Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 08/16/21
This scene from just over a month ago (8/8) aged about as well – or worse – than Cuomo’s Emmy.
What a difference a month makes. On Friday, General David Petraeus, the former Commander of US & International Forces in Afghanistan, spoke about the quickly deteriorating military situation in the country with Rita Cosby of WABC Radio’s Rita Cosby Show. It’s definitely worth a listen as he discusses the “disastrous” and “catastrophic” event “for the United States and the world” (00:33), as well as the immediate danger to the Afghans who have sided with and helped our troops (12:10).
IMHO: What’s going on right now in Afghanistan is not only a military mess but a moral mess that the media helped create by its unskeptical kid’s gloves treatment of perhaps the most dangerously inept president this country has seen. The absurdly poorly planned Afghan bug out follows an abdication of the most basic of all presidential responsibilities, namely to maintain safe and secure U.S. borders. That failure is even more glaring amid this military failure, the approaching 20th anniversary of 9/11 and a worldwide pandemic.
Regarding that latter item, I’m a supporter of people getting vaccinated for COVID but it seems more than a bit jarring to hear the Biden Administration demonize Americans and governors who are aren’t on board with shot and mask mandates while totally downplaying the risk from the out-of-control southern border. The simple fact, as I see it, is that the Trump remain-in-Mexico policy was both a reasonable and effective means of resolving asylum claims that Biden needlessly – and immorally – blew up. And, BTW, if you want to talk about legitimate political asylum seekers, let’s look toward those who helped us in Afghanistan as well as those freedom-seekers trapped on the island prison of Cuba (and who the Biden Administration has shown little, if any, tangible support for).
Add to that the president’s support for education policies that demoralize our kids, are mealy-mouthed toward violent felons who harm and kill innocent victims in poorer, mostly minority urban communities and his almost unbelievably irresponsible fiscal policies which seem certain to fuel inflation that, again, will hurt the poor (and middle class) most of all.
And yet, for the most part, our supposed unbiased media watchdogs not only ignore all this – they do their level best to clamp down on any debate at all. Don’t even try to bring up contrary or even nuanced thoughts regarding abortion, climate change or concerns about election security – which they reflexively label as “false” even in their news headlines.
Here’s some breaking news for so-called news journalists. There was a time when the news media considered it a professional and moral obligation to present the news as best it could without choosing sides. In other words, saying “claims” or even “unproven claims” was fine. Loosely throwing around the “false” adjective was considered to be crossing an ethical line. Editorials and op-eds would be offered to provide opinions, preferably from a variety of perspectives. The media would respect the readers/viewers to decide what seems true, false or questionable to them and then to form (perhaps nuanced) opinions. Such respect for ordinary people has, unfortunately, been replaced by a corporate arrogance that has, in general, aligned itself with one particular political party.
To this point, President Biden has been a beneficiary of that arrogant partisanship – to the detriment of both the country and the media’s own credibility.
Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11
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