One thing hasn’t changed since my lefty days pre-9/11. I still admire the immortal words of Groucho Marx: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member!”
And I never felt them so acutely as when reading Jonathan Strong’s excerpts in the Daily Caller this morning, regarding the Journolist crew’s reaction to the Jeremiah Wright affair. These quotes from a private list of soi-disant liberal journalists read like outtakes from some notebook stolen from a proto-Trotskyite home for the aged — and not one of them is faintly clever. What a bunch of fuddy-duddys. Yes, I know Strong was being selective for his own purposes, but still … these guys are writers? Hunter Thompson not. For that matter, Roger Kimball not.
But forget the paucity of imagination and style, what about the group think? These are the independent minds that seek to mold our culture and political lives? Nowhere to be found is an original thought – unless you count accusing Karl Rove of racism as a brainstorm.
Well, we have had the generation gap and tons of other gaps. Now Journolist reveals we have an “elitism gap.” Gone are the days of the Algonquin Round Table to be replaced by a cabal of humdrum mediocrities on a listservr plotting how to justify the racist ravings of a reactionary theocrat.
Nowhere in evidence, at least in Strong’s article, is the single question any rational mind would ask re: Obama-Wright at the height of a political campaign. Just why did Barack Obama remain in the pew of this reverend for twenty years? But enough of rationality. Journolist clearly isn’t about truth. It’s about winning. What it gives us, inadvertently or not, is the profession of journalism unmasked. And what we see is, alas, what we already knew. And it ain’t pretty.
Journalism, no matter what the J-schools say, is not cardiology. It’s not even plumbing. It’s just another biased human activity practiced by those who can get — and keep — the job. The Daily Caller has performed a service in publishing the dull maunderings of the Journolist crowd. It takes them all down yet another peg. How many are left to go?
Of course, this doesn’t apply just to self-described liberals or leftists. Simply because their ideology is in desperate retreat doesn’t make them unique in this regard. No matter what our views, we are all merely citizens of a virtual Grub Street. Almost anyone can do what we do. In his jaunty cynicism, James Boswell had more to say about the life of a journalist than all the professors at Columbia added up and squared. The “elite” members of Journolist, who take themselves sooo seriously, would be well advised to read — our reread — his London Journal.
“Humdrum mediocrities”
Ouch. That’ll leave a mark!
The point is not that they’re mediocrities. The point is that when advocates for The Left have a stranglehold on journalism, are able to palm themselves off as objective reporters, the very lifeblood of a Republic – facts, not propaganda – is cut off.
Exactly. We are not dealing here with mere mediocrity. We are not dealing merely with people with unconscious and unavoidable biases. We are not even merely dealing with poststructuralist cynics who have abandoned the search for facts, in service of the narrative, though they are certainly the products of that philosophy. We are dealing with full blown Alinskyite warriors who are very consciously seeking to deceive and manipulate the public mind. These people are engaged in the deliberate deception of the American voter, hiding who their candidate is, hiding what their beliefs are, hiding what their plans for us are. And let’s face it, they succeeded wildly in 2008, to the everlasting shame of the American voter.
Well put. Or, to quote Gabby Johnson during the Town Hall meeting in Blazing Saddles: “Rrrevrr!”
Furthermore:
“I wash born here, an I wash raished here, and dad gum it, I am gonna die here, an no sidewindin’ bushwackin’, hornswagglin’ cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter.” -G.J.
I enjoyed your description of our media as “full blown Alinskyite warriors.” We elected a stealth candidate with a stealth platform sitting on a stealth soapbox provided by a stealth media. All of us need to know that word “stealth” is substitute for “Alinskyite” and I wonder when the veil will lift on these subversives and they show their true motives to those us who don’t follow politics closely enough to know what happened in 2008.
I know the term “subversive” carries decades-old, blurry connotations but what else can you call people who are destroying our established social/political systems using a strategy of universal deceit?
I was a bit confused by some of the ranting. Some of the contributors seemed to be criticizing the unearthing of Wright as “gotcha” journalism – dirty pool, basically, and a pointless distraction from the *real* issues facing the country. I could almost agree with them – if it weren’t for their subsequent posts, which seem to expose their left-wing partisanship as well as their willingness to use their professions to further Obama’s cause.
So they thought that the close association between Obama and Reverend Wright was “gotcha” journalism and they decided to bloody the faces, figuratively speaking, of people who dared to reveal any details about Obama’s public life which could lead people to form an opinion about who Obama really was, as a person. Because “the issues” were more important than who the candidate was.
And so today, in the Washington Post, the question is still, “Who Is Barak Obama”?
I have to disagree. There was nothing “gotcha” about it. Obama’s 20-year association with Jeremiah Wright, Trinity Church and Black Liberation Theology was a legitimate area of inquiry.
There was precious little for the public to go on in the matter of Barack Obama, would-be president of the United States. We were told his lack of relevant experience and appreciable accomplishment was immaterial. We were told his character and superior intellect and temperament were the qualities by which we should measure the man. Well, okay then, what do you say we have a thorough examination of those qualities.
But we didn’t get that, did we. There were no transcripts, test scores, client lists to peruse. Nor, except for two self-serving “memoirs,” was there any kind of paper trail. His legislative record, which was actually a matter of public record, was glossed over as there was little in to recommend him. In short, there was almost nothing from which we could take our measure.
And when matters like Rev. Wright arose, they were swept under the rug (or thrown under the bus) with great dispatch. Obama had a very close relationship with Wright. He was his mentor and political and spiritual adviser. But despite their 20-year association, Obama claimed to know nothing of Wright’s anti-Semitic, anti-white, anti-American rantings and views. That was not only patently absurd, but laugh-out-loud ridiculous. And yet, MSM said sure, it could happen to anyone, and made the conscious, deliberate and apparently collective decision to move the public beyond it as quickly as possible and by whatever means necessary.
Many said that Obama cutting Wright loose should have been the end of it. Well, they were wrong. That 20 years deserved scrutiny. Heck, the act itself deserved analysis as it was one of the first indications we had that for Obama, the one unforgivable transgression is disrespecting him.
Now the public is getting wise to the media’s pre-election machinations. And now we’re getting a glimpse of how the leftist media makes its particular brand of sausage. T’aint pretty.
If Obama knew about Wright’s anti-semitism etc., then that says something about him.
If Obama was that close to Wright, for 20 years, yet never picked up on Wright’s anti-semitism etc., then that says something else about him.
These are the only two options. This relationship shows that either Obama knew and didn’t care, or that he’s utterly clueless and a poor judge of character.
Neither of these characteristics are ones we want in a president.
During his heyday, Jeremiah Wright was perhaps the leading exponent in the nation of “black liberation theology.” He regularly fomented not only the virulent anti-Semitism rife in the Nation of Islam and in the hearts and speech of the race huckster industry led by Jackson and Sharpton, Wright trafficked in all manner of destruction and hateful mythmaking, including the whopper about the CIA developing AIDS to kill off black people. There is no way Obama did not know of this man’s hatred of Jews, whites and America as a whole. Did Obama agree with this view? I suspect largely so, but what we know for sure is that he joined Wright’s church for political reasons—to get street cred in the South Chicago black community. So, at the very least, Obama was perfectly happy to sit in the pews for 20 years, listening the rantings of this hateful bigot and exploit the spreading of his hateful message for his own purposes. It is black Americans who suffer the most from the spreading of the vile lies of people like Farrakhan, Sharpton and Wright. Obama was happy to benefit politically from that, regardless of how much he believed the good reverend’s rantings.
Bingo, I don’t Obama is anti semetic. I think he is a user. He used bill ayers and his abismal girl friend to get in to the houses of the monied elite lefties, he used Rev Wright to get a lot of boots on the ground for his early ambitions…but Obama is NOT a lefty. Republicans actually sound stupid when they claim he is.
The fact is that Obama will use anyone and anything to get that next higher honor. Now that he is president I do not think he even likes the job.
I agree Obama is a user. But it’s a stretch to say he isn’t a leftist ideologue. Why would he push so hard for the health care takeover and various other dramatically unpopular laws if he were not ideologically motivated? where is the much-predicted “pivot” to more “moderate” policies? It’s not coming, that’s where. Yes, he’s a user, and a good deal of that is for his own personal advancement. But he clearly has an ideological agenda.
the media is not leftist, it is not conservative, it is corporate. In 2000 and 2004 the media in general excused bush’s faults and foibles and destroyed on purpose Gore and then Kerry (who deserved it IMO)but gave a pass to bush. Is that leftist? No. In 2008 Obama was the candidate big corporations knew they were most likely to be able to buy and control. The corporate elite knew that bush had destroyed the republican brand and that a ham sandwich would have won over a republican….. So we got Obama and Obama got the kid glove treatment Bush got in 2000.
ps… I voted for McCain/Palin partly because I think McCain has more character than Obama, but also because of the rank sexism practiced by my party, first against Clinton and then Palin. First time in my life I voted republican. If the party will run a moderate intelligent, capable woman for president I will campaign for her.
Not to despair: Sarah Palin graduated in… Journalism!
As Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond once wrote: “Nobody’s perfect!”
Roger, surely you see the parallel to Climategate. Only there won’t be any whitewashes because there won’t be any inquiries.
Indeed.
Mr. Simon:
“Nowhere to be found is an original thought – unless you count accusing Karl Rove of racism as a brainstorm.”
Now, sir, you know as well as I do that if you can say such a thing with enough ersatz earnestness, it will get you invited to all the best of parties, with the free booze and the tasty grub.
Which, I suspect, is more than half of the reason these “humdrum mediocrities” grunt and bleat such groupthink.
It’s rather like clapping for the president of your union.
You KNOW he’s a dirty thieving scoundrel, and he knows that you know it, but if you want your job, you clap and feign enthusiasm for the bunk and lies that pour from his lips…until its time to cross the picket line and leave him, (or his designated representative, more likely), standing all alone out there on the sidewalk holding up his pathetic “On Strike” sign all by his little lonesome.
Bernie Goldberg wrote a book titled Bias. The theory was that left bias in the media was not a conspiracy but just groupthink. I wonder what he says now.
Even these self-congratulating journalists are conscious enough of their groupthink that they know that the public just hasn’t had sufficient time and indoctrination to draw abreast of their advanced thinking. So JournoList was deliberately created as a refuge from any possible criticism of the candid discussions that only they were mature enough to participate in. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a, er, um… ‘facilitated discussion by invitation’.
Goldberg proved nothing, he cited no real evidence or facts, just his opinion. Come on guys, you can do better than Goldberg as a sorce.
It is hardly a surprise that the members of the ruling elite are not geniuses. Membership in that club is reserved for those with the right ideas and the right connections, and of course, the right education (although presumably Roger has been drummed out for not having the right attitude).
It’s astounding the breadth and depth of the cynicism that was employed to elect a man whose central promise was to do away with all the cynicism in politics. It only goes to show that one can never be too cynical about the Left.
Dear Jeffersonian…try a wee bit o’ Jacksoniansm in your next thoughtline. What do I mean? “Teach the children well” as that absurd,self-absorbed songline goes (CSNY,recall?): do not ever trust ANY member of the political class AGAIN.Full stop…that should be the essence of our “consent to be governed” -or as Reagan opined famously, “trust and verify” continously…recall there was not a dry seat in the “house” at Obama’s inauguration…that says it all!
Our Constitution is genius writ small and succint; why? ’cause it acknowledges that we’re just human- teach that,as well- loudly!!
God help us and let us help ourselves, whilst we’re at it.
Dear Jeffersonian…try a wee bit o’ Jacksoniansm in your next thoughtline. What do I mean? “Teach the children well” as that absurd,self-absorbed songline goes (CSNY,recall?): do not ever trust ANY member of the political class AGAIN.Full stop…that should be the essence of our “consent to be governed” -or as Reagan opined famously, “trust and verify” continously…recall there was not a dry seat in the “house” at Obama’s inauguration…that says it all!
Our Constitution is genius writ small and succinct; why? ’cause it acknowledges that we’re just human- teach that,as well- loudly!!
God help us and let us help ourselves, whilst we’re at it.
Which brings up another Groucho quote, something like “Ah, sincerity –
Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
That to me is what sticks out about this. It is not that they are partisans. Everyone knew that. It is that they are such mediocrities. They have such limited minds. Imagine if Hunter S. Thompson or Ring Lardner or H.L. Menken, or William Randoph Hearst had posted on such a list. There were would be some vile stuff no doubt. But it at least would be entertaining. The quality of minds who are involved in and successful in journalism is just pretty low. And that goes a long way to explaining why no one reads newspapers or the big media anymore. It is not so much that they are partisan. It is that they are just boring and written by people with very limited minds.
yup, it is not partisanship though there are partisans on both sides. The problem to my mind is that they are such lemmings. Some decides what the story is and then they all tell the same story or fear not being invited to next weeks cocktail parties.
Best Line of the Day:
These quotes from a private list of soi-disant liberal journalists read like outtakes from some notebook stolen from a proto-Trotskyite home for the aged — and not one of them is faintly clever.
Years ago a fledgling San Francisco Chronicle reporter described the rationale of her career choice thusly…
“I wanted to change the world, but I couldn’t pass the bar exam.”
Years ago a fledgling San Francisco Chronicle reporter described the rationale of her career choice thusly…
“I wanted to change the world, but I couldn’t pass the bar exam.”
****************************************************
In other words she wanted to become a leech, but settled for being a mosquito.
That quote’s priceless…
Roger,
your description of journalism as an ordinary human occupation is probably itself dated. As Rush has proposed today, there IS no more journalism. The occupation, collectively, can now be argued to have given up its own understood purpose and point, to give the public the who/what/when/where/why and some analysis, and instead is now wholly the propaganda/PR arm of the political left. They long ago ceased to hide it in terms of their content and slant, and now their conspiracies and personal opinions are not hidden either.
It is Goebbels at work, or perhaps the Russian word for “Truth”, the same word that names the Russian press agency, “Pravda”, with the nod to the fact that it is “the State’s version of the truth” which they peddle at that agency, and we now understand that the American ‘ruling class’ is having its version of truth peddled by the MSM. That would be bad enough. But the MSM also conspires to conceal/obfuscate/confuse the actual truth so that “their truth” seems best. Just call them racists, they’ll sputter and defend themselves and it will be better for us…
“As Rush has proposed today, there IS no more journalism. The occupation, collectively, can now be argued to have given up its own understood purpose and point, ”
yeah, well rush should know. Every time I think he might actually have a valid point about something he follows it up with a big fat lie.
I stopped listening to Olberman years ago, you should do the same with Rush. He is toxic to America. Take someone like George Will, I do not agree with him, but at least he is honest. Limbaugh really is a big fat liar.
As I”ve asked a gazillion times before, name something Limbaugh has said that is–
racist
a lie
………………………………
“Limbaugh is toxic to America” that’s a rhetorical flourish that doesn’t really say anything. Your embrace of Will as “honest” is ridiculous. They are both honest, but they often disagree with each other. When they do, I usually agree with Limbaugh and not with Will. But I am sharing one opinion and rejecting another. That is not about fact or lie, only about viewpoints, styles, principles.
Speaking of being honest, you might want to abandon this pretense of being a sensible mid-roader. You’re an angry leftist. Admit it.
btw your Groucho reference reminds me of another Groucho classic, which applied to Dems in congress during the Bush years but now applies to the media whenever they see conservative principles at work–
(groucho sings) “I don’t care what you have to say, it makes no difference anyway, whatever it is, I’m against it!”
While at Harvard (where they had a seminar on how to talk to minorities — but that’s not racist), the “men” were flabby, or had bodies you could pick a lock with, uncouth, and all but drooled on themselves. The buttsy women waddled about in Birkenstocks hating men or sleeping with whatever ones walked. Then they gradutated, moved to NYC, work in media and hang out in bars that rich, goodlooking men ignore just to be spared the competition or, for the women, the rejection. They haven’t been laid in six months and the next six isn’t looking good either. If a pretty woman walks in, it’s to use the phone because her cell isn’t working. They heap scorn on her — she’s probably stupid. So is her Ken doll boyfriend. That’s their politics. Look at poor Sarah Palin or Scott Brown. So, they connect with their friends who feel somewhat guilty because don’t have to use their degree and to feel relevant talk all about the plight of minorities — when they don’t any.
Minorities, of course, are their ghetto sterotypes, convincing those who fit, that they are the real deal, and that anyone else — that has a job, no record, and votes conservative is a sell-out — to bolster their own hatred to justify themselves as relevant. Then, not printing anything that contradicts that, or them. When they really get desparate they hire a has been comedian, lousy actress, no one cares about, like Garafalo.
Why did it become fashionable to parrot the principles of the Left, like statism? These journalists aren’t Liberals, who historically favored free trade, rule of law, etc. These characters are sneerers and that is because they are not smart enough to do anything else. I work at a small college and I see and hear the sneering from so-called professors of journalism, education, etc. but not so much from economists or even historians or philosophers.
dave in dallas wrote:
your description of journalism as an ordinary human occupation is probably itself dated.
Journalism isn’t dead. That ideal never existed.
We chew over memories of an age that never was.
Those ‘memories’ only exist because the journolists keep reminding us, or even implanting them in our memories.
It is a fraud, and has been a fraud for as long as the journolists have tried to claim objectivity.
I disagree that there never was journalism. There has not always been a hardcore political left. The advent of that kind of practiced, propagandized leftism is post French revolution, 19th century, and the polish was probably applied shortly before Marx if not BY Marx.. so journalism before then, while it might have been “hidden advocacy” journalism as you’re implying, was not “hidden state propaganda advocacy” in the sense we see now. And although we can CERTAINLY trace our version back to at least the Russian revolution, it was not universal until the last few years, IMHO. Now there is simply nobody left except Fox (not all the time, mind you) and talk radio. All other media outlets are fully, heavily, conspiratorially vested in and committed to “state propaganda”.
I stand by my assertion.
Roger, one doesn’t have to be smart, creative or original to conspire to tell a lie. They just have to be willing.
The JournoKlan members didn’t need intelligence to maintain their hooded existence, they only needed to be willing.
They didn’t need a mastery of logic to conspire to fan the flames of racial divide, they only needed to be willing.
They didn’t need to gang rape our information stream, they only needed to be willing.
They didn’t have to sell their souls, they only needed to be willing.
And now…we don’t have to sit on our hands and avert our gaze at their near criminal acts of omission and commission…we only have to be willing. For my part, I’m not.
And, I hope I never get so jaded as to get there.
More Groucho:
“Those are my principles, sir, and if you don’t like them…I have others.”
These “Journalists” are whores…also a profession but with higher ethical standards than “Journalists”.
Says a lot, too, about their “Education”. A comparison of The School to a Brothel is interesting with Faculties as the Pimps?
“…Journalism, no matter what the J-schools say, is not cardiology…”
J-schools no more produce great Journalists than writing programs produce great writers. As Mark Steyn regularly points out, we are an overcredentialled society. J-schools and writing programs are the death of American letters.
All good points. And while we’re at it, let’s add that art schools don’t produce either artists or great art. Instead, they teach people how to talk about art in pretentious and ridiculous ways, and how to try to pass off some of the most hideous and unsightly crap ever produced as “art.”
This missive by Mr. Simon is a cogent, relevant and clever work of writing that succinctly describes the gist of the see- hear- and speak-no-Wright agitprop conspiracy. Like Andrew Breitbart says to the leftist hegemony-imposers, “We’re onto you.” Thanks, Roger, for contributing a necessary big picture summary of the sort that is both useful for taking the measure of where we stand and worthy of linking to so that the measure can be shared with friends, family and acquaintances.
Anf by the way-Wright in my view isnt even the worse one-Ayers is. And worse yet is Ayers standing as a curriculumn giant in academia, especially considering his past with the communist Weather Underground , his involvement in several murders and bombings, his admitting on the morning of 9/11/01 that “we didnt bomb enough” , his telling FBI informant Larry Grathwol that “killing 25-30 million will be necessary” to make the “revolution” succeed and his role in the blowing up of the greenwich Village townhouse belonging to WR Grace CEO Robert Wilkerson, whose daughter Susan was a prominent Weather Underground member. One unexploded bomb found in the townhouse had 500 sticks of dynamite studded with 2500 1.5 inch roofing nails. a subsequent investigation by NYPD cheif of detectives Al Seedman found the bomb was intended tobe used at a High school Graduation party at Fort Dix, NJ. This is an even worse crime than Wright. The fact that Ayers has spent 35 yrs as a free man in academia is an even worse one.
And today they have come out and are questioning the swift firing blaming it on those who broke or report the story of the racists Shirley Sherrod, the department’s ex-Georgia director of Rural Development. Are saying that maybe she was a blatant racists 20 years ago but she is now just telling a folksy humorous story to liven up the NAACP crowd.
To be intellectually corrupt and ideologically engaged evidently is a condition of employment. Paul Greenberg, the Pultizer Prize winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, had an interesting column on Sunday. That newspaper served in the past as a kind of farm club where journalists could get some seasoning before moving up to the bigs. (Tucker Carlson is an example.) Greenberg related a conversation he had years ago with a new kid from Oberlin College who was well-mannered except in a casual conversation about some political subject where he had views (liberal of course; Oberlin indoctrinates them well). “We must crush that mindset,” he said. That conversation has stuck with Greenberg since. The problem is systemic and endemic. FOX only manages to keep the oddly-named mainstream media only partially honest part of the time.
The banality of evil.
More Groucho Marx:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”
That about covers the absurd through the criminal.
I remember the morning after GWB was re-elected in 2004 I tuned into some of the talk shows just to get the general feel for what the media was thinking. I was astounded by the silence. I think they did a few cooking segments and some lifestyle reporting. It was if nothing of any importance had happened at all. The silence was deafening.
Was this what Dorothy Parker had in mind when she used the word “horticulture” in a sentence?
A commenter who agrees with Roger about the “paucity of imagination and style” wistfully imagined HL Mencken and Ring Lardner as Journolisters–wouldn’t that be a read–which made me think of the Lardner quote in Thomas Sowell’s recent piece: “Shut up,” he explained. Now, that’s great writing.
Just a bunch of bitter clingers, still clinging to their guns and religion — guns loaded with the same empty rhetoric, and a religion based on race-baiting for me but not for thee.
‘The lowest depth to which people can sink before God is defined by the word ‘journalist’. If I were a father and had a daughter who was seduced I should despair over her; I would hope for her salvation. But if I had a son who became a journalist and continued to be one for five years, I would give him up.’ — Søren Kierkegaard, The Last Years: Journals 1853-1855
Correction to the above quotation (comment #31). It should read, “If I were a father and had a daughter who was seduced I should NOT despair over her; I would hope for her salvation…”
At long last, someone else who has read Boswell’s London Journal! Those amazing diaries show all sorts of human behavior, and as you point out, some things, like the scribblers in “Grub Street” have hardly changed at all, only the circumstances are different.
(A great unwritten time travel story–someone gives Boswell a small videocamera to record his daily life and conceal (like his journal) for us to find two centuries later!)
I’m recusiating myself from this one because I lack empathy for hairy people, and though my bottom is rather flabby, my pecs and lats are something to be demired.
I wonder if Clinton did not make an issue of Wright early on because she thought all these people were on her side.
The Journalists succeeded with their plan. Obama got elected and definitely satisfies progressives desires. How much damage will he do before he loses next election!
There has always been bias in reporting. The mask of fairness was a recent addition due to the advent of television. The internet is starting to rip it from grasping fingers.
We’ve been headed down this road for a long time, we’ve finally reached the point that nothing in the “media” is credible. No longer does anyone report the news, we are fed a steady diet of opinion flavored with current events. The current state of the news makes Palins “lamestream media” so appropriate. For someone out there with an entrepeneurial bent there is a market for actual fair and balanced reporting.
This is the only antidote to fight far left overthrow of America:
THE FREEDOM MANIFESTO
I read an article in Politico on the agenda of MoveOn.org, which explains their new agenda, now that the most liberal politician in our history has been elected President. Got me thinking of what it would look like if the “right” would – hypothetically speaking, of course – develop a plan to resist MoveOn, Obama and the age of huge (not just big) government. These people at MoveOn did not wait for politicians in Washington to step up to their agenda – they stepped up to the politicians and said “you are going to do this, or else.” We Christians and Conservatives, likewise cannot continue to howl and fuss at liberals who do not fight for the Founding Principles upon which our nation was founded. If MoveOn and the Daily Kos can do it, so can we. And we must. The attack plan below to restore Constitutional government, is just a start but should include:
1.Establish the groundwork for a boycott of the federal income tax. If you no longer feel the federal government is operating within the confines of the Constitution, you have a moral obligation to become a conscientious objector and simply say NO to the payment of taxes to Washington. Does the Constitution give the Feds the right to bail out labor unions and give non-citizens rights and benefits? If you feel that by doing so, our sovereignty, Constitution and Bill of Rights are null and void then so is any responsibility you may have had for taxes under the 16th Amendment. 2. Begin a vigorous campaign to urge the public to home-school and/or send their children to private schools, with or without vouchers. Then begin a major program to build a private, non-union school system. This is the only way we will crack the huge union dominated government school bureaucracy. 3. Begin to use the legal system to fight big government. If the ACLU can do it, why can’t we? We must begin to bring suit on every issue that threatens our nation’s original freedoms and traditions. 4. We begin a systematic march on the media, especially television. TV is the medium through which the liberal agenda is being implemented. The left learned long ago that a picture is worth a thousand words and the best example of this is the pictures of bodies of dead soldiers they broadcast every time we are in a war they do not approve of (usually when a Republican is leading it!). Holding pro-America, Republican rallies at local TV stations would be a great start – especially if the liberals re-implement the “Fairness” Doctrine. 5. Boycott employers who advertise on far left liberal media outlets like NBC. No patriotic American should buy a General Electric household product as long as Matthews, Olbermann and their ilk are permitted to spew their anti-Republican, anti-American hatred. 6. Expose the controlling roll that unions play in growing a totalitarian media/government complex. 7. Establish an underground network of physicians and health care providers that will fight to preserve private sector medicine. 8. Establish Committees of Correspondence and Safety to provide communications and security – just as our Founding Fathers did. 9. Join the NRA as we have just as much right to carry guns under the 2nd Amendment as the media does to carry cameras under the 1st Amendment. 10. Demand adherence to the 9th and 10th Amendments of the Constitution and promote and support state sovereignty efforts. 11. Tell your health care providers that they do NOT have your permission to enter your private medical information in a Federal data base as required in the recently passed (and unconstitutional) so called Stimulus law. 12. Give every American citizen two million dollars, deposited in a bank of their choice, in conjunction with the elimination of Social Security and all federal welfare programs such as WIC, S-CHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, HUD, etc. Shut them all down 13. Repeal the 17th Amendment and last but certainly not least: 14. Repeal the law that makes government employee unions legal.
These are just a few of the actions that are necessary to first stop and then roll back the liberal juggernaut that threatens our basic freedoms and liberty. In our Declaration of Independence, our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. It is not too late for us to make that same commitment; in fact it is just in time.
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. – Thomas Paine, The Crisis, December 23, 1776
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” – Thomas Jefferson
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” – James Madison
In response to DeVan’s FREEDOM MANIFESTO
Before the 20th Century, divers manually pulled oysters from the ocean floors, and checked them individually for pearls. In a haul of three tons,only three or four oysters will produce perfect pearls.
Journolism is not that different.
Well Buddy, you speeded up the ‘shucking process’ … This column is a pearl…one of the best written I’ve read in a very long time. I hope you publish more.
I will anticipate your posts in the future!
DeVan, Add the 16th Amendment, and you’ve almost a perfect plan.
“Journalism, no matter what the J-schools say, is not cardiology. It’s not even plumbing. It’s just another biased human activity practiced by those who can get — and keep — the job.”
Exactly. Anyone who’s been educated beyond the nursery school level encountered fellow students who were really really smart.
Ask yourself how many of those people ended up as journalists.
Here is a true Parasite which is destroying the United States everyday. Pathetic!
http://tpartyus2010.ning.com/video/video/show?id=3180617%3AVideo%3A35188&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_video
“Writing” is considered ‘creative’ by implication. “Reporting” more closely follows the guide lines of “journalism.” Writers want recognition. Journalists want to inform. These people are mostly folks who couldn’t hack it in life, IMHBLO. They squeaked through journalism classes under camouflage to get the ‘credentials’ and now “write” for a “major publication.”
Once in the company of other professional losers they became loser groupies. Commiserating and wallowing in their self pity and self aggrandizing desires to be influential, like those whom they wrote about and secretly envied and despised, that eventually became their targets for good or bad.
Perspective can be hard to maintain for adults. But for childish immature self involved ‘pin heads’ it’s much worse.
I actually have a relative who graduated from j-school (about 1995, I’d say), but never practiced her craft other than in various civic & school-related organizations.
She tells us that the most valuable thing she learned in j-school is that almost all of her classmates had a political agenda to advance. Journalism was the method by which they were going to advance it.
It depends on the agenda, of course. She claims that one of her classmates openly stated–in the classroom–that Christians should not be allowed to hold public office.
Speaking of the mediocrity of journalists…how about reading Mark Twain’s story about the time he was put in charge of editing an agricultural paper?
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/1524/
He was reprimanded for the complete and total nonsense he wrote. From his rejoinder, the money quotes:
“I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper….Sir, I have been through it from Alpha to Omaha, and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands.”
Read the whole thing.
My original comment was a small stab of neocon humor poking fun at the Left’s fixation
on Mrs. Palin’s intellectual creds, its stance on racial matters, and maybe the Sotomayer hearings.
Oh, also a shout-out to any likeminded boomer gals of my physical charms and availability for social intercourse. The Hotmail hath spoken!
My dream job of course is final proofreader for Jennifer Rubin, or maybe Sarah Palin’s butler. Tossup.
When the twitterer twittered her take,
All the twitterers twittered “She’s Shake!”
But their twitters were bitter
And they caused not a flitter
‘Cause their twitters were illiterate.
Sigh, back to the back of the line
How about,
‘Cause their twitters were no more not fake?
Major scrub needed, methinks…
Or, “So their twitters we’ll henceforth forsake.”
Can someone send it to Derb for me? Thanks.