CNN, AP, the New York Times and the like are no longer entitled to be called "mainstream media". There is nothing "mainstream" about them, and their audiences don't warrant the moniker "mainstream". If the Libertarian Party is not a "mainstream" party, why is the New York Times a "mainstream" newspaper?
Circulation of New York Times: 1.1 million daily, 1.6 million Sunday
Votes received by Libertarian Party candidates for House of Reps: Over one million
Votes for Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik in 2006: 397,265
Readers of political blogs in 2004 (the number is much higher now): 32 million*
*27% x 120 million Internet users = 32.4 million
If the Libertarian Party is not a "mainstream" political party, why is a newspaper with 100,000, 300,000 or 1.1 million readers "mainstream"?
I have carefully thought about this question. The word "pissant" comes to mind as a good description of the media, but it is somewhat vulgar. The word "puissant" means the opposite of "pissant". Derived from Middle French, "puissant" is related to the words "posse" and "potent" and refers to "power". It is probably more accurate to say that the New York Times has power than that it is mainstream. In fact, I would argue that it represents an extremist social democratic point of view. On the other hand, "pissant" means insignificant or worthless, and derives from the word pismire, which in turn refers to the smell of uric acid on ant hills.
Although the two words are opposite in meaning, they both could apply to the media. Pissant is probably more accurate but because of its vulgarity the word "puissant", which means powerful but reminds one of "pissant" might be the best word.
The mainstream media is hereby dubbed the "puissant media".
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Obama, Khalidi, and O'Reilly
Contrairimairi forwarded a Charles Lemos By the Fault article. In the Youtube video featured on Lemos's site, Obama denies any special connection to Khalidi.
Lemos notes that Obama failed to mention that Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian anti-Semite,
-hosted a fundraiser for Obama when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2000, or that
-Obama attended a testimonial dinner for Khalidi and praised him when Khalidi left Chicago to chair Columbia’s Middle Eastern Studies Department, or that
-while Obama served on the Board of the Woods Fund, the board voted to grant $40,000.00 to the Arab American Network, an organization headed by Khalidi’s wife, Mona Khalidi.
The Woods Fund is also the focus of Obama's relationship with William Ayers.
At a dinner celebrating Palestinian culture the LA Times reported in April 2008 that:
"a special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
"His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”
Yet, the major news outlets are willing to accept Obama's claim that he hardly knew Khalidi. This is more than journalistic incompetence. Listening for about sixty seconds to O'Reilly tonight I heard O'Reilly speak of Obama's "presidential statesmanship." But O'Reilly has refused to discuss Obama's pathological lying or to question him about it when Obama appeared on his program. The mass media, from ABC to Fox, from O'Reilly to Lou Dobbs, has been a hall of mirrors.
Contrairimairis adds:
"These were BO's words back in May, when his affiliations with Rashid Khalidi came under closer scrutiny. My question is........WHERE are the "900" other friends? Why do we not have someone from the "hood" just coming forward to say......"Wow, I know Barack, what a great guy! I think you can really trust him. His kids and my kids used to play together...I think Barack has ALWAYS maintained a very 'clandestine' life because he has NEVER viewed America the way 'Americans' view America. His 'friends' all seem to think there is something seriously wrong with this Country, that needs to be RADICALLY fixed...
"You see, I truly believe that once the crown is on his head, all those waiting under the bus will be greeted with open arms at the WH. And probably with TONS of praise and thanks for their understanding that the prize had to be first obtained, and THEN the associations could resume at full speed. We may even start to see those questionable 'disbursements' begin once again.
"This is just so frightening, that so many Americans are willing to be duped...Seriously, it's not like there was a single person who hated America.....let's say Billy Boy, and another who said we should be against nuclear energy, and maybe another who thought we should be sharing technology with oh,....maybe Australia. That is not what these associations are, or show. They are all America hating, Jew/Israel hating..."
Mairi is right, of course. But this is not the first time "progressive" Jews have preferred the pride of political correctness and fashion over concern for palpable, potentially murderous anti-Semitism. In the 1930s, for example, New York's "progressive" Jewish community was passive during the lead up to the Holocaust, and their passivity was encouraged by the Ochs Sulzbergers, owners of the New York Times, who buried the Holocaust story in the remote inner pages of their newspaper. Today, "progressives" prefer to be cool, to side with fashion and to call Sarah Palin anti-Semitic because she once attended a meeting where a Jewish convert to Christianity spoke. Meanwhile, their favored candidate openly associates with an activist who aggressively supports those who murder Jews.
Lemos notes that Obama failed to mention that Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian anti-Semite,
-hosted a fundraiser for Obama when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2000, or that
-Obama attended a testimonial dinner for Khalidi and praised him when Khalidi left Chicago to chair Columbia’s Middle Eastern Studies Department, or that
-while Obama served on the Board of the Woods Fund, the board voted to grant $40,000.00 to the Arab American Network, an organization headed by Khalidi’s wife, Mona Khalidi.
The Woods Fund is also the focus of Obama's relationship with William Ayers.
At a dinner celebrating Palestinian culture the LA Times reported in April 2008 that:
"a special tribute came from Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
"His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”
Yet, the major news outlets are willing to accept Obama's claim that he hardly knew Khalidi. This is more than journalistic incompetence. Listening for about sixty seconds to O'Reilly tonight I heard O'Reilly speak of Obama's "presidential statesmanship." But O'Reilly has refused to discuss Obama's pathological lying or to question him about it when Obama appeared on his program. The mass media, from ABC to Fox, from O'Reilly to Lou Dobbs, has been a hall of mirrors.
Contrairimairis adds:
"These were BO's words back in May, when his affiliations with Rashid Khalidi came under closer scrutiny. My question is........WHERE are the "900" other friends? Why do we not have someone from the "hood" just coming forward to say......"Wow, I know Barack, what a great guy! I think you can really trust him. His kids and my kids used to play together...I think Barack has ALWAYS maintained a very 'clandestine' life because he has NEVER viewed America the way 'Americans' view America. His 'friends' all seem to think there is something seriously wrong with this Country, that needs to be RADICALLY fixed...
"You see, I truly believe that once the crown is on his head, all those waiting under the bus will be greeted with open arms at the WH. And probably with TONS of praise and thanks for their understanding that the prize had to be first obtained, and THEN the associations could resume at full speed. We may even start to see those questionable 'disbursements' begin once again.
"This is just so frightening, that so many Americans are willing to be duped...Seriously, it's not like there was a single person who hated America.....let's say Billy Boy, and another who said we should be against nuclear energy, and maybe another who thought we should be sharing technology with oh,....maybe Australia. That is not what these associations are, or show. They are all America hating, Jew/Israel hating..."
Mairi is right, of course. But this is not the first time "progressive" Jews have preferred the pride of political correctness and fashion over concern for palpable, potentially murderous anti-Semitism. In the 1930s, for example, New York's "progressive" Jewish community was passive during the lead up to the Holocaust, and their passivity was encouraged by the Ochs Sulzbergers, owners of the New York Times, who buried the Holocaust story in the remote inner pages of their newspaper. Today, "progressives" prefer to be cool, to side with fashion and to call Sarah Palin anti-Semitic because she once attended a meeting where a Jewish convert to Christianity spoke. Meanwhile, their favored candidate openly associates with an activist who aggressively supports those who murder Jews.
Pinch Yourself---Before Reality Hits You in The Head
Dan Friedman just forwarded Melanie Phillips's fine Spectator article "Pinch Yourself". Phillips writes:
>"The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama’s radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day...
"...through the Annenberg Challenge, Obama and Ayers channelled funds to extremist anti-American Afrocentric ‘educational’ programmes which were a carbon-copy of the world view of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s black racist mentor who, under pressure, Obama was forced to repudiate. These programmes promoted, amongst other radical ideas, the ‘rites of passage’ philosophy which attempted to create a ‘virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world’ in order to ‘counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.’ One such teacher taught that
"‘The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.’"
The aftermath of the 2008 election may play out this way. The media's lying will hit home to America's bamboozled electorate when inflation, stagnant economic opportunity and reduced standards of living are coupled with Obama's egregious foreign policy mis-steps. The outcome may be a libertarian counter-revolution that is stronger and more pointed than the Reagan revolution and may result in a reformation or outright replacement of the Republican Party.
What is astonishing about this election is that it is as close as it is and that despite overt propagandizing by the media, which has done irreparable harm to it, along with three decades of Republican expansion of government, the recent overt and massive transfer of wealth from the average American to the wealthy, banks and debtors through the Republican bailout plan, and three decades of inflationary Republican monetary policies, the Republicans are as close as they are.
In other words, the media has had trouble lying for Barack Obama even though they have lied more aggressively than ever before and their lying has made them and their readers, viewers and listeners appear to be ignorant fools. This may be the election that does final damage to the remaining remnant of the PAM media's credibility.
Obama's going to go down because his ideas are so bad, and he is is going to bring Progressivism and the media down with him.
One final point: this may be good for freedom-loving Americans. The Republican Party has been the "Progressive Party" while the Democratic Party has been the "Social Democratic Party" for the last century. There is no longer any freedom party. A series of social upheavals created by a left-wing American government may become the best opportunity believers in freedom have had since the 1950s.
>"The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama’s radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day...
"...through the Annenberg Challenge, Obama and Ayers channelled funds to extremist anti-American Afrocentric ‘educational’ programmes which were a carbon-copy of the world view of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s black racist mentor who, under pressure, Obama was forced to repudiate. These programmes promoted, amongst other radical ideas, the ‘rites of passage’ philosophy which attempted to create a ‘virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world’ in order to ‘counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.’ One such teacher taught that
"‘The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.’"
The aftermath of the 2008 election may play out this way. The media's lying will hit home to America's bamboozled electorate when inflation, stagnant economic opportunity and reduced standards of living are coupled with Obama's egregious foreign policy mis-steps. The outcome may be a libertarian counter-revolution that is stronger and more pointed than the Reagan revolution and may result in a reformation or outright replacement of the Republican Party.
What is astonishing about this election is that it is as close as it is and that despite overt propagandizing by the media, which has done irreparable harm to it, along with three decades of Republican expansion of government, the recent overt and massive transfer of wealth from the average American to the wealthy, banks and debtors through the Republican bailout plan, and three decades of inflationary Republican monetary policies, the Republicans are as close as they are.
In other words, the media has had trouble lying for Barack Obama even though they have lied more aggressively than ever before and their lying has made them and their readers, viewers and listeners appear to be ignorant fools. This may be the election that does final damage to the remaining remnant of the PAM media's credibility.
Obama's going to go down because his ideas are so bad, and he is is going to bring Progressivism and the media down with him.
One final point: this may be good for freedom-loving Americans. The Republican Party has been the "Progressive Party" while the Democratic Party has been the "Social Democratic Party" for the last century. There is no longer any freedom party. A series of social upheavals created by a left-wing American government may become the best opportunity believers in freedom have had since the 1950s.
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