JS: Communism is OK, but U.S.-style open government is just plain rude

September 18, 2005
By Billy Dennis

A member of the award-winning (snicker) editorial board vomited up this anonymous attack on Gary Sandberg today:


“I know some of you want to go to dinner with the Chinese communist delegates, but I think this is more important than that,” Sandberg sneered. The councilman could learn something about being a gracious host.

How sad that the people who run Peoria’s only daily newspaper are more worried about offending scumbag dictators (I wonder how many folks Benxi’s party bosses have send away to labor camps or even execution) looking to make a buck off of “free trade” with gullible Americans than they are with making sure that the issues receive a full and vigorous debate in full view of the public.

And if the author of this hatchet job had bothered to check with the JS’s own reporter, they would have learned that the delegation of communists had left the chamber long before this debate took place. But then if the editorial board was concerned about facts and fairness, it would be the laughing stock that it is.

I long for the days when the Journal Star was actually editorially opposed to Communism.

journal star,peoria,editorial board,benxi,china,sister city,gary sandberg,communists

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12 Responses to “ JS: Communism is OK, but U.S.-style open government is just plain rude ”

  1. richie rich on September 18, 2005 at 11:55 am

    it’s not anonymous. It’s an editorial by the three people at the top of the column. Figured you with all your journalistic knowledge knew that.

  2. Bill Dennis on September 18, 2005 at 12:39 pm

    ONE person wrote that “casual comment.” And there is no guarantee that it came froma ny of the people people whose names you didn’t mention.

    There is no reason whatsoever for unsigned editorials in a newspaper owned bny an absentee corporation. Are we to think that the entire Copley Press organization shares that POV. Back when newspapers were owned by a single person or family, unsigned editorials served a purposes, because we all know whose opinions were being expresses, albeit by proxy. All an unsigned editoral does these days it protect the writer from being help responsbile for his or her comments.

  3. Daniel P. Hummels on September 19, 2005 at 10:01 pm

    You and Gary both have a problem with name-calling. Go back to college, and take a rhetoric class. While you’re at it take a grammar and spelling class, because your last post was awful. (And you call yourself a writer, tisk tisk.)

  4. Bill Dennis on September 19, 2005 at 10:49 pm

    Using the word “communist” isn’t name calling. These people are officials of the Communist Party. To them, it isn’t an insult.

  5. Daniel P. Hummels on September 20, 2005 at 10:30 am

    I’m sorry. I meant that he was using a buzzword, and you are using name-calling. (Calling them Godless in your articles is just a way of pushing paranoia, and religious fervor. I posted previous about that I’m not going to say anymore.) My fault. Both of you are still guilty of fallacy, and Gary still needs to take a rhetoric class. You, I don’t care about so much. I just want my councilmen/women to be smarter.

  6. The 'Reverend' Bill Dennis on September 20, 2005 at 12:45 pm

    I guess you are not aware, then, that worshiping God will get you sent to prison in China? Are you not aware that they are stamping out Buddism in Tibet, which China annexed at the point of a gun to “rescue” the people from the monks?

    Again, I wonder about the involvement of these visiting dignitaries are in stanping out religions expression in Benxi.

  7. Daniel P. Hummels on September 20, 2005 at 1:27 pm

    Good point, and your wonder about the dignitaries is justified, but my point is that you could have used the facts of them imprisoning religious people, instead of your observations that they were not praying. It would have been stronger.

  8. The 'Reverend' Bill Dennis on September 20, 2005 at 1:31 pm

    OK … point taken. But the look on their faces was priceless.

  9. Daniel P. Hummels on September 20, 2005 at 1:46 pm

    Hey, man, that sounds like a good enough reason to me.

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