Disgusted
After reading the letters in the Nov. 14 Journal, I have become extremely
disgusted.
My disgust comes from the fact that even though Media General is well
established as a liberal news media, and your paper is clear proof of this fact,
so many of your starry-eyed liberals keep writing trying to stop any
conservative viewpoints from being printed. For example, Nov. 14 represents your
percentage of liberal writings — three of the four columns are extremely
liberal. Yet these characters scream murder because you print columns by John
Hood.
Let me first explain briefly from where I'm coming. By some I'm considered a
wealthy man. I'm 77 years old, and I have earned honestly every penny I've
accumulated, starting at age 5. Now I can assure you I am far more benevolent
than any liberal I've ever known. And furthermore, statistics show that
conservatives far out-give liberals.
Liberals are constantly preaching about intolerance. They are by far the most
intolerant group of characters on earth. If any opinion doesn't fit the liberal
mold, they will go to any means to try to quiet it.
Liberals should get off their sorry butts and earn their own way. We don't
owe them a damn thing. And we're getting sick of their freeloading "give me"
attitude.
It's time to grow up in the real world.
KEN HAYES
Mocksville
Conscientious beliefs
It's hard to tell whether, with his guest column "What's happened to common
sense, South?" (Nov. 27), Clint Johnson is trying to be funny or to make a point
— or both. Whichever it is, though, he fails miserably.
Certainly, it seems silly for people to get worked up about a Santa Claus
display, and a sign of ignorance that someone would think him a religious
symbol. What Johnson calls "common sense" would be a corrective factor in that
instance.
But his other examples — not allowing a religious display on government
property and trying to keep the government from sanctioning an offensive symbol
like the Confederate flag — show Johnson not to be so much an advocate of common
sense as an advocate of conservatism — a closed-minded conservatism that laughs
at people's serious concerns. There's not much common sense in belittling
people's conscientious beliefs, especially not just because one disagrees with
them. And there's no value in taking a simplistic stance at the expense of
higher reasoning.
Johnson's "solution" to the Occupy movement is so simplistic as to be dumb:
Sending people who need jobs to do volunteer work and expecting that to sustain
them accomplishes nothing at all.
Johnson's common sense says, "I don't care about you. I don't care what you
think, I don't care about your concerns; I've already made up my mind, and I'm
not even going to listen to what you have to say." It may be common, but it's
not sense.
TOMMY H. SIMMONS
Winston-Salem
Growing gaps
The Journal's stance against allowing Occupy Winston-Salem a permit to camp
is foolhardy and irrational ("City council should deny the request," Nov. 20).
To say one should not protest low wages because it would involve the services
of low-wage police officers undercuts the officers' need for fair wages. To
point out problems in other cities as a reason to deny a permit overlooks the
vast majority of peaceful and incident-free protests. To argue against a permit
for fear the homeless may someday start their own Occupy movement assumes that
would somehow be a bad thing. Would it be such a tragedy for the homeless to
bring attention to this growing demographic? In fact, it is unjust and unfair
economic and political practices that are in large part to blame for
homelessness in our country, a central issue of the Occupy movement.
And to the Journal's final point of "business owners and citizens having to
push past campers," none of the sites being considered would have this
effect.
Journal staff should be especially sensitive to the needs of the Occupy
movement. In June 2011, Marshall Morton, the CEO of Media General, the
corporation that owns the Journal, announced that staff must take 15 days of
furlough by year's end to save money, despite beating budgetary expectations for
that quarter. By the way, Morton's salary and benefits for the previous year
surpassed $1.9 million. It is these wide and growing gaps between the haves and
have-nots the movement addresses. Join us.
MICHAEL McGUIRE
Kernersville
Good ole Ken.
ReplyDeleteLiberals are constantly preaching about intolerance. They are by far the most intolerant group of characters on earth.
ReplyDeleteKen Hayes
Thanks for the excellent letter Mr. Hayes. I'm stunned that the Journal printed your letter.
I've long noticed that liberals are the most intolerant group in the U.S. They constantly attack conservatives daily in the LTEs and daily life.
Another group that has become a intolerant hate group is the Gay and Lesbian Activists. The news media constantly talks about anti-gay hate groups, however, they seldom mention how gay hate groups target heterosexuals because they don't believe in the gay lifestyle.
During the prop 8 campaign in California, many conservative mormons contributed to the campaign against gay marriage. Gay hate groups targeted these individuals by obtaining their names and addresses and began sending them hate mail, harassing phones calls, and in some cases threatened their families.
Gay hate groups are trying to force their way of life through intimidation and hate on heterosexuals. But you won't see that in the Journal or any other liberal newspaper because it's not politically correct.
Media General acts like it doesn't know why its paper is losing money. People have tried to tell them for years now that the paper has been hijacked by a bunch of liberals, but its administration isn't listening.
ReplyDeleteIt's like a lot things in life. Nobody listens until something really tragic happens (economic calamity in Media General's case).
Top of the morning to you Bucky.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that 77 year old Mr. Hayes is alive and well and enjoying his Social Security and probably socialist single payer health care (Medicare) which is taken from my salary from my two jobs to fund his old age.
Maybe he should earn his own way at 77. He might be rich enough to pay for health insurance for someone his age. Most individuals in his age bracket cannot. They have lived beyond their "funded life span" as JD posted on the Journal's official site the other day. They just don't realized that are free loaders sponging off the efforts of us working folks or off the generosity of an enlightened and Liberal, progessive society. Take your pick.
Interesting, Eric Cantor's wife, Diane, is on the board of directors for Media General.
ReplyDeleteKing County Commissioners reversed their ridiculously stupid decision to ban 'Buy American' ads.
ReplyDeleteHowever, here's an example of 'editorial' guidelines for employees when writing about race. Can you say politically correct to 'Nth' degree?
race. Identify a person's race (or nationality) only when it is pertinent. When an ethnic reference is needed to identify U.S. citizens, don't hyphenate terms when used as nouns: an African American, a Chinese American, Italian Americans. But hyphenate the terms when used as adjectives: a Mexican-American agency. See African American; American Indian, Eskimo; Asian, Pacific Islander; black; Hispanic, Latino; white.
Be aware of stereotyping words, images and situations that suggest all or most members of a racial or ethnic group are the same: flashy, aggressive and happy-go-lucky blacks, inscrutable Asian, conservative Briton, cold Dane, hearty German, exuberant Italian, sleepy Mexican, tight Scot, fiery Spaniard.
Avoid using qualifiers that reinforce racial and ethnic stereotypes: Betty Wong is quiet and reserved might suggest that Asians are shy and docile. Avoid using ethnic clichés: fiestas when writing about a Hispanic.
Be aware of possible negative connotations of color-symbolic words: a black reputation, yellow coward.
Be aware of language that might have questionable racial or ethnic connotations: Culturally disadvantaged implies superiority of one culture over another.
Avoid patronizing and tokenism toward racial or ethnic groups. But make sure publications represent all groups fairly--in articles and photographs.
__________
From my research, most of the commissioners are Democrats. Any surprise there?
When you get a bunch of Democratic morons together in one room, bad things happen.
While Workers at Media General Suffer, CEO & Board Members Rake In The Cash!
ReplyDeleteover a million dollars each while employees have to take 15 days furlough. again, the 1% rule.
Hello Wordly......you never told me what your beef was with me.
ReplyDeleteRemember you said 'Bucky is sucky'?
Lte1...poor Journal can't catch a break. Even as this much put upon paper becomes a shadow of its former self, the hits keep coming.
ReplyDeleteWordly said...
ReplyDeleteAs I wrote the other day.
In my opinion, Bucky is Sucky. He asked me why?
To which I now reply:.......
December 1, 2011 11:29 PM
Lte2...that must have been a heck of an Lte on Common Sense.
ReplyDeleteSmall town newspapers are in trouble everywhere.
ReplyDeleteLte3....an Occupy camp over a 3 day holiday weekend would not hurt anything. The Journal is still close by, WXII can be on the scene in minutes. I saw the Occupy folks the other day when they stood outside Wells Fargo when the CEO was to speak. No harm done and in fact, after listening to one of the women talk on camera, I would encourage more coverage. This Occupy movement is winding down and returning from whence it sprang: the Obama campaign.
ReplyDeletewhitewall.....it's essentially gone, and what did it accomplish-virtually nothing.
ReplyDeleteThey should have focused their attention on the very person that they supported in the last election-Barack Obama. He's the primary reason they don't have jobs and the economy is taking a further dive.
They're classic liberals. They are blaming somebody else for their own bad decisions-electing Obama.
WW, is there any evidence it sprang from the Obama campaign? It was originally suggested by a Canadian based Foundation back in July.
ReplyDeleteVikram Pandit, head of Citigroup, called the protesters' sentiments "completely understandable" and said that Wall Street had broken the trust of its clients.
Bill Gross, manager of PIMCO's Total Return Fund, the world's largest mutual fund, stated "Class warfare by the 99%? Of course, they're fighting back after 30 years of being shot at."
Karl Denninger, former CEO and one of the original co-founders of the Tea Party movement, expressed support for the movement, saying "The problem with protests and the political process is that it is very easy, no matter how big the protest is, for the politicians to simply wait until the people go home, and then they can ignore you. Well, Occupy Wall Street was a little different, and back in 2008, I wrote that when we will actually see change is when the people come, they set up camp, and they refuse to go home. That appears to be happening now."
Classic Liberalism: committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.
ReplyDeleteBucky....Occupy is the face of the only direction the Democrat party has available to go. It was always going to come to this and with the current WH occupy(pant)it has a face. We are being treated to a redux of the Carter years misery coupled with the leftist violence of the LBJ years, complete with tear gas and pepper spray. Agitprop on behalf of a long dead ideology.
ReplyDeleteBobby...you're confusing libertarianism with liberalism.
ReplyDeletewhitewall......the 'Occupy' people remind me of the 'Sendero Luminoso' movement in Peru without the guns. They basically want rich people's money.
ReplyDelete“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” Ben Franklin
ReplyDeleteClassical Liberalism, look it up.
The man, and I'll find his name, that developed the software that allowed trillions of transactions to take place and who helped develop CDO's and Derivatives for Wall Street is also a leader of OWS. He realized the monster he had created.
ReplyDeleteI was using 'classic' in comtempary terms. Besides, I didn't say classic liberalism, I said classic liberal.
ReplyDeleteI think you're preoccupied with my earlier post on gay hate.
"Occupy" is a notion that had origins in Vancouver, Canada early in the year. The means to produce the stage show was done through NYCC-the new ACORN off shoot, Code Pink, SEIU with Van Jones. All of these and more ARE the Obama campaign and administration. The kick off was Obama's address of the Joint Session of Congress to announce his latest "jobs plan" which was a partisan speech to the wrong body. From this came the method of his re elect campaign...do nothing Congress. The economy is the only subject so he needs a change of subject. Enter the Occupy movement. Does the movement have a point? Yes, several. More importantly, it has a purpose---aid the WH in changing the subject. Plenty of "1 percenters" backed the Obama bandwagon in 08 and now they must squirm on camera. Bill Gross, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon etc. All long known Liberals.
ReplyDeletewhitewall...it's funny that Obama plans to run on the 'do nothing congress' theme. I think the Republican nominee should run on the 'do/done nothing president' theme.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, are we better off than we were four years ago?
.the do nothing Congress was sent there so that Obama will "do nothing" more to crush the private sector economy---or what is left of it.
ReplyDeleteI just saw last nights posts where Staballoy made another appearance. Hang in there Stab! I get a mental picture of him sitting comfy late at night on a rug reading some old bootleg "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" comics from way back when during his California days.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: Feel better after submitting this rant? I've read issues where 3/4 of the columnists identified with the right, so it works out about the same. Definitely not worth having an anger induced heart attack over.
LTE 2: Mr. Johnson's article was an appeal to populism which is centered around simplistic solutions since the populace doesn't want to (or is incapable of) wrapping its head around complex solutions. Seeing the world as black/white with the answer to every problem being "If we/they would just do this..." is disturbingly quite prevalent in our society.
LTE 3: Valid counterpoints to the Journal's op-ed, although what is "unjust" or "unfair" is highly subjective. The last paragraph epitomizes my experience working for a publicly traded company, which is why they are off my list for any future employment considerations.
Ohhhhhh.........that's what's wrong with Stab. He's a California aborigine. That's why his beliefs are mostly to the left. That explains a lot.
ReplyDelete'cling to guns or religion'
ReplyDeleteSo it's wrong to believe in God, and your second amendment rights means nothing?
Here's Obama's outrageous remarks, and another Democrat's reaction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNoJ0q6HrK8
This is too good. Donald Trump is going to moderate the GOP debate Dec. 27 in Iowa. He's qualified I suppose, he does run the Miss USA Pageant and is accustomed to hearing stupid answers to questions.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see Newt in an evening gown with a tiara from Tiffany's. I will however skip the swimsuit competition. EWWW.
ReplyDeleteUrban Dictionary:
ReplyDeleteafrican american
What white people say when they afraid to say black especially when a black person is in the room.
But you KNOW when that black person leaves the room, they say that shit w/ some other words too.
Dope bowl crack, now we gettin mad
ReplyDeleteBut we aint really lost, cuz we can ice-a-toil dat ass
Wnen we bringin route, bring it 2 ya doe
Money on tha floor, bring money to tha doe
I think it's about time Herman Cain went home and kept his 9-9-9 in his pants.
ReplyDelete"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own."
ReplyDeleteunknown author-but obviously smart
Good evening, folks!
ReplyDeleteBob, your definition of a classic liberal clashes with contemporary liberalism, which disbelieves in individual freedom, believes in group preferences, opposes free markets, and its version of constitutionalism makes Citizens United look like strict constructionism. So-called conservativism offers little more, but a classic liberal would fine no reason to vote for Democrats.
Bucky, actually I am a North Carolina aborigine. My supposed leftward lurches are the result of reading the arguments here and rethinking some things. I moved back here from CA leaning far more to the right than now.
ReplyDeleteYour remarks re blacks and adjectives was tssteless trollery.
The Journal publishes LTE's from right, left, and center. Those LTE's include rants from left and right (it's hard for a wishy-washy moderate to rant), such as Ken's LTE.
ReplyDeleteLTE2: "Johnson's 'solution' to the Occupy movement is so simplistic as to be dumb: Sending people who need jobs to do volunteer work and expecting that to sustain them accomplishes nothing at all." Perhaps, but sitting on one's butt at a consciousness-raising crap-in also doesn't sustain, either. Complaining about not working while studiously not working is hypocritical.
LTE3: The Journal's stance is correct: let these free-loaders make their point with a temporary demonstration, then go to reside for the night on their own rented or purchased property, rather than tying up and trashing property that belongs to all. Maybe the Grateful Dead will go on tour, and these folks can go defecate in arena parking lots.
Good to see you back posting, Stab. We missed you. I'm sure that it feels good to be back in the saddle in a job that takes up so much of your time.
ReplyDeleteI'm supposedly retired, but I work about 70 hours a week, split between business, community work and my own nefarious projects, and enjoy every minute of it.
But when you characterize the OWS as "sitting on one's butt at a consciousness-raising crap-in", you are way off base.
I have talked with several of our locals...they are bright, educated and mostly employed, but at menial jobs well below their capabilities. They leave for work, then return to the occupation.
And you ignore the reason for "protest", which is that the government in one way or another, supports policies that are unfair to the majority of citizens.
Two examples:
The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and onward, which employed "civil disobedience". Its so obvious that I won't say more.
The "Bonus Army" of 1932, in which tens of thousands of WWI veterans occupied much of DC and the surrounding area demanding that they be paid their promised bonus money early.
The following should sound familiar today...many of the OWS protesters are Iraq/Afghanistan vets who are unemployed or underemployed. Americans should hang their heads in shame. Here's what happened to our WWI vets in 1932:
“At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch.
The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered the cavalry to charge them—an action which prompted the spectators to yell, ‘Shame! Shame!’
After the cavalry charged, the infantry, with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent, entered the camps, evicting veterans, families, and camp followers. The veterans fled across the Anacostia River to their largest camp and President Hoover ordered the assault stopped.
However Gen. MacArthur, feeling the Bonus March was a Communist attempt to overthrow the U.S. government, ignored the President and ordered a new attack. Fifty-five veterans were injured and 135 arrested. A veteran’s wife miscarried. When 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in the tear gas attack, a government investigation reported he died of enteritis, while a hospital spokesman said the tear gas ‘didn’t do it any good’.
During the military operation, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower, later President of the United States, served as one of MacArthur’s junior aides. Believing it wrong for the Army’s highest-ranking officer to lead an action against fellow American war veterans, he strongly advised MacArthur against taking any public role: ‘I told that dumb son-of-a-bitch not to go down there,’ he said later. ‘I told him it was no place for the Chief of Staff.’ Despite his misgivings, Eisenhower later wrote the Army’s official incident report which endorsed MacArthur’s conduct.”