Cuts, Corporations, Ceos, Fox News, Warren Buffett, Corporate Greed, Job Creation, Politics News

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PBS‘s Nova is taking money from one of the biggest bankrollers of climate change denial–and,  surprise surprise, the resulting programming tells viewers not to worry about climate change.  But PBS‘s ombud doesn’t see this as a conflict of interest–because Nova is a “consistently first-rate program,” and he trusts it.

Nova‘s conflict of interest was highlighted out by Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm (9/7/10), who had previously caught the Smithsonian promoting strange climate science after getting a grant from oil billionaire David Koch (Climate Progress, 4/1/10). Koch, who’s a major funder of propaganda rejecting the science of climate change, is also one of the main underwriters of the popular PBS science program Nova–which is in itself a case of strange bedfellows.  (Another major sponsor of Nova is ExxonMobil, the other top funder of science-denial in support of  oil industry profits.)

With the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer (8/30/10) calling attention to the Koch family’s political donations–and mentioning the fear that David Koch’s contributions are affecting the Smithsonian’s exhibits–people naturally paid more attention to the donor credit for David Koch on a recent Nova rerun (8/31/10) called “Becoming Human.” What raised more than a few eyebrows was the program’s enthusiasm for climate change as a  driver of human evolution–with a not-so-subtle suggestion that we should bear this in mind in our current era of rapidly shifting weather:

Narrator: It is a simple but revolutionary idea: Human evolution is nature’s experiment with versatility. We’re not adapted to any one environment or climate, but to many; we are creatures of climate change.

Geographer Mark Maslin: I think we should actually look to our proud ancestry and how we evolved in East Africa and say: “That’s how we survived that. We can survive the future, because we are that creature, because we are that smart.”

Note that Maslin is not actually a climate-change denier–he’s really a strong advocate for immediate action to restrict carbon emissions–but Nova quotes him as though he takes the don’t-worry-be-happy stance adopted by…well, people like David Koch. Why is that?

As usual, PBS insiders take the position that where you get your money from is absolutely irrelevant, once again rejecting the entire rationale for public broadcasting: “Nova, like all WGBH programs, maintains complete, independent editorial control of its content,” Nova executive producer Paula Apsell told PBS ombud Michael Getler. Getler, for his part, declares that “one rarely knows when or how, if at all, influence works its way,” and that “as a viewer of what strikes me and a lot of others as a consistently first-rate program, I trust Nova“–a hands-off stance that would seem to reject the entire rationale for having an ombud.

PBS‘s position echoes the Smithsonian’s–David Koch is “very interested in the content, but completely hands off,” museum director Cristián Samper told the New Yorker. And that’s Koch’s position as well; asked by Archeology magazine (2/17/09) if he was involved in the editorial content of Nova‘s evolutionary programming, he replied:  “No, I am not. I’ve been following the Nova series ever since it first came on the air. I’m a great admirer.”

In that same interview, though, Koch describes a visit to Olduvai Gorge to inspect the Leakey digs, which he also bankrolls: “When I got there they had discovered a Hominin’s bones. They left them in the earth, waiting for me to arrive. And then when I arrived, they let me pull them out of the ground, which was kind of fun.”

Presumably the Leakeys let him extract those bones not because of his paleontological expertise, but because they knew it would make a major donor happy. Nova also knows that downplaying the dangers of climate change would make its major donors happy–and it aired a program that presented climate change as a positive force for good. If you want to believe that that’s a coincidence–well, all you have to do is trust Nova.

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The Washington Post‘s editorial page weighed in (9/7/10) on the Israel/Palestine negotiations by noting that

the news in the West Bank has been far less encouraging. In two shooting attacks last week, four Israelis were killed and two others wounded, interrupting what had been nearly three years of peace in the territory.

My colleague Jim Naureckas blogged about this in response to a recent New York Times op-ed.  Even if you are restricting your focus to the West Bank (as the Post is), the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem counted 24 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces from the beginning of 2009 to July 31, 2001, and two Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians.

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Barack Obama has long supported the idea of extending the “Bush” tax cuts for 98 percent of the population. The highest-earning 2 percent, meanwhile, will see their top tax rates go back up to where they were in the 1990s.

The Washington Post has a story today (9/8/10) that more or less explains this fact. The headline of the story is “Obama Set Against Bush Tax Cuts.” Is the Republican National Committee suggesting headlines for the paper?

Meanwhile, the New York Times has a similar preview of Obama’s announcement today, headlined “Obama Is Against a Compromise on Bush Tax Cuts.”  I suppose this depends on what one means by “compromise.” Obama has long supported renewing many of the tax cuts in question–a position Republicans have so far rejected–but that doesn’t seem to qualify.

Further muddying up the issue is the fact that Obama is proposing  an “election-season economic package that is otherwise designed to entice support from big businesses and their Republican allies.” The Times goes on to note that the White House is supporting corporate tax policies that have “longstanding Republican and corporate support.”

So he’s pushing policies designed to appeal to Republicans and corporations–but he’s refusing to “compromise”?

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