i never looked into his political leanings - based on what ive heard from him and his positions on issues i always thought he was a conservative republican. i certainly wouldnt have thought he was a democrat, especially considering how critical he has been of bho. but i stand by my comment that he is pretty much the only reasonable person on fox.
I am listening to the Minnesota Public Radio discussion about Juan Williams and one point that one of the guest brought up is that this week is pledge week for many NPR affiliates and that NPR might have been overly sensitive to even perception that their reporters are bigoted. While I think NPR handled this poorly from the comments I have little sympathy for him. Not just for his $2 million pay day but also because he has been saying that NPR fired him for being a Liberal Black journalist.
Take a look at the quote: Now take a look again: Would people be so quick to defend this statement? I seriously doubt it. Now look again: He would be (pardon the term) crucified in the media for saying something like this. Fact is, in our current political climate, many consider it okay to marginalize Muslims. It's ridiculous. He chose his words very, VERY poorly, and he's paying (or getting paid) the price for it.
Man, what year is this, 1982? THe old chestnuts and the old bogeymen fromm the Reagan era die so hard. Caddy-driving welfare queens coming up next? I posted on this a while ago, but for most NPR and public TV stations, private financing through donations and grants is the bulk of their operating budget. the share of their budget subsidized by the publicly-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting is like 1 or 2%, IIRC. But according to standard right wing canon - these are wholly owned gov't entities that do nothing but drain coffers. Contrast that with places like Lockheed or Halliburton, or Clear Channel or ADM, or whatever, that make billions off government contracts or tax rebates or credits or whatever, sums that make the cumulative entirety of public broadcasting funds pale in comparison - yet these are merely paragons of private industry, archetypical Randian objectivist ubermensch. Silly.
In the rest of the piece though he says that we cannot judge all Muslims on the basis of a few. So yes he is admitting a bigotry which even he implies is irrational and that we cannot treat a whole group of people just based on that irrational bigotry. Taken his comments in context I give him credit for his candor and for putting rationality ahead of irrational. As I said earlier this is very much like the Shirley Sherrod situation where she admits to harboring bigotry but looks beyond and it to do what is right.
you know there is a ton of people digging around for stuff like this - and im sure there is alot of it that will be coming out over the next few days. http://reason.com/blog/2010/10/21/what-wont-get-you-fired-from-n What Won't Get You Fired From NPR Wishing AIDS on your political enemies and their children. Check out this clip, from way back in 1995, of NPR's Nina Totenberg telling the host of PBS's Inside Washington that if there was "retributive justice" in the world the (admittedly loathsome) Jesse Helms would "get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it." Totenberg is still NPR's legal affairs correspondent. <object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7msrF1V4NeY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7msrF1V4NeY&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>
It would be kinda odd to get nervous about being on a plane with a flamingly gay person, or a garbed priest. Unless you're either Fred Phelps or a young boy, respectively. But, of course, the elephant in the room is that nobody of the homosexual persuasion, and probably far less people of the Christian faith compared to Muslims, want to do harm to America/the West and have shown they're willing to fly a plane into a building over it. We've all had this argument a million times. The vast majority of muslims are peaceful people, etc, and bigotry is wrong. Yes, we get it. But I'm more apt to blame Osama/militant muslims for Juan's feelings of nervousness than I am apt to blame some kind of inherent racist/xenophobic qualities in Juan. It sucks, but that's a consequence of what happened... it's going to take a while for those feelings to go away.
Yup. This morning Houston's KUH was having it's biannual fund drive, so I can quote that, as of today, NPR receives ~5.5% of it's funding from CPB. 91% comes from citizen donations. pwned.
I don't know what the policy was in 1995 at NPR but they are saying that they are cracking down of overt opinion or even the appearance of overt opinion by their staff now. Prior to Williams firing they had told their staff to not attend the Stewart and Colbert rallies on Oct. 30th to avoid the perception of bias.
Also I will point out again that William's said that we cannot judge all Muslims based on those feelings of nervousness. He took the opposite approach that we often here in that he said we shouldn't judge based upon our own fears driven by the action of a handful whereas people like O'Reilly say we should judge based upon the action of a handful.
So you're saying Williams said/admitted his feelings of nervousness were irrational/unfounded (as a basis for judgment of Islam/Muslims) ? If he said that, then firing him makes NPR look pretty damned petty/stupid.
I will have to look at the video again as I don't remember his exact words but it did seem like he was admitting that his own unease was irrational. Overall though he was making an argument that we cannot judge all Muslims based upon a fear of a handful. And yes it does make NPR look pretty stupid.
Yes that's exactly what he was doing, though it was trying to throw a bone to the Bill O'Reilly's out there. He was saying that yes he understands why people have that fear, because he himself has it. But that we need to be better than that, and not let those fears dictate our feelings towards all Muslims, because despite those fears it's only a tiny tiny percentage that are a threat. The way Williams has reacted since hasn't been the best. Like I said I never really liked Williams, and he certainly wasn't a liberal, and hasn't been for a long time. He's middle of the road to conservative on most issues, but isn't a tea party nut.
I think DM is right. NPR Goofed up. This makes them look like just another propaganda machine. Only for the Left instead of the Right. I don't care much for Juan however I am beginning to think more and more about Equality of Speech. We seem to be far too comfortable with BIG BUSINESS curtailing one's freedom of speech . . just as long as it is not the Government doing it. When you have the major avenues of speech being owned read controlled by a ever shrinking group of people. . . . they can limit, distort, or eliminate what speech they don't agree with. Control the Input Control the Output - OR Rocket River "and when you trust your television What you get is what you got 'cause when they own the information oh, they can bend it all they want " - John Mayer
Regardless of how their defenders try to spin this, NPR screwed up. Now they have egg on their face, and Republicans are using this to score cheap political points.
Dude, didn't you know? JM has tons of cred with black people. They love him for some reason. Also, he is a trick azz busta.
