Pravda, here we come!
I haven’t yet covered the story about this administration’s proposal that the FCC monitor newsrooms to see “whether journalists are producing articles, television reports, Internet content, and commentary that ‘meets the public’s critical information needs,'” although I plan to write more about it soon.
I’m strapped for time at the moment, but the topic is extremely important. So I’ll just do something uncharacteristic and quote Rush Limbaugh, who’s right on the money about this (please read the whole thing, although it’s long):
So this goes to the core of a free press…It’s a new world. There isn’t any news. That’s not what journalism is anymore. You don’t go into journalism because you want to report news to people. You don’t go into journalism because you want to find out first what’s happening and be the first to report to other people what’s happening.
…You go into journalism to advance an agenda. World peace, ending world poverty, destroying the powerful, whatever it is. But it is not related to the news anymore. By the way, Katy Bachman, who I mentioned yesterday that I’ve encountered in my professional broadcast career, writes at Adweek. She reported yesterday that the program has been dialed back.
It hasn’t. It has not been dialed back. They want us to think it has. Lanny Davis has stood up in outrage. Well-known Clinton defender, Lanny Davis, stood up in outrage. It’s typical. He says, “Obama needs to find out who did this and fire him!” Lanny, Obama would have to fire himself, and that isn’t going to happen. Can I tell you what else I found? I found a tweet. I have a got a screen shot here. It’s very small, and it could have been Facebook.
But it’s a tweet, and it is from a Democrat running for Congress in Virginia against Eric Cantor. The Democrat’s name is Mike Dickinson, and it looks like the tweet is from February 17th. So four days ago. I’m going to read you the tweet. “Fox News does nothing but tell lies and mistruths. They have unqualified political analysts. We need FCC to monitor and regulate them.”
That’s a Democrat candidate for Congress.
There’s more, much more. But the bottom line is this: if the MSM isn’t outraged, most people won’t be. Most people still are informed and stirred by the MSM. And the MSM is not outraged because it is fully on board with this administration.
That’s the brilliance of getting the left in control of the newsrooms. It means that a leftist administration will experience no significant pushback from an ostensibly free press, because the leftist media will compromise its supposed principles in order to reach the desired goal. They think the crocodile will never eat them.
Well then, Neo. I am all for ideas of how to feed them to their own crocodiles. I am just shocked at the level of support these utterly un-American ideas have with the sheeple. It is as if they’re living in a separate universe.
I know, I know… It’s been six years since his coronation, but I still can’t quite fathom it.
When I was young and being taught American history, I wondered what it would have been like to live in the colonies in the 1770’s to see the run up to our Independence. I also wondered what it must have been like to have been of sound mind in the dying days of the Weimar Republic knowing the evil that was about to descend upon Europe.
I’m afraid that I am going to find out first hand both of those things.
Lanny Davis sounds like the prisoners in the Lyubianka, “If only Stalin knew.” Fool.
You and me both, turfmann, you and me both.
In Pravda there is no news, in Izvestia there is no truth.
People without the capacity for new thinking have to break apart and reassemble things to use them again, but not let the idjits get it…
GLAVIT!!!
Главное управление по охране гоÑударÑтвенных тайн в печати при
General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Directorate_for_the_Protection_of_State_Secrets_in_the_Press
do not confuse this with Goskomizdat, which was in charge of things like poetry and fiction, while glavitt was for the news.
News policy is a weapon of war, and not to give out information – Joseph Goebles
it helps to know what they are copying and basing things on, that way, you can still understand despite not being educated, nor having experience, or even knowing someone who knows…
its this prestige that the press corps thinks they will get. they have no desire to write things that interest them, so they dont care if they are told to write… if they do care, they made a big mistake.
of course, if we dont know what happens around the world, and through the books we read, for as bradbury explained in the quotes i put up, thats how we know the world beyond our tiny existences.
in germany, they used celebrities to get the public to adopt things.. this was used to create Gliechaltung..
Celebrities and institutions were the Ministry of popular enlitenment and propaganda (soviets called popular enlightenment, conciousness raising)
if you want to know what is akin to whats happening now, dont read goebles… read MAX AMANN (he owned publishing house)
the point of putting inspectors and things is to make sure gleichshaltung is put in place… (told you its nazi again – race hate, debased currency, lost morals, etc)
1933, there were 4,703 newspapers
1944 977 remained, 82% NSDAP, 100% controlled)
Schriftleiter-law
this is the law you hear pelosi and other taliking about without mentioning the name.
1) it turned journolists into civil servants
2) licensed journolists so that only they could write or publish news
3) it was a duty and honor to hide information from the people
4) no editorial independence
under this, there was no need for censorship
ie. it was censorship by implied pressure, withotu actually haveing to draw up documents as to what would or not be allowed… After the first two years there was nothing left that could be censored:
Where books are burnt, there, finally, people will be burnt, too!“ – Hinrich Heine
in russia it was glavit, or glavlit.
nazis changed the constitution, the soviets bypassed it, so there is no record in their documents.
social realism was what was controled, it insured that things would not only be said according to the right facts, but how it was formed, the motifs, and so on.
ever wonder why they talked so funny? duh
tamizdat and samizdat were the clandestine press as well as caption writers and so forth..
Censorship was/is a necessary consequence of state monopoly in the means of communication.
Who controls expression, controls the people!
you can rea dmore from the lithuanians
http://search.beaconforfreedom.org/about_database/Lithuania.html
turfmann:
Be careful what you wonder about :-).
Preaching to the choir here; but so far the Obama administration has done a lot of bad things; Benghazi, Fast and Furious, etc.
However, if this goes through I will consider it to be the absolute worst that the Obama administration has done – the absolute worst!
It will then be truly fitting to take a language lesson from the left and call it the Obama REGIME, instead of administration.
The FCC should be doing one thing, and only one thing, making sure that broadcast signals are the proper strength so as to not interfere with other signals. The FCC (or any other government agency) should NEVER be reviewing content. Period.
Latvia is Free, but her press is not
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404100495.html
Glavlit
Encyclopedia of Russian History | 2004
Although freedom of the press nominally existed in the Soviet Union, the government reserved the right to prevent the publication of certain materials.
sound familar?
ho hum…
i know how this story ends…
though most are waiting to be sure…
to know they are cipying, it helps to know what they are copying from
from wiki on pravda
see if it matches the evolution of our press
and makes our press seem more an extention of their press
and note how many are tin hat regular things
after all, how manyu immigrated after their schooling?
Here are some examples of “news” you could find on this site:
The Moon landings are a hoax.
Global warming is a hoax.
HIV is a hoax.
Evolution is a hoax.
Russia created two HIV vaccines in 2004, and one more in 2006 from genetically modified tomatoes.
An alien base was filmed on the Moon.
Support for Russian scientists who claim that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is actually a time machine
That the FBI and CIA are fighting over access to a parallel world which allows time travel and therefore modification of our world.
America is ready to attack Russia.
Nostradamus foresaw World War III in 2010
Atlantis was discovered under Antarctica.
Human and alien skulls were discovered on Mars.
Fishermen caught and ate an alien.
A young boy called Boris Kipriyanovich is an indigo child and the reincarnation of a Martian.
America corrupts everything it touches.
Boriska, boy from Mars, says that all humans live eternally
http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/05-03-2008/104375-boriska_boy_mars-0/
Was there ever a doubt this is where we were headed.
Think now how bad it could get….
That’s where we are going. It is delusional to think otherwise. These fascists do not give ground back unless they are defeated.They only take ground.
They are not nice. They are not fair. They do not care about “rights”> They do not care about life. They are not concerned about civilization, or goodness or beauty or truth or anything at all that you think is decent and honest and good.
They care about power and control and being on top and getting their way.
Accept that and we have a chance. Keep being “Shocked, shocked I say!”…..and you’ll of course be rounded up with the rest.
That Howard Kurtz article – Is there a bigger clown in all of journalism? Did you read that thing? He is the chief of delusion. He’s the guy on the train to Auschwitz who was trying to joke with the soldiers since he formerly served in the German Army.
FCC/Obama floated this idea. They found out very quick it was out of favor even for their allies.
They have withdrawn the idea but even to float something like this shows the Obama admin audacity.
A lot of people missed the boat on the Regime here.
No point trying to swim after the ferry now.
Those that neither care nor see the Left’s corruption at work on a social level, aren’t in a position to talk about the corruption at the top.
I’m not surprised that the Obama administration would do this.
I’m sorry but I’m so negative about the future of our country with its stupid, uninformed electorate (that’s the REAL problem with our government) that I’m recommending that my grandchildren consider immigrating to another country. It’s too late for my children and me.
Any ideas? New Zealand? Singapore? Switzerland?
Yeah, yeah….I know they should stand and fight for their principles, but the quality of this electorate is probably beyond the point of no return.
P.S. I’d love it if Texas could secede but that’s not in the cards.
I fully agree with Rush except that this is not directly aimed at Rush and the rest of talk radio, which is opinion.
This is directed at FOX News. This is directed at the WSJ, CNSNews, the Drudge Report, Brightbart News, Newsmax.com, Washington Examiner, the Washington Times and any other conservative news organization.
If they can suppress conservative news outlets, commentators like Rush, Victor Davis Hanson, etc, and opinion journals like National Review, Townhall, etc. and blogs like this will have less to discuss and examine.
This is a direct assault not just upon speech but even more directly about controlling the dissemination of information contrary to the left’s agenda.
OT, but I wanted to claim bragging rights as fast as I could.
Prediction: Ukraine’s president Yanukovych will resign within 48 hours. (timeframe isn’t exact, and he could do something nominally different, but that will be the effect)
Per our discussion about Venezuela in the other thread:
Remember that the left lies about their support, in order to create a false mandate. It remains to be seen if this won’t completely dispirit the moderate left.
It remains to be seen if this can be implemented in any effective way before 2014.
We also now have the overt example of Venezuela as a warning… so there’s that.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2014/02/an-open-letter-to-men-and-women-of.html
I think this letter fits a lot of so called “moderates”.
Where are they now in V?
Neo- I’m wondering what this is really about. The major news outlets are already securely in the tank. The majority of the country is already sufficiently misinformed that they couldn’t tell you who their congressman is or what the first amendment to the constitution says. There is a large percentage of that group who don’t even know what the constitution is.
Obama told O’Reilly the real problem with health care wasn’t the policy, but that FOX News was lying about it. So why bother with all the window dressing, and just harass them directly? Obama is delusional if he believes the problem with BO Care is bad press by one news outlet.
In reality, this is the first time in his presidency that a majority of Americans don’t trust him- but it has nothing to do with Fox, and everything to do with broken promises- his own words, on every network, over and over are what have damaged him. If the majority of Americans were listening to Fox, he would never have made it into the White House.
I have to wonder if the crocodiles haven’t already been set loose. The MSM has got to be wondering why they’re being probed after all they’ve done for him. He has little regard as for public opinion when it comes to breaking the law. So far, the media hasn’t been too concerned with it. So I don’t see why he is bothering to cover his tracks with a ruse that’s directed only toward Fox, as has been suggested.
This seems like a genuine paranoid crackdown, circa Richard Nixon, on his one-time allies too. And that may not be as welcome as some suggest. At least there is some reason to hope There will be more dissenters than the few conservatives outlets.
OT (not really), but per Ace of Spades, the Ukrainian protestors are pulling down statues of Lenin.
Link
Now I know who the good guys are.
Another thing about the FCC proposals:
I read some of the questions last night (I don’t remember where), and they were geared towards ascertaining the racial and gender makeup of newsroom personnel, as well as how well the news organization is “serving the community”.
So this is about increasing affirmative action quotas in newsrooms, further marginalizing white males, and also giving community organizer/ACORN types more say in what gets covered and how.
It’s almost as if BO does not think very highly of the “negative” freedoms of “the government shall not” if they present an obstacle to the “positive” freedoms (BO thinks) only government can provide, such as “freedom from poverty.”
Maybe he also thinks “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
Among the national security objectives might be the horrors of climate change, Rush Limbaugh and the elimination of “racism.”
artfl at 3:30 pm:
Thanks for clarifying. I keep getting mixed up between glavit and Goskomizdat.
I have the same problem with British and English.
Texexec; if Texas (or Alaska) does secede please make room for me; I’ll fight to join!
Here’s a whole compilation video of Lenin statue removals:
Link
No question who the good guys are now.
My favorites were the fourth one, where his head pops off, and the fifth one, which is dragged by a rope around his neck.
There are lots of Marxist college professors in the U.S. who deserve precisely that fate.
southpaw:
Having most of the media in their hands isn’t enough. They really really want to not just mock and discredit Fox, they want to intimidate it into coming in line. Any dissenting voice sticks in their craw because while it still exists, the truth might spread and be heard by more people.
The opposition doesn’t just have to be beaten, it has to be obliterated. And the people who are already on board have to be shown what will happen to them even if they even think of straying in the future. It’s about power.
Why do you think the Soviets had to win elections by nearly 100%?
Saddam won his election in Iraq at 99%.
Later, when I checked a Democrat’s victory ratio in DC, it was something like 95% or 97%. And I thought to myself, “hey, old Saddam wasn’t that wrong when he thought democracy was like that in the US”.
I couldn’t help thinking that the Democrats fought so hard to prop up Saddam and help out the insurgents in Iraq, because the Democrats didn’t want Bush doing the same thing to Saddam, here in the US… to the Left.
If I was running the Left’s propaganda operations, I would agree with Neo here. It’s not enough to have the weak obedience of the media. That’s not enough.
The Left’s Totalitarian Hive obedience is maintained by not a majority or super majority opinion, but Absolute Unanimous support for the Ideology. Anyone that speaks out, must be purged, exiled, or punished. Zell Miller, Lieberman, Juan Williams, etc.
To reduce it down to something simpler, if I wanted to put my plan for a sports team into action, but there were people who refused to support me, I could make examples out of them but it may not work. Far better would it be for everyone of those who opposed, to get out there and declare that they have been incorrect and that now it is time to support my plan. That sudden reversal would be much better for unity and conformity than merely using threats or fear to keep people in line. Making examples out of people works. Having the opponents make examples out of themselves, having them carve out their own heart and given it up as an offering and apology, is more effective.
This is a variation on Sun Tzu’s highest skill in war, where victory comes not from conflict but from absorbing the enemy into one’s own army. The Left has already conducted successful field trials where college students “recant” and sign confessions of “crime thought”, as well as individuals undergoing hypnosis coming up with sworn testimony in courts that were made up by the hypnotists.
Here’s what’s scary: neither Hitler nor Stalin nor Mao really got rolling until Year Five.
Then the door blew open.
Barry’s going down this road because he facing the famous Count-Down-Clock. He’s looking at 1,064 days until he’s a pumpkin.
Like the villains cited, he figures it’s high time to get high handed — as he’s running out of time.
His urge to ramp UP is another indication that we’re not dealing with a self-limiting personality.
Heck, he’s not much constrained by the US Constitution.
His race card trumps all.
Notice how this entire spin is couched as a route to protect minorities… of which it has nothing in common.
Such a nostrum comes straight from his brow. Without his imprint it wouldn’t get the time of day.
We’ve seen the same dynamic with the IRS oppression campaign.
All Chicago, all the time.
Neo- I really hope you are wrong, but my gut says you’re not. It’s hard to accept what is happening to us. 30 years ago we had Reagan and a bright future.
All of this makes me despise the current Republican leadership in the House that much more. The democrats could not have imagined their luck to have been facing a bigger bunch of inept, cowardly, brain dead dummies as we currently have for the “opposition”. Media bias or not, they’re simply useless.
Also on this topic: The Anchoress piece that Ace linked to yesterday was excellent.
southpaw,
The Democrats don’t hold an advantage because of the relative competency of the Republicans. Democrat politicians are no more competent than Republican politicians.
The Democrats hold an advantage because they are plugged into an effective, proper Marxist-method activist popular-political movement.
The Republicans are at a disadvantage because they lack a competitive Marxist-method movement to plug into.
Without a matching Marxist-method movement, the Repubicans can’t compete with the Democrats.
The key thing is it’s not up to the GOP to generate a Marxist-method movement. That task belongs to the people, the rank and file, on the Right. The problem is people on the Right prefer to sit back and blame Republican politicians for something that’s not their fault.
The difference is folks on the Left provide Democrats with the advantage needed to win the social-political game. Folks on the Right refuse to to provide the Republicans with what they need to compete.
Note that sinister word “unqualified”.
I could say much about it. The simplest is this: a friend of mine who lived in the highly regulated Netherlands told me that to get a street trader’s licence you have to sit an exam to prove some competence and knowledge of what you’re selling. The one exception is setting up a bookstall, because the Dutch believe that any licensing of a bookstall at all is a threat to the freedom of the press.
A lot of things have happened in the last few years that we’ve always thought “can’t happen here.”
Our electorate are appallingly ignorant and bird-witted. The fruits of the Left’s campaign against assimilation (read, “Americanization”!) have ripened and rotted and fallen off the boughs. Rush’s calling them “low-info voters” is much too kind.
I wonder what his exit plan is? At some point They’re going to shut him down, and all the others as well. They won’t be allowed to keep broadcasting.
The Soviets and the Maoists persecuted, tortured, and killed people for printing some measly samizdat literature out of basements. Totalitarians never allow any dissent, ever. The rush they get is from CRUSHING dissent — Orwell’s “boot stamping on a human face, forever.”
Another reason this would work is so many people – news consumers, not just news producers – prefer to ‘buy’ the politically correct Narrative. For them, truth is a choice.
Just look at the proven tactics of ‘false but true’ Noble Lies used to advance an agenda and Disqualification that stigmatizes competitors in place of engaging their ideas.
A common theme on this blog by both host and commentators is the experience of debunking a seemingly easily debunkable, flimsy false narrative only to have our effort dismissed out of hand.
People don’t want to be convinced critically of The Narrative. People want their preferred The Narrative defended, preferably unchallenged.
The Marxist-method activist game, the only social-political game there is, is an adversarial contest of maneuver, not a collective inquiry of truth. Real world, the *practical* truth is whatever the winner of the Marxist-method activist game says it is, and that’s how people want it.
I agree with neo-neocon about the unanimity thing.
The MSM is like the Berlin wall, set up not to stop invasion but to keep the citizens captive within. Fox and the internet are like a gigantic gap in that wall, through which the citizens are fleeing. “Voting with their feet,” or in this case, with their hearts and minds.
This is why in recent days the first action of despots in trouble is to shut down the internet. It’s not just a tactical decision to deny the opposition the ability to organize. It is a reversal of whatever tiny freedom the people were allowed in order to remain docile. A freedom “taken too far” in the view of the dictators.
They are clamping down to re-establish the narrative that “there exists nothing outside the state.” Just think of the aftermath of Tiananmen Square.
“” I am just shocked at the level of support these utterly un-American ideas have with the sheeple. It is as if they’re living in a separate universe.””
Turfmann
They do live in a separate universe. One where they’ve been convinced by media and pop culture that people free to think and say what they please is the problem.
How do you get people to believe such a nonsense idea? You do it the same way Madison Ave sells goods and services, through marketing that employs peer pressure ridicule toward anyone out of step with what’s said to be fashionable and hip.
Maybe a better description of the low information voter is that he’s a hopeless conformist to leftist thought for fear of being out of step and out of fashion.
All this explains why conservatism and the republican party have ideas that simply cant even be examined by the hopeless conformist. Their ideas have been made the equivalent of a Members Only jacket that no fashionably conscious person would be caught dead in in 2014.
Re: Eric at 4:48 AM – –
There is a lot of truth in what you say. The Democrats have perfected a “Marxist-method” of operation, effective because they control almost all the means of cultural influence. As you say, this accounts for the apparent (but maybe unreal) disparity in “competence” between them and Republicans.
But it does not account for the kowtowing and unnecessary, bizarrely illogical things Republicans do.
The following could win me a tin foil cap, but here goes.
As part of their Marxist-method of operation, the Left uses blackmail on Republican politicians: honey-traps, drugs, money, you name it. These blackmail things (mostly) don’t work on Democrats, whose constituents don’t care about those things, and who are protected by the cultural levers they control.
But they work perfectly on Republicans, whose constituents care very much about personal morality and character, and whose slightest flaw will be turned into the crime of the century by those who control the levers of culture.
Eric, you’re always talking about a “Marxist-method movement”. What exactly do you mean by that? If you’ve explained it before, I missed it.
And why should I want to have anything to do with a movement that was invented or inspired by Marx?
OT:
Aaaannnnnnnddddd…..Yanukovych is gone.
Eric,
You are so right. When I was going to meetings of the, what was it now, American Labor Committee (?) they used to call it “Democracy of the Committed.”
Not too hard to see what that means.It’s how the Bolsheviks took power. For that matter it’s how pretty much everything in politics works.
If you want to win, you have to show up.
@rickl: I don’t think our boy Karl invented it. I’m pretty sure he just did the formal outlining. He never created anything. No leftist ever did.
Eric’s talking about his own activist agency and movement on college campuses.
30 years ago we had Reagan and a bright future.
That’s the proof that people aren’t free, they just think they are. Since they are still looking for some Leader to tell them what to do and to save the people from themselves.
That’s not free will, but dependence on external power rather than independence from external influence.
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Why have a State controlled media when American journalists will control themselves? It just seems like an unnecessary expense to me.