The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1466814
C-6 Wednesday, May 4, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg 'The New York Times,' left-wing propaganda machine The New York Times demonstrates why Gallup polling late last year showed only 36 percent of Americans saying they trust media a "great deal" or "fair" amount. Times reporters have brought fire to the feet of House Minority Lead- er Kevin McCarthy, reporting on a re- cording of private remarks that McCa- rthy made to other Republicans in the days following the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol. In those remarks, as reported by the Times, McCarthy was critical of President Donald Trump, telling Re- publican colleagues that he believed Democrats had votes to impeach him, in which case, "It would be my recom- mendation that he resign." The Times produced the recording after a McCarthy spokesperson denied that his boss said "he'd call Trump to say he should resign." Taking words out of context to achieve something other than captur- ing truth is what, unfortunately, de- fines much of our left-wing union me- dia today, particularly The New York Times. I wrote in my own column then that, considering the circumstances of what appeared to be certain impeachment, Trump should consider resigning. I called it a "Masada moment," refer- ring to the band of Jews 2,000 years ago, trapped on a mountaintop by Ro- man troops, who decided to take their own lives rather than being captured by the enemy. My advice, and it appears what Mc- Carthy had in mind then, was that a Trump resignation with only 10 days left in his presidency would deprive Democrats of the political objectives they hoped to achieve with impeach- ment. The point was to minimize political costs, not repudiate Trump. If anyone doubts that The New York Times is about a political agenda rath- er than delivering truth, they should compare how the Times has covered the McCarthy affair to the story about Hunter Biden's laptop. The Times reporters get big head- lines in their breathless delivery of the McCarthy story, which is included in an upcoming book they are publishing. In contrast, the Times reported on March 16, 2022, confirmation of the authenticity of Hunter Biden's emails, showing his extensive business deal- ings trading on the position of his vice president father. This a mere year and a half after the New York Post broke the story in October 2020. Can anyone doubt that The New York Times, along with left-wing social me- dia brethren, withheld this blockbust- er story a month before the presiden- tial election? And can any thinking person not appreciate that this alone could have made all the difference in the ra- zor-thin margins that delivered the election victory to Joe Biden? Now the New York Post has just dropped another bombshell. A fter reviewing White House visitor logs, the Post reports "Hunter Biden's closest business partner made at least 19 visits to the White House and oth- er official locations between 2009 and 2015, including a sitdown with then- Vice President Joe Biden in the West Wing." It appears that President Biden, who has said, "I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business deal- ings," may have lied. Is this a big story? I think so. As the Times plays this down, it in- sults our intelligence, focusing on Mc- Carthy and diminishing the truth that what someone speculates about in pri- vate — particularly an influential polit- ical player — may diverge from what they decide to say publicly. When President Ronald Reagan proclaimed his 11th commandment — "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican" — surely, he was talking about what is said in public. Reagan understood the critical importance of party unity. Under Trump's leadership, our econ- omy was growing at a pace not seen in years. Black and Hispanic unemploy- ment rates reached all-time lows. A his- toric peace between Arab nations and Wikipedia bias I love Wikipedia. I donated thou- sands of dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation. Before Wikipedia, all we had were printed encyclopedias — out of date by the time we bought them. Then libertarian Jimmy Wales came up with a web-based, crowd-sourced encyclopedia. Crowd-sourced? A Britannica editor called Wikipedia "a public restroom." But Wales won the battle. Britannica's encyclopedias are no longer printed. Congratulations to Wales. But recently I learned that Wikipe- dia co-founder Larry Sanger now says Wikipedia's political pages have turned into leftist "propaganda." That's upsetting. Leftists took over the editing? Sadly, yes. I checked it out. All editing is done by volunteers. Wales hoped there would be enough diverse political persuasions that bias- es would be countered by others. But that's not what's happening. Leftists just like to write. Conservatives build things: compa- nies, homes, farms. You see the pattern comparing political donations from dif- ferent professions: Surgeons, oil workers, truck drivers, loggers and pilots lean right. Artists, bartenders, librarians, re- porters and teachers lean left. Conservatives don't have as much time to tweet or argue on the web. Leftists do. And they love doing it. This helps them take over the media, univer- sities and, now, Wikipedia. Jonathan Weiss is what Wikipedia calls a "Top 100" Wikipedian because he's made almost half a million edits. He says he's noticed new bias. "Wikipe- dia does a great job on things like sci- ence and sports, but you see a lot of po- litical bias come into play when you're talking current events." Weiss is no conservative. In pres- idential races, he voted for Al Gore, Ralph Nader and Barack Obama. Nev- er for a Republican. "I've really never identified strongly with either political party," he says. Maybe that's why he notices the new Wikipedia bias. "People on the left far outweigh peo- ple on the center and the right...a lot (are) openly socialist and Marxist." Some even post pictures of Che Gue- vara and Lenin on their own profiles. These are the people who decide which news sources Wikipedia writers may cite. Wikipedia's approved "Reli- able sources" page rejects political re- porting from Fox but calls CNN and MSNBC "reliable." Good conservative outlets like The Federalist, The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire are all deemed "unreliable." Same with the New York Post (That's probably why Wikipedia called Hunt- er Biden's emails a conspiracy theory even after other liberal media finally acknowledged that they were real). While it excludes Fox, Wikipedia ap- proves even hard left media like Vox, Slate, The Nation, Mother Jones and Jacobin, a (SET ITAL)socialist(END ITAL) publication. Until recently, Wikipedia's "social- ism" and "communism" pages made (SET ITAL)no(END ITAL) mention of the millions of people killed by so- cialism and communism. Even now, deaths are "deep in the article," says Weiss, "treated as an arcane academ- ic debate. But we're talking about mass murder! " The communism page even adds that we cannot ignore the "lives saved by communist modernization" ! This is nuts. Look up "concentration and intern- ment camps" and you'll find, along with the Holocaust, "Mexico-United States border," and under that, "Trump ad- ministration family separation policy." What? Former President Donald Trump's border controls, no matter how harsh, are very different from the Nazi's mass murder. Wikipedia does say "anyone can ed- it." So I made a small addition for po- litical balance, mentioning that Presi- dent Barack Obama built those cages. My edit was taken down. I wrote Wikipedia founder Wales to say that if his creation now uses on- ly progressive sources, I would no lon- ger donate. He replied, "I totally respect the de- cision not to give us more money. I'm such a fan and have great respect for you and your work." But then he said it is "just 100 % false ... that 'only glo- balist, progressive mainstream sourc- es' are permitted." You've probably heard of the high-flying Big Tech FA ANG stocks — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Net- flix and Google. Among the five of them, their market cap reached $ 6 trillion last year, which is more than the GDP of all but a small handful of entire countries. Moreover, their net worth is larger than the entire annu- al output of India, with more than 1 billion people. These companies got so big and profitable so fast that politicians on the left, right and center started ac- cusing them of monopolistic behav- ior. "Break them up! " shouted Demo- cratic Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar. Some Republicans, such as Josh Hawley, endorsed the same strategy. But has anyone noticed what has happened to the stock values of these once-invincible powerhouses? Netflix's stock has gotten crushed of late. Just flattened. Its share price collapsed by 35% in one day. This was one of the most significant single-day sell-offs in the history of stocks. For now, the rout doesn't seem to be waning. Over the past year, Netflix's market cap has tumbled from $267 billion to close to $ 96 billion. Sorry if you own this stock. And most pension funds do own Netflix as part of their portfolios, so it wasn't just millionaires who got hurt. The Netflix brass blames its de- mise of late on "fierce competition" for subscribers. Meanwhile, Facebook has suf- fered even more considerable loss- es that exceed one-half a trillion dol- lars. That's not supposed to happen to monopolies that crush the compe- tition. Instead, the hunters have be- come the hunted. Face- book is confronting se- rious competition from other social media plat- forms such as LinkedIn and China's TikTok, which are elbowing out Facebook's dominance. What are we to make of all this jostling to be king of the mountain in the digital domain? I carry no water for Big Tech, and I'm as frustrated with the free speech infringements against con- servatives as anyone. But cries of "monopoly" are so early 20th cen- tury. Just as no one worries about Standard Oil, Microsoft or General Motors taking over their industries, we see the same cutthroat survival tactics in the hypercompetitive tech sector. This kind of competition is great news for the consumer. It low- ers prices and makes a mockery of the "monopoly" rants. Companies such as Google bet- ter look over their shoulders. If you slip up, the marauders are coming to steal away your market share. Some- times, the raiders aren't even Amer- ican companies. Globalization and free trade have dramatically low- ered the prices of nearly all digital products. That is as it should be in a free-mar- ket capitalist world. One day, you are on top of the world and seemingly in an impenetrable fortress, and the next, you lose half your market cap. We don't need trust-buster regu- lators in Washington, like the left- ist Lina Khan of the Federal Trade Commission, policing our business- es. The market is doing that just fine, thank you. America has gained tech dominance over our rivals, especially China, Japan and Europe, be- cause we have allowed the digital economy to re- main mostly tax- and reg- ulation-free. It's the Wild West in Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas, which cre- ated the trillions in wealth in the first place. The high-tech industry has added value and wealth at a blis- tering pace, and how sad is it that when our American ingenuity and in- ventiveness succeed, the trust-bust- ers want to tear it down? Then, when these tech giants start to surrender their competitive advantage, the fool politicians want to give them billions of dollars of corporate welfare hand- outs from taxpayers. The late and great Austrian econ- omist Joseph Schumpeter called the process of inventing new products to challenge the extant corporate pow- er structures in business "creative destruction." The Netflix and Face- book sell-off is a jolting reminder that the market is a better way than government to keep companies hon- est and on top of their game. It also keeps prices low. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Re- lentless Growth of Government Is De- vouring Our Economy." Across America, states have gone on the offensive, targeting the radi- cal sex and "gender" curriculums in grade schools. These proposals follow increasing calls from parents to reject sexually explicit content unearthed in public school classrooms. The Parental Rights in Education law, recently signed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, sparked heated conver- sations throughout the nation regard- ing sex education and "gender ideolo- gy." The Florida law addresses teacher conduct and material allowed in class- rooms. It also postpones any teaching of sexual orientation and "gender iden- tity" until after third grade. Other states, such as Alabama, have followed suit, addressing not just edu- cation, but the medical field as well. Thus far, schools and school boards have been the primary target of paren- tal push back against radical gender ideology. However, the issue goes be- yond one's local public school district. The organizations that supply the cur- riculum and teacher training materi- als are just as important to examine. One such organization is the Sexu- ality Information and Education Coun- cil of the United States. This organiza- tion is a nonprofit devoted to sexual ed- ucation advocacy. Along with tracking current and fu- ture legislation nationwide, the group publishes guidelines for grade school children and young adults. It partners with groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Advocates for Youth, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America to promote model legislation on "comprehensive sex education." Since its beginning in 1964, the Sexuality Information and Educa- tion Council of the United States and its partners have been successful ad- vocates for their cause. Through activism and po- litical pressure, they have gained heavy influence in curriculum and govern- ment. They have advo- cated "gender-affirming" programs. They have also pushed opt-out bills as op- posed to opt-in bills. That means parents must take their children out of a con- troversial class rather than place them in it. Parents are worried that this agenda not only exposes children to inappro- priate content at early ages, but it also promotes lifestyles that are contrary to many parents' values. But these ac- tivist groups have no intention of los- ing the ground that they have gained. They have denounced recent state proposals such as Florida's. Take Eva Goldfarb and Lisa Lieberman, profes- sors of public health at Montclair State University. In an online meeting, they suggested that the earlier in a child's life that sex and gender topics are in- troduced into the curriculum, the bet- ter. In the same meeting, they encour- aged the promotion of sexual topics in other subjects. "The fact that top- ics falling within sex education can be addressed successfully across the cur- riculum," they said, "is encouraging." And in the 2022 Legislative Look- Ahead, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States condemns parental rights bills as "in- sidious," promising to increase efforts to fight such proposals. Parents have been primarily tak- ing on the public school system. How- ever, to address the radical sexual orienta- tion and gender identi- ty agenda and other un- settling content, parents and concerned citizens should push for parental bills of rights. In a recent report, Heritage Foundation ex- perts Jonathan Butcher and Lindsey Burke lay out what an ideal proposal would look like. They begin with changing the way schools view students in their care. According to the report, a par- ent bill of rights must affirm parents as the child's primary caregivers. Parents are the ones "primarily re- sponsible for their children's educa- tion and health, as well as their mor- al and religious upbringing." Students must also be protected from compelled speech and parents must have the fi- nal say regarding health and counsel- ing services that are provided to their child. To directly address the curriculum developers, lawmakers and parents should push for transparency in the classroom. This transparency should not only include specifics about the curriculum, but who is providing the school with it. Parents have a right to know what is being taught to their children, and should have easy access to class syl- labi, textbooks, homework, and read- ing materials. A school should make this easily accessible on its website and Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Another high-tech titan falters Heritage Viewpoint By John Schoof Parents are going on offensive to fight indoctrination in education See MACHINE on page 7 See EDUCATION on page 7 See WIKIPEDIA on page 7