The Ultimate Troll: Democrat Media Management
One wants to avoid falling into the deep, dark conspiracy well — where the hermeneutics of suspicion dominate one’s thinking, and practically everything of major importance that occurs in the sociopolitical domain is regarded as a nefarious plot foisted upon a victimized public. Yet, skepticism is often warranted when a political party is credibly seen to cherish a particular agenda to which it does not openly admit, but which it pursues with clandestine intent in its political and economic policies. This is demonstrably the case with the statist, left-leaning Democratic Party. It has tried to camouflage its raison d’être, but with diminishing success. At least, so far.
Its far-left activism was originally quite cleverly sandboxed, leading many voters to believe Democrats had in mind a reasonably centrist and inoffensively liberal set of undertakings. We’ve heard a lot of talk, for example, about the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would subject talk radio to regulation by the Federal Communications Commission. Presumably, equal distribution of time and content would be ensured for all groups on the air. But it did not take long for people to be disabused. Commentators quickly understood this was a subtle ploy to pressure and restrain conservative radio hosts advocating a political position contrary to the reigning Democratic program.
A rumor subsequently circulated that federal authorities might be considering a bailout for the struggling legacy press. For diverse reasons, including the ideological doctoring of the truth, the mainstream media is unable to compete with the Internet, no more than scribal copying or woodblock printing could rival the invention of movable type. Ostensibly, patronage is justified because a vigorous free press is necessary for the maintenance of democratic institutions. True enough. But since the MSM are in the pockets of the Democrats — essential in promoting the election of Barack Obama — the motive behind such a putative rescue package is blatantly evident. The move has nothing to do with guaranteeing the preservation of a free society, but with empowering a particular party’s supporting apparatus.
The latest effort to monitor and influence the flow of information involves the concept of “net neutrality,” which amounts to the administrative regulation of Internet usage. According to this new version of the Fairness Doctrine, the FCC would exercise custody over bandwidth capacity, thus theoretically limiting access to specific sites which the surveilling agency deems problematic or in violation of “hate speech” laws. As journalist Patrick Richardson points out, a project of this nature would turn the Internet into a utility commanded both by government legislation and punitive fee structures. The result would clearly be a public relations plus for the Democrats — and a means to neutralize the impact of the conservative message in the infosphere.
The connection between the Fairness Doctrine, an MSM bailout, and “net neutrality” is by no means coincidental. The problem for the Democrats is the uncontested power of the alternative media — webzines, webinars, blogs, and news aggregators — that were instrumental, to take a famous instance, in bringing about the defeat of the disingenuous John Kerry in the 2004 elections. Without the intervention of the electronic vox populi, the Swift Boat phenomenon would have been a decidedly slow boat. Coupled with the ubiquitous dissemination of talk radio, the Net has become a distinctive threat to the hegemony of the MSM, and thus a growing menace to a doctrinaire president, the Democratic Party, and the socialist agenda they have embraced. Obama’s America seems indebted to China in more ways than one.
They are taking a leaf out of Chavez’ book.
There are many ‘democratic’ and ‘progressive’ (Who are neither democratic or progressive.) admirers of Chavez in the US.
Andy, so true.
Moreover, the nanosecond I heard that Soros, the granddaddy of ALL things anti-American/western,had his grubby paws in the media/internet arena, I knew trouble, an implosion of mega proportions is not far behind.
The very fact that Soros owns, lock, stock and barrel, the (un)Democratic Party, is decidedly awful news for people who believe in freedom/liberty.
As it would be in any tyranny’s program. We’ve come a long way from the days when “no law abridging” really meant no law abridging. But if the FCC should charge ahead with its plan, already rebuffed by Congress and the courts, we’ll see if we still retain any of the manly defiance that once animated the American spirit.
Yes. Well, it had to come. Free communication and dissemination of ideas is indeed inimical to coercive government.
And increasingly coercive government is where we’re going it would seem.
Can Palin and the tea parties survive?
If they can’t, one way or another, we are in serious trouble.
It would be sad to have to go through the Stalinist process before arriving at complete poverty and societal collapse.
It is amazing how socialist leftism can envisage such monstrous and widespread brutality and death with equanimity.
And that is the logical progression.
If you can’t control your opponents, silence them. That is a page from any totalitarian play book. And that is what the far left and liberals are, totalitarians. If you don’t agree with their political agenda, you MUST be silenced. Of course, they say it’s for the good of the country. In reality, it is a way to consolidate their hold on power. Now wonder the American people hate them so much and can’t wait for 2012 to vote the rest of these bums out of office. If you can’t get what you want from Congress, go around it and use a government agency to silence the opposition. To all you members of Congress out there, aren’t you just a little upset that the Obama administration is making you irrelevant?
Let’s also not forget their plans to create a data retention mandate on ISPs. That is something that both sides of the aisle pushed. Bush wanted one really badly, and the Democrats mere couldn’t agree on how it should be implemented. Eventually, they’ll try another pass at this and probably get it (and we’ll have ISPs forced to keep logs on our activity for about 1-2 years before deleting them).
Prediction: the FCC will back down. Otherwise the TEA party will demand that defunding the FCC be attached to the next debt limit bill. (Just add it to the list of non-negotiable demands).
I am with noahp on this. This move, which is in direct violation of court decision, will result in the defunding fo the FCC by the 112th Congress. This is why the Republican leadership wanted a CR. They can now sever funding measures for agencies like the FCC and organizations like NPR from important spending bills. So not only will this attempt by the FCC to take over the internet fail on legal grounds it will result in the effective abolition of a redundant federal agency.
The FCC move is not entirely about control of opposing speech, it is also about enabling Google in its attempt to monopolize communications. Google has always wanted to get into the cell phone service provider business but their business model is based on freeloading on someone else’s capital investment. Without net neutrality Google would have to make substantial capital investment in infrastructure. Net neutrality would allow them to piggy back on the existing wireless infrastructure developed by ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint without having to pay for it. The real money is in the provision of services not the sale of phones and operating systems.
The Internet is the modern day version of the press. Any government action that infringes upon the free flow of information via that form of media, is a clear violation of the First Amendment.
What the Obama administration is attempting is clearly authoritarian and totalitarian in nature. There is no place for people who support these kinds of policies, in the government of the United States of America. One more reason to vote Obama out in 2012.
I’m tellin ya.
Cockroaches never rest. You think you have them sealed off. You think you nuked em with poison, and 15 minutes later they are scrambling out of some other baseboard to infect your children.
They never rest because destroying YOUR life is THEIR life. Their lust for power is insatiable. You spend 99% of your time living your life, and 1% worrying about what other people are doing to you. They spend 99% of their life conniving to control your life. Eventually, a handful of them are going to be controlling every breath you take. And it ain’t gonna be fun control, because fun control ain’t fun to them. If it isn’t oppressive, if they can’t anger, frustrate, or annoy you, they don’t get the rush of power that keeps them going. You can see this mindset in private industry as well, but it is many times worse in government. Government attracts the control freaks on steroids, simply because of the span of influence. Many of them are more mentally ill than you can imagine.
You are correct: their lust for power IS insatiable. They are monsters – killers without conscience. And if that seems a little, well…. extreme to the usual lefty trolls here, that’s too bad. Because behind the pedigree of their ideas lies slaughter, atrocity and the worst crimes against God, Man, nature, justice and reason this world has ever seen. History is my witness.
Notice the absolute silence from Leftist Obama cheerleaders on this issue. “Liberals:” proving that they are anything BUT liberal.
This is the perfect transition to the Tyrannical government that the Progressives want to foist on the American people. The FCC and EPA need to be defunded 100% and shut down. In the meantime there must be a public outrage against the FCC and administration for trying to suppress free speech. Though they will deny it, there can be no doubt that, suppression of free speech and opinion will be one of the outcomes of this policy.
The FCC has no jurisdiction over the internet.
In the meantime someone or many individuals should file a lawsuit against the FCC on the behalf of all the American People.
The ballot box, jury box and soap box are now largely ineffective. Our erstwhile rulers do what they will. One box remains.
The (Last?) Will Of The People
David, not only are you correct, this is an erosion that is relentless. It is not merely the attempt to disguise its intent, it is an ongoing gang rape of the information stream.
Since we seem no more interested as a nation to do anything more than deflect attempt after attempt after attempt, we will eventually succumb to further destruction of our ability to obtain the truth. We should instead draw a line in the sand or surrender completely.
In order to prepare for one’s eventual demise and to hopefully assist those who will carry on in one’s absence, responsible individuals construct a last will and testament to their wishes, seeking an orderly transition for their heirs and assigns.
Most people, if asked, would believe that a last will and testament is related solely to property, but this is a much narrower reading of the powers in such a document than actually exists. The document is an expression of intent and may cover a myriad of matters. What is important to be clearly set forth is that very intent.
Inherent in the promise of those charged with executing the terms and conditions of this document, is the notion that the intent of the author will be honored and protected with fidelity and integrity upon his death.
It has now become exceedingly apparent that we, the people, need to create such a document to pass along to those who have been born after us and will live beyond our final days. There appears to be no other vehicle for our expression of our intent, for the following of our wishes with fidelity and integrity and, if we continue to be ignored and are the victims of abject disrespect, this land of ours that we have to this day intended to self-govern, will be grabbed with impunity, parsed out to strangers and gobbled up by the state like hyenas on a carcass.
We will be given whatever “facts” are convenient to the powers that control us and we will no more self-govern than a oxen yoked to a plow furrows a field.
Neither polling booths nor polls seem to be doing the trick, the message filtered through the myopic lens of the legacy media which universally distorts and unilaterally revises our declared intentions. It is now readily visible that one side will breach any protocol, ignore any mandate, prop up any divisive issue, create any false emergency, defy any rule, and invade any province of the people of this land in order to fulfill their leftist agenda.
We, the people, no longer matter to the process of the making of laws in this land, to the open and fair debate about the wisdom of any policies, about the protections of our borders, about the seizing of our property, or the searching of our persons.
We should now seek to draft a document that expresses that will and our testament to our intention to pass along to our children and grandchildren the freedoms that we fought to secure, the liberties we sought to preserve and the system by which we held fast a pledge to uphold. We thought we had already drafted such a document, but this current crowd of leftists does not seem to think much of it. They wish to replace it with their whim of the day.
So, it is right that we draft a new one today so that our intention is clear, it is proper that we do so as a nation, and , by God , it is time that we do so as a people.
This, hopefully, will be the last time we have to do such a thing. This 111th Congress and those who choose to abet them, have made it necessary to respond to their willful and wanton negligence in failing to produce a budget, failing to address our border dangers, failing to make proper appropriations and instead doing everything in their power to find issues that divide us as a nation. We need a formal rebuke of these actions, a repudiation of these ignoble deeds and a demand to cease and desist from making the legislative, judicial and executive branches of OUR government into the self-aggrandizing, grandstanding, overreaching, halls of injustice toward its own people.
We also need a vehicle by and through which reasoned debate is not an obstacle that is to be circumvented by trickery and fraud, but a necessity to every piece of major legislation and enactment before it is used to control the rights, privileges and responsibilities of our citizenry.
We need a vehicle that better advises those elected and even moreso, those appointed, that it is not their chambers, it is not their oval office, it is not their courtroom. It is ours.
We need a vehicle that expresses our will and testament and does not filter it for its own crass political purposes.
We need to draft this will and testament so that we may pass on to our children and grandchildren the sacred promise that united this land from the day of its founding until today.
The “tear down the system” types believe they are bigger and more important than the Constitution, more righteous than God and more powerful than the people. They may be right. They certainly have quite a bit lately to show for their efforts.
The government is not listening. They are treating its citizens with abject disrespect. We can either give them more explicit direction and clarify our intent, or we should draft the last will and testament of a once great nation as it passes into history. That choice is now ours and it is upon us.
It seems like it was not that long ago that the Democrats were accusing Bush & The GOP of destroying our freedoms.
It really is true that Democrat charges are usually just projection on their part.
I hope the talk of defunding the FCC and EPA when they try end runs around Congress is more than just talk.
It has to be made clear to the Chicago Gang that the Executive enforces the laws Congress makes, and it does not get to make law via Agency fiat, especially when the same issue did not succeed in Congress. We may even pick up some Democrat support for this notion; they want to protect Congressional turf too.
Partial defunding will not work. They will just shuffle around the money and simply lie about it. They must be stripped of 100% of their funding, not one single dollar should be appropriated to the FCC. It is harsh, but is the only effective means.
This is an excerpt from a 4th of July speech I gave a couple of years ago:
One of the great lessons from the history of the twentieth century that so many of us have failed to learn is that our circumstances can and will change overnight. But that’s nothing new. The wisest among the ancient Greeks foresaw the collapse of their own fledgling democracies into savagery and tyranny. Over 23 centuries ago, Sophocles wrote:
Well, it CAN happen here. It IS happening here. There are those who are actually cheering for it to happen here. Then there those of us who can see what’s coming. We can hear a distant thunder rolling through far-off hills. That distant thunder is war. And those of us who hear it are preparing for war.
Change. Change is coming, oh yes indeed – but it’s not what any of that Marxist meat puppet’s worshipers bargained for. Ayn Rand had it right all these many years ago when she said that there is no personal neutrality today. You can’t sit this one out. There’s no room for ‘moderation’ here – and for you ‘moderates’ out there – how well has that worked for you so far?
You know, there’s a saying that the only things you find in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and road kill.
None of you have a “Get Out of History Free” card, either. None.
There is hope for the American Republic yet. You’ve got got stand up and not just say ‘no’ to those who wish to rule us, but ‘HELL NO!’
Not here. Not today. Not on my watch. Not ever.
Your silence now will prove to be deadly later.
So it’s time to start getting together with like-minded people. Time to organize your list of Things To Do, Places To Go and People To Meet. Because when your favorite websites suddenly go dark, when your cell phones and other communications nets no longer work, when the roadblocks go up, when you hear that knock on your midnight door – then it’ll be far, far too late.
It will be too late unless you’re willing, like Atlas, to shrug – and then defend yourself, your family and your country through every art, by every means and with all the skill you possess.
Unless you’re willing to take action, you aren’t going to get your country back, much less preserve your own freedom and dignity – or even your own life.
Sir Edmund Burke once said, “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” Everything you can do counts – here’s what you can do right now:
Participate in the nearest Appleseed Project event and join a community of likeminded people where you’ll learn the history and tradition of the first American Revolution – and you’ll learn to shoot like a rifleman while you’re at it.
To the extent that you can, remove your children from godless public schools where they’re taught socialism, sheepery and lies about America’s history. Teach them the real history of this country and the principles of freedom instead.
Take as much of your personal and business economies underground as you can. Don’t feed the beast that’s feeding on you.
Join up with Glenn Beck’s 912 Project – a latter-day network of the original Committees of Correspondence – to meet more like-minded folks.
Connect with people in your own neighborhood and build your own ‘Alarm and Muster’ network. In the times to come, you’re going to have to know who you can depend upon.
Do it now, folks, for it may be the last chance you’re going to get.
Ayn Rand once said, “The world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for. But not without Freedom.”
And for those who think that freedom is passé or over-rated; just wait until you see what your new masters replace it with.
One last thing: We ignore the lessons of history at our peril. 2000 years or so ago, Titus Livy, in the introduction to his monumental history of Rome remarked that his purpose in writing was “to trace the progress of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them.”
The people of Rome could do neither and night fell in the Western world for a thousand years.
So, when we face the dark dawning of our own modern day of which Livy spoke so long ago, there is a history lesson that every one of you all can and must teach.
It’s the lesson that courageous American men and women taught the British 234 years ago at Lexington Green and beyond.
And the lesson is that the pursuit of tyranny comes with a terrible and deadly cost to its perpetrators. For you are what tyrants fear most – informed, armed and unafraid citizens.
But if you choose to do nothing and surrender to the evil that has overtaken us, not only is your cause lost, but so is everyone else’s. Your surrender will only strengthen those who would perpetrate their evil on others. And that’s the greatest crime of all.
Stay well. Stay safe. Stay armed. Stay free.
It’s in your hands now.
Thank you and may God bless and keep you all…
This should not be a surprise to anyone. The internet played a BIG role in the defeat of the Democrats and they know they have to stifle political speech both on the net and the radio to keep power. Can they get away with it? I suspect the courts and the new Republican dominated House of Representatives will have a say. But, we the people better start voting more of the leftist tyrants out or we are toast.
We’re where we are today becuase the TRADITIONAL AMERICAN PEOPLE have surrendered their Constitutional authorities to the federal government…..plain and simple!
I tire rather fast these days, from all the perpetual dialog of identifying the superficial problems and complaining, when the Constitution gives American Citizens the power and authority to rein in an abusive and out of control government.
The Constitution provides for a [majority] rule and if the PEOPLE desire a change they probably should consider doing what the Consitution allows them before they lose their majority.
A single Constitutional Amendment would allow for the reversal of 99.999% of the problems created by the federal government that has brought this once greatest nation on earth to this point and time of dastardly circumstance.
Start a Peoples and/or States Constitutional Convention to:
Amend Article I, Section 8, Commerce Clause!
“Except in cases where treason, incitement to violence, and overt and indisputable prejudicial defamation are plainly detectable, the government troll has no business infiltrating the cyberworld or scouring the airwaves.”
NB — Democrats have no issue with treason, incitement, or defamation. What they object to is anyone telling the truth about their ways and goals.
“Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of a Nation, must begin by subduing
the Freeness of Speech; a Thing terrible to Publick Traytors…That Men
ought to speak well of their Governours is true, while their Governours
deserve to be well spoken of; but to do publick Mischief, without
hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny…Only the
wicked Governours of Men dread what is said of them…”
~Benjamin Franklin
…a political party is credibly seen to cherish a particular agenda to which it does not openly admit, but which it pursues with clandestine intent in its political and economic policies.
Everything this govenment is doing under the phony and high falutin’ patina of “justice” is really about takeover and control. Their favorite word is applied to anything and everything…social justice, economic justice, climate justice (warmists demanding payments from “rich” countries) food justice (Michelle’s favorite), media justice (Genaknowski’s favorite), medical justice (Obamacare)…
On and on the justice train rides, where it stops, nobody knows.
Promoting all this crapola are some of the most devious, unjust, self-serving, power-mongering, socialism-loving individuals on the planet. Many of these efforts are clandestinely (and not so clandestinely) funded by George Soros and friends.
Commentators quickly understood this was a subtle ploy to pressure and restrain conservative radio hosts advocating a political position contrary to the reigning Democratic program.
Devoid of substance (beyond the rants), Left Wing talk radio has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot prevail in the marketplace of ideas. Therefore, the only remaining option (Barack Obama himself is obsessed with his conservative critics on the airwaves) is attempting to use governmental institutions to effect the level of control and regulation they want, which describes precisely Net Neutrality and the never ending efforts to re-impose some kind of Fairness Doctrine (in fact, an un-fairness doctrine)
These days, all kinds of bureaucrats at agencies like the EPA and the FCC want to exercise power outside of any Congressional oversight. As does this President himself and his cadre of Czars and sundry advisors.
Loosely quoting an infamous talk radio host, September 2009, “the Obema administration is all purposeful…its purpose is to weaken…(to instill) one party rule with no checks and balances…(using) a compliant state controlled media”