Why did you choose the side you're on?

Yeah, thats pretty much that part of my autobiography there ... <grins>

Not completely. The poor who lost everything started again from scratch. Many of the wealthy who lost everything threw themselves out of buildings.

It is a myth that so many people threw themselves out windows, according to a book on my desk, The Great Depression, by Robert Goldston. But many formerly rich were reduced to scrounging for a living just like the poor. Many persons were not hurt so badly that they couldn't still make a living. They were the cement that held the nation together until times changed.

I have always noticed the political bias in the TV news stations... all of them. I watch as many of them as I can to try and get the true story.

I've studied a lot of history, economics, politics, religion... I've educated myself into a libertarian.

A quick question along those lines to L.R.R. Hood (and anyone else who wishes to respond):

Do you think you can get a good grasp on what the news actually is by watching say: Fox plus CNN or listening to Limbaugh plus NPR? Are dual emphasis shows like Hannity & Combes valuable to get opposite points of view?

I watch and read foxnews, CNN, bbc, Russian TV (since I speak Russian) and local news from TV and papers. Believe me, they rarely tell the same story.

You won't find many conservatives in that cement.

I do like to get opposing points of view, absolutely. But from where I'm standing, CNN would be the medium to give me the Ameri-centric POV - which, to European standards, also has quite a rightwing bias.

I didnt actually know that CNN was considered liberal in America until I got into the thick of these political discussions among Americans, like here. Outside your country, CNN is in fact often seen as the epitome of the Western/American slant - as well as of its global dominance. Thats why its often distrusted, even despised, as a symbol for that.

Still, CNN remains a good medium to catch up with the right here-right now kinda news - "on your screen, as it is happening!" - even if its interminable commercial and announcement breaks (and showbizz and business slots) are a drag. But when the Iraq war broke out, I couldnt watch it for long - it reported on the war as if it were a football game, all rah-rah-rah. I found BBC much more reflective, critical and in-depth.

What bothers me most about America's media, as far as we get them, is their insularity. The BBC is very British too, of course, especially BBC radio also works according to certain paradigms of observing the Other when reporting on far-away countries (reports are often quite exoticized, with the adventurous British reporter braving strange settings to report, always, stories of tragedy and victimhood or mere oddity). But still the BBC, just like European media, also often reports views from people outside, by doing a press review of the day's ME press for example, or inviting experts from other countries.

The Dutch TV did a program, for example, just rebroadcasting and subtitling excerpts from how Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and Al Manar reported the Iraq war, without any comment apart from an introduction to it all - it was fascinating. (Fascinating also to see the variety among them, Al Jazeera almost sounding like CNN in comparison to the sheer Goebbelsian Islamofascism of Al Manar).

Then again, I used to read a lot about Central, Eastern Europe, and there the interesting thing is that the homegrown polarisation between liberals and conservatives, leftwingers and rightwingers, just tends to kinda melt into one big consensus on what is right and wrong when it comes to political developments there. Whether you have people from Labour or left-wing media, or from the Christian-Democrats or right-wing media reporting in Western Europe about Eastern Europe, its always "clear to us all, of course" that Meciar, Iliescu, Milosevic, Kuchma (and Putin, kinda) are bad and their liberal, Western-oriented, free-market, former-dissident, democratic, human-rights-activist opponents are good.

Wilso, dont talk nonsense.

I think everyone needs a diverse input to draw more informed opinions.

I watch BBC maybe every other day, Fox, Judy Woodruff's political show, Capital Gang on Saturdays, PBS once or twice a week, might catch Tom Brokaw once or twice a week, CNN, Crossfire occassionally.

I listen to NPR and religious channels in the car.

I like to read European papers on the net when I can. After a discussion with Craven, I think I'll add Al Jazeera to the mix.

My husband can'tstand CNN or BBC, but I think it is dangerous to only listen to people, who tell you the side you prefer. FOX was important, because as only a conservative can tell you--the overwhelming bias in the news before FOX was left.

An option was needed.

(I get that many think CNN and such are slanted right. Take it from the right--they're pro-Democrat.)

I believe that with all my heart. Conservatism to me represents greed, selfishness and lack of strength of character.

Wilso, can you share your experience and background that leads you to believe that liberals are good and that conservatism reprsents greed, selfishness and lack of strength of character?

Perhaps many think the Democrats are pretty right-wing - or, to be more fair, merely centrist - compared in a global context!

My journey to the leftish is sort of hilarious.

I was a wee kiddy, and brought up in a very (father) conservative home. Like - unions the devil's spawn - Labor Party (social democrats) evil incarnate - all that stuff.

I actually believed that people in "communist" countries would go around sobbing and weighed down with almost visible chains and so on.

Anyways, I liked the Russian chappy in The Man From Uncle - and became interested in Russian history and culture - being a reading sort of child, I started reading up on it - then on socialism and communism - and unions and the history of political groupings and such.

The local librarian was surprised to see such a wee atom borrowing political books, with her kiddy lit.

Anyway, that got me interested in Australia's politics - which were 'orrid at the time. We had a smug conservative party that had been in for years.

We had a society that was full of entrenched racism, sexism, parochialism, stupid unthinking conviction of western superiority, and Australian pride - combined with a horrible cultural cringe - and staggering complacency.

Then the American Civil Rights movement alerted me to the condition of the more or less (then) hidden Aboriginal community - and things sort went from there.

I prolly knew more, formally, about political idelogy at 13 than I do now!!! I have forgotten most of it - but I am still firmly allied to the ideas that I forged over the next few years...though I change constantly.

Hehheh ... I can just imagine.

In primary school, we had to make "werkstukken" - papers, like. You were expected to make drawings or add clippings and stuff too. I remember making one about guinea pigs, and my mom drawing beautiful pictures of our guinepig for it <grin>.

Anyway, so one time - I was, like, 11 - I wrote my "werkstuk" about Nicaragua, ahem. Asked the embassy for information and everything. So here I turned in a paper all about the revolution that had brought freedom to the people, and how the American neo-imperialists financed the contras who were killing poor peasants just when thanks to the Sandinists they were getting an honest wage for their work ...

I got an A for it, but with a note to me and my parents from the teacher, strongly suggesting that next time, I write my paper all by myself. The truly pathetic thing about it was - this time I had written it all by myself!

LOL! That used to happen to me sometimes!

Me too.

I think CNN is less liberal, i.e. anti-GOP, now than it was a few years ago, mostly because competition from Fox News has pulled it right. It remains a bit left of center however. CNN of course is more of an international news source than Fox and serves an important service that way, but its bread and butter is from American advertising. Fox has been beating CNN in the ratings at home by 2 to 1 in most cases and usually beats the network news by double digits.

I think Fox is branded conservative by the left because it does feature commentators who openly support President Bush and/or the conservative side of issues while CNN generally does not. CNN will stick a lone conservative on a panel and did (does?)have one program that was patterned similarly to Hannity and Combes, but overall it is more liberal than conservative.

Fox does consistently present the opposing point of view and doesn't get much credit for that from its critics. Greta VanSustern (sp), Fox's legal guru, has never been a fan of Bush or the GOP, and Geraldo Rivera, one of Fox's featured reporters frequently used his former TV show to bash and smear the GOP and the former President Bush.

Since Fox came along, I hear a lot less griping about the liberal media. I think this is because conservatives now have a television news source they trust to be fair and balanced that they did not have before. The liberals still have CNN, ABC, CBS, ABC, and all the other cable news sources that virtually every credible media watch group have determined to lean left.

Which brings me to the next question here. Do you get angry if you watch Fox news? Or if you watch CNN? Why?

I have never watched a single Fox news broadcast. Before I even knew it to be conservative I felt leery of it.

But why edgar? And I am not characterizing your comment here at all, but you reminded me of another point.

Do we automatically accept or reject one source or another out of knowledge of content? Or due to prejudices that we already hold?