IF FOX SAYS, "IT´S SO", IT PROBABLY ISN´T

FOX starts a political fire-storm, and then blames President Obama……….typical for FOX!

...Ms. Shirley Sherrod, the subject of FOX´s sadistic attacks.

One would have thought that after the debacle of the fake ACORN video that the FOX Network ran over and over again for more than a month, that event alone should have been a reason for others to look before they leaped at a future FOX political come-on.

Oh, you remember, the highly edited and staged video episode that claimed that ACORN was advising a pimp and his prostitute on how to set up a local prostitution business. Even though the video was proven to be a staged effort by a far-right activist "wing-nut", the final affect was the total destruction of ACORN, the long-time national voter registration organization. Of course, the loss of a national voter registration organization made the far right very happy.

After that FOX ruse was exposed, I would have hoped that the White House and other government organizations would have done some serious investigation of any new "potential ruse". Especially, before they would go to the extent of forcing the resignation of a long time fighter for those American farmers dealing with the current down economy. But no, they once again got snookered by FOX and over reacted.

This time, a bogus video was posted on the web site of conservative activist Andrew Breitbart. (Yes,the same "Breitbart" that had first posted the fake ACORN pimp-prostitute videos.) Breitbart did this as a counterattack on the NAACP, which had passed a resolution last week accusing the "tea party" movement of having "racist elements." Of course, without their own investigation, FOX immediately grabbed Breitbart´s video and began replaying it on an hourly basis. Then, the key talking heads on FOX, such as Sean Hannity, Bill O´Reilly and even the disgraced prior House Speaker, Knute Gingrich, immediately jumped on it and began demanding that the responsible government official must resign at once.

That individual, a Ms. Shirley Sherrod, a black woman appointed last July as the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Georgia state Director of Rural Development, was subsequently forced to resign immediately after the video of her surfaced.

The Breitbart/FOX video´s content was of Sherrod´s March 27th appearance and speech at an NAACP banquet. In the edited video, she describes an episode in which, while working at a nonprofit organization 24 years ago, she did not help a white farmer as much as she could have. Instead, she said, she sent him to one of "his own kind."

Yes, the modified video showed her saying exactly that!

The reality is that someone had take the statements totally out of context from Sherrod´s 45 minute speech. (Breitbart says that the video was modified before he received it. But, he´s now backing away from that statement.)

What was left out of the video was of her stating what she had learned by her helping (for the 1st time) a "white" farmer and his wife that were going to lose their farm. She had learned that the issues she was helping with were not due to "race". The issue were those of the poor, regardless of their race. Instead, she said, the issues were due to those divides between the "haves" and the "have not´s". Actually, that was the overall theme of her NAACP speech.

Even the now elderly "white couple" she had helped, (which were the subjects of her speech), have now been videoed and broadcast by multiple networks. They have come to her defense and they stated that she worked with them for over 2 years. Not only did they get to keep their farm, they and Ms. Sherrod have remained good friends for over 20 years.

Just as it was with the Great Depression, it is obvious that the Republican´s caused 99% of the past US economic and market disasters. They have also supported expensive and useless foreign wars and they have no ideas for fixing the nation´s problems. But with a current "black" Democratic US president, the GOP has apparently decided, "Why not use the Senate to stall any positive Congressional actions, while we make it a race issue for deflecting all the blame.?

The GOP´s idea appears to be to divide the country on racial issues, stall the economy for the next three months, and then blame the party-in-power just before the November elections.

This is one of the main reasons for the GOP Senators stopping the Unemployment Insurance payments 4 times in-a-row. They know that the fastest way to help jump-start the economy is to give those without money, money (unemployment checks) that will be spent immediately. They also know that the overall return on investment (ROI) for the economy is about $1.75 for every $1.00 paid out in unemployment insurance payments.

The initial sensitivity to Sherrod's comments (from the modified Breitbart/FOX video), particularly in an agriculture agency that has a history of discrimination against minority farmers, was evidenced by the dispatch with which Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ordered Sherrod to resign. Once it was determined that the video have been severely modified against the truth, the White House contacted Secretary Vilsack and he subsequently issued a statement that he had apologized to Ms. Sherrod and was "reconsidering withdrawing Sherrod´s resignation".

Due to this, even FOX is trying to back-peddle their earlier position. They are now blaming President Obama for jumping the gun at having Ms. Sherrod forced to resign so quickly. (Only FOX would have the Cojones to try a stunt like this.)



My question is, what is next? Which issue will FOX grab and spread their vile and modified version of the truth on a 24/7 basis?

I guess only the future knows for sure.

Copyright G.Ater 2010

Follow me on Twitter: gater01