Recently a controversy arose regarding whether certain activities should be conducted on land that many consider "sacred ground." What is disturbing about this issue is nobody asked very important questions regarding those activities.
Nobody seemed to question the right of those who want to conduct those activities to do so. Many may believe they gave up that right when espousing radical views and associating with others who are not only divisive, but may seek to do our citizens and our nation harm.
And even if the Constitution guaranteed the right to conduct these activities, nobody asked whether conducting these activities is appropriate. Again, this is sacred ground we are talking about, and perhaps those seeking to conduct those activities should be more sensitive to the wounds caused by people who might hold similar views to those who want to conduct certain activities on sacred grounds.
Now you may be saying, "what are you talking about? These questions have been raised in every broadcast, print and electronic news medium in this country over and over and over again the past few weeks. This issue is the epitome of flogging the deceased equine." And that leads me into the real point of this diary.
I am not talking about the remodeling of a Burlington Coat Factory. The sacred ground I speak of is not the site of terrorist attacks. I am speaking about the Glenn Beck rally. The sacred ground I speak of is the Lincoln Mall on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s "I have a Dream" speech.
Let me interject for clarity. Glenn Beck has every right to stage his rally. Whether it is appropriate or not need not be asked. The first question is all anyone needs to know, and all anyone should care about. It is always appropriate to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. But the point here is not rights or appropriateness. The point is to illustrate the absurdity of the continued claim that the traditional media is liberal.
When conservatives in this country want to create a controversy, the traditional media is all to willing to ask the very questions they want asked and to give a forum to mouthpieces offering the most extreme conservative points of view. In fact, they do so over and over and over again. When a parallel controversy is created by the actions of conservatives in this country, the traditional media forget all about the very questions they are still asking at the behest of conservatives.
If the traditional media in this country is truly liberal, would we not hear an endless debate about his right to hold this rally at the top of every cable and network newscast? If the traditional media in this country is truly liberal, would that not be followed by an endless discussion of the appropriateness of Glenn Beck’s rally at the top of every OpEd?
Conservatives views in this country predominate in the traditional media. Not only do conservatives manage to thrust the stories they want into the headlines, the traditional media allows them to frame the issues in a way that serves the conservative argument, and the traditional media consistently gives airtime and print space to fringe conservative voices while calling centrist viewpoints ‘liberal.’ On the rare occasion they actually do question those conservative viewpoints, it is generally is done ineffectually and only in passing.
The traditional media’s failure to call the Burlington Coat Factory controversy what it is, religious bigotry, makes this point all too clear. Their failure to draw the parallels between it and the Glenn Beck rally should end the ‘liberal media’ nonsense and amply illustrate the traditional media’s obvious conservative bias.