Yes, but when their asses were on the line Ben Franklin said, "If we do not hang together we will surely hang seperately" and as leader of the Continental Army I'm sure Washington agreed with that sentiment also. Clearly we have had a "us vs them" mindset from the early beginings of the country.
65 years after the Washongton quote you posted Abraham Lincoln said in the closing paragaph of his first inaugural address delivered March 4, 1861:
Fighting commenced less then 6 weeks later, on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the first state to secede and the start of the Civil War, another "us vs them" conflict.
Matin Luther King said "We must learn to live together as brothers, or perish together as fools". He's right, but the question is how do we get there from here??
John Stossel is a right wing tool. I remember him from a hatchet job he did on the food stamp program several years ago.
Read some of this:
Text
One controversy that caught mainstream media's attention concerned Stossel's interview of a group of grade-school students for his ABC News special "What's Wrong With Tampering With Nature?" (6/29/01). The children's parents had signed releases for them to appear on the show, but after witnessing Stossel's methods, several withdrew their consent and protested to ABC.
The special caricatured environmentalists as "preachers of doom and gloom" whose fanaticism would have us all "running around naked, hungry for food, maybe killing a rabbit with a rock, then dying young." A key theme was Stossel's claim that U.S. schools have become an "environmental boot camp" to indoctrinate children with green propaganda, when in fact the environment is doing just fine.
To illustrate his point, Stossel arranged an interview with a group of California kids, asking what parents described as leading questions to try to show that the children had been taught environmentalist lies. Several parents said they hadn't known about this slant when they granted permission for the interviews. They complained that ABC had "misrepresented" the segment by telling them simply that it was an Earth Day special, and by concealing Stossel's involvement (L.A. Times, 6/26/01).
One father, Brad Neal, told the Washington Post (6/26/01) that Stossel's questioning was "entirely misleading," and that "he'd repeat the questions until he got the answer he wanted?. We knew we were hoodwinked." Parents said Stossel even tried to lead the children in chant suggesting that "all scientists agree there is a greenhouse effect" (L.A. Times, 6/26/01).
As a result of the negative publicity, ABC pulled the interviews before the show aired, though the network stood by Stossel's work. Stossel's own response was instructive. He found new kids to interview, apparently with the same techniques: On the special, they responded in well-coordinated unison to Stossel's questions. He also went on the attack against the parents, saying that they had been "brainwashed" by environmental activists, whom he characterized as "the totalitarian left" (O'Reilly Factor, 6/27/01).
Tricky editing
Little kids aren't the only ones who should beware of Stossel's tactics. During his one-hour special "Is America No. 1?" (9/19/99), Stossel used tricky editing to misrepresent the views of James K. Galbraith, a leading economist at the University of Texas.
Rife with factual inaccuracies (Extra!, 11-12/99), the show attempted to demonstrate that laissez-faire economics are "what makes a country work well for its people." Stossel claimed that Europe has high unemployment rates because of policies that provide benefits such as paid parental leave and make it "very hard" to fire workers.
The facts are so persuasive, said Stossel, that "many economists who once argued that we could learn from Europe, like James Galbraith, have now changed their minds." Stossel then played a clip from his interview with Galbraith: "There might be a moment for the European to learn from us, rather than for us to be studying them." The implication was clear: Galbraith believes Europe should follow the U.S.'s lead and require fewer protections and benefits for workers.
In fact, Galbraith is an outspoken opponent of the adoption of U.S.-style laissez-faire policies in Europe. "My point is quite different from the one Stossel makes in the lead-in," Galbraith told Extra!'s Seth Ackerman (11-12/99). Galbraith explained that he had actually told Stossel that "Europe could, in short, benefit from adopting some of the continent-wide transfer mechanisms, such as Social Security, that we have long enjoyed in the United States." In other words, Galbraith did feel Europe could learn from the U.S. by expanding social benefit programs--the opposite position, essentially, from the one implied by Stossel's editing.
After FAIR issued an Action Alert (9/28/99) critiquing this and other distortions in "Is America No. 1?," Stossel issued an evasive rebuttal (11/6/99)--signed, oddly, by Stossel and "some of his staff"--which insisted that Galbraith's "views on this particular matter were not misrepresented," but hedged that "we did not intend anyone to think he endorsed every statement made in the hour."
Despite Stossel's claim that he had done no wrong, the sentence introducing Galbraith's soundbite had been changed when ABC rebroadcast "Is America No. 1?" a year later (9/1/00). "Even economists who like Europe's policies, like James Galbraith," said Stossel the second time around, "now acknowledge America's success."
Some facts are better than others
Sometimes Stossel responds to uncomfortable facts not by spinning them, but by omitting them. In one instance, producers resigned from a Stossel special after their findings were dismissed because they cast doubt on Stossel's "preconceived notion" of the truth. The show was "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?" (4/21/94), a 90-minute special about the evils of government regulation.
Positing that America's ability to "compete in a world economy" could be compromised if we worry too much about "dangerous-sounding" things like "pesticides, pollutants, bioengineering, electromagnetic fields" and so forth, Stossel reassures us: Today, "we live longer than ever." Therefore, advocates like Ralph Nader--who is portrayed as a fear-monger who "screamed about everything"--have it all wrong. The real danger is regulation, since "regulations may shorten lives by making people poorer."
It's tough to argue with such relentlessly simplistic logic, as Stossel's own staff found out. As reported by Karl Grossman (Extra! Update, 6/94), a source close to ABC said that two of the three producers hired to work on the special resigned because their findings were unwelcome.
Producer Jan Legnitto found that government product-safety regulation was cost-effective, while Vicky Sufian's research on comparative risk indicated that some regulations actually served to protect people. Neither finding supported Stossel's anti-regulatory stance, so their research was dismissed. Both producers asked to be released from their contracts and left the program.
Similarly, in the 1995 special "Boys and Girls Are Different" (2/1/95), Stossel's team seems to have discarded evidence that complicated the show's biology-is-destiny slant.
Claiming that men and women think differently "because our brains are different," Stossel argued that "trying to fix these differences will be pointless, expensive, even hurtful." On this basis, Stossel attacked remedies for inequality such as sex discrimination laws and affirmative action, saying they force unnatural outcomes.
As documented for Extra! by Miranda Spencer (5-6/95), Stossel featured a variety of scientists supporting biological explanations for gender traits and roles. Instead of contrasting these views with the numerous scientists who disagree with that approach, Stossel set up feminists without scientific backgrounds to refute them.
Spencer found that Stossel's staff had in fact talked to some of the scientific authorities who were left out of the program, including Brown University biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling, a prominent figure in gender studies.
Fausto-Sterling--whose research has found more overlap than difference in male and female abilities--was contacted by fact-checkers for the program before the show aired. Her input, however, didn't seem to pass the litmus test. One ABC producer told Fausto-Sterling that interviews were already "set up" and that it was too late to restructure the show to introduce more balance.
Joan Bertin--then co-director of Columbia University's Program on Gender, Science and Law, now a professor at Columbia and executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship--was also called by an ABC staffer who had no interest in material that didn't confirm Stossel's preconceived notions. "She left me with the clear impression she had explicit marching orders to find material to support gender differences," Bertin told Extra! (5-6/95).
In 2000, revelations about Stossel's shoddy journalism caused a brief media furor that ended with an on-air apology by Stossel for having cited non-existent test results in a report.
The report was "The Food You Eat," originally aired by 20/20 on February 4, 2000. In it, Stossel warned that organic produce may be more dangerous than conventional produce, saying that tests commissioned by ABC found increased levels of E. coli bacteria in organic sprouts and lettuce. He also stated that the tests found no pesticide residue "on either organic or regular produce," thereby obviating a key reason for buying organic food.
But, as the Organic Trade Association pointed out in a letter sent to ABC before the report aired (11/8/99), Stossel's E. coli tests were non-specific, meaning that they did not distinguish between dangerous and benign strains of the bacteria. The distinction is crucial to a story about food safety, but the 20/20 report omitted it, leaving the impression that the presence of any E. coli whatsoever could prove fatal.
OTA also pointed out that although one of their representatives was interviewed on the show and asked to comment on the study, Stossel's producer replied evasively to their "numerous" requests that he "clarify what types of E. coli were tested for." The group says that they learned the details of the test only after they were interviewed.
What's more, the pesticide tests Stossel cited were never done. In July, a story brought to light by the Environmental Working Group was picked up by the New York Times (7/31/00): The scientists that ABC commissioned--Michael Doyle and Lester Crawford--said that they never tested any of the produce for pesticides, only for bacteria.
In addition, Crawford told the Times that he did perform similar tests on chicken, and found pesticide residue on the conventional poultry but not on the organic poultry. That data is nowhere in Stossel's report, which suggests that, true to form, he took a selective approach to reporting scientific evidence.
Prior to these revelations, several groups--including FAIR, EWG and OTA--had voiced concerns about other aspects of "The Food You Eat," including its failure to disclose a primary source's ties to the chemical industry. At the time, ABC dismissed the questions, and rebroadcast the report uncorrected on July 7.
After the news about the non-existent test was picked up by mainstream media, ABC announced that it would reprimand Stossel and suspend his producer, and Stossel issued a lengthy on-air apology (8/11/00). FAIR wrote to ABC News urging them to take the occasion to investigate Stossel's overall record on accuracy, and to consider whether it lived up to the network's journalistic standards. The network, however, seemed to have decided to treat the debacle as an isolated incident. FAIR never received a response.
Read some of this:
Text
One controversy that caught mainstream media's attention concerned Stossel's interview of a group of grade-school students for his ABC News special "What's Wrong With Tampering With Nature?" (6/29/01). The children's parents had signed releases for them to appear on the show, but after witnessing Stossel's methods, several withdrew their consent and protested to ABC.
The special caricatured environmentalists as "preachers of doom and gloom" whose fanaticism would have us all "running around naked, hungry for food, maybe killing a rabbit with a rock, then dying young." A key theme was Stossel's claim that U.S. schools have become an "environmental boot camp" to indoctrinate children with green propaganda, when in fact the environment is doing just fine.
To illustrate his point, Stossel arranged an interview with a group of California kids, asking what parents described as leading questions to try to show that the children had been taught environmentalist lies. Several parents said they hadn't known about this slant when they granted permission for the interviews. They complained that ABC had "misrepresented" the segment by telling them simply that it was an Earth Day special, and by concealing Stossel's involvement (L.A. Times, 6/26/01).
One father, Brad Neal, told the Washington Post (6/26/01) that Stossel's questioning was "entirely misleading," and that "he'd repeat the questions until he got the answer he wanted?. We knew we were hoodwinked." Parents said Stossel even tried to lead the children in chant suggesting that "all scientists agree there is a greenhouse effect" (L.A. Times, 6/26/01).
As a result of the negative publicity, ABC pulled the interviews before the show aired, though the network stood by Stossel's work. Stossel's own response was instructive. He found new kids to interview, apparently with the same techniques: On the special, they responded in well-coordinated unison to Stossel's questions. He also went on the attack against the parents, saying that they had been "brainwashed" by environmental activists, whom he characterized as "the totalitarian left" (O'Reilly Factor, 6/27/01).
Tricky editing
Little kids aren't the only ones who should beware of Stossel's tactics. During his one-hour special "Is America No. 1?" (9/19/99), Stossel used tricky editing to misrepresent the views of James K. Galbraith, a leading economist at the University of Texas.
Rife with factual inaccuracies (Extra!, 11-12/99), the show attempted to demonstrate that laissez-faire economics are "what makes a country work well for its people." Stossel claimed that Europe has high unemployment rates because of policies that provide benefits such as paid parental leave and make it "very hard" to fire workers.
The facts are so persuasive, said Stossel, that "many economists who once argued that we could learn from Europe, like James Galbraith, have now changed their minds." Stossel then played a clip from his interview with Galbraith: "There might be a moment for the European to learn from us, rather than for us to be studying them." The implication was clear: Galbraith believes Europe should follow the U.S.'s lead and require fewer protections and benefits for workers.
In fact, Galbraith is an outspoken opponent of the adoption of U.S.-style laissez-faire policies in Europe. "My point is quite different from the one Stossel makes in the lead-in," Galbraith told Extra!'s Seth Ackerman (11-12/99). Galbraith explained that he had actually told Stossel that "Europe could, in short, benefit from adopting some of the continent-wide transfer mechanisms, such as Social Security, that we have long enjoyed in the United States." In other words, Galbraith did feel Europe could learn from the U.S. by expanding social benefit programs--the opposite position, essentially, from the one implied by Stossel's editing.
After FAIR issued an Action Alert (9/28/99) critiquing this and other distortions in "Is America No. 1?," Stossel issued an evasive rebuttal (11/6/99)--signed, oddly, by Stossel and "some of his staff"--which insisted that Galbraith's "views on this particular matter were not misrepresented," but hedged that "we did not intend anyone to think he endorsed every statement made in the hour."
Despite Stossel's claim that he had done no wrong, the sentence introducing Galbraith's soundbite had been changed when ABC rebroadcast "Is America No. 1?" a year later (9/1/00). "Even economists who like Europe's policies, like James Galbraith," said Stossel the second time around, "now acknowledge America's success."
Some facts are better than others
Sometimes Stossel responds to uncomfortable facts not by spinning them, but by omitting them. In one instance, producers resigned from a Stossel special after their findings were dismissed because they cast doubt on Stossel's "preconceived notion" of the truth. The show was "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?" (4/21/94), a 90-minute special about the evils of government regulation.
Positing that America's ability to "compete in a world economy" could be compromised if we worry too much about "dangerous-sounding" things like "pesticides, pollutants, bioengineering, electromagnetic fields" and so forth, Stossel reassures us: Today, "we live longer than ever." Therefore, advocates like Ralph Nader--who is portrayed as a fear-monger who "screamed about everything"--have it all wrong. The real danger is regulation, since "regulations may shorten lives by making people poorer."
It's tough to argue with such relentlessly simplistic logic, as Stossel's own staff found out. As reported by Karl Grossman (Extra! Update, 6/94), a source close to ABC said that two of the three producers hired to work on the special resigned because their findings were unwelcome.
Producer Jan Legnitto found that government product-safety regulation was cost-effective, while Vicky Sufian's research on comparative risk indicated that some regulations actually served to protect people. Neither finding supported Stossel's anti-regulatory stance, so their research was dismissed. Both producers asked to be released from their contracts and left the program.
Similarly, in the 1995 special "Boys and Girls Are Different" (2/1/95), Stossel's team seems to have discarded evidence that complicated the show's biology-is-destiny slant.
Claiming that men and women think differently "because our brains are different," Stossel argued that "trying to fix these differences will be pointless, expensive, even hurtful." On this basis, Stossel attacked remedies for inequality such as sex discrimination laws and affirmative action, saying they force unnatural outcomes.
As documented for Extra! by Miranda Spencer (5-6/95), Stossel featured a variety of scientists supporting biological explanations for gender traits and roles. Instead of contrasting these views with the numerous scientists who disagree with that approach, Stossel set up feminists without scientific backgrounds to refute them.
Spencer found that Stossel's staff had in fact talked to some of the scientific authorities who were left out of the program, including Brown University biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling, a prominent figure in gender studies.
Fausto-Sterling--whose research has found more overlap than difference in male and female abilities--was contacted by fact-checkers for the program before the show aired. Her input, however, didn't seem to pass the litmus test. One ABC producer told Fausto-Sterling that interviews were already "set up" and that it was too late to restructure the show to introduce more balance.
Joan Bertin--then co-director of Columbia University's Program on Gender, Science and Law, now a professor at Columbia and executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship--was also called by an ABC staffer who had no interest in material that didn't confirm Stossel's preconceived notions. "She left me with the clear impression she had explicit marching orders to find material to support gender differences," Bertin told Extra! (5-6/95).
In 2000, revelations about Stossel's shoddy journalism caused a brief media furor that ended with an on-air apology by Stossel for having cited non-existent test results in a report.
The report was "The Food You Eat," originally aired by 20/20 on February 4, 2000. In it, Stossel warned that organic produce may be more dangerous than conventional produce, saying that tests commissioned by ABC found increased levels of E. coli bacteria in organic sprouts and lettuce. He also stated that the tests found no pesticide residue "on either organic or regular produce," thereby obviating a key reason for buying organic food.
But, as the Organic Trade Association pointed out in a letter sent to ABC before the report aired (11/8/99), Stossel's E. coli tests were non-specific, meaning that they did not distinguish between dangerous and benign strains of the bacteria. The distinction is crucial to a story about food safety, but the 20/20 report omitted it, leaving the impression that the presence of any E. coli whatsoever could prove fatal.
OTA also pointed out that although one of their representatives was interviewed on the show and asked to comment on the study, Stossel's producer replied evasively to their "numerous" requests that he "clarify what types of E. coli were tested for." The group says that they learned the details of the test only after they were interviewed.
What's more, the pesticide tests Stossel cited were never done. In July, a story brought to light by the Environmental Working Group was picked up by the New York Times (7/31/00): The scientists that ABC commissioned--Michael Doyle and Lester Crawford--said that they never tested any of the produce for pesticides, only for bacteria.
In addition, Crawford told the Times that he did perform similar tests on chicken, and found pesticide residue on the conventional poultry but not on the organic poultry. That data is nowhere in Stossel's report, which suggests that, true to form, he took a selective approach to reporting scientific evidence.
Prior to these revelations, several groups--including FAIR, EWG and OTA--had voiced concerns about other aspects of "The Food You Eat," including its failure to disclose a primary source's ties to the chemical industry. At the time, ABC dismissed the questions, and rebroadcast the report uncorrected on July 7.
After the news about the non-existent test was picked up by mainstream media, ABC announced that it would reprimand Stossel and suspend his producer, and Stossel issued a lengthy on-air apology (8/11/00). FAIR wrote to ABC News urging them to take the occasion to investigate Stossel's overall record on accuracy, and to consider whether it lived up to the network's journalistic standards. The network, however, seemed to have decided to treat the debacle as an isolated incident. FAIR never received a response.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
"We" don't. It's a life decision that only an individual can make.
Actually, Stossel used to be quite the far-leftist, by his own admission. He chalks it up to the ignorance of youth.
However, the reason why Craig and marin are both maligning him as a "right wing tool" (or whatever) is because almost everyone looks like a "right wing tool" when you're far to the left of Lenin.
edit: BTW, I think it should be noted that FAIR is an organization that is expressly and inherently against free speech. Think about it for a moment, eh? Their express purpose is to use government power in order to control what the media can and cannot say. All in the interest of some imaginary and ideological goal known as fairness, they want to scrap the 1st amendment by anti-democratic backdoor means.
The meek will inherit the Earth..... assuming 1.) they're still alive and 2.) there's something left to inherit.
theeedude
Lifer
- Feb 5, 2006
- 35,787
- 6,197
- 126
I love how the same people who were denying global warming for the longest time, now admit they were WRONG, yet want us to believe their claim that it's not man made and it's not severe. It's like those Creationists who denied the existence of dinosaurs, then when faced with the fossil records said, OK, there are dinosaurs, but Earth is still 6000 years old, and these are just Jesus horses
Vic said something that was, as pretty much always, not worth repeating, so I saved the reader time by editing it out.
But it is worth summarizing: he again lies about my statements, my views, and so on.
He does that. A lot. Consistently. He's been asked not to read my posts, not to answer my posts, and he lacks the manner not to butt in where unwanted. Hence, this response, again.
vic wins Ironic Post of the Month Award - a repeat winner.
His straw men of my views in this very thread are a fine, but not the only, example of his lies with straw men.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
The very fact that you're afraid to have me respond to your posts is all the reason I could ever think of to want to butt in, unwanted or not.
edit: oh BTW, too bad you're too cowardly to actually point where I lied. Or is that because I actually didn't lie and you're the one who's lying? Nah, couldn't be, right?
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
Show me don't tell me, eh? Otherwise, you completely missed the point in my reply to sensetroll. Global warming IS A SCIENTIFIC FACT. You won't ever see me say otherwise. It's been going on consistently since the last ice age ended. My issue is that the public debate about global warming has nothing to do with science, a distinction you completely fail to understand.
Originally posted by: Vic
The very fact that you're afraid to have me respond to your posts is all the reason I could ever think of to want to butt in, unwanted or not.
edit: oh BTW, too bad you're too cowardly to actually point where I lied. Or is that because I actually didn't lie and you're the one who's lying? Nah, couldn't be, right?
Well, vic, let's count a few of your childish fallacies. Let's start with the fact that you are too rude to ignore repeated requests not to read my posts, because you are too many negative things to list here to want to interact with, you only create harm to the discussion, which you ignore and butt in unwanted, because the forum doesn't allow posters to limit who sees their posts - a fallacy in that you fail to address the issue at all and dodge to others you make up.
The next is your false assumption that 'afraid' is an issue. Afraid is a lie. Distaste, that's true, but you try to snear and insinuate for lack of any accurate thing to say.
I did not say specifically where you lie - because that would provide a level of reading and analysis to your comments you don't deserve. I see the fact that they are through and through, big, lies, and don't see a need to get into the lists of the aspects of how they're lies. Too bad for you if you want otherwise; if you respected the request not to interact, following your being given many chances in the past and lying too often, you wouldn't run into that.
As for who is lying about *my* positions - well, I'll claim to be the expert there. The reader is welcome to compare my words with the ones you say, and see who's right, too.
You always fail to actually quote my words when you lie about what I say, why is that, I ask rhetorically.
vic, you are wasting everyone's time, as usual. You lie. I point it out sometimes. End of discussion, it should be, but you will no doubt post another lie and look bad again.
Stossel has along history of making claims against GW, citing a source, only to learn no such source exists.
Vic
Elite Member
- Jun 12, 2001
- 50,422
- 14,337
- 136
Your talking but you aren't saying anything that makes any sense.
meekness - Lack of vanity or self-importance: humbleness, humility, lowliness, modesty
Matthew 11:28, 29 - "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
Ozoned
Diamond Member
- Mar 22, 2004
- 5,578
- 0
- 0
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
question is so what.
china..india...rising population of the world, emissions are going to rise unless we nuke ourselves out of existence. whatever happens is inevitable.
I am quite confident that as long as we don't block out the sun, our species will outlast our carbon based fuel reserves, provided, like you said, we don't nuke ourselves out of existence.
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