I really, really don’t like Fix (“Fox”) News. Not because it is conservative. It just has too many people from morning ’till night who have no concern for facts or for accuracy.
What really bothers me at the moment is their war on the poor fueled by misrepresentation and stereotyping.
The poor, they say, are lazy (“sitting on their couches eating bom-boms” is how they put it), and if unemployment benefits are extended again, the unemployed will soon be doing the same thing.
Never mind that as of 2011 there were 10.4 million low income families that fit the category of the “working poor,” meaning someone in the household was in the work force for 27 weeks or more, but the family income still fell below the federal poverty level.
Never mind that millions of working poor families survive because one or more members work two jobs, or that up to this year none of them had healthcare.
Never mind that most of the individuals considered “poor” are children and single working women. (I just don’t know what we’re going to do with so many lazy children who refuse to work, or mothers who leave them at home alone while they go to work.)
Never mind that people refuse a part-time job that pays less than the $256 per week unemployment compensation they get because their family cannot survive on less and also because they need to look for a full time job.
Did you know, according to Fix News, that 99% of poor families in this nation have a refrigerator? Call Social Services!
But here’s the thing. While complaining about the poor and the way unemployment compensation is encouraging people not to look for a job, these same commentators insist that it is unfair to characterize everyone on Wall Street because of a “few bad apples.”
Liberals, take note!
Hmmm. Maybe not so fast.
Here’s what John Stewart had to say about Fix News commentators taking shots at the poor while defending the rich.
“I think I’m beginning to get it,” he said. “If it’s a policy that benefits the rich, then it doesn’t have to be paid for, should last forever, and is good for America. But if it benefits the poor, we can’t afford it, we should end it as soon as possible, and it will destroy our nation from within.”
Which brings me back to where I started.
I really, really don’t like Fix News. It just has too many commentators who don’t give a fig about truth or accuracy.
And that’s why I think their war on the poor is, well, it’s simply morally disgusting.
linnposts.com 
Fix is NOT allowed on my TV, so I miss out on all the baloney they put out!
But I am aware of the “if it’s for the rich, it’s OK: if it’s for the poor we can’t afford it” syndrome that seems so prevalent today. I agree with your analysis of it being disgusting, both morally and every other way.
Correction: “working WITH the poor”
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Do you think it appropriate to do all the name-calling you do? “idiots”, “stupid,” “foolish,” “Fix News” ?? Don’t you think you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? BTW, do you know how many millions of poor (income below $2/day) there are in the U.S., Africa, Asia? And that NO amount of “sharing the wealth” or “income redistribution” could ever equalize the disparity? Have you personally moved a poor family of four into your home to house, feed, clothe them as a leadership example for your congregation? And Wally, if you do not allow Fox News in your home, how can you possibly make an impartial comparison judgement of your own about anything?
Just so you know, I have spent many years working the poor, including splinting cords of firewood for their stoves. I have also taken them into my own home. And for the record, writing about “idiocy” is not the same thing as calling someone an idiot.
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All to point out the self-destructive nature inherent to the consume/growth/profit model of capitalism; not at all the same as “free enterprise” whose hallmark is an open and competitive environment for willing sellers and buyers. The legalized corporate/shareholder demand for infinite growth, which flourishes best in closed and captive environments, has propelled poverty by moving all productivity gains toward the ownership class and away from the labor class via automation and offshoring labor to third world nations. Capitalists must do this by structure and by law! They must adopt the attitudes of I/me/my for the survival of…who they are. Literally, to hell with everyone outside that model! Everyone else is, at best, just a means to their end and god, profit.
Capitalism is currently consuming resources at the rate of 1 and 1/2 planets to satisfy market sales and projections…and its growing; its unsustainable! It WILL self destruct, this century! The forward thinking among us must, must begin designing and building what will takes its place. Another discussion.
Good argument, Robert. Capitalism in early 1800’s set U.S. apart from the rest of the world with its innovation, manufacturing of new products, providing employment. It was a very good thing, charting the way for telephone, railroad, farm equipment, etc. Now we have electronic age innovation. The brainiacs who came up with these inventions do deserve credit for this, through their study, education, hard work, and the incentive of “enjoying their job”, filling a need, and also the profit motive. But you are saying, “Well, not so much anymore” I take it. “Government should control how much they can have, financially; we decide.” Well, I’m not going there. I am going to the other end– to the end that says, “why have people NOT been able to climb the ladder of opportunity provided by our country’s values, ethics, way of life? Check out the “winners”: education, curiosity, lifestyle of hard work, strong family values, absence of substance abuse, and true grit to overcome hardships they, like everybody else, encounters. Get to the core of why some people overcome obstacles and others do not– much, if not all, is a matter of how people CHOOSE to get out of poverty: by working hard, saving for a long-term worthy goal (such as education), perserverance and determination, in the face of tough times. These are character traits that make the difference. The opportunities are still there. And the rich can fall from grace, as some do, when they start living too high, imbibing too much, forgetting how they got to the top in the first place.
Yes, Chuck, good points about individual efforts. Always a key ingredient to success and fulfillment. However, personal efforts are always subject to personal capacity! None of us are born equal in innate talent or nurtured character, only as spiritized creations of the Almighty as humans. Our inequalities are why lady justice is blind, seeking to consider only facts and circumstances, not privilege or poverty. Humanity is a community of individuals. Both conditions are separate but integral components of the fabric of human life and I assert that environment is critical to whether an individual lives either “up” or “down” to the expectations and conditions of that environment as expressed by all people making up that environment in the form of his community, be it family, school, work, church, commerce, public space etc. The ability to choose is shaped by both the internal and the external! Humans are social! This is a part of psychological study and history. “I” and “we” must be in balance for society to progress civilly. Ultra-individualism (loss of such balance) is the stuff of arrogance, indifference, persecution, the highly gifted 10% of any population becoming a domineering minority over the rest as supremacist or totalitarian subjugators! It’s ancient and base behavior not fitting humanity as spiritual beings of eternal potential!
Politically, I submit that government has the critical role of securing the public space for humanity as a community and staunching the evil effects of ultra- individualism run amok. Balance! We’ve swung to far to the right.
YES! I agree–not everyone is created “equal” in many ways: height, weight, eye color, intelligence, physical ability. This is forgotten many times when people say “all are created equal”. They forget to say ” . . . in the sight of God, in their humanity.” And people who live in difficult environments have a harder time than others in privileged environments. BUT . . . not impossible. Churchill, and was it Beethoven?? There are Phoenix people! And there are churches who have lifted up the downtrodden with appropriate institutions, such as orphanages, free hospitals, soup kitchens; these being Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic nuns especially, Mormons who continue to expect 10 percent tithe for human services. Churches USED to be the human services of nations; this has been taken over by The Government. Instead of personal involvement, people-to-people, we now have impersonal Government doing the same work. There is absolute proof that private religious schools produce better student achievement AND behavior than the public school system. Even home schooling can produce better student achievement than public schools. More to say, so little space. Also, notice that some wealthy have done wonders with their funds: Bill Gates, Warren Buffet family. Oprah pays for a girls school in Africa, yet she does live well here in USA! So if more “wealthy” such as professional athletes and movie stars would practice what they preach about the Robin Hood effect . . . they, too, could perhaps make a dent! Many times their charity has a lot to do with tax write-offs. Projections are that most of the new jobs created will be in the Service Industries: nursing would be a big one due to aging population. And you are talking about the 10 percent gifted? Or powerful? Such as Hitler, Edi Amin? Yes, there ARE bad people who take advantage of their own countrymen. That’s why USA can/does step in to assist the downtrodden if they can under the Just War Theory. And bad politics that “feels” it is assisting the poor to buy homes they cannot afford to pay for are just as evil, throwing economics into a whirlwind. It used to be that to buy a car or a home, one needed 10 percent downpayment, meaning SAVING for one’s future, the integrity to achieve. Yes, there is room for government involvement in many ways in citizen’s lives; however, government has overreached some boundries on what they can do, and what should be allowed for citizens to do personally for others. Why should ANYBODY but Sandra Fluck pay for Sandra’s birth control, for example??? Sandra should put a kettle on the corner of her home and let volunteers contribute if she, as a college student partying on weekends, cannot “afford” her own. Personal responsibility, and personal charity contributions over “The Government” involvement.
Your claims such as the one about Sandra Fluck’s birth control being paid for by someone other than Sandra Fluck, or how religious schools do so much better than public ones, or how churches used to do human services are the Fix News type claims. Private schools don’t have the number of students per classroom as public schools do, and don’t fund education for all persons rather than select ones. Churches have spent and continue to spend millions of dollars on buildings rather than people. Government assistance arose out of necessity, not a hunger for power. There were breadlines during the Depression. Churches could not meet the need, nor did thousands of them even try.
I get sick of people talking about personal responsibility as if people who are poor have none, and government as if it is an enemy of the people. Neither is true, but they are easy targets of those who sit in comfort as they criticize them and take advantage of every government benefit they enjoy.
It’s time to move on to something more enlightening than your diatribes against the poor and the government.
Sandra spoke very clearly WANTING government to pay for women’s birth control, as part of Women’s Rights. And, EVERYONE pays taxes for public schools; parents who send their children to religious-based schools PAY AGAIN (that means twice for schools) for their children’s education, on a private-pay basis. Tests scores of all kinds about academic achievement in both public and private schools show results; private religious-based schools achieve better, AND at a lower per-student cost. True, they can expel for misbehavior; public schools doesn’t always do that. BTW, my cousin taught 45 second-graders in one religion-based school, and still they achieved top level; there is parent support in private schools that public schools don’t have as one reason, among others. Yes, I also think that churches have spent too much on buildings . . . in the past . . . that is changing as I see it currently in my church. The Depression was an unusual circumstance, and government stepped in, and it started something that stays with us forever, adding more and more layers. Maybe the people in the pews during the Depression were IN those breadlines and could not help anyone else–there is no certainty of any one response. Also, sorry about you getting “sick of people talking about personal responsibility . . . ” I worked under the Job Service (Federal Dept. of Labor program) with the poor. Some did have personal responsibility, not all. Again, very subjective as to the individual belief system, their character, integrity. Also, please try NOT to speak in extremes– the “all or nothing”. Most TRUTH lies somewhere in the grey continuum: not ALL government is “bad”; do not try to put words into my mouth that I NEVER IMPLIED NOR NEVER INFERRED!!! And, my “diatribes”??? Because I have an opinion that doesn’t agree with yours? Your “opinion” is worth more than my opinion? When you put yourself out there in print, you are opening yourself to possible different point of view . . . why do you become irritated with Free Speech here?? When you write with the term “Fix News” . . . that SOUNDS like a sneer to me, disrespectful! Why is your free speech more important than someone else’s? You don’t want anybody to raise ANY kind of opposition to whatever you say! You put yourself “out there” with your views, and woe to anybody who dares to disagree. Amen!