A Reuters article last month titled “German protesters stop neo-Nazi march in Dresden” takes a hyper-partisan stab at what would otherwise have been a dull story. The article is short, 474 words, and describes a neo-Nazi funeral march in the German city to remember Nazi deaths by the Allied air raid in WWII. This event was thwarted by anti-Nazi protesters.
In this brief article about clear-cut good and evil, the political “right-wing” is awkwardly invoked six times, including under the caption. Such a ham-handed approach to finger-pointing can hardly go unnoticed. It is a sloppy attempt to paint the right-wing as sharing the ideology of one of the most evil men in history, Adolf Hitler.
As many people are beginning to understand, Nazism has nothing to do with modern conservatism or the clichéd “extreme right-wing” canard favored by the political left. In fact, all totalitarian regimes are on the extreme political left; nothing but anarchy exists on the extreme political right.
The modern left has its roots in the political phenomenon of the 1930s when progressivism, communism, fascism, socialism, and Nazism coalesced under the common flag of centralized governments and an ideology of collectivism. This worldwide movement went largely unchallenged ideologically until the reassertion of classical liberalism through the American conservative movement in the 1950s. The in-vogue politics of the 1930s spanned merely from the “right-wing” nationalistic fascism of Mussolini and Hitler to a “left-wing” muddle of socialism, Marxism, and communism.
To equate the George Washington-loving, Constitution-quoting, flag-carrying, tea partying conservatives of today with the Nazis or fascism is an exercise in fear mongering and a simple wordplay on the misconceptions of the historical context of “right-wing.” (For a simplistic explanation of this assertion, see this brief video.)
The “objectivity” of the modern press is often breached by such outbursts, as seen in the article referenced above. The political right-wing is excoriated through straw men and outright lies to be subliminal reminders of the purported righteousness of the ideological left. Nothing less can be expected of those with no defense based on their own history, as we’ll soon see.
Let’s turn the tables on the press and mass media in general to examine their history. We’ll look at the strategies and political leanings of most outlets of “journalism” to see who has been influenced the most by anti-freedom, dishonest, statist, and totalitarian tactics.
The political favoritism and outright lies of left-wing press
In the 1985 documentary Soviet Subversion of the Free-World Press, ex-KGB propagandist and defector Yuri Bezmenov explains in detail how the American media was led by the nose into distributing Soviet propaganda because of their communist sympathies and willingness to “look the other way”:
Griffin (interviewer): We’ve read a lot about the concentration camps and slave labor camps under the Stalin regime. Now the general impression in America is those things are part of the past. Are they still going on today? (1985)
Bezmenov: Yes. There’s no qualitative change in the Soviet concentration camp system. There are changes in numbers of prisoners. … I would say that those intellectuals who try to convince the American public that [the] concentration camp system is a thing of the past are either conscientiously misleading public opinion or they are not very intellectual people. They’re selectively blind. They lack intellectual honesty when they say that.
Bezmenov goes on to explain and prove his credentials in KGB operations and recounts several stories of interactions with Western leftists, naming them specifically as “progressives.” He was assigned an agent position with Novasti Press Agency, a front group for KGB propaganda:
Bezmenov: Another area of activity when I was working for the Novasti was to accompany groups of so-called “progressive intellectuals,” writers, journalists, publishers, teachers, professors of colleges. You can see me here in Kremlin, I am second on the left. … For us, they were just a bunch of political prostitutes to be taken advantage [of] for various propaganda operations.
In 1967 the KGB attached me to this [video time: 35:18] “Look Magazine.” … A group of 12 people arrived to USSR from United States to cover the 50th Anniversary of October Socialist Revolution in my country. From the first page to the last page it was a package of lies, propaganda cliché. Which were presented to American readers as opinions and deductions of American journalists. Nothing could be farther from truth. [These] were not opinions, they were not opinions at all, they were the clichés which the Soviet propaganda wants [the] American public to think that they think. … The basic message is that Russia today is a nice, functioning, efficient system supported by [the] majority of [the] population. That’s the biggest lie, and of course American intellectuals and journalists from Look Magazine liberated on that untruth in various different ways. They intellectualized that lie. They found all kinds of justifications for telling lies to [the] American public.
After defecting to the West, Bezmenov told his story in lectures and gave interviews to clue the free world in on the dangers of Soviet ideological subversion. He also recounts stories of interactions with American media after his defection:
Bezmenov: Time magazine, for example, is very critical of [the] South African, racist regime. [A] … whole article was dedicated to the shameful internal passport system where blacks are not allowed to leave with whites. For some strange reason, for the last fourteen years since my defection, nobody wanted to pay attention to my passport. This is my passport [video time 47:56]; it also shows my nationality and it has a police rubber stamp which is called prapiska in the Russian language which assigns me to a certain area of residence. I cannot leave that area, the same way this black man cannot leave the area in South Africa. Yet, we call the South African government, a racist regime. Not a single Jane … Fonda is brave enough, courageous enough to come to the media and say, “look, this is what happens in the USSR.” I sent a copy of my passport to many American liberals and civil rights defenders and all the other useful idiots. They never bothered to answer me back. This shows what kind of integrity these people [have]. They are a bunch of hypocrites.
To further corroborate Mr. Bezmenov’s claims that the media is biased in reporting truth about communist dictatorships, here is a partial transcript from Glenn Beck’s The Revolutionary Holocaust:
The New York Times now acknowledges their role in the propping up of Stalin’s regime by their reporter Walter Duranty. He called the forced famine in the Ukraine mostly bunk and viciously justified the millions dead by saying: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” … Because of this information, many people in the West reacted quite passively to what happened in the Ukraine. Duranty was there and his position was pro-Soviet. I think he did a lot of harm to the truth at that time. … He reported, no, there is no famine in Ukraine. But there is widespread mortality due to diseases of malnutrition.
In case you’re still not convinced that the famine was intentional, during our exclusive interview for this documentary with President Viktor Yushchenko of the Ukraine, he said during the famine of the Ukrainian people, they needed 10 million tons of grain to avoid hunger. They produced 12.2 million tons.
The most recent attempt on the alteration of history was perpetuated by Time magazine in its “The Year in Pictures” 2009 photo essay. One of the largest citizen marches on Washington, D.C., was conducted by the tea party movement on September 12, 2009. Estimates varied wildly from 60,000 to a whopping 2 million participants. A picture from this march was omitted from the essay. In fact, no reference at all was made to the massive grassroots phenomenon.
Instead, a photo of people simultaneously exhaling marijuana was included, as was a photo of a koala bear in a Melbourne animal rescue center. This tactic is from Soviet Russia. It was implemented under Stalin to purge political and military opposition from existence, both literally and historically. Aside from mass executions, prominent resisters and political competition had their faces sloppily airbrushed or blotted out in photographs. This was an intentional psychological blow by Stalin because it sent a message that his opposition would not only be defeated, but would ultimately be stricken from the record of history. It created a feeling for dissenters of utter futility.
More willful ignorance and lies of omission
Any shred of leftist intellectual honesty and journalistic curiosity was obliterated once Senator Obama threw his hat into the ring as a presidential candidate. The “mainstream” media whored out its last shred of credibility in a non-stop sycophantic obsession with this man of mystery. Having no desire to investigate clear connections to domestic terrorist William Ayers or Obama’s twenty-year relationship with black nationalist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the media concentrated on defending the idea of “hope and change” personified.
Conservative commentator and rising media star Glenn Beck outs anti-capitalists in Washington, reports on economic news otherwise ignored by the American press, and teaches economic principles and American history to his audience. It’s not exactly the Jerry Springer styled chair-throwing brawl the left expects of Beck’s supposed neo-Nazi, gun-nut, ignorant, and religiously fanatical viewers.
But then again, it’s possible the left could be wrong.
Most of his media critics even go so far as to enumerate Beck’s own weighty claims, but rather than demonstrate journalistic curiosity, they mock the messenger instead. Such antics smack of a desperation to retain control of information, especially as Beck’s recommended books and organizations rocket in sales and membership.
Activist and filmmaker James O’Keefe and friend Hanna Giles, featured on Glenn Beck’s show, single-handedly exposed the left-wing corruption ring of ACORN. Even an exasperated and self-proclaimed “fake journalist,” Jon Stewart, exclaimed: “Where were the real reporters on this story?”
After Climategate was plastered over European newspapers, the American “mainstream” media couldn’t even muster the will for corrections on previous alarmist climate articles, much less give equal exposure for the scandal. In fact, during snowstorms up and down the east coast, the New York Times published a defiant and lengthy op-ed by none other than Alliance for Climate Protection founder Al Gore.
Nary a peep came from a sleepy media while children were compelled by schools to sing songs of praise about Obama and celebrities pledged to be “a servant to the president.” These disturbing events send chills down the spines of anyone acquainted with even a passing knowledge of fascist propaganda tactics.
The left-wing media was unconcerned with phone conversations conducted at the behest the White House to plan propaganda for Obama’s agenda by the National Endowment for the Arts. At the very least MSNBC should have been outraged that they weren’t directed to step up their efforts before being replaced. The story broke on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood and later followed on Fox News.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of efforts ranging from unethical to egregious on the part of the media to promote a left-wing ideology. In fact, if the proxy war on conservatism through attacks on Republicans were included, this could easily be a book. But I’ll stop it here. In fairness, not all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from left-wing ideologues are unleashed on conservatives. Their Tourette-like outbursts of angry or childish musings can occasionally find even the most unlikely of targets: Maureen Dowd from the New York Times, in the midst of a slobbering entry about Barack Obama, did happen to criticize his ears for “sticking out.”
Of course, it wasn’t long before Dowd was “put on notice” that Obama had been “teased relentlessly as a kid” for his big ears. After that, she rejoined her journalistic cohorts in what they do best — polishing the boots of dictators.
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