THEFT BY CONTROL OF THE MEDIA

THEFT BY CONTROL OF THE MEDIA

LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER
The Great American Press Vanishing Act

In the present experiment we’re doing – Democracy – we’re in it now a tad over 200 years – there are several crucially important elements that make it work. Those geniuses who created the Constitution wisely realized they had to amendment it somewhat once it was written, to lay out exactly what rights the people should have. They called that group the Bill of Rights. One could argue that the most important of the Bill of Rights is the first Amendment, universally referred to as “Freedom of Speech.” (The founders must have thought it most important, they listed it first.)

The official language of the First Amendment with reference to speech and Press is “…Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”

That one observance alone, from 1789 to the late 20th Century, worked like a charm. It allowed citizens to criticize the hell out of the Government if it was deserved, and to redress to change it. Brilliant. No other kind of government had done that. From 1789 to the late 1960s it was pure gold. At that point, president Nixon took it upon himself to restrict freedom of the Press, he being in a firestorm of trouble over his war, and his dishonesty. President Ford honored it again during his brief stint, as did Jimmy Carter. But the real butchery of the First Amendment occurred immediately upon the arrival of G W Bush. He started his war, and immediately clamped down on trivialities like freedom of the Press, lest that tell the people the whole story of his activities. Consider:

he banned pictures of caskets of military dead at Dover Delaware
he refused to call on those reporters who asked real questions
he practically eliminated the Presidential Press Conference
he “embedded´reporters with the troops. (Reason: when you live with,
eat with, and face danger with the troops, you’ll report favorably.)
anyone who dared criticize him was smeared as unpatriotic
he smeared the wife of an agent who reported an unfavorable truth
he turned the Justice Department into a Political lackey
his mentally unstable VP intimidated the CIA
he promoted wiretapping of Americans and ignored FISA
he alone in the WORLD stiff-armed Kyoto (the Global Warming agreement)
and on and on and on …

AND LOOK WHAT MEMBERS OF THE PRESS DID AT THIS JUNCTURE:
They collectively laid down and died. They completely capitulated. They abdicated their national responsibility to report facts about the government. What had been our national report card on Washington - questions from the Media - suddenly and dramatically just ceased. Reporters who had shown a spark of courage and imagination before, suddenly asked the President how his dog was doing !

We saw David Gregory practically humiliate himself. Before GWB, he asked good strong questions. After a year or so of intimidation, Gregory made a fool of himself dancing on a stage with the 2-legged viper, Rove. Only Keith Olbermann remains verbally virile and intellectually pure. Everybody in AMERICA (indeed the world) knows George bush is a liar, a charlatan, and all the other adjectives that describe his ilk, but ONLY Keith says it to his face. In his Special Comments sections, about Bush and the White House, Keith says exactly those things – when Bush is caught in a lie, Olbermann says so, in plain words.

We’ve learned something, everybody. We’ve learned that a Democratic style government, as fragile as it is, and as robust as it is, is nothing without a FREE PRESS. The privilege to criticize, and in the process, investigate and improve, is the life blood of democracy. The very word is made up of two Greek words: ‘demos’ (people) and ‘cratique’ (rule). So if the people are going to make the thing work (‘rule’) it’s academic that they can’t do it if they are smeared just for questioning.

Isn’t it?