tagged w/ Double Standards
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Alan Colmes (former co-host of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes) makes a great a catch regarding the current feud between David Letterman and Governor Sarah Palin. While Palin has been blasting Letterman all over the airwaves for joking about Yankees star Alex Rodriguez "knocking up" her daughter, Jay Leno told an extremely similar joke during the presidential campaign that resulted in no such uproar:
Gov. Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant. And you thought John Edwards was in trouble before! Now he has really done it. -- "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," 9/2/08Alan Colmes (former co-host of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes) makes a great a... more
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The report was issued by the Interior Department's inspector general after a $5.3 million investigation "uncovered recreational marijuana and cocaine use" by "a handful" of Interior Department staff, and found two federal employees "engaged in brief sexual relationships with representatives from companies doing business" with the department.[more]The report was issued by the Interior Department's inspector general after a $5.3... more
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With all the controversy regarding rappers lyrics going on right now, from Nas' protest of Fox News to the Ludacris misguided pro-Obama song, Politics as Usual, the media has been neglecting the negative lyrics of country music’s most popular star.
Singer Toby Keith is promoting a movie called Beer for my Horses, based on a song of the same name. The song promotes lynching criminals and vigilantism. In the song, Keith says
Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street for all the people to see that
During Keith’s grandpappy’s day, 3,437 black people were lynched. Most of the ‘bad boys’ who were lynched by vigilante white mobs were in fact blacks who weren’t given a chance to defend themselves from the charges brought against them. Charges could include anything from theft, rape and whistling at a white woman and the punishment was always death. Most lynchings involved some kind of interaction with a white woman whether it was consensual or forced sex or ‘inappropriate’ actions. While white people charged with a crime would have the right to trial by jury, black people had to face the white mob as judge, jury and executioner through lynching.
While Keith does not explicitly call for the lynching of black people, he talks about ‘gangsters’ and ‘crime in the streets’ which are phrases often connected to urban African Americans. In the trailer for his movie, Beer for my Horses, the enemies are all dark skinned stereotypical Mexicans. Images and symbolism of lynchings are very disturbing and offensive to African Americans as it brings back a dark part of their history.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who has been extremely critical of negative rap lyrics, has been a big supporter of Toby Keith. Hannity often used Keith’s song, ‘Courtesy of the Red White and Blue,’ a song that glorified bombing Afghanistan, as a theme song for his radio program and many other right-wingers had adopted it as a theme song on talk radio. Keith has also been very active performing overseas for military troops.
Will the right wing republicans at Fox News and conservative talk radio and the military be as quick to denounce Toby Keith, as Obama was to denounce Ludacris? Calls to Sean Hannity’s office at Fox were not returned.With all the controversy regarding rappers lyrics going on right now, from Nas'... more
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Aijaz Ahmad: What would a rational American foreign policy look like? Part 4
Aijaz Ahmad:The Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty was signed by non-nuclear countries on the assumption that there would be a swift move towards disarmament by those that already had them would begin to disarm and even destroy their nuclear stockpiles.Aijaz Ahmad: What would a rational American foreign policy look like? Part 4
Aijaz... more
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"...This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this--this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers."
--Bill Moyers (Journal)"...This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics... more
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echoz
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added this
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4 years ago
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This post raises some interesting points: How would America have handled a White House scandal of Clinton-esque proportions had the sexes been reversed?
Snip:
"There seems to be an unwritten double standard for cheating that states that it’s alright for a married man to cheat, but not a married woman.
If it had been Hillary who had cheated, Bill would have been left looking like a fool. What would he, arguably one of the most powerful men in the world, have looked like had he stood by his cheating wife? How much respect would he have lost — both from the American public and other world leaders? Would he still be here, in 2008, helping his wife with her own Presidential ambitions?"
Thoughts?This post raises some interesting points: How would America have handled a White House... more
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