He Says He Wants A Revolution

Back in July of 2006, when the GOP still controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, and the Dow Jones stood around 10,500, Peggy Noonan looked at where the strength amongst the left stood:

The other day ABC News’s Internet political report, The Note, argued that President Bush, in his then-upcoming veto statement and other presentations, had better be at the top of his game if he wants his party to hold on to Congress in 2006. “[Mr. Bush] is going to need to be focused and impressive, not easy pickings for the Rich-Krugman-Dowd-Stewart axis.”As I read I nodded: That’s exactly true. What was significant is that The Note did not designate as Mr. Bush’s main and most effective foes Pelosi, Dodd, Reid, Biden, et al. Mr. Bush’s mightiest competitors are columnists and a comedian with a fake-news show.

This is one reason the media is important. (Not “are important.” Language evolves; usage changes; people vote with their tongues. It’s not the correct “return to normality”; it’s the incorrect “return to normalcy.” It’s not “the media are” it’s “the media is.” People see the media as one big thing.)

One big reason the media is important is that they change things. And they lead. On 9/11 itself it was the media–anchors, reporters, crews sent to the scene, analysts–that functioned, for roughly 10 hours, as the most visible leaders of the United States. The president was on a plane; the vice president was in the bunker and on the phone. It was on-air journalists who informed, created a seeming order, and reassured the public by their presence and personas and professionalism.

So they’re important. But very recently it seems to me they’re important because it is from the media that Mr. Bush’s most effective opposition–attacks on his nature and leadership, attacks on his policies–comes. Among the Democrats an op-ed columnist has more impact than a minority leader.

And as we look back at the election of 2008, whatever the powers of the Blogosphere, it was the information wing of the legacy media that annointed a rookie Democratic senator as our new president and Lightworker. In his latest Washington Times op-ed, Andrew Breitbart, the proprietor of “Big Hollywood”, looks at its entertainment division:

The public relations protection received by elected Democratic officials from the Hollywood media collective – who incessantly mock traditional American values and attack by name their Republican counterparts – allows for the corrupt and the contemptible to pull the lever in perpetuity for any cause the Hollywood elite holds dear.

Unchecked, Big Hollywood´s lobbying power only continues to grow. Mr. Obama has David Geffen and Oprah Winfrey to thank for his presidency – ask Hillary.

In Charlton Heston´s last years, the Academy paid tribute not to his legendary cinematic achievements but to a Michael Moore documentary that portrayed the screen legend as a doddering fool. Alzheimer’s is known to have that effect.

Have you no sense of decency, Oscar? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

If “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan formulated 45 years ago in “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man,” then Hollywood-style liberalism is America´s current and future message. And conservatives have no one to blame but themselves for not investing their collective efforts in the pop cultural and the greater media experience.

Art, music, film and new media must be at the center of a reborn conservative movement. Hollywood should not simply be ignored, reviled and condemned by detached intellectuals, talk radio and elected officials caught in her crosshairs, but taken on head-on.

There are thousands of creative and business minds toiling in anonymity in Hollywood who want the conservative movement to bring them aid, cover, money and a mission to finally take on a generation of one-party creative rule.

The conservative student movement that in the Reagan-era 80s encouraged action in the legislative world must commit to heading to Hollywood to begin to change things in the creative world.

The millionaires and billionaires who feed the conservative think tanks and underwrite those who run for office need to join their high-rolling liberal brethren like Barry Diller and David Geffen and realize their political dollars are better spent making movies and nurturing the culture.