Page 6 June 22, 2017 EL SEGUNDO HERALD Politically Speaking One Man’s Opinion Another Man’s Opinion Now is Definitely the Time to Question the Source By Cristian Vasquez Watching any of the Fox News pundits and their conservative guest experts would have you believe that the liberal media is responsible for the nation’s ills. Maybe listening to any conservative a.m. radio jockey is enough to convince you that the liberal media is destroying America’s values. Fortunately, these claims are no more than hollow talking points drafted to reinforce people’s biases, and to convince new people that their biggest fears are real. The truth is the liberal media isn’t destroying American values. If anything, the media in general is failing the public by giving enshrining personal opinions and demonizing facts--and no network does this better than Fox News. The Fox News crowd (probably calling me a libtard, snowflake) is petrified of the influence the liberal media has over our young kids. Yet they fail to acknowledge that this GOP propaganda machine ranks highest in the cable news ratings. Since 2002, the conservative publicity machine has been the most-watched cable news network in the country. The quarterly ratings released in late March reported the network to have drawn an average of 1.72 million total day viewers, far ahead from CNN with 826,000 total day viewers. In addition, this was the 61stconsecutive quarter that Fox News finished in first place among cable news networks. So with this well-run propaganda machine dominating the cable news ratings, how is it that the liberal media threatens our very existence? The argument isn’t that there is no such thing as liberal bias in the media. MSNBC and CNN are very left-leaning. However, their ratings don’t even come close to Fox News. So how is the liberal media destroying the country? It’s not. Fox News has one function: to push the GOP agenda with disregard for truth and facts and anyone that thinks differently is unpatriotic. Remember President Obama’s birth certificate scandal? They loved dragging that one out. How about constantly debating if the former president is a Muslim? As if that is a bad thing. How about that classic “terrorist fist bump” between President Obama and the First Lady? It’s not like the network has a sports branch to know that athletes fist bump all the time. How could they ever know? Maybe Fox News is just scared of Hollywood liberals. You know, celebrities and their unnecessary opinions trying to influence our minds. If only there was a way to avoid Tinseltown. How dare these communist actors drag people to theaters to spend millions of dollars every weekend in support of their socialist agenda? Fox News is so committed to spewing lies about anyone/any agency or corporation that doesn’t move to the beat of the GOP drum that their viewers have been indoctrinated with pathetic talking points used to attack the opposition. There is a liberal media and Hollywood is the belly of the liberal beast, but Fox News dominates the cable news. People will always be more influenced by the daily lies and rhetoric of GOP propaganda pundits and their fearmongering party machine, than by a two-hour film watched last year. • Just Wondering at This Point, “Can We All Just Get Along?” By Duane Plank “Can we all just get along?” That was the question once asked by criminal and victim Rodney King, who drowned in his swimming pool 15 years ago when he was wasted on drugs and alcohol. King’s plight, as you may remember, was at the flashpoint in riots that roiled the City of Angels 25 years ago when he was roughed up by responding policemen after leading officers on a high-speed car chase. At the ensuing trial, none of the four officers involved in the incident were found guilty. Shortly after the verdict was announced, South LA burst into flames, with acts of arson and rampant looting being perpetrated wantonly as police were unable to contain the rioters. LA was a city divided--much as Washington, DC is a city politically fractured today. It doesn’t seem, politically speaking, that anyone wants to get along with anyone on the other side of the aisle. There appeared to be a day or two of bipartisanism in Washington after a gunman who tried to assassinate Congressional members and ended up severely wounding Republican Congressman Steve Scalise was taken down by law enforcement. It is sad that an assassination attempt is apparently needed to bring the warring political factions together, albeit momentarily. Even Senator Nancy Pelosi looked contrite, dialing back her standard partisan verbiage when she spoke the day after the shootings. How did this schism in civility happen? Right wing and left wing loonies, leveraging social media, are everywhere. Resist, disrupt, obstruct is the mantra. The Clinton News Network has made it their mission to get Trump impeached. There are incendiary talking heads, on both sides, vitriolic spinners, collecting a check, trying to incite, as they spew venom. And then they walk away, to show up the next day and appear on another erudite “panel,” allegedly having expertise on whatever they are opining? It goes both ways, media-wise. FOX News has its share of partisan provocateurs. But CNN’s mission, ever since Ms. Clinton failed in a campaign that was darn near impossible to lose, unless you ran a very flawed candidate, has been to get Mr. Trump out of office. They even have a commercial with the tagline, “We know our mission.” Really? Thankfully the rifle-toting Hodgkinson was shot down by the brave folks who responded to his mayhem. Hodgkin’s, by the way, is a disease. Hodgkin’s is a type of lymphoma. So, are we careening down the path to another to another un-Civil War? From most accounts, if Scalise and his security detail had not been there, it could have been a carnage of defenseless Republican civil servants facing a guy with a rifle, defending themselves with baseball bats. Being that this assassination attempt occurred on a baseball field, I leave you with some lyrics from the great musician John Fogerty. “Put me in, Coach, I’m ready to play,” penned Fogerty. He wanted to be inserted into centerfield on the ballfield. Centerfield. Right down the middle of the diamond. We need our elected officials to play it more down the middle, with less pandering to the left or right. • I live alone but I’m never alone. I have Life Alert.® One press of a button sends help fast, 24/7, even when you can’t reach a phone. AS SEEN ON TV Saving a life from a potential catastrophe EVERY 10 MINUTES! For a FREE brochure call: 1-866-591-7844 touch & take off! 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