CNN salivates over FLDS family records
Today, CNN runs the salacious headline “Polygamy roll shows 21 wives for one member”. Pre-pubescent CNN reporter infobabe Susan Roesgen plays the voyeur, digging through private FLDS religious records neither she nor CNN has any moral right to access. In a country that grovels in human detritus like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, nothing is sacred. Everything is fair game for ridicule by the white-trash paparazzi that populate CNN.
Memo to Ms. Roesgen: Just because you can legally root around in somebody else’s private genealogy doesn’t mean that you should. No. This is sick, sensationalized entertainment. Your article ain’t journalism and you are no journalist. Your article serves no informative purpose to anyone in a position to make decisions. It does nothing but entertain and excite prejudice. Americans who believe in any form of freedom and privacy should ignore you and CNN.
The FLDS did not ask to have their lives turned inside out by rogue judges and so-called reporters, but this too fine a distinction for the likes of Roesgen. She begins her screed with what could easily be the thesis sentence for a middle-school social science essay:
In the secretive, illegal world of American polygamy, life has been good to 67-year-old Wendell Loy Nielsen of Eldorado, Texas. By his own account, Nielsen has 21 wives — and 36 children. His oldest wife is 13 years older than he is, and his youngest wife is 43 years younger — she’s just 24. His oldest child is 21 years old, and his youngest is a 6-month-old baby.
“Life has been good”? What does Roesgen know Mr. Nielsen’s life? Is she privy, as well, to the trials and tears of Mr. Nielsen and his family? Why would any decent human being gloat so over the suffering of others, no matter how many wives they have? Does Roesgen have any concept of how much work is required to not only feed and clothe but to love and care for so many family members? Like so many fools before her, Roesgen mocks when she might more wisely admire.
And speaking of many wives, when should we expect to hear Roesgen mouth off about the multiple wives of thousands of Muslim men here in the United States and throughout Africa? Or should we assume that Roesgen, like so many other cowardly “journalists,” attacks only defenseless subjects. These people are down and Roesgen kicks them in the face.
As if with a self-adulatory flourish — “Look at me, guys! See what I discovered!” – Roesgen giggles:
That’s one of the longer, single-family genealogies uncovered in a CNN review of the “Bishop’s List” — a series of documents listing the age, marital status, children and address of the members of the Yearning for Zion polygamist ranch in Eldorado, Texas. . .
The Bishop’s List was found among nearly 1,000 boxes of paperwork taken from the ranch by investigators who are considering child-abuse charges against some of the sect members. . . .
There’s nothing admirable about Roesgen or her article. It was low-hanging fruit. Took next to no effort on her part to ad insult to the injuries already inflicted on Mr. Nielsen and his family. A serious, honorable journalist would make some effort to balance the story. But Roesgen is neither serious nor honorable. She’s with CNN, a brand widely known for its lack of integrity.
6 comments
Thank you Kurt for your fine editorial. From one who knows, it is truthful in every particular. I salute you for your skill and discernment in coming forth with true American journalism.
There is an article in the SL Tribune about the treatment of the children by the social services and it is horrible. Health care workers that were helping claimed that a child was left in a stroller for 24 hours without food or water and had to be put in the hospital. A little 3 year old boy wondered along the cots asking for someone to rock him so he could go to sleep. The social services people followed him along, not helping him, and his 8 year old brother picked him up and rocked him to sleep.
They could care less about the welfare of the children.
You know I’ve just heard a radio personality read part of the article, I’m anxious to read the complete article when I get to work.
Children we have had close contact with, who were wards of a state foster care service for two years before we encountered them, had purportedly been “seen” by dental clinics where there were no dentists, no hygienists. The children had teeth that were rotten to the pulp, several pulpotomies were required to repair the damage, and there were several abscessed teeth between them. One child had lost so many of his permanent molars from the neglect that he had to chew with his front teeth when we were acquainted with him. I saw the dental xrays; so did two dentists of our acquaintance. Both were appalled at the total neglect of their dental care. These are not children we heard about; these are children we know and whose records we have held in our hands.
That was just tangible evidence of the other forms of neglect such children experience in the hands of so-called state social “service” workers. Most of these people are only in the business of self-service, vulgarly known as CYA.
Foster care is the 21st century gulag, an American ghetto inhabited only by forcibly misplaced children. Their cries as they are removed from their own families, or good adoptive families when going back to natural families is not possible, should haunt us night and day until the system is purged. Hitler’s Auschwitz is only one or two steps removed from the hell these children endure.
It is all about the money…
Stop funding it and it will go away.
I am hearing from some of my acquaintances that Texas did the right thing here. I am stunned that anyone could claim to think it is “right” to punish children this way. It is utterly heartless. If crimes occurred, the children did not commit them. Nor did their mothers. When is it ever justified to make an alleged victim suffer for the alleged crimes of another?
J.T., I too cannot believe the reactions I have received from friends when I have expressed my utter dismay at the way these families have been treated. They are shocked that I would support “these evil people”.
I just don’t understand why people don’t see what is really going on. Don’t they have eyes?
The government went in there with NO basis, and they knew it before the first person walked onto that property.
If kids have been abused, that’s terrible, but investigate the families you have a legitimate complaint about. You don’t take out the whole neighborhood.
The sheriff has been in there many, many times over the past years, and he never - not once- observed anything that he could file a report on, anything that was against the law.
There was a doctor that provided medical services there, on-site. He is required to report any suspicions of abuse. So far, I haven’t heard of one. And I’m sure CNN would be all over that.
I have tied black ribbons to my car antenna, and I have my blog. I have sent emails. I have faxed the governor, the president, my senator. I am just at a loss as to what to do now. Pray.
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