Who can you trust?

Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit it is due. Fox News’ Chris Wallace refused to play the right-wing toady in an interview with Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell last week following the Supreme Court decision on “Obamacare.” McConnell claimed the repealing the law would be the “biggest single improvement” of the health care system; even people who have their doubts about the law know that it addressed issues of cost and coverage that would only get worse in the long-term if nothing was done. We have heard the Republican mantra of “repeal and replace” ad nauseam and still have not heard what exactly they mean by “replace.” Wallace, to his credit, showed impatience with the party line and demanded to know how McConnell intended to achieve universal health care coverage.

It is natural that Republicans seeking to make health care a partisan political issue would prefer to side-step such questions, given the evidence that they would prefer to beat the poor to death than help them. Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott has already come out and said “his” state will refuse $1.9 billion in additional Medicaid funds; currently Florida has a so-called Medicaid “program” that only covers parents with children with a household income of less than $6,500. I mean, who only makes that kind of money even in this economy? “Obamacare” would raise that level to $14,500 and include childless adults—raising the number of eligible people from a few thousand to nearly a million in the state.

McConnell was visibly ruffled by the question, and forgetting that he was talking before a national audience and not to a few henchpersons in some smoke-filled right-wing cloakroom, he said that covering the uninsured was “not an issue.” Again he attempted to sidestep the issue by launching into another attack on the current law. Wallace again interrupted him and demanded he answer the question; McConnell finally mumbled something about “modest” reforms and “step-by-step” measures that would include “easing” rules regarding the sale of insurance from out-of-state. This should be seen as the fraud it is, because insurance rates generally reflect costs within states; as I’ve mentioned before, the “insurance” my company offers does not even cover preventative care costs in the state I reside in, but which is apparently just fine in low-service states like Texas, where the insurance originates from. When asked about whether people with preexisting conditions would be covered under a Republican “plan,” McConnell again sidestepped the issue by claiming that he would support “encouraging”—but not mandating—high-risk pools, presumably in the 18 states that have none. Of course, to offer “encouragement” is not the same as actually doing something. From his expression, it was clear that Wallace was unimpressed by McConnell’s “plan.”

Unfortunately, there are many instances where we can find that the media is not interested in peering behind the façade. I was listening to radio personality Norman Goldman this week, supposedly “fiercely independent” and hosting a program where “justice is served.” I probably agree with 90 percent of his opinions, but like many so-called “progressives” he has his weaknesses, such as when it comes to immigrants, especially of the Hispanic variety. He also is something less than “independent” thinking in regard to the Trayvon Martin case. To his credit he admits he doesn’t know all the facts in what happened the night of the shooting, but that hasn’t stop him from making inferences from the “facts” that have been selectively released by the media.

For example, on July 3 he insinuated that there was “breaking news” on George Zimmerman of a particularly harmful kind to his case. The revelation was that a story that originated in the Miami Herald reported that a medical examination a day after the shooting revealed that the cuts on Zimmerman’s head did not require stitches, and that Zimmerman had refused further treatment. This was “evidence” that Zimmerman was not injured at all, or not very much; Goldman also conspiratorially noted that he didn’t “see” any blood in that police video. If Goldman had done his homework, he would have discovered that Zimmerman’s wounds had been cleaned by paramedics at the scene. As an aside he also mentioned that Martin was only “visiting” his father.

Just to get one thing out of the way, Martin was not merely “visiting” his father; he had been kicked-out of his mother’s house after just receiving his third suspension from school. What kind of life he had been living since he was a “young child” may not be “relevant” in the media’s version of the narrative, but it might explain his easy resort to violence. But in regard to the medical reports, again it is being subject to far too much selectivity and “interpretation” by certain segments of the media when people should be allowed to make their own determinations based on a straightforward reading of all the facts. According to the Herald story

“The day after he killed Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman went to the doctor with a broken nose, black eyes and two cuts on his head, but the physician determined he didn’t suffer any head trauma, newly released medical records show…The doctor said Zimmerman had two cuts on his head that did not require stitches because they were already healing. His nose was fractured and hurt, and he suffered joint pain likely because of the assault, the doctor said. ‘We discussed that it is likely broken, but does not appear to have septal deviation,’ the doctor wrote. ‘The swelling and black eyes are typical of this injury. I recommended that he be evaluated by ENT but he refused.’” Zimmerman has already stated that he refused further treatment because he couldn’t afford it, which is a complaint that shouldn’t be unfamiliar to millions of people in this country. Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, presented the medical report not to impeach Zimmerman, as the most of the media is doing, but to bolster his version of events. According to the Herald story, at the second bail hearing O’Mara “argued in court last week that it’s unfair to keep Zimmerman in jail for up to a year for a case he may never be convicted of.”

As a “progressive,” Goldman may be “forgiven” for looking at issues from a certain political ideological perspective. He means “well.” Let’s take a look at another case. I saw an online “public service” advertisement that featured some well-known football players chastising male viewers not to hit their spouses or girlfriends; you’d get the idea that all men do this all the time. I can only “guess” what women who watch this think; obviously many relish the idea of being seen as “victims” or making men feel bad about themselves. While no one in their right mind (unless your name is Sean Connery) thinks it is “OK” to hit a female, I still view this as disingenuous propaganda that exacerbates, rather than diminishes, a problem. Given the CDC report on intimate partner violence which should have exposed the problem of female-perpetrated violence, what is inferred is that men should “take it like a man” whatever women dish out, since females are the “weaker” sex (I frankly wish they would make up their minds what they are).

Thus if a woman clobbers you on the head with a frying pan or stabs you in the belly with a bread knife, you should just accept this behavior as a desire to get attention for some nebulous issues that you don’t understand the logic of. I remember watching an odd little black comedy from 1999 called “Flypaper,” in which a character (played by John C. McGinley, who portrayed Dr. Cox on the long-running TV comedy “Scrubs”), is the victim of a set-up by his fiancé, who decides to test his fidelity by paying a private detective and his comely “assistant” to tempt him. After being handcuffed to a bed post, he escapes only to be accidentally shot in the leg by kidnappers who are firing at their escaping victim. He winds up in an ambulance which he also suspects is part of the set-up; in an attempt to escape, the medic tries to restrain him by grabbing his ear, which is ripped it off as he falls out of the ambulance.

Limping to his fiancé’s home to confront her, she demands to know if he really loves her. The following conversation ensues:

“Laura, sweetheart, being with you is like being shot out of a circus cannon every day, without a net, into a pool of cactus. It literally is like eating nails, honey. It is like drinking gasoline. That’s what it’s like.”

“You do care. You do care, Joe.”

However, there are other cases where we read a story that seems to have a political agenda, yet we are expected to believe that the reporter is writing objectively. I seem to recall that I was told in my journalism classes that newspaper reporters have to report both sides of a story, stick to the facts, and refrain from exposing their biases too plainly. Recently there was a story in the Seattle Times concerning police who were offering shelter to prostitutes; all prostitutes were, to a person, “victims” of society and violent pimps. As someone who is interested in facts and not propaganda, I did some research and uncovered that American Psychological Association report which I noted in my “human trafficking” post. I decided to send an email to the reporter which including the report’s conclusion that only 7 percent of prostitutes actually operated under pimps, and which questioned many of the myths that seemed to be taken for granted by the media:

"In sum, prostitution takes diverse forms and exists under varying conditions, a complexity that contradicts popular myths and sweeping generalizations. Plenty of evidence challenges the notion that prostitutes, across the board, are coerced into the sex trade, lead lives of misery, experience high levels of victimization, and want to be rescued. These patterns characterize one segment of the sex trade, but they are not the defining features of prostitution. Sex workers differ markedly in their autonomy, work experiences, job satisfaction, and self-esteem. It’s time to replace the oppression model with a polymorphous model—a perspective that recognizes multiple structural and experiential realities." I also pointed out that women across the racial spectrum have lower unemployment rates than their male counterparts, and the community services section of the telephone book has pages and pages of assistance for women with “issues,” while there are virtually none for men. Furthermore, there are millions of people in this country, both men and women, who are in unfortunate economic circumstances and yet are not resorting to “selling” themselves on streets.

How did she react?

“Sounds to me like you’re trying to justify something, like say, male sexual entitlement. Ah yes, the happy hooker defense. Well, in the years I’ve been covering stories such as this one, I haven’t met any of those women. Perhaps you think it’s OK for some nasty 60-year-old man to have sex with a 14-year-old girl but I call it child rape. And the girls I’ve talked to don’t think very highly of the “jugs” – why do you think so many of them have to be stoned out of their minds? If you really believe a young girl dreams of fucking random men six days a week and turning over her money to a brute who blows it all on dope and video games, I’d say you’re delusional. This isn’t a “choice” – they get sucked into a brutal world and then have a very hard time getting out. If you can’t get your head around the twisted power dynamics of a 40-year-old man wooing a teenager and turning her out, well, there’s not much I can say to convince you these guys have radar-like abilities to hone in on the vulnerable and insecure. Btw, women aren’t a racial group. As for finding “legitimate work,” women are still paid a heck of a lot less than men in this country, if you haven’t heard. What about the pimps finding legitimate work instead of sponging off misery? A girl can have $300 in her pocket, but she won’t buy a 99 cent burrito without her pimp’s say so because if she does, she knows she’ll get a beat down. Nothing political about that. It’s what happens. I suppose in your world, misogyny doesn’t exist. Must be so nice for you.”

Sounds like someone with a political agenda, not an “objective” reporter. I admit that there are plenty of anecdotes to point to that over the many years appear to add-up to something significant, but there is also something to be said for perspective—and this particular reporter is totally lacking in this. The wage differentiation issue is a non-starter, and there are many factors at play besides perceived discrimination—especially since women dominate the low-wage service sector which has largely replaced the high-wage manufacturing sector that men once dominated; the fact that the wage differentiation has continued to narrow on its own indicates that it is only a matter of time when most men will have little available to them but low-wage jobs—if they can get them. Frankly, if I made 77 percent of what the person who sits on her fundament in OPs making my life hell every day is, I’d forgive all. In any case, this reporter has a personal agenda that shuns facts that don’t drive her narrative on its narrow path, and I know now that whenever I see her byline, I know this is a story whose objectivity I must question.

If you can’t trust your local newspaper to tell you the truth—well, I didn’t say that I ever did.