skippy the bush kangaroo: your left-wing media at work, or, dat ol' man plagarism, he jes' keeps rollin' along...

Saturday, April 01, 2006

your left-wing media at work, or, dat ol' man plagarism, he jes' keeps rollin' along...

we first saw it on faux news tv (the website has a differently worded sentence), then found it on aol.com news:

"school bans american flag," screamed the headlines.

oh, my, now what evil liberal plot is this, we thought, to destroy god, country, mom and especially her apple pie?

we found the conservative voice, out of north carolina, with the story:

colorado school bans us flag

longmont, colorado’s skyline high school has banned the display of the us flag on school property. several students who brought the us flag to school on friday, in protest to the school ban, were suspended.

skyline high school principal tom stumpf said that the us flag intimidated mexican descent students who wanted to display the mexican flag. stumpf commented: “when it involves the american flag and its abuse in vilifying other people, we simply will not tolerate it. they were using the symbol derisively as misguided patriotism."

dustin carlson, one of the suspended students, said on denver’s kcnc-tv: “i'm getting suspended for it [carrying the us flag] and personally i think that's uncalled for. if this country means freedom, then why can't we fly our own flag? it's ridiculous."

yegads! who knew that godless communists had taken over colorado schools, this time in the form of principal stumpf? (wait, wasn't he the guy that ferris bueller kept annoying?)

we can just imagine the throngs of conservative, righteous americans rising up to squelch this tide of liberal anti-americanism infecting our very institutions of learning, post haste!

except, it's not the whole story. it's not even half the story. the asspress (via usatoady) tells us that all flags were banned, because students were using them to pick fights with each other in the anti-immigration fever that the hardly-ever-right has stirred up:

dozens of high school students protested a temporary school policy forbidding students from displaying the u.s. flag — as well as flags from other countries — amid racial tensions following immigration rallies.

skyline high school principal tom stumpf said american flags were brazenly waved in the faces of hispanic students and in one case a mexican flag was thrown into the face of another student.

[ed. note: emphasis ours]

the asspress/usatoady piece then goes on to describe events...events that sound strangely familiar:

"when it involves the american flag and its abuse in vilifying other people, we simply will not tolerate it," stumpf said. "they were using the symbol derisively as misguided patriotism."

students were warned about the policy friday and several were suspended, although stumpf would not provide details. then, about 100 students protested during lunch time.

student dustin carlson told denver station kcnc-tv that he was suspended for two days.

"i'm getting suspended for it and personally i think that's uncalled for," he said. "if this country means freedom, then why can't we fly our own flag? it's ridiculous."

not only is it familiar, those last few paragraphs are taken practically word-for-word from the original asspress piece, without attribution.

the conservative voice simply rewrote the first paragraph, leaving out the inconvenient fact that flags of all countries (mexican flag included) were banned, and that students were intimidating each other with both the us and mexican flags, thus making it seem like principal stumpf was an evil, anti-american demon.

the other news outlets, while not as blatant as the conservative voice, nonetheless twisted and omitted facts to create the story line: godless school tries to stifle patriotism.

who's to blame? we're not sure, but we've got an idea...

bueller? bueller? beuller???

posted by skippy at 2:20 PM |