The biggest story of the week in Alaska?
Well, you’ve already seen the headline and the photo above so you know, although the moose in the picture topping the story posted by WLUK in Green Bay, Wisc. looked nothing like the one that walked into and out of a building on the campus of Alaska Regional Hospital.
But then, bull moose with antlers are undeniably more attractive than cow moose lacking head-gear. So why not top the story with bull?
The interesting thing here is not the moose anyway.
Leave the doors of a building anywhere open and there’s no telling what might wander in: a bear in a California Highway Patrol office in Truckee; a deer in a hospital emergency room in New York; a coyote in a surgeon’s office building in South Carolina; a possum in a home in North Carolina; an elk in an office building in Dresden, albeit a German elk which is an American moose; an alligator in a house in Louisiana; a Canada goose in who-knows where.
And then, of course, there is the animal that didn’t get inside: “Heroic raccoon scales high-rise building in 3 days!” That story out of Minnesota might have attracted even more attention than the wanderings of an Anchorage moose, although the latter is now everywhere.
A Google search for “Anchorage moose in hospital” today produced, according to Google, “about 505,000 results.” There is no indication whether Google was rounding up or rounding down, but that’s a big number either way.
Why were so many websites pushing this story? One word:
Novelty.
Old media, new media, all media is today in a struggle for attention. They want your eyeballs on their websites.
As a result, the novel, or sometimes the provocative, has become the journalistic currency of the day from the Bangor Daily News in Maine to KUSI News in San Diego, from KOMO News in Seattle to the Tampa Bay Times in Florida, and everywhere in between those four corners of the Lower 48 states.
A moose in a building might have some pertinence to the readers of a local websitein New England, where moose are common, but the news value of the same moose to residents of San Diego, Seattle and Tampa Bay is no more than that of a kangaroo bounding through a house in Australia.
The only reason for the story to appear in those markets is to attract attention.
Elephant-size problem
So be it. And were this pursuit of eyeballs limited to stray animals, it would be one thing. But it’s not so limited.
“Big stories,” however those come to be defined, have a bad habit of exploding across the country even if they are wholly irrelevant at the local level and even if they are more speculation than fact.
In the process, they often distort reality – badly distort reality.
Only a little over a week ago, this country – already deeply troubled by issues of race – was shaken by the drive-by shooting of 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes, an African-American child, in Houston by a gunman described as a thin, white man with blue eyes.
The description would turn out to be way off, but not before the story went both national and international.
“The case has gained prominence across the US, and celebrities have joined the appeal to find Jazmine’s killer using the hashtag #JusticeForJazmine….Campaigners fear the shooting, on an African-American family by a white male, may have been a hate crime.”
Writer and civil rights activist Shaun King, a columnist for The Intercept and a former writer for Daily Kos, went so far as to finger petty criminal Robert Cantrell, a white man who resembled a police sketch of a possible shooter, as a murder suspect in the case.
The Dec. 30 homicide got big play because of the race angle. Almost no attention was paid to the two dead and 29 black Americans wounded over the course of that same New Year’s weekend in the 93 percent, African American, South Side of Chicago.
The latter is not novel like a white man alleged shooting a black child. Black-on-black homicide on the South Side – unlike a moose in the hospital – is tragically common.
“The causes of violence were readily on display at almost every (crime) scene,” he added. “Most shootings in Chicago happen in about 10 of the city’s 77 neighborhoods, on the South Side and the West Side. Poverty, racism, lack of opportunities, and more were apparent at every scene….
“When I’d drive from the Sun-Times office downtown to the crime scenes, it was hard to miss the contrasts. The skyscrapers, plush condos, and designer stores gave way to run-down buildings, boarded-up schools and storefronts, and empty lots.
“At one crime scene, where a 28-year-old had been shot dead on a sidewalk, a young boy walked up and down the sidewalk along the police tape. No older than seven, he would stop and stare at the body every so often. As far as I could tell, it seemed normal to him.”
What applies to the seven-year-old applies to most of the country. Poor black people killing poor black people on Chicago’s South Side has somehow to come to be normal, but a blue-eyed, white, bogeyman shooting a young black girl…”
Novelty.
This is the way journalism magnifies certain elements of the news these days.
Biggest distortion
And nowhere do these magnifications of exceptions that trump the norm do more to frighten Americans and corrupt the political process than in the area of crime.
Most Americans today seem unaware of what the left-leaning Pew Research Center reported in its Fact Tank just days ago:
“Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 49 percent between 1993 and 2017. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 74 percent during that span.”
That observation was number one on Pew’s list of “five facts about crime in the United States.”
Number two was that property crime is down significantly over the long-term, too. More interesting though, and directly related to the discussion here, was number three:
“Public perceptions about crime in the U.S. often don’t align with the data. Opinion surveys regularly find that Americans believe crime is up nationally, even when the data show it is down.”
Why do beliefs run opposite the data?
It’s hard to avoid any other conclusion than that people are influenced by an American media heavy on crime coverage (it’s cheap and easy) and inclined to treat every major crime as if it were local. Most people certainly understand the reality of Pew’s fourth observation that “there are large geographic variations in crime rates.”
You’re not going to find many white folk undertaking a driving tour of Chicago’s South Side. But the same people don’t recognize geographic variations on a broader scale. When the media reports a Florida shooting at a school in a middle-class neighborhood, residents of Seattle or Chicago or Boston middle-class neighborhoods perceive the attack as a threat at their school even if it isn’t.
They really could care less where the crime problem actually lives. They just want to make sure crime never touches them or their children. The economic problems of the country’s inner cities aren’t their problem.
They’d rather just secure the neighborhood. Some would do that by further restricting gun ownership, thinking that will increase security. Others, thinking much the same, want to arm everyone.
Unfortunately, the data on the firearm deaths leads to only one reasonable conclusion: Neither option makes a difference.
But you’re unlikely to read that story. The media these days is much more into attention than into substance. Cities banning guns attract eyeballs. So, too, cities requiring gun ownership, and there are such communities.
Just the numbers
Rare, extremely rare, are the reporters focused on the numbers, but there are a few.
“There is no clear correlation whatsoever between gun ownership rate and gun homicide rate,” writes number-cruncher BJ Campbell at Handwaving Freakoutery. “Not within the USA. Not regionally. Not internationally. Not among peaceful societies. Not among violent ones. Gun ownership doesn’t make us safer. It doesn’t make us less safe. A bivariate correlation simply isn’t there. It is blatantly not-there. It is so tremendously not-there that the ‘not-there-ness’ of it alone should be a huge news story.”
“Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide” is the headline on his analysis at Medium, and anyone interested in the subject of gun control – pro-gun, anti-gun or undecided – should read it.
It’s a good lesson in statistical analysis, but Campbell is nice enough to also summarize the statistics in a few words.
“Gun Murder Rate is not correlated with firearm ownership rate in the United States, on a state by state basis,” he writes. “Firearm Homicide Rate is not correlated with guns per capita globally. It’s not correlated with guns per capita among peaceful countries, nor among violent countries, nor among European countries. So what in the heck is going on in the media, where we are constantly berated with signaling indicating that ‘more guns = more murder?'”
A big part of the answer to that question is, of course, suicide. About two out of three gun deaths in the U.S. are the result of suicide, but the numbers for suicide and homicide are regularly lumped together.
“That is not to belittle the suicide problem,” Campbell cautioned. “Suicide is twice the problem that homicide is, statistically speaking, but you’re not going to fix that by any of the ‘common sense measures’ the left floats, such as magazine size restrictions. (pro tip: you only need a mag of “1” to shoot yourself).”
Campbell also takes to task a highly referenced study from the American Journal of Public Health that suggests a correlation between gun numbers and gun deaths; ie. more guns equal more deaths.
The conclusion seems logical enough, but Campbell focuses on the big data points the study ignored.
“The two primary correlations they found were not guns, they were income inequality and black population ratio,” he writes, which takes one back to the boots-on-the-ground reporting of Brown, the former Chicago Sun-Times reporter, who quit his job because he couldn’t deal with daily visits to crime scenes.
Sadly, tragically, horribly, Campbell notes a “black population was six times more predictive than gun ownership was, in the AJPH model” on firearms deaths.
It’s not because of skin color. It’s because of economics and sociology.
Which brings this back to poor Jazmine Barnes, an innocent victim of inner-city chaos. Two men have now been arrested in connection with her shooting death. Both are black.
“Both Jazmine…and her mother were hit by gunfire in what prosecutors say was an unprovoked shooting in which at least eight shots were fired,” the newspaper said. “Woodruffe and Black mistook the car driven by Jazmine’s mother for a vehicle with a group of people they had been in an altercation with hours earlier.”
Jazmine was collateral damage in the battles that plague some of this country’s inner city neighborhoods. And why do these battles rage? Why do young people join gangs?
“We have groups that are really marginalised, cut off from mainstream society, dropouts with no work,” said sociologist Sven-Åke Lindgren. He wasn’t talking about the U.S., however. Lindgren, a professor of sociology at Gothenburg University in Sweden, was talking to The Guardian about gang-related shootings in that country in 2015.
“‘This is a ghetto,'” a Saudi woman named Nora, 25, told Gaurdian reporter David Crouch at the scene of a Swedish gang shooting that left two men dead. “There is racism and young people can’t get jobs; they feel they have no future in Swedish society.
“The gangs make boys feel like family, they look after them.”
The gangs offer economic and physical survival – the nitty-gritty of so many societal problems in so many poverty-stricken areas around the globe including some in Alaska. But to a media tied up in its own economic struggle, something else matters a whole lot more than this story:
Eyeballs.
And it’s a lot easier to attract attention to a story about a moose wandering into a hospital than to attract attention to a substantive story about anything.
Getting anyone to read to the end of a story like this one isn’t as easy as teasing them into watching a video of a moose wandering around in an office building. Not to mention this takes a lot more time to produce.
The market economics of the time clearly seem to say, “Run with the moose!” Whether journalism powered in signficant part by a diet of fluff can survive over the long term only time will tell.
Categories: Commentary, Media
Medred’s Lonely Hearts Club band. Jeezus, what do you folks do with he rest of your day?
Recently I lost a good friend who was one of the most capable people I ever met. For some reason he collapsed into sitting in front of the tee vee watching Fox, gained a huge weight, lost all of everything that made him alpha and saw everything as a conspiracy. R.I.P.
Here’s a Big Story that the MSM won’t report…………The American People Support the President on the Border! https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/01/strange-no-polls-released-on-trump-border-speech-to-nation-but-day-after-speech-brad-parscale-says-trump-at-peak-approval-rating/
And a new study shows Wall will pay for itself: https://www.theepochtimes.com/border-wall-would-pay-for-itself-study_2762550.html
Woooooooooooooooooo………………….”The Gateway Pundit”-aren’t these guys the ones that gave you the information that Jazmine Barnes was killed in a drug deal gone bad? How has that worked out for you Mongo??
Yessir, it’s no wonder nobody else will publish such gibberish!
It seems Trump cannot even get Fox News to stand behind his B.S. statements in his speech this week…
“Fox News anchor Shepard Smith challenged many of Trump’s claims by using the government’s own numbers.”
After Trump said that “innocent people” are being “horribly victimized” by immigrants who commit crimes, Smith quickly added perspective.
“The government’s statistics show that there is less violent crime by the undocumented immigrant population than by the general population,” he said.
“Trump also argued for his wall by saying that immigrants carry illegal drugs across the border, but Smith pointed out that a wall wouldn’t make much difference there.”
“Government statistics show much of the heroin actually comes not over the unguarded border but through ports of call,” he said.
I remember when Bryan argued this same point with me several days ago…
Even though DEA statistics show over 85 percent of drugs enter the U.S. through ports of land and sea.
It seems many Americans choose to put their heads in the sand and believe our politicians…I am glad Fox news took a stand on Truth!
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c356ed3e4b0dbd06601649c/amp
So you are good with illegal aliens committing crimes as long as it is less than citizens? And you are also good with 15% of the drugs coming into the US come over land? Personally I think we shouldn’t accept any crime from illegal aliens in this country, and I think having 85% of our drugs coming through ports and 15% over land is unacceptable.
Yessir Steve-O it’s looking like you are in favor of us manufacturing our own drugs-I’m sure that Tariff-Man will be interested, here. Heheh!
Just saw this morning where Don Young is thinking of crossing over to Pelosi’s bill to open government. Lisa is already on board, but this is somewhat earth-shattering IMO.
Here is a link to Don’s thinking: https://www.ktoo.org/2019/01/09/young-considers-crossing-aisle-as-shutdown-grinds-on/
Huffington Post? Hahaha. The problem is Steve you read that leftist garbage and your eyes bug out, spit drips from your lips, and you shout “Ah ha, gotcha”, when in reality it is all liberal made up garbage. Here is some reality for you:
Southwestern border –
Most of the illicit drugs come into the United States across the vast 2,000-mile land border between the US and Mexico, called the Southwestern border or SWB.[11] Drug cartels in Mexico utilize drug mules, tunnels, boats, vehicles, trains, aircrafts, donkeys, and couriers to get illegal drugs into America. Mexican drug cartels make an estimated $19-$29 billion a year on drug sales in the United States.[12] Conflicts between drug cartels over territory as well as the attempts to stop drug trafficking by law enforcement officials often results in violence, and this has caused over 55,000 deaths since the proclaimed Mexican Drug War began in 2006.[13]
drug cartel
Mexico’s involvement in the illicit drug trade in the United States:
Marijuana: Mexico is the number one foreign supplier of marijuana to the United States, and marijuana is thought to be the top revenue generator for Mexican drug cartels.
Cocaine: Mexico does not produce cocaine, however, Mexican cartels move Columbian cocaine through South and Central America and into the United States. An estimated 93 percent of cocaine headed to the US from South America moves through Mexico.
Methamphetamine: Mexico remains the biggest foreign supplier of methamphetamine to the United States, and Mexican drug cartels set up labs to manufacture meth on both sides of the border, controlling labs in Southern California as well as domestically.
Heroin: While Asia and the Middle East remain the biggest producers of heroin, Mexican black-tar and brown heroin is on the rise. In fact, 39 percent of heroin identified under the DEA’s Heroin Signature Program (HSP) in 2008 came from Mexico, making Mexico the source country for many of the heroin abusers west of the Mississippi River.
https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/drug-addiction/drug-trafficking-by-the-numbers/
Older data but you get the idea.
Bryan,
It may come from Mexico and “moves through Mexico” like you say, but it does NOT come on the backs of Mules across our border.
PORTS (think trucks at legal crossings, high speed boats, airplanes and cargo ships).
8 to 9,000 pounds at a time in many cases.
This wall money would be better spent improving security at ports of entry and small airports throughout America.
This is proven with government data…
How many sources would you need?
I just went back and checked my data…
It appears as much as 94% of illegal narcotics enter through ports according to DEA…
On Jan 3rd, Bryan wrote…
“Sorry Steve, the majority of Central America drugs are not coming in by container ships, nor by boat. The gulf coast is “secure” using Aerostat balloons. Well, more secure than the border and the mules who bring bales of cocaine and heroin across by the thousands daily.”
Now, DEA statistics and Fox News has proven this is completely wrong…
Only a small percentage of drugs enter with “mules” across the southern (and northern) border(s)…
“Trump Gets Instant Fact-Check From Fox News’ Shepard Smith After Oval Office Speech”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-gets-instant-fact-check-from-fox-news-shepard-smith-after-oval-office-speech
Steve, I cannot believe you are defending open borders..Insane! See above – “An estimated 93 percent of cocaine headed to the US from South America moves through Mexico.
Methamphetamine: Mexico remains the biggest foreign supplier of methamphetamine to the United States, and Mexican drug cartels set up labs to manufacture meth on both sides of the border”
> I cannot believe you are defending open borders.
I cannot believe you think anyone is in favor of open borders. What we are against is a stupid waste of money on a 2,000 mile Wall Of Trump.
Steve:
https://www.detox.net/uncover/drug-mules-trafficking-by-the-numbers/
Um Doug: Obama -“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States, undetected, undocumented, unchecked and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
At a campaign stop in November 2015, Clinton told a crowd: “I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in. And I do think you have to control your borders.”
> Um Doug…
And lots of barrier has been built. More is a waste. Building a wall through the Otay Mountain Wilderness is stupid.
I am going to post this up again because I am assume you missed it: “Steve, I cannot believe you are defending open borders..Insane! See above – “An estimated 93 percent of cocaine headed to the US from South America moves through Mexico.
Methamphetamine: Mexico remains the biggest foreign supplier of methamphetamine to the United States, and Mexican drug cartels set up labs to manufacture meth on both sides of the border”
Bryan,
Your cluttered responses does not take away from the facts.
None of us want “open borders”.
We do not have that today.
As for your 93 percent of cocaine comes from Mexico…
Less than 10 percent comes by mules.
The majority (over 94 percent of all narcotics from Mexico) comes through ports of entry.
Think a thousand NAFTA trucks a day back and forth.
What is not trucked through “check points” flys into dusty airstrips, arrives with speed boat and semi submersible watercraft or cargo ships…
Why can you not even agree with a Fox News critique on this subject.
I guess if you tell a lie enough times people will believe it.
Of course Democrats want open borders. Of course Democrats want non-citizen illegals the ability to vote. Of course Democrats want to do away with the Electorial College. Of course Democrats want to make illegals (80% do not have a high school diploma) dependant, like the black population, on “freebies”. Why do you think that is Steve?
Sorry about the clustered responses. No edit button.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cnns-jim-acosta-mocked-for-accidently-proving-that-border-walls-work
I guess you would blame the Democrats on the Cartel tunnels into southern California as well?
“A sophisticated tunnel linked to a major drug cartel has been discovered between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, authorities in Mexico say.”
“Presumably, one of these tunnels was being used by a criminal organization operating in the state of Sinaloa for smuggling drugs into the United States,” according to the statement. The U.S. Consulate, the statement said, provided “reliable information” that a cartel was reactivating the tunnels.
How will that Wall stop from tunneling into California?
The more research, the more we learn very little narcotic weight gets over the border on “mules”.
Too many high tech solutions to Cartels distributing drugs in America…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/12/14/sophisticated-drug-cartel-tunnel-linking-san-diego-mexico-found/95422628/
Steve, doesnt Hamas dig tunnels?
I remember when Global Warming was supposed cause the world to end in 2012. There was even a Global Warming Disaster movie by that name. Maybe we’ll see it in 2022. Of course we can stave it off by letting Billions into the US and then forcing them to have abortions while providing free Health Care, Free Homes, Free Food and giving them Free Condos in well planned communities where there will be no need to travel more than a mile (at least not with out bureaucratic approval). All the while taxing the “rich” by 99.9% of course our DC overseers will be exempted.
Yes indeed a real honest to goodness BRAVE NEW WORLD!
I believe in the data Freakonomics published about easy access to abortions meaning less violent crime down the road. If you make abortions easy and cheap, less unwanted and discarded kids come into this world. Which means less lost kids joining gangs as surrogate families. And less killings.
That was determined from when abortion was legalized and the statistics showed that crime started dropping approximately 20 years later. The argument makes sense, to me too.
Wow James . I wasn’t going to comment as I usually agree with a lot you say . This time Your logic leaves me stunned . You are suggesting the end justifies the means . An arguable ethic since time began . Yes practical in many cases but not when it involves human innocence and life . You also assume those murdered preterm children won’t be wanted later in their parents lives . A huge —— assumption . Also you assume there are no other factors that brought down that crime another huge assumption. When you assume something you make an ass outa me and you . By extension of your and bills logic all humans should be aborted to stop all crime . Sure that stretches it a bit but you get the picture. I presume you have had children? After I had children the concept of abortion became abhorrent. I recognize pre born as true unprotected and helpless innocent people with personality. Abortion is double speak for premeditated murder. No ifs and buts . There are other ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies. As you guys are grown ups I don’t need to mention. Of course if it’s life or death for a mother or unforeseen medical concerns ethics come into play and mothers life must be considered. Perhaps if it life was conceived through violence or broken law maybe an exception but I’m not sure on that I say unborn humans protected by constitution. Life liberty and pursuit of happiness. My rights stop where another’s begin and bottom line is that childs life and rights began at conception . Nazis loved abortion. Marguirite Sanger loves abortion. Don’t rub shoulders with likes of those folks. Throw in fact that abortion has become a legalized baby body parts harvest machine and it has truly stepped into realm of evil and inhuman . Something a monster would promote as a solution. There are other options for responsible men and women.
Doug – a little more history about your big swap lie and tour revisionist bisrory crap.
Johnson – “I’ll have those ni&&ers voting Democratic for the next 200 years”
The first black members of the US House and Senate were Republicans. The first civil rights legislation came from Republicans. Democrats gave us the KKK, Jim Crow, lynchings, poll taxes, literacy tests, and failed policies like the “Great Society.”
As a matter of fact, it was Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson who stated, “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years” as he confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One regarding his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs.
Yep, and who are the real racists? So far, thanks to a Republican Party that is ignorant of its own history and gave up on the black community, Democrats have 50 of those 200 years under their belt.”
Well, Jame’s you have to dig deeper in the Democrats love for abortion and Planned Parenthood. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and Student of Hitler formed the abortion mills to exterminate the black race. Thus, Democrats and especially Hollywood cheer the elimination of 40% black babies. It is funny watching the black Hollywood liberals toast on TV the anniversary of Roe V Wade. I assume James when you say a reduction in crime you actually mean the reduction in the black race? Racist by today’s standards. Less inner city blacks, less crime?
I guess we are lucky that liberals strongly embrace abortion. They are just batchit crazy who truly spawn demon seeds.
And we all know the Democrats history when it comes to the black race – slavery, Jim Crow, KKK, lynchings, Bull Connor, Segregation, anti-voting and Civil Rights, anti-Women voting amd Civil Rights, and modern slavery through entitlements. Personally, I find it entertaining to watch the NAACP and Pink Pussyhats supporting the Democrat Party. So ironic I do not know where to begin. I can just laugh at the IGNORANCE.
> And we all know the Democrats history
Yes, we do, but you don’t. You either don’t know or conveniently ignore that the Republican and Democratic parties have swapped platforms over the last 50 years or so. Racist southerners went from the Democratic to Republican party.
Doug your nonsense of racists southerner Democrats went to Republican Party is inncorect . Don’t spread garbage nonsense. I say prove it . To prove it you need personal interviews of millions and careful documentation. When you smear a whole party you do the nation a disservice. I’m not even a Republican. But I know republicans very well and democrats. Your very evil smear doesn’t stack with reality. I recently 6 months ago visited many historical war memorials and capital in Arkansas/ Texas Georgia ect and read and researched the subject while there . You would be shocked how they treated people and what was accepted. Even now there are still unusual attitudes in the south. Republican Party and most Republicans do not accept racism. Racism was inherent in Democratic Party. Follow proof of history and stop spreading misinformation and nonsense. Any media that promote s concept of racism swap to Republican Party is trying to manipulate reality. Don’t drink their coolade . Of course there are exceptions. Either stop spreading your mind poisonous misinformation or prove it with scientific unbiased careful documentation. Not standard media smears . Maybe you don’t even know how to define racism. Perhaps that’s your mistake. Currently much of media is race baiting despertly trying to make the nation divided and polarized over our differences. What evil garbage . We are Americans and should care for each other. I have recently read multiple pretend science smears on trump supporters , media trying to paint them as racists . Claiming mostly only old white uneducated men support trump. Blatant inaccuracies The articles focused hard on race. Nasty divisional crap . The focus is on the issues. Anyone who tries to make it about race is uneducated to our current national situation or a plain liar . Either definition of liar comes into play . Take your pick . The word race should stay out of politics. It’s about the issues period .
> When you smear a whole party
I am NOT smearing a whole party. I did not say “all are racist”. All I said (or meant to say) was that a group of racists changed parties.
Here you go, Opinion: https://www.history.com/news/how-the-party-of-lincoln-won-over-the-once-democratic-south
Thank you bill . What you missed was Doug’s statement. Racist democrat southerners switched to Republican Party . There is no proof in your linked article that the southerners who switched were racist . Unless you assume all southerners are racists which is not true . There is absolutely no mathematical documentation that racist southerners were the ones who switched nor mathematics documentation that their switch changed Republican Party nor any trustworthy unbiased cross reference . So therefore your article is not applicable to Doug’s divisive statement. But thank you for sharing it as I enjoyed the view and info . You and I have been so lucky in Alaska as their is so little racism.
> There is no proof …
Really? It’s not hard to infer from the article:
‘And even as Republican Richard Nixon employed a “Southern strategy” that appealed to the racism of Southern white voters, former Alabama Governor George Wallace (who’d wanted “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever”) ran as a Democrat in the 1972 presidential primaries.’
Doug show us documentation and proof of fact where any high ratio of racists changed Party . Also how that changed the Republican Party and their ideals. When you said racists southerners switched you grouped all together and you have no proof that the switched were all specific racists. So you made a mistake. Just admit it and move on . Sure some racists switched but probably some racists Republican switched to democrats. I don’t presume to know ratios but I do know you were inaccurate. Also their is a trend for inaccuracies in that area . Strangely this was going on way before Lincoln. Race concept has been used to divide our nations citizens since our nation began . Divide and conquer concept. Keep the populace controllable and frustration with each other to distract from progress and issues at hand
>> Doug show us documentation and proof
Is the “Southern Strategy” fake news?
Okay, here’s some research and data:
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.20161413
Doug if you get a pry bar you might fit both feet in your mouth. Keep trying to defend an indefensible mistake . You are doing a good job . Everyone makes mistakes. Hopefully yours wasn’t on purpose to mis color reality and divide people in a sneaky way. Let’s move on . Perhaps tomorrow you will realize you weren’t accurate.
Wow! Doug your ignorance is showing again..Sure buddy, the Dems and Repubs switched party cards during the middle of the night back in the 60’s. Maybe you forgot to tell Hillary’s mentor and former Klansman Robert Byrd of WV (where there wasnt a klan), who up until recently sat on the DEMOCRAT side of the Senate isle. Surprised Obama and Hillary didnt don white robes for his funeral. Man, the crap they spoon feed you on college campuses these days. Yep, I don’t kniw history. Hahaha!!! Your liberal white guilt is overwhelming. But, guess what – YOUR PARTY IS THE PARTY OF RACISM!!! HAHAHA.
> the Dems and Repubs switched party cards during the middle of the night back in the 60’s.
Gee, I love the way you guys make up stuff. But you know, Robert Byrd also said this (no, I don’t know how sincere he was):
“I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times … and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. I can’t erase what happened.”
Doug I can’t get your link to work. Bottom line you won’t find proof only a group of southern racists switched . Do you think Republican Party had a questioaire on their application card . That read check here if you were a southern racist. Nor did they interview each person who switched. Nor did they interview and document the southerners who stayed. Presumptions are made up and that’s what you are doing.you now have both feet in .
> you won’t find proof only a group of southern racists switched .
And once again, that’s not what I said. If you got the link to work (works for me, BTW, it’s a link to a pdf file), you would see that it is a study of whether the reason large numbers of Dems left the party primarily due to economic factors or racial prejudice.
Doug, here get educated about both Hillary and Obama’s DEMOCRAT KLANSMAN collegue. There are plenty of them. Byrd left the DEMOCRAT Senate in 2010.
“I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side… Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.
Robert Byrd”
https://www.azquotes.com/author/2290-Robert_Byrd
Doug, can it get any more hypocritical? A Klansman forgiven by today’s left-wing, radical Democrat Party along with the media. It’s good to be a Democrat that is for sure. Oh, he apologized. Haha. Man, if it wasn’t for double standards, racist Dems would have no standards at all. Checkmate friend! Your professor pushed “they switched parties in the middle of the night” BS, is just that – BS. Your party has had a long, long history of racism and anti-Semitism. Own it friend. Wear that badge proudly.
Well Opinion, the issues relative to school integration was totally “racist” IMO. If you don’t want to believe it then I say you will need to do the proving as it is common knowledge.
You say you were recently in the South and you don’t see it-that could be but I spent some time in Georgia in 1967 and racism was alive and well at that time (also in the service, but less in Army than in Navy). Not only that, those folks were still fighting the civil war with large numbers of Stars and Bars on their license plates, etc.
Nobody is saying that all southerners are racist, either. And they would not even think themselves as racist even when saying they didn’t consider them (blacks) as our equals.
I suggest that you get and watch “The Loving Story” that started much of the changes we have seen over the years and after losing in the Virginia Supreme Court, the Lovings prevailed in the US Supreme Court by a unanimous decision (and unanimous SC decision are not something you see regularly). After you watch this documentary and you still say that those southerners are not racist then there is no hope. Heheh!
Bill you are missing discussed points. Re read what Doug said . Racist southerners went from democrat to Republican Party forcing the party to swap identities. I say prove it mathematically. Otherwise is propaganda period. You appear to have missed that point. Also you misread my statement. I never said south doesn’t have racism. Be more careful about putting words in my mouth please. To be clear I was surprised south still has elements of racism I didn’t expect and also I was surprised racism was so ingrained in its history. Of course it’s improved huge !!! You defend Doug’s poorly stated argument. Don’t bother. I truly look forward to watching the movie you suggest. Thanks!
> Racist southerners went from democrat to Republican Party forcing the party to swap identities. I say prove it mathematically.
Well, once again, you twist words. At times you’ve misquoted me as saying “All of” this group or “Only” that group or “It happened one dark and stormy night” (I think that was Bryan). But I did post data, here’s the landing page for it : https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161413
If you can’t download it, you can ask someone. Although it maybe doesn’t prove what you’ve misquoted, it attempts to prove that large numbers of white southerners left the Democratic party due to racial prejudice. You seemed surprised by and unaware of the information in the article posted by Bill Yankee, so the ball is in your court to do some historical research. I recommend finding out what the “Southern strategy” was, and it’s effects.
> https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20161413
I just want to add that in that link, the raw data is also available, over 34MB of it. So you can analyze it yourself if you so desire.
Opinion,
When U said to Doug:
“if you get a pry bar you might fit both feet in your mouth”…
It made me think of Bryan saying “she needs a boot in her mouth” a few days ago.
Obviously, you are not to aware of American history in the South, nor are you aware that “according to Pew Research 83 percent of the registered voters who identify as Republican are non-Hispanic whites.”
Here is a story that gives another Opinion on the Republican Party…from a Black writers perspective.
Michael Harriot writes:
“Then came the breaking point that would basically change the party affiliation of Southern voters. Shortly before the election of 1964, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.
The “Solid South” would never vote for a Democrat president again.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theroot.com/how-the-republican-party-became-the-party-of-racism-1827779221/amp
The Civil Rights Act — which is best known for barring discrimination in public accommodations — passed the House on Feb. 10, 1964 by a margin of 290-130. When broken down by party, 61 percent of Democratic lawmakers voted for the bill (152 yeas and 96 nays), and a full 80 percent of the Republican caucus supported it (138 yeas and 34 nays).
When the Senate passed the measure on June 19, 1964, — nine days after supporters mustered enough votes to end the longest filibuster in Senate history — the margin was 73-27. Better than two-thirds of Senate Democrats supported the measure on final passage (46 yeas, 21 nays), but an even stronger 82 percent of Republicans supported it (27 yeas, 6 nays).
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/25/michael-steele/steele-says-gop-fought-hard-civil-rights-bills-196/
Why would Southern Democrats not vote for a Democrat, when the Civil Rights Act was supported by more Republicans than Democrats? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Two out of the three Democratic Presidents since the Civil Rights Act was passed were Southern Democrats.
Steve Stine have you not heard the old saying when you make a verbal mistake you have put your foot in your mouth.? That’s what I was referring to . Nothing rough or pushy . Just a self stumble done by all. Very different from what it made you think of . Be careful of appearing to construe something as similar that is not period . If my history of sayings is bad and it has some weird connotation I am unaware of I apologize. Otherwise don’t try to connect the two different statements.
Steve Stine . Are you a race baiter ? I think not . Then why do push trying to paint one party or the other as racists . Do you have an agenda? Just becouse a few people write or say something does not make it so . No Matter how much you would like to change history. The facts are Democrats have very questionable racial record . Thank goodness they have worked on cleaning up their agenda on racism. Facts and actions matter regardless of what people write or try to sway public opinion. Have you not studied linden Johnson? He was very very questionable. Why can’t people just recognize each person as American and quit with the blaming and racial division and finger pointing? Focus on the issues at hand . Sure there still needs to be progress on equality. But that is case by case not one party is bad. Sure in past history certain elements of Democratic Party was probably bad . Let’s move past that and support ideas and issues we believe in with positivity rather than smearing a whole party . Steve what’s your veiw on the wall ? What’s your view on how to improve inner city people’s living and working conditions? Let’s get some good ideas rolling . Pull together.
Steve Stine . You are developing a habit of making false assumptions and statements. You claim I don’t know southern history. Umm are you aware of where 1/2 my family is from ? The south! lotsa black relatives ! Even my wife’s family is from the south! My sisters live in the south! And to boot I have studied it well ,I’m more versed in southern history than average American . So your statement is asinine! Stop with your overreaching assumptions! Tell us about your southern roots and how qualified you are to lecture me on southern history. You seam to think you are superior in your history knowledge.
Opinion, you are right. Steve’s comments about the Republican’s racial make-up was clearly racist. They do not see it because they walk through life with “race, class, gender” glasses on. Wasn’t John Kerry’s own father against the Civil Rights movement? Shouldn’t John Kerry be a Republican? Man, those liberal college professors and their propaganda have these liberals all twisted up. Kind of like “it’s -50, has to be Global Warming”. Did you see the earths magnetic shift now has a “man-made” Global warming spin to it. Amazing!!!
Well Ramey Smyth (aka Opinion)
I know you are back stepping your comment of:
“if you get a pry bar you might fit both feet in your mouth”
That is not like you say:
“Nothing rough or pushy . Just a self stumble done by all.”
Most folks that I know do NOT commonly tell people to get a pry bar to stick both feet in their mouth.
I know…”Ramey” is not your real name….it is James Smyth…
So why all these “nicknames” and handles?
What are you really hiding from?
A history on courtview?
Don’t tell people to stick a pry bar in their mouth and then attack me for calling you out.
All I did was post a link with an opinion from someone else on the topic of racism in the Republican party…
You guys were the one debating the topic.
P.S.
I will use your real name as long as you use my name the way you do.
What is fair for you, is fair for me Ramey Smyth.
Steve Stine there was zero insult meant to you by using your name as I did . You mis took me completely. I was clearly differentiating from Steve -0 who also comments. You are wrong to take insult. Or bother from that . If it bothered you I apologize. I knew no other way to clarify who I was addressing. What name is preferred by you ? Same goes with foot in mouth . I wasn’t walking back I was clarifying period. No meanness was intended . No need to make more drama than exists . My handle is opinion period . Steve . No need to call me names or allude to things about people. If I used your name inappropriately it was completely unintentional. Do us all favor and stick to issues. Gota go , have a good day!
Here is Levitt giving his own arguments for supporting his theory on “crime and abortion:” http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
More examples of why Americans hate the media:
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/trump-unloads-on-abc-news-reporter-jonathan-karl-in-fiery-oval-office-exchange
Last time I looked murdering a baby is a form of violence, so I fail to see how this does anything but increase violence.
Well Craig, it (Jazmine Barnes shooting) seems to have influenced our own Mongo differently: “More crazy than you ever dreamed of: Daughter killed after your drug deal goes bad so blame it on Whitey! Unbelievable!” This is from his news source (the gateway pundit) and his comment on Crazy Land, 1/6/18. Steve-O also bought in.
Perhaps Mongo will now change his story to “Jazmine murdered because of moose poaching” or “drug deal with moose goes bad.”
What are you talking about Bill? What do you think I bought into?
I’ll let you explain your own comment, Steve-O. Heheh!
Bill, please don’t accuse me of things if you don’t understand what you’re accusing me of. Thank you.
I’m thinking you are taking this too seriously, Steve-O. My throwing you in with Mongo was more of a “what goes around comes around” thing. And you haven’t explained your comment, either.
On the other hand I wouldn’t be surprised if you get your climate change information from “The Gateway Pundit.”
Bill, I don’t take you seriously at all. I might if you figured out how to properly use quotations. You can’t just put words in quotes and attribute them to people unless they actually said those words.
Steve, curious what, if any impact any Alaskan has on the climate changes? I mean, Anchorage? Nope! Fairbanks? Nope! The Kenai? Nope! Nome? Nope! Sitka? Nope! Sounds like a bunch of feel good crap. Propaganda might be true but, media corruption is more like it.
Ex. – https://www.foxnews.com/politics/accusations-spread-of-dem-misinformation-campaigns-on-facebook-as-tables-turn
Bryan,
Maybe your question should read: What impact will Climate Change have on Alaska?
Craig,
“Why were so many websites pushing this story? One word:”
Propaganda…
“In the twentieth century, the term propaganda has often been associated with a manipulative approach, but propaganda historically was a neutral descriptive term.”
In a 1929 literary debate with Edward Bernays, Everett Dean Martin argues that, “Propaganda is making puppets of us. We are moved by hidden strings which the propagandist manipulates.”
(Wikipedia)
There were a few other “big” stories of the week, but Alaskans must look to “Outside” news sources for these stories.
The radio show “Reveal” on public radio did a good story on “Silencing Science” in America.
The Columbia Law Center has a website listing all of the “big” attempts to silence scientists in the U.S.
Can you guess what state is at the top of their list?
You guessed it AK.
“In December 2018, one day after new Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy took office, the state Department of Environmental Conservation deleted a key climate change report from its website. The report, titled “Climate Change Policy Recommendations to the Governor,” was prepared by the Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team. The Leadership Team was established in October 2017 by then Alaska Governor Bill Walker to “create climate change policy recommendations . . . for Alaska.” Those recommendations were set out in the deleted report, which included a detailed plan for addressing climate change impacts in Alaska.”
So, follow the “bull” and end up in the “weeds”.
http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/resources/silencing-science-tracker/