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Media seek to disparage America

Tuesday, February 27 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Michael Trimble, Littleton

A recent column by Rocky Mountain News publisher John Temple described his observations that anti-American opinions are rampant in Canada (’Even Americans’ can see the bias,” 2/17/07). Can this possibly be a surprise to anyone who gives even a passing glance to political climate in this country? Consider what people in other countries hear Americans say about other Americans in our own media.

“There seems to be no moral bottom to what some members of congress will do.” (Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the District-based Children’s Defense Fund, quoted in The Washington Times, 11/11/05, suggesting that some members of congress wanted to cut back on federal school lunch subsidies in order to give their rich constituents more tax breaks.) “George Bush has declared war on the environment.” (Bill Press, Bush declares war on environment, CNN.com, 3/3/01, March 23, 2001, stating that any action by the current administration to role-back Clinton’s last minute environmental decisions before he left office is due to Bush’s acquiescence to mining companies, timber companies, and big business in general.) “Vice President Cheney’s advocacy of water boarding sets a new human rights low at a time when human rights is already scraping the bottom of the Bush administration barrel.” (Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, quoted in an AP story, 10/27/06, regarding Vice -president Dick Cheney and the contention that he supports “water-boarding” prisoners taken in actions against terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq).

These examples didn’t take 5 minutes to find, and they are by no means extraordinary. Other examples? Here’s a few that popped up with a simple Internet search, paraphrased for brevity: If anyone opposes gay marriage, it can only be due to hatred of gay people. Anyone who doesn’t like the Kyoto treaty must want to pollute the earth. Believing that welfare should be limited is an attack on women and “the poor.” Opposing affirmative action can only be racism.

Bush didn’t believe the Iraqi dictator might have WMDs, or at least was trying to make them, he merely wanted to kill lots of people- and expand American imperialism while he was at it. Bush had to dupe otherwise brilliant opposition politicians to pull this off. Supporting the war in Iraq is equal to loving war in general. Global-warming is due to the selfishness, laziness and greed of Americans. America supports Israel because “the Jews” run America (though it’s unclear whether America is the puppet of Israel or Israel is the puppet of America). One only finds problems with Darwin’s theory of evolution if the unspoken secret agenda is a desire to force all people world-wide follow Christianity (and this secret desire is, apparently, the direct result of living in a rural area, small town, or trailer-park, or perhaps a prerequisite for living there. People with college educations NEVER find problems with Darwinism). Ronald Reagan was the worst, most greedy, evil and even criminal president in history, and the Reagan economy was the worst economy in history...until W. came along.

The sum of the rhetoric is that Americans can only disagree if one side of the argument is a direct result of the evil nature of, primarily, rich, white, and especially Christian, Americans- which by world standards is the vast majority of our population. Anti-American sentiment? Of course! Who wouldn’t hate people who want to starve, torture, pollute, steal, oppress, exploit, conquer and enslave the rest of the world? And all this before (no-longer federally subsidized) lunch! Not to mention little things like having a high standard of living, the best medical services (and, generally, the money to pay for it), the greatest military, Hollywood, 24-Hour Fitness clubs (and the free time to use them), “happy hour” in bars and taverns, etc., etc., etc... But we still get lots more Canadians moving here than Americans moving north. And people from Africa, Asia, East and West Europe, Mexico, and everywhere in between. People risk their lives to take improvised boats to Florida, or pay their life’s savings to “coyotes” and human smugglers to get here. Apparently because they know we hate them. And you know what’s REALLY hard to believe? Some people- Americans born and raised here- are reading this and nodding their heads, saying, “If the shoe fits...”

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