Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Journalism’s Leftist Flunkies

Or How I decided to stop worrying and became a servile scribbler acting at the will of a politician.

Spencer Ackerman:

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear.
Oh, but I think he DOES endorse the kind of behavior that connot be confused as being consistent with fascism, or to be charitable at the very least, a style of political rule that "tolerates" a society's democratic institutions merely to mute its' challengers:
Mussolini was raised by a strong socialist father and followed in his father’s footsteps by inheriting fervent socialist beliefs. Schooled as a teacher, Mussolini tried his luck in Switzerland but could not hold a steady job.
Changed groundwork executed by the ‘socially concerned’, etc., etc. Slowly altering the landscape to seem the same, but constructing sanctions and co-opting one sector of society after another: politicizing education, journalism, industries, DISempowering union members in the face of the political agenda of the Union leadership... it’s all too familiar, and Ackerman’s rueful oath shows that he’s as willing as any Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter to pitch in and damage civilization for the sake of the political shortcuts he wants to take, knowing that it’s needed to make an unwilling public take the bait.
Most everything about the parliamentary system was changed under the dictatorship and all law codes were rewritten. Teachers in schools and universities had to swear an oath to defend the Fascist regime and Mussolini personally chose newspaper editors. To practice journalism at all, the writer had to possess an official certificate of approval from the Fascist party. The trade unions were also deprived of any independence and became part of a larger group with the aim to place all Italians in various professional organizations and ultimately under governmental control. Most industrial industries were transferred to private ownership but then placed rigid government control over and the change hurt the Italian economy.
It is NOT an overextension to say that the Obama White House hasn’t done a modern form of the same thing. Ackerman and his cohort of Journalists-cum-propagandists (using their employers’ resources to do it whether they conscented or not) have actually carried water for a political campaign to enable it.

Now you know why all the “Faux News” tirades are needed – to cover for the participatory “news MAKING” (not news REPORTING) antics of the likes of... The Nation, Slate, American Prospect, The New Republic, Mother Jones, Media Matters, the Huffington Post, The New York Times, ABC, CBS, NBS, PBS “News” Hour, NPR, Pacifica, The Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times,

Etal.

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