I remember at one point during the Bush years, when things looked particularly dark and the police state was closing in, I saw Youtube clips of a man by the name of Keith Olbermann speak poignantly to power about the evisceration of our constitution. He pointed out to President Bush that most of the first ten amendments, the portion of the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights, had been violated by the laws that at the time had recently been passed. Week after week, for a time, he admonished the administration and berated Bush for dishonoring the ideals that this nation supposedly stands for and violating the Constitution, a document they swore an oath to defend. For a moment in time, I found hope in the fact that someone in the mainstream media seemed to get it, that someone seemed to understand the concepts of freedom and liberty and was pointing out the abuser and ringing the alarm bells against the coming fascism. Then something happened.
Barack Obama was elected president. Mr. Olbermann continued to question the validity and constitutionality of Mr. Bush and his administration even after the election, and with good reason, but his tone was a little giddier. Mr. Obama had been elected and the future looked brighter. I remained more sober, however. It seemed that Mr. Olbermann couldn't see what I could, and thousands of others who had supported honest candidates, that Mr. Obama was a slick huckster like so many politicians and did not mean one word of his eloquent orations. As time went by I began to believe that perhaps Mr. Olbermann did not care one iota about the Constitution. Perhaps he simply used it as a partisan tool to help his guy get into office. Or perhaps Mr. Olbermann was just acting. He is likely a very good actor. He was just doing his job. He was just a dancing monkey on the end of a leash doing what his masters wanted him to do.
I believe this because I haven't seen any videos lately with Mr. Olbermann complaining about how much Mr. Obama disrespects the constitution. I haven't seen him complain that the unconstitutional laws passed by the Bush administration are still being used by the Obama administration. I haven't seen him complain about the unconstitutionality of the health care bill, or the continuance of the bank bailouts, or the government takeover of the auto industry, or the continuing subversion of American values through these never ending wars. It seems that to him it is unacceptable when a Republican administration violates the Constitution, but it's no big deal when a Democrat administration does the same, or maybe it's just unacceptable to his bosses.
But it's not just Keith Olbermann who behaves in such an unprincipled manner. In fact, almost all of the mainstream media political pundits will sell out American principle and condone unconstitutional actions as long as their big government party is doing it. We've come to expect people like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity to sing the praises of Republicans while insulting and degrading Democrats. Likewise we've become used to left leaning pundits encouraging support for the Democrats and their agenda while blaming Republicans and their agenda for the woes of the world. None of these people give a whit about the Constitution. None of them care about liberty, individual freedom, or any principle America was supposedly founded on. These men don't seem to want to report on the manipulation behind the political scene. They only seem interested in keeping their followers divided, likely because that is what their controllers tell them to do. They are quite willing to point out the unconstitutional nature of one agenda while ignoring the unconstitutional nature of the other. They are quite willing to use the founding document of our nation to divide its citizenry.
There is little or no investigative reporting going on anymore, at least nothing substantive. We are bombarded with political opinion and satire instead of fact that would expose the vast majority of politicians for the anti constitution shysters they really are, regardless of their party affiliation. Any real investigation, any genuine evaluation, has been left to the modern day amateur and semi professional alternative media bloggers and reporters to disseminate, with some notable exceptions. The establishment corporate media focuses mostly on non issues and distractions as important matters get glossed over and even more important actions go unreported or under reported. In this way, newsworthy events which should anger or activate the public pass under most people's radar and remain outside the public consciousness. This is one way to keep the public out of the debate.
Another way to keep the public at bay when it comes to controlling perceptions and opinions is through the use of spin. Such tactics serve only to keep the faithful in line, keep them from thinking for themselves, and give them talking points to use when arguing with the faithful of the other major party. Of course, like so many things, the use of spin is not always obvious. It can, in fact, sometimes be very subtle. This can be particularly true when it comes to freedom messages. Glenn Beck, who has been delivering quite a nice freedom message lately, is a good example of this. Though I like his tone of late, he seems to comprehend liberty and explains aspects of it to his audience in a simple and entertaining fashion, he does have a checkered history of intolerance which makes me somewhat skeptical of his agenda.
Could he be trying to gain the trust of liberty oriented folks in order to use his influence to try to convince them to ignore an important issue? It was not too long ago he was accusing certain groups of being dangerous and calling for the censorship of their message. Labeling dissidents who protest the establishment storyline or explanation as truthers, birthers, deniers, or any other er does not make them crazy, violent or wrong. It makes them people who are not satisfied with the establishment answers or the corporate media's reporting. They have valid concerns which should be addressed in a respectful manner. As long secrecy remains, veiled threats are made and honest debate is shut down out of hand, there will be questions as to the validity of official, establishment answers and as to exactly who the corporate media serves.
Freedom of speech, indeed the freedom of expression, applies to all no matter how vile, radical, offensive or otherwise disagreeable to either the majority, a specific minority, anyone in power, or indeed any particular group or individual. Anyone using their influence, especially one as influential as a television commentator, in such a manner, for the purpose of curtailing the free flow of ideas by force, should not be encouraged. Instead, an open discussion of the facts, contradictions, and relevant issues should ensue with available research, sourced, proven and disproven referenced rather than resorting to name calling and fear mongering to advance an agenda. Given Rupert Murdoch's history of supporting whatever political ideology was in power or seemed poised to take power instead of standing on principle, it seems, in my opinion, prudent to continue to question his motivations and therefore the motivations of those working for him.
I am happy to see the principles of liberty and freedom becoming an issue. It gives my heart joy to think that these issues are gaining more consideration, even and especially in the mainstream media. I'd like to think that this is because the owners of such media have become principled, but I believe it is has more to do with market pressures as more people scorn newspapers and television and turn to the Internet for their information. That's not a bad thing. That at least shows that many people, likely more than reported, are aware they've been played and are looking to other sources for truth. It shows that perhaps the message of socialism, control and world government is falling on deaf ears.
It has been said that the attention span of humans is shrinking. Perhaps that's true, or perhaps the average human just hasn't had anything that interesting to focus on for some time now. Certainly it has been shown that when an individual finds something that holds his interest his attention span greatly increases. I believe that the common man is slowly once again discovering the principles of freedom and his ears are perking up. He is showing an interest in learning that which the establishment has neglected for so long to teach and has, in fact, attempted to conceal. Perhaps cable news viewership is declining because people have seen the dancing monkeys for too long and are becoming bored with what they see. The common folk are thirsty for truth and hunger for information that makes sense, and they have come to realize they will not find it from those who have historically manipulated reality for their own corporate agenda.
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