Tennessee School District Gets Tutorial In How Fox News Operates

[Newsjock]

http://southernbeale.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/tn-school-district-gets-tutorial-in-how-fox-news-operates/

I have yet to fully understand why conservatives decided attacking public education was a winning message (beyond Union Thugs and shiny-sparkly Privatization Thingie), but this incident out of Elizabethton, Tennessee is a classic example of how the conservative media will take a simple incident and manipulate it into the service of their message wars. Now, Elizabethton’s superintendent of schools is questioning the accuracy of Fox stories, accusing the broadcaster of sensationalism. Gee, ya think?

So here’s what happened: Fox News personality Todd Starnes ran a story saying third-graders received a Nation of Islam handout in class that called the presidents on Mt. Rushmore racists. What actually happened, of course, is a little … um, well, different from that.

ELIZABETHTON — Elizabethton Superintendent of Schools Ed Alexander said Thursday afternoon that no parent has come forward to substantiate the Fox News story that two additional Harold McCormick third-graders had received a handout from their teacher that was produced by the Nation of Islam claiming the four presidents on Mount Rushmore were racists.

... So the only accurate part of the story is that a child somehow got into possession of a Nation of Islam document calling the Mt. Rushmore presidents racists. How he got the document, and whether it was in fact used in the classroom, were all complete BS fabricated by Fox to stoke fears and anger at the public school system. Worse, Fox News knew before even airing the piece that this was utter BS. But they ran with what they had anyway. Even worse, they embellished the story, saying other parents had come forward — when they hadn’t. This is supposed to be a news organization?

[Fred Sanders]

1. 100% Nazi like propaganda and folks still doubt it's not, because that is too big a lie to imagine.

Front row seat at WH press conferences, imagine the possibilities for mischief?

[lunasun]

2. +1 !! exactly

[ProgressiveJarhead]

3. Voltaire Said It Best

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
i can't kkep track of their BS anymore.

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. But the fact that NoI tract (if it existed) ...

would have been based in fact, is irrelevant and besides the point being made.

The fact is, 2 of the 4 Presidents memorialized at Mt. Rushmore ...owned Black slaves, and the other two, while abhorring the institution of slavery, clearly held white supremacist views.

Abe Lincoln:

have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/top-5-racist-quotes-by-abraham-lincoln.203268709/

Teddy Roosevelt:

Roosevelt's solution to the race problem in 1905 was to proceed slowly toward social and economic equality. He cautioned against imposing radical changes in government policy and instead suggested a gradual adjustment in the attitudes of whites toward ethnic minorities. He referred to white Americans as the forward race, whose responsibility it was to raise the status of minorities through training the backward race[s] in industrial efficiency, political capacity and domestic morality. Thus, he claimed whites bore the burden of preserving the high civilization wrought out by its forefathers.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/teddy-roosevelt-discusses-americas-race-problem

[Scalded Nun]

5. They decided it was a winning message because it is...Look at the polls

Beat down public education and you enhance the ignorance. Ignorance begets fear. Fearful people will believe almost anything you tell them. The level of outrageousness does not seem to matter much. If the right pushes a little too far they'll back off a bit, wait a few minutes and try again. Each time pushing a little bit farther. And be sure to keep pointing at the black man in the White House. That stirs the shit up even more.
Go just a little farther north and you can see that the people of Kentucky cannot even distinguish the difference in impact between losing O-Care and keeping a web site.

Lazy and ignorant...What a legacy!

[Dustlawyer]

6. It is not even "supposed to be a News organization." They won an appeal in Florida where

they had lost at trial, the jury awarding a few hundred thousand to the plaintiff's for intentionally lying about them in a story Fox aired. The court of appeals overturned the verdict saying that "Fox News" was "entertainment," and thus not required to tell the truth.
They are a propaganda organization with a license from the F.C.C. to broadcast lies to the general public.
Nothing seems to get to people enough anymore. We are bombarded with new assaults everyday, whether it's NSA spying on everyone, Climate Change, massive BP oil spill ruining the Gulf, corrupt election system and politicians, disappearing middle class, the starving of public education, more wars.... It is so bad people are more likely to throw in the towel than to get off of their ass to fight this crap!