"TO DESTROY THIS INVISIBLE GOVERNMENT, TO DISSOLVE THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN CORRUPT BUSINESS AND CORRUPT POLITICS IS THE FIRST TASK OF THE STATESMANSHIP OF THE DAY." -- Theodore Roosevelt--
Stewart parodies Beck's paranoid conspiracy charts, Nazi rhetoric
I'm so happy to be able to present this bit. Seeing as I'm in Canada I normally have trouble with videos from Comedy Central, which are geo-blocked. Big thanks to Media Matters for hosting this one on their own servers, and hat/tip to The Gun Toting Liberal, where I found it.
My first internet stops every morning are to Crooks and Liars and Glenn Greenwald. As it happens, both sites were being rather critical of what Station Agent has dubbed the Lamestream Media (abbreviated LaMe) and I would like to call the Lamestream Mediocre, except that most of the time they don't even rise to the level of mediocrity.
Somehow my morning mind (sometimes a little foggy until at least the second cup of strong coffee) had a moment of the utmost clarity. I guess I was thinking, "how does FOX "news" get away with calling themselves fair and balanced, anyway?"
I came up with an answer almost immediately. Got a dictionary handy? Never mind, we can use Merriam Webster's online. Here's the relevant portions of their main entry for the word FAIR (adj.):
1: pleasing to the eye or mind especially because of fresh, charming, or flawless quality
2: superficially pleasing : specious (she trusted his fair promises)
6a: marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism (a very fair person to do business with)
6b (1): conforming with the established rules : allowed (2): consonant with merit or importance : due (a fair share)
6c: open to legitimate pursuit, attack, or ridicule (fair game)
9: not dark (fair skin)
So, quite obviously FOX is implying that they conform to definition 6, but really they mean that they're fair in the sense of definitions 1, 2 and 9. I would say with an emphasis on 2 (and you should really click on the definition of specious if you don't already know it) and 9. And thank Gawd for 6c, though I don't think FOX wanted to imply that definition.
In short, fair and balanced can be taken to mean, "we present you with good-looking, mostly blond newsmodels who at least have the capacity to not fall off of their chairs."
Nor has this escaped those who watch FOX with a rather more critical eye than their target audience do. Media Matters' Simon Malloy did an article on Alternet about the rampant sexism on FOX back in 2006.
A person idly watching Fox News all day, for example, has an excellent chance of glancing at the screen and seeing some partial nudity or a male Fox News personality hitting on a female colleague on the air. Scantily clad women and on-air sexual harassment are the orders of the day over at Fox News Channel.
Take, for instance, Fox News' premier business news program, Your World with Neil Cavuto. Cavuto, Fox News' vice president of business news and the worst James Bond since Timothy Dalton, regularly shows footage of Victoria's Secret runway models and Playboy bunnies -- presumably in the name of business.
Cavuto also has a special obsession with a certain football game played every year in early February: the Lingerie Bowl. Last February, Cavuto interviewed two Lingerie Bowl contenders in their -- ahem -- uniforms. As the News Hounds blog pointed out at the time, this interview was preceded by a one-on-one with Focus on the Family's James C. Dobson, who said that parents must monitor what their children are "looking at because pornography is everywhere, as you [Cavuto] know."
The hypocrisy is phenomenal. Not surprising though when you consider that the greatest consumption of pornography is in the Red States that FOX targets. And they don't really care if a few people in that audience pick up on it either. This little gem appeared in the New York Post (to whom I shall not link) back in 2007. Note the reaction.
CHRISTIAN "media watchdog group" The Resistance is all worked up over the ultra-femme anchors of Fox News. The group's leader, Mark Dice, rants in an e-mail, "I see shorter skirts on the women of Fox News than I do on the prostitutes being arrested on cop shows." Fox responded, "We're always flattered to have everyone talking about us in one form or another."
It may flatter FOX, but I wonder how the objectified newsmodels themselve feel about it? No matter, they're probably grateful for the high paying jobs they hold more for the Clairol™-enhanced outside of their pretty little heads than whatever's on the inside. How grateful? Just go to YouTube and do a search for Megyn Kelly legs" (47 videos!) "Megyn Kelly upskirt" (28) "Gretchen Carlson upskirt" or "Gretchen Carlson legs" (29 videos each.) Or just type "Hot Fox" in the search window and see how it auto-fills. "Hot Fox News Women" has a whopping 314 hits, so don't tell me their viewers aren't obsessing. Thanks to William Mark for this nice paste-up of the T&A FOX shows daily.
FOX News Exploits Sexuality to Sell Lousy News Programming
But then, I don't really know. FOX isn't even a part of my satellite package. (sigh)
FOX "news" was trying to catapult the propaganda of Russian aggression with an interview of a 12-year-old girl from the San Francisco area and her mother, who were caught in the war zone. Check out the reaction from the FOX bobblehead when they lay the blame squarely on Georgia's Prime Minister Mikheil Saakashvili.
12 Year Old Girl Tells the Truth about Georgia
In the description of this vid at YouTube it says that FOX had just come off a commercial break two minutes earlier. As soon as the woman puts the blame for the war on Georgia, not Russia there's a sudden and urgent need for another break. After the break the woman is allowed only 30 seconds to complete her thought. That's fair and balanced for ya'.
"Oh gosh, actually it isn't lawlessness any more, now is it?"
I've been hatching a lament for several days now, on the sorry state of what passes for justice anymore in the nation that used to be America. Naomi Wolf posted recently at Huffington Post on a topic that was pretty much where I was going anyway. Long story short, that handbasket that America's future is riding in is not just nipping down to the store for a quart of milk. The erosion of anything resembling justice is pretty much complete.
As the Australian reported earlier this week, New South Wales Justice of the Peace Mamdouh Habib is suing the Australian federal government -- which under the Howard administration had colluded with the US in committing various abuses against detainees and due process -- for having allowed him to be arrested wrongly in Pakistan in 2001, kidnapped and sent illegally to Egypt. There this Justice of the Peace was illegally imprisoned and tortured for six months. After that the United States held him for FOUR YEARS in Guantanamo. [...] Get that? A justice of the peace in a developed-world democracy. Had you heard of that?
Me neither. [...] They rendered an Australian justice of the peace -- and that rendition did not even make the US news. So how can we be sure there is something so sacred about an American justice of the peace or even a judge? Say, an American judge who ruled against the Military Commissions?
I could quote much more of this article, but it's better if you just read the whole thing yourself. You might be angry, but you won't be disappointed.
My lament was going to mention things like the well-documented Don Siegelman kangaroo court in Alabama. Ms. Wolf touched on that. I was also going to mention the Supreme Court's recent decision to not even consider the ACLU's petition on illegal warrantless wiretapping. This is a replay of another decision they made last April regarding the odious Military Commissions Act. I blogged about that then, my opinions haven't changed, you can read about it HERE. There are other signs that the entire court system has gone over to the dark side, all the way over. There's THIS STORY about the Supremes' outrageous behavior in an appeal by Exxon over the still unpaid judgement almost twenty years later over the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.
"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.
There's not even any pretense that this case is going to be decided in an unbiased manner on its merits, or with reference to the Constitution and legal precedent. The will of the Corporatist government of Pricktator Extraordinaire George W. Bush is all that matters. The Constitution, after all, is just a Goddamn Piece of Paper. And there are more stories from just this week indicating how far the rule of law has diverged from the idea of 'a nation of laws, not men.'
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey refused yesterday to refer two new House contempt citations to a federal grand jury, saying the White House aides involved in the case cannot be prosecuted because they were following legal advice from the Justice Department.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Mukasey said the refusal by White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and former presidential counsel Harriet E. Miers to comply with congressional subpoenas "did not constitute a crime."
Or how about the sham that has attended the fight over the renewal of the Protect America Act, which is about anything but protecting America? Over 80% of the riders in the aforementioned proverbial handbasket can catch a distinct whiff of sulfur, but you'd never know it from watching FOX "news" or CNN.
Ms. Wolf's post touches on a number of the Ten Points To Close Down an Open Society from her book, The End of America, notably #10; Suspend the Rule of Law. But you can't ignore #2; Create A Gulag, #4; Set Up an Internal Surveillance System, #6 Engage in Arbitrary Detention and Release or #8; Control The Press. The suspension of normal legal procedures is what enables all but #8 anyway. And reflexively, it is #8 that enables all the others. As Ms. Wolf observes, "They rendered an Australian justice of the peace -- and that rendition did not even make the US news."
If you carefully consider Ms. Wolf's analysis of any potential resistance to the worst case scenario of martial law, (and I think you should consider it very carefully indeed) where do you put your hopes when "NO ONE KNOWS WHERE THE RAMPARTS ARE?" After all, "THEY HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN and we have not. They aren't surprised or shocked; we are. They have a plan; we don't."
When it happens, and I increasingly fear that if it can happen it probably will, it won't be a Taxi to the Dark Side, it will be a humongous fleet of windowless prison buses. Speaking of Taxi to the Dark Side,
[It] won't be seen by most Americans. This is because the Discovery Channel bought it hoping to air it -- but then backed out. (Its affiliates have close ties to the military-industrial complex.) Will the Oscar win get it on the airwaves? Doubtful.
Call me paranoid, but I can't help thinking that perhaps the Discovery Channel bought this documentary not hoping to air it, but to ensure that no-one else could air it. At any rate there are numerous signs and portents that bode ill for the near future of America. One is reminded of the ominous opening of Act IV, scene 1 of Hamlet,
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.
At last, there is someone keeping Keith Olbermann company in the camp of journalistic integrity. The return of Bill Moyers to PBS is one of the most welcome developments in recent memory for truthseekers.
This commentary on the capitalist predator Rupert Murdoch is 'la crème de la crème.' Utterly brilliant in both the observations made and the powerful means of expressing those observations. My favorite line among many in this short piece, "When it comes to money and power he's carnivorous, all appetite and no taste - he'll eat anything in his path."
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Moyers on Murdoch | PBS
The most striking thing about this piece to me is how many concerns Moyers brings together into only a few minutes of speaking. Murdoch of course personifies the soulless sociopathic motives of the multinational corporate set. Then there's our fear of control of the news media (Murdoch's News Corporation's holdings include the hated FOX "news" channel and the New York Post.) It's not so much that he owns "the sun, the moon and the stars" of the media heavens, but that he actively uses that ownership to substitute his own 'truth' in the light they cast on readers and viewers. He has positioned himself as the prince of propaganda. "The public be damned", indeed.
And sadly, Moyers also points out that Murdoch controls politicians on both sides of the aisle - in more than one country. I guess that's what you do when you have more money than God. For me, Murdoch personifies what is wrong with the world.
As a kid I loved Al Capp's long running and very popular comic Li'l Abner. Li'l Abner himself had a favorite comic strip he read, called Fearless Fosdick, a parody of another popular comic of the time, Dick Tracy. While Tracy was upstanding, stalwart and fearless, Fosdick was naive, feckless and blindly loyal to authority. Kind of like Alberto Gonzales, or countless other Bu$hCo™minions.
Fosdick was introduced on Sunday, November 2, 1941, as Li'l Abner's "ideel" — not just a favorite comic strip character, not just a role model, not just an object of abject, undying worship, but his ideel itself, so tough that on the rare occasions he isn't wearing his black suit, he pins his badge to his bare chest. For the duration of that storyline in Abner's United Feature Syndicate comic, Abner's emotional roller coaster was tied to the ups and downs of Fosdick's adventures in Dogpatch's newspaper. Its happy conclusion, amid piles of bullet-riddled corpses of innocent bystanders, brought euphoric glee to the enraptured boy. (from Toonopedia.com)
Fosdick's most memorable attribute though, was his response to being wounded.
Fosdick was a farcical and guileless hack and was never simply wounded. Perpetually riddled by flying bullets, Fosdick's enduring trademark was the Swiss cheese bullet holes revealing his truly two-dimensional comic strip body. (Li'l Abner.com)
- Kind of like Alberto Gonzales, his Department of Justice, or for that matter the entire Bush administration. No matter how many political wounds they endure, no matter how bullet-ridden their credibility, they somehow soldier on, declaring the most damaging revelations not worthy of consideration. 'No problem, it's only a flesh wound.'
The question needs to be asked, and asked repeatedly until a solid answer emerges, how the heck are they surviving? Because, unlike Fearless Fosdick, the Bush administration is not a cartoon within a cartoon, although it appears to be at times.
The short answer is that for six long years they enjoyed no effective oversight whatsoever, with both houses of Congress controlled by the Republican/fascist party. Worse, even since the Democrats have taken control, their investigations can't get any traction in the mainstream media, particularly on television news.
I reluctantly took a break from writing my latest post, on James Comey's revelations about the Justice Department's declaration that the NSA warrantless wiretapping program was illegal back in 2004, and the dramatic hospital bed meeting between Gonzales and then AG Ashcroft, to see what CNN had to say about it. So what did li'l Wolfie have to say on The Situation Room? Nada. Zilch. Bumpkis. Diddly Squat. NOT A PEEP about this story!! What happened to 'if it bleeds, it leads?' Comey's testimony has been described as being "like the script of a Hollywood movie."
But never mind the editorial imperative to make this a major story based on its 'infotainment' value. This is a story about the government repeatedly and knowingly breaking the law, and doing so in order to tread on the rights of US citizens. Constitutionally protected rights. This is EXACTLY the type of story that the fourth estate has the highest duty to pursue.
Like countless other stories that should have brought the Bush government down but didn't, the broadcast media are effectively misinforming the public by simply not informing them. It's as if they had reported the Hindenberg explosion as "some of the passengers' luggage went missing." It is the journalistic equivalent of the philosophical question, 'if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound?'
It turns out that the democracy that theoretically, ostensibly, purportedly, supposedly exists in America is anything but. When the government is repeatedly allowed to say one thing but do another, to break the law and tread on the rights of ALL Americans, what you have is a LIE-ocracy, a form of government based entirely on deceit. This is not what America is supposed to be about. It looks more like another Li'l Abner fiction, Lower Slobbovia.
As wretched as existence was in Dogpatch, there was one place even worse: faraway Lower Slobbovia.. ..There was no visible civilization, no money, no hope. The politicians were even more corrupt than in Dogpatch. Conditions couldn't be worse.
With both political parties AND the media under the firm control of a small group of multinational corporations, there seems to be no political wound that will be fatal to this farcical, feckless government. I am reminded of a line from the Elvis Costello song, Watchin' the Detectives;
They beat him up until the teardrops start, But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got . no-oh-oh . heart.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." -- Abraham Lincoln "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts." -- Abraham Lincoln "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." -- Abraham Lincoln
Earlier today I was reading THIS POST at Ice Station Tango and it brought to mind a documentary I saw a couple of years ago on CBC's excellent news magazine The Fifth Estate. I couldn't remember what it was called, but it wasn't hard to find. It's called Sticks and Stones. In short, it's an examination of the 'left-wing bias' exhibited by the US media, focusing on FOX "news", Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter. I didn't know that it was available for viewing on line or I would have posted it long ago. Now that questions are being asked about the role of FAUX, CNN, and others in manipulating the American public into supporting policies that have damn near destroyed the country, it is not only still relevant, it is MORE relevant than ever. YOU MUST WATCH THIS!!
What happened to the American Media? After Nixon's demise, the right wing of the Republican party decided that they could no longer afford to allow the free dissemination of information to the US public. The simple solution? Have their friends buy up the major networks, newspaper chains and magazines, so they could be controlled from the top on the corporate level. The Left's Media Miscalculation was to stand by and watch them do it.
"The American Fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."
Having wrested control over the channels of public information, they went on to remove any impediment to their injecting their poisons into the public dialogue. The first step was to get rid of the fairness doctrine.
Under FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler the FCC began to repeal parts of the Fairness Doctrine, announcing in 1985 that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated the First Amendment.
In 1986 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a loose interpretation by the FCC of an aspect of the Fairness Doctrine, ruling that Congress had "never made the doctrine a binding requirement." In August 1987, the Commission abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in its Syracuse Peace Council decision. The FCC insisted that the doctrine had grown to inhibit rather than enhance debate and suggested that, due to the many media voices in the marketplace at the time, the doctrine was perceived to be unconstitutional.
In the spring of 1987 Congress attempted to contest the FCC vote and restore the Doctrine (S. 742, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987)), but the legislation was vetoed by President Reagan. Another attempt to resurrect the doctrine in 1991 ran out of steam when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto. (Wikipedia)
The next step was to further remove any requirement that a "news" show tell the truth. FOX and a number of other "news" organizations took it to court in an elaborate and complicated case that began in 1996 with an investigative report into the effects of a Monsanto product given to dairy cows called BGH. Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson were reporters at FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. They produced a story that, while true, was not exactly friendly to Monsanto.
"The station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired."
A wrongful dismissal lawsuit was filed by Akre, which she won.The jury unanimously ruled that she was only doing her job as a journalist by refusing to air “a false, distorted or slanted story.” FOX appealed, and the result was stunning. "During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves."
On February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation." In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.
Well, not wanting to resort to such an obvious pun, I am unable to avoid it. 'It is up to the station' sounds to me way too much like putting the FOX in charge of the hen house. [insert groan here]
Having got the media under their control, and the law out of the way, the right wing media bandits were and are well equipped to launch whatever attack on the truth they pleased. Looks like they've done pretty well so far. This recent Glenn Greenwald piece is a case in point. Calls to Investigate Media's Pre-War Behavior - yeah, getting the country to agree to an unjustified, unnecessary, and extremely expensive war is, I would say, a pretty good shakedown of the system's effectiveness. Now they're probably trying to change the rules so that calling a tail a leg really makes it a leg. Then we'll really be in trouble.
Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS last night was a ray of sunshine into a very dark place - the heart of the Corporate Owned Media (COM). Last night's piece was titled Buying the War, but could just as well have been called Selling the War. There is a point where complacency becomes complicity, and I think Moyers demonstrated that the COM went past that point a long time ago. Here's a snip from Glenn Greenwald's reaction today,
"..the documentary is -- in one sense -- a very valuable historical account of the corrupt behavior by our dominant political and media institutions which deceived the country into the invasion of Iraq. But on another, more significant level, it illustrates the corruption that continues to propel our political and media culture.
One of the most important points came at the end. The institutional decay which Moyers chronicles is not merely a matter of historical interest. Instead, it continues to shape our mainstream political dialogue every bit as much as it did back in 2002 and 2003. The people who committed the journalistic crimes Moyers so potently documents do not think they are guilty of anything -- ask them and they will tell you -- and as a result, they have not changed their behavior in the slightest."
For those of you who may have missed it, you can watch it here.
I've had a great time with Blog Against Theocracy Weekend, which for me was extended for a couple of days of reading terrific, provocative posts spanning the gamut of First Freedoms First issues. Now, back to blogging, but we're not going to stray too far from the nest for our first post-swarm post. Here's how the first amendment reads,
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
The blogswarm has been all about the first 16 words of the amendment, known as the establishment clause. This post is about the next 10 words, which guarantee freedom of speech, and of the press. A number of things converged to compel me to address this subject. The one you're most likely familiar with is the controversy surrounding Don Imus' on-air idiocy. On top of that are a couple of items in my inbox, the first from Blue Gal,
"Thought you would want to see this and maybe even linky. Ben Heine Silenced by DKos Ben Heine is a Belgian Cartoonist. A Cartoonist, folks. Where has this kinda censorship happened before? Huh?"
That's my private inbox. I got this from comments, which I think of as kind of my public inbox.
"hey sbt, sorry to be off topic, but check this out: (Link)"
The link goes to an Amy Goodman article in TruthDig called Take Back the Airwaves.
"As the TV pundits on the networks gab about the tens of millions of dollars raised by the top presidential candidates, what they don’t talk about is where that money is going: to their own networks.
Money is now considered the single most important factor in our electoral process. Ideas and issues take a back seat to the bottom line. This prostitution of our electoral process has one key culprit: television advertising."
These three items converge onto an issue so full of complexities that I hesitate to even approach it. Hopefully I can bring out some aspects that will provoke everyone to think it through themselves a bit. I'll start with my off-the cuff response to the TruthDig link, from comments, "The TruthDig article is right on the money, one of my top concerns - actually two - the overbearing influence of money on American politics, and the conflict of interest that DOES exist in a medium that accepts advertising dollars from the candidates."
To continue in that vein, most broadcasting facilities in America are owned by corporate interests who have other fish to fry than just the revenues they make from politicians on a cyclic basis. (meaning those revenues dry up when there is no pending election) They pay taxes, and face various forms of regulations, so it is in their interest to promote politicians that reduce any associated costs. In many cases the broadcast companies are in turn owned by larger corporations. An example of this is NBC, owned by General Electric. (I learned that from Dave Letterman) GE is a huge corporation, with major revenues coming from such things as supplying equipment to the military - guidance packages for smart bombs, that sort of thing. On balance, these concerns could far outweigh something as trivial as a few million dollars in advertising every couple of years. They might even be tempted to side with politicians who were pro-military, interventionist, and in favor of lower taxes, even if their opponents spent twice as much on campaign ads.
These circumstances apply to all the media; television, radio and print - to varying degrees from entity to entity. You might think the truth would stand as much chance in this environment as an elderly lawyer facing Cheney with a shotgun in his hands. There use to be something called the fairness doctrine, which required overtly political opinions expressed over the air to be balanced by someone with a differing view. That died in 1987.
Now we depend on broadcasters to be fair and balanced due to their respect for the fine traditions of journalistic integrity. The problem is, people like Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly etc. don't even pretend to be journalists, but most of their audience assumes that they are anyway. They self-identify as entertainers, commenters, editorialists, or that old standby, pundits. I don't think that word even existed in the days of real journalists like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, or Huntley and Brinkley.
[There is a lot of difference between the legislative control that can be exerted over on-air broadcasting and cable or satellite broadcasting. The former is subject to regulation because of its dependency on a limited electronic spectrum or bandwidth - you can't have two Channel 5's in the same geographical area after all, their signals would interfere with one another. This makes bandwidth a precious commodity which has always been construed as belonging to the public and doled out to the broadcasters as a sacred trust. Cable and satellite can get around this technical restriction, and in so doing escape most of the government's regulative authority. This explains why you see so much of Janet Jackson's nipple on cable.]
Back to Imus. To me the biggest effect of this story has been that it has given the rest of the media an excuse to conduct their own senseless swarm over a relative non-issue. I can't believe how much airtime has been devoted to this over the last couple of days. Oh, yes I can. On top of the questions of who's Anna Nicole's baby's daddy and who has a chance to advance on American Idol, it's helping the Corporate Owned Media (COM) to push the real news (like White House illegal emails, for instance) off the headlines. And flash to CNN et. al. - it only takes 30 seconds to announce that charges have been dropped in the Duke lacrosse rape allegation case, not 25% of total airtime for 48 hours. How about mentioning the recently released scathing report on Walter Reed Hospital? Oh, right - that one makes Bu$hCo™ look bad. Or how about this story that totally yanks the rug out from under the DoJ's reasoning for firing David Iglesias? Oh, right...
What we have here is a failure to communicate the truth to the American people. That is serious business. Listen to Abe Lincoln on this one,
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts." -- Abraham Lincoln -- "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." -- Abraham Lincoln --
The thing is, the COM are trying to fool all of the people - by not bringing them the real facts. At least not the relevant facts. I would support Don Imus's right to spew whatever idiotic diatribe he likes. It is after all his First Amendment right to do so, and the best way to deal with an abuse of free speech really is with more free speech. But there's a problem with that.
More and more, free speech in America is being defined as 'money talks.' After Nixon was brought down, not by the FBI, not by Congress, not by the Department of Justice, but by the media, the right wing responded in a predictably slimy way. First, they bought up as much of the media as they could. Second, Reagan appointed head of the FCC Mark S. Fowler worked to abolish the fairness doctrine. Third, FOX "news" and a number of right-wing news consortia spent a lot of money and time on a relatively unknown Florida case to establish as a matter of law that they had a RIGHT under the first amendment to LIE to their audiences. That's right. No, that's very, very wrong. Sad, but true. PLEASE click the last three links - herein lies the oh-so-sad truth of how the first amendment is being interpreted in modern America. Lincoln would weep.
The complexity of this issue derives from the tension between First Amendment free speech guarantees and the necessity in a democracy, recognized by Lincoln, of the electorate being informed by the truth. As the Third link shows, the right wing are exploiting the first amendment in order to manipulate the American political arena. Swiftboat Veterans For Truth cynically relied on the First Amendment to get their message out, for instance. FOX "news" regularly exploits their position to act as a blatant propaganda arm of the GOP. How much of this form of freedom of speech can America stand before democracy itself falls?
As American journalist A. J. Liebling of the New Yorker magazine pointed out, "Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." In modern times, the impact of YOUR freedom of speech can only be meaningfully measured against that of those who own, not just a newspaper, which is expensive enough - not even a chain of newspapers, but a freaking television network. Think about that. Here are a few more talking points for discussion.
"Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell." -- Hugo L Black -- "War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it." -- George Orwell -- "All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values." -- Marshall McLuhan -- "Advertising is a valuable economic factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless." -- Sinclair Lewis -- "The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power." -- Henry A. Wallace, Vice President to FDR, 1944 -- The Danger of American Fascism
Fourth "Anniversary" of Shock and Awe, Bush Speech, Walter Reed, Protests, "Zip It," Frank Rich, More
I just watched President Bush give a five minute speech on the first four years of the Iraq War. Today's the "anniversary". That's one and a quarter minutes of speech per year of warfare.
Bush managed to exceed the low expectations he's set for these speeches. Though I just harangued him for brevity, it was probably a blessing for him and us. To his credit, he appeared sober. He was dressed. His facial expressions fit the mood; that's to say, he wasn't laughing the whole time like he always does.
So, with Bush's 'big acknowledgment' of the anniversary of Shock and Awe in the history books, here's the Iraq News.
So far, 3,185 members of the American military have died in Iraq. 40% of Americans still think the invasion was the right thing to do. A lot of journalists are still telling little and big lies about it.
New shit has come to light on what caused the Walter Reed scandal. A three year delay in privatizing the hospital led to critical staff shortages as the number of soldiers in need of care rose sharply. The privatization movement, people, is dead. Write it on your blogs. Spread the word. We actually need a government. Shocker.
The outing of Valerie Plame was done to help make this war happen. Now Plame has testified under oath that she was under cover and improperly outed. Yet, no apologies for the people who dragged her, ass first, through the mud for four years.
Frank Rich writes, "The Ides of March 2003." Rich does a fantastic job in this article of demolishing the Bushies call for patience.
From the Guardian (h/t The Carpetbagger Report)--"The Regrets of the Man Who Brought Down Saddam". Here's me quoting Steve Benin quoting Cliff Schecter, “Try and imagine how truly horrible it must be. Something you wanted with all your heart, and this is the result? You’d rather have a homicidal despot in charge than the U.S. Government?”
VIDEO: Tony Snow tells Ed Henry to "zip it" about Iraq. "Zip it?" VIDEO: This week's episode of Meet The Press came from the fucking Twilight Zone. Watch as Tom DeLay and Richard Perle team up on Rep. Sustek (Crooks and Liars). So the indicted and disgraced Tom DeLay and the un-indicted, yet also quite disgraceful, PNAC member Perle are welcomed into Russert's den on the eve of the war's anniversary? WTF, Russ? IMAGE: Blognonymous has a poignant picture that speaks many words about the American approach to Iraq. VIDEO: Here's a quick look at Saturday's St. Patrick's Day march on the Pentagon.
"News organizations will want to think twice before getting involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus which appears to be controlled by radical fringe out-of-state interest groups, not the Nevada Democratic Party. In the past, Moveon.org has said they 'own' the Democratic party -- while most Democrats don't agree with that, it's clearly the case in Nevada." - David Rhodes, VP of Fox “News”
Plus, we hired the Blackwater snipers. And do you have any idea how much we put down on a deposit for those water cannons? We can’t get that money back!
The first time I ever defended myself against a bully as a child was when I lived in San Vito, Italy. This psychotic little fuck named Paul Villanno was beating me up near the courtyard of our school in front of dozens of people and I’d had enough. I blindly flailed and missed with a right lead by about a country mile and Villanno went berserk and basically creamed me with renewed vigor.
The second time I ever defended myself against him was considerably more successful. We were in the Youth Center on base and Paul launched a kick at me. Now Villanno gave up a few inches and a few pounds on me and his abuse was neverending. Why? Well, Paul obviously had… issues and was clearly insane. And since no one ever came to my rescue I figured I had it coming to me. Maybe I deserved it, maybe it was a right of passage into manhood.
But this time I’d really had it with him. So when Paul raised his foot with the intention of doing me more harm, I simply caught it with my right hand, gave it a little twist and watched him sprawl onto the floor. I stood over him with an eerily blank expression on my face and when he realized that I was no longer going to silently suffer his abuse, he literally ran out of the Youth Center.
This is pretty much what the Nevada Democratic party did to Fox News and what Bill Clinton did to Chris Wallace when he wouldn’t allow himself to be blindsided in Wallace’s clearly partisan “hit job.” Except Fox “News” is fighting back at being mortally embarrassed by Harry Reid, John Edwards and now Bill Richardson backing away from Fox’s televised debate that was to be televised in August.
Fox Chairman Roger Ailes, in accepting, if you can believe this, a First Amendment Leadership Award (but we live in a world in which people nominate Rush Limbaugh for the Nobel Peace prize and clowns like Paul Bremer get the Presidential Medal of Freedom) basically used what should’ve been a moment of victory as a platform for sniping at the Democrats. Here’s a sample of the wit and wisdom of Roger Ailes:
And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'
It is true that just in the last two weeks Hillary Clinton has had over 200 phone calls telling her in order to win the presidency she must stay on the road for the next two years. It is not true they were all from Bill.
Then, after setting the table on a roar, Ailes had this to say about the Democrat defection:
Recently pressure groups are forcing candidates to conclude that the best strategy for journalists is divide and conquer, to only appear on those networks and venues that give them favorable coverage.
I think I’ll stick with the good Roger Ailes for my laughs in the future.
Now, the hypocrisy of Ailes is breathtaking even for a Republican windbag who controls Fox “News.” After taking potshots at two major Democratic presidential candidates, as well as France, Ailes then accused the Democrats for backing out so they could get “favorable coverage”, the implicit understanding that in order to look brave, you ought to go on a channel that will almost surely not give you that favorable coverage.
One hardly knows where to begin feasting on this cornucopia of hypocrisy and willful stupidity. Let’s start with his charge of Democrats seeking a friendly, sympathetic forum. Where would that be, Roger? Free Speech TV, which is channel 1434 here in Central Massachusetts and the only channel where they’d be guaranteed of getting a fair hearing?
Or should they take a chance with CNN and Wolf Blitzer? How about having Glenn Beck moderate the debate? Or would ABC be a better bet? After The Path to 9/11, how could they possibly not get a fair hearing? We could even get Mark Halperin's non-partisan operatives at The Note to give a fair and balanced commentary on the debate, with perhaps a supplementary commentary by Pat Robertson on ABC Family's the 700 Club.
This is just the latest confirmation of the battered wife syndrome that we’ve been seeing from the far right. If you play ball, you’ll get only one eye blackened. If you fight back, you’ll get both of them blackened and then be coerced into saying that you fell down a flight of stairs. And all this is done with a blind eye to their own soul-crippling hypocrisy.
Take Dick Cheney: For all his Go Fuck Yourself bravado, about as far left as Cheney has the courage to venture is Wolf “Well (gulp), I thought it was a fair question” Blitzer and CNN, which is hardly a bastion of liberal journalism. More often than not, bottled human spiders like Cheney, Malkin and Coulter find themselves on Fox taking one ignorant, unchallenged potshot at liberals and Democrats after another.
So when the Nevada Democrats finally woke up from their collective slumber after being screamed at over 265,000 times by Moveon’s supporters and saw the stick propping up the orange crate and the rope attached to the stick and Roger Ailes holding the rope with a snicker, they wouldn’t bite. How dare they? That just about makes up for them being stupid and naïve enough to sign on for this trap in the first place.
Let’s move on to Moveon.org and how they “own” the Democratic Party. To my knowledge, they never publicly said that they own them. And even if the Democratic Party was owned by Moveon.org, I’d still be more comfortable with that than Fox “News” being owned by the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the GOP and acting as mere stenographers and mediums for every right wing rumor, smear and lie that oozes its way down the Beltway.
Let’s also not forget how George W. Bush got “elected” President in the first place. After the dinosaur networks had declared Al Gore the winner in Florida, hence in the presidential election, George and Jeb Bush cousin John Ellis, hired by Fox “News” as a freelance political “advisor”, called the election in favor of his cousin.
Yes, Fox followed the lead of a temp worker because he was related to one of the candidates and the governor of a pivotal state. And everyone else fell in line.
The other networks, fearful of being scooped and embarrassed by an upstart piece of shit network like Fox, took a gamble and fell in line and political history wasn’t written as much as sloppily erased and revised, a tragic, blood-stained palimpsest scrawled over what should’ve been and it was the beginning of the Oceanic rise of the White House’s Propaganda Ministry, aka Fox News.
And, perfectly in harmony, pitch and tune with the Republican party that’s screwing itself into the ground with furious frustration over the last election results that even John Ellis couldn’t call, Fox is screaming itself hoarse at the highest corporate levels for being shown up and skeeved for the lying, partisan right wing hacks that they truly are.
Finally, I turn the mic over to Howard Beale, who used to be Fox’s most trusted newsman (you’ll seriously want to watch the entire video, on the off chance that Beale’s/Paddy Chayefsky’s words don’t entrance you.) :
And, yes, the choice of French subtitles is a deliberate dig in the flabby sides of Ailes and every other windbag in the Network/Church of Howard Beale.
