Elections and the Biased Media

As the Presidential Election nears, the Journal Star is openly showing their support far John Kerry. Often it is done in subtle ways but more often it is in their editorials or thru outside columnists. A frequent columnist appearing in the JS, is left leaning Leonard Pitts who says a quarter of the population in Iraq, won’t be able to participate in the voting because it’s too dangerous. He says there are two Iraqs and he says we need a President who would unite these two Iraqs and formulate new strategies in that volatile part of the world. Then we could all live together in peace and harmony. Mr. Pitts is correct in his statements but not correct in the meaning. Here in the free United States where Mr. Pitts lives and writes, we are so divided that there are millions of people who are afraid to venture far after dark. Thousands of murders, violent assaults such as robberies and rape, and intimidation occur in our communities, like right here in Peoria, where shooting deaths occur with regularity. We have statistics to show that over six million people are incarcerated in our country even though we have all kinds of trained Public Safety people to protect us. There are millions more not incarcerated, who would do us harm if we didn’t have these Public Safety Departments. We have military bases scattered around the country including National Guardsman. Are we all united and living peacefully right here at home?? Please get real!!
Of course there are two Iraqs. In fact most of the country is divided up by religion, each sect fighting to impose their own brand of fundamentalism on the citizenry. If Mr. Pitts would not try to shape the news to his agenda and report the news as journalists are supposed to do, just pass on what he has read and let the reader interpret it or just express his ignorance about what he hasn’t read, the reader would get an honest viewpoint as to the Mid-East situation. There is no party system like we have in the U.S. and their have never been any true elections. In Iraq, we have made much progress in a relatively short time. Iraqi lives have been lost including women and children many of them women bombers and children trained to use guns and wired with explosives or used as shield by the cowardly terrorists. Some die accidentally as many innocent died in our World Wars, Vietnam, Korea and our own Civil War

There are more than two Americas, in fact many more. Those who are called criminals that we try separate from society and from our hard working wage earners, child raisers and homemakers. We welcomes back into our communities those who were incarcerated after they have “paid their debt” to society. We have people who could work but claim illness and live off support of others. We have safety nets for all others. We have unions and management with different viewpoints and disagreements about wages and benefits, working conditions and tenure. We have the right to disagree with our own leadership without resorting to violence. We embrace all religious beliefs as long as they are not a threat to our freedom. We are religious, but few are such fundamentalists that they do not welcome other beliefs. We are a democracy which we believe, is the most successful working government in the world. Yes, we disagree a lot of the time but we do that because we are basically a free people.

When it comes to Americans voting, less than 25% of registered voters actually voted in the Primary and no more than 50% are expected to vote next month. And we have been free since the 1800’s. Who does Mr. Pitts blame for this? Yet Mr. Pitts wants to blame the party in power for all the century old problems in the Middle East and the fact that only some of these formerly enslaved people will be able to vote. Then who does he blame for all the problems in our own communities including problems generated by people from his own origins? Mr. Pitts writes that we unfairly pick on Muslims citing an incident where a man tossed a beer bottle full of gasoline at a group of Muslim kids. Has he forgotten the Klu Klux Klan and how that organization did much worse? It took time but the KKK is generally in submission and it wasn’t by the authorities sitting down and dialoging with them!

Mr. Pitts and his ilk, such as Molly Ivins try to emulate Neville Chamberlain and his ilk who wanted the world to live peacefully with Adolph Hitler. Chamberlain figured Hitler would be appeased and the world would wipe out the memory of all the millions of people Hitler and his Nazis killed. I believe we would be under foreign rule today by the evil Axis, Germany, Italy and Japan ( I name the primary countries because few of today’s pacifists and our “now” generation, bother to read history and even know the history of the Axis) had not leaders in the free world, taken a stance against killing, brutality, enslavement and suppression of people who had and have the right to be free. As to the MidEast where we are trying to stabilize and free the citizenry, the MidEast been a cauldron of hatred long before this administration came into power. (I believe I am qualified to say this because of my ongoing study of history.) With the rapid rise and the ease of deployment of weapons of mass destruction it was more than evident that people mad with power and using people lacking a balanced education, would try to strike us down sooner or later. Some our “now” people aren’t even aware of the strike on the U.S. World Trade Center in 1993 and may even still believe the attack on the Twin Towers was set up by our own people. Hatred is not monopolized by just terrorists just from abroad.


The Journal Star is using their position to help swing the election in November and is doing so in their usual manner of half-truths and selected material for the subscriber to read. They sensationalize the horror of war to make it look like the current administration did everything wrong. Why not put more pictures of the 300,000 recently uncovered graves in Iraq under Saddam! Show more Front Page pictures of the thousand of gassed Kurds and show the agony of their deaths and the suffering caused to their families by Saddam and his terrorist leaders. Show how Saddam hoodwinked the naïve pacifist UN and tell how some UN officials profited from Saddam staying in power. Put these things on your front page in super bold print! Also Russia, France and others were reluctant to see the Iraq regime toppled. Put that on your front page and explain the real reasons how some of these countries profited in trading with Saddam. Why not a headline on the front page that says” 75,000 people a year die in the United States from alcohol related auto accidents and liver damage”? How about this headline? “Five binge-drinking deaths by college underclassmen in four states in less than one month” as reported in USA Today on 10/7/04? Why make it look like the all the suffering in Iraq is because of the current administrations policies? Past and present administrations can’t even stop unnecessary suffering here!

I predict that most of our men and women in uniform, will vote to not change our administration. Does that mean this administration has not made mistakes? Of course not, but I believe out of this engagement will come a more enlightened and safer world. Do I believe Russia, France and Germany would have ever joined us? No! They aren’t even joining us now when most of the Iraqis need help in setting up some semblance of democracy. Would they change because of a new administration? No! Why would they? They have turned into the same appeasers as Chamberlain because their citizenry have gotten soft and enjoy the good life with out worry about what the envious MidEast is doing.

Here in the United States we have mostly free people and almost all could be free if they want to be. All can be educated if they want to be. All can work if they want to. We have safety nets for all others. Most of us, I believe, want to keep that freedom and are willing to give up material things to preserve that freedom. We live with death and sorrow all around us, much of it caused by actions that could be prevented. When people signed up for the guard or enlisted, they were told that facing death was a possibility. They were told they might be called on to face dangers far from home. They were told that they might be pulled from their jobs causing hardships to many. We appreciate what they are doing and support them and wish them to safely return. We believe, as most of them do, that they are supporting a greater cause and protecting worldwide freedoms. On the other hand, when people abuse privileges of being free, they are told they might face death and great bodily harm. (Drinking, smoking, speeding.) Death and sorrow are not new to any generation especially the elderly.

All friends of the United States and almost all citizens regret the loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan but the totals are nowhere near the combined loss of life from terrorist attacks against us at home or abroad in the past few years.

MidEast poor people of various degrees of education have been brainwashed by those seeking power thru terrorism. They believe that if they die to kill the infidel, they have a chosen spot by Allah in heaven. The terrorists behind them send women and children to their deaths while they remain hidden just as Saddam did. Tell me how you reason when minds were never opened?

Don’t let the biased liberal media swing this election. Get informed and make your own decisions. Read magazines like Forbes, U. S. News and World Report, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Business Week, and newspapers like the Bloomington Pantagragh and Wall Street Journal and realize that USA Today, the JS and Chicago Times many times have an agenda. Probably all media have an agenda, but some are more biased than others Only by the voter being widely informed can the voter make reasonably correct decisions.

I ask you to read this column for a conservative’s view of the news. Post a comment as some of you do so opinions can be read by others. Appeasement will not win over people who have long hated us. The Indians who were here first tried at times to live in peace with the settlers. They learned only after they were nearly extinguished that the early settlers were not into appeasement. I can’t possibly envision a tort lawyer and a debate team captain, one month away from the presidency. John and John are already giving solace to the enemy which will lead to more deaths as the terrorists try to take back control of Iraq. They pretend to talk tough but at the same time put our people in the way of more harm..

I leave you with this saying “to unify people, look to what we all share as human beings.”