| |
|
Debunked:
♦
No, it's not true that there's something fishy in the Justice Department's decision during the Bush-Cheney administration not to prosecute a tiny, un-influential left-wingnut group called the New Black Panthers over exaggerated allegations of voter intimidation.
The claim is ludicrous on its face — voters were deterred from voting, because black people were standing outside a voting place and one of these black people was purportedly holding a nightstick? Would you turn tail and head for home instead of voting, if you saw a black man carrying a nightstick? I suppose racist white cowards might scatter, but I've seen the footage and I would've said "howdy" as I walked past those guys. I wouldn't have been afraid. Most people wouldn't have been afraid, since these people weren't doing anything scary. There is, please note, nobody who says he or she was intimidated into not voting — which is, of course, why no charges were filed.
Fox News has hyped the hell out of this microscopic event, but can you can even call it an "event" when nothing happens? Fox News has covered this story ninety-six times, so far. Ask yourself: Why would Fox News do that?
The Black Panthers of the 1960s and '70s were scary to whites and still are, and the New Black Panther Party wants to build on that scariness, but are they really scary? This new group calling itself Black Panthers is a tiny collection of wingnuts, a group with perhaps three dozen members nationwide. Your local PTA has larger meetings than the New Black Panthers could muster. With all due respect to black radicals everywhere, if you're afraid of the New Black Panthers you must be living your entire life quivering in fear. I mean, heck, I live in a mid-sized American city, and virtually everywhere I go I see young black men standing around. Also, young black women and old black men, and men and women of other colors. People are always standing around, but even people carrying a stick are not scary to sane observers.
The New Black Panthers barely exist, and the allegations of their "crimes" are spectacularly un-newsworthy and un-substantiated. Fox's repeated trumpeting of this "scandal" amounts to nothing but fearmongering and racism aimed at an audience that fears black men in general.
As an aside, please note that the Republican Party has a long pattern of using numerous well-orchestrated operations to suppress and intimidate Democratic and black voters. Click and become informed about a scandal far more factual than the supposed "intimidation" some people believe happens when a black man holds a stick.
#
♦ For more debunked lies, see our debunkery page.
Why are we doing this?
Democracy depends on an informed public discourse. As lies and misinformation are multiplied by mass media, by bloggers, by panicked or intentionally lying emailers, democracy is more and more imperiled, and eventually becomes unworkable.
Please — our nation and our world face very serious, very real problems. You can help, by not believing everything anyone says, and instead being skeptical about all the phony, non-existent problems that are only distractions. Check the facts, or if that's too much trouble, check with the people who do check the facts. We particularly recommend
Columbia Journalism Review,
ConWebBlog,
FactCheck,
Media Matters,
RightWing Watch,
Snopes.com,
ThinkProgress, and
Washington Monthly.
|
© Helen & Harry Highwater and the individual authors.
Big howdy
No nuts, please
Our privacy policies
Bill of Rights
Declaration of Independence
| |
|
|
Like the URL says, this website is about unknown news.
Our news comes only from mainstream, professional journalists or (rarely) other sources we trust entirely, with no nuttiness and no interest in the same news you see everywhere else.
What we believe
We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché.
We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated.
We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery.
We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people.
We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults.
Like America's right-wingers, we believe in
individual responsibility,
hard work to get ahead,
and stern punishment for serious crimes.
We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like America's left-wingers, we believe in
equal treatment under law,
war as a last (not first) resort,
and sensible stewardship of natural resources.
We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves.
But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.
We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all.
A reader asks, what are our solutions?
We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world doesn't need it's yet another manifesto.
Our suggestion is: think.
A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and answers usually come into focus.
These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out).
We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours.
We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads.
|
| |
