My Other Blog & Comments

News and Information Feed

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

In wake of Ron Paul blackout scandal, both corruption of mainstream media and brewing storm of populist backlash now fully evident

From:
The Media Is the Enemy

Of peace, liberty, and the truth
(AntiWar.com) -- by Justin Raimondo --

Ron Paul is getting more publicity out of not getting publicity in the wake of his virtual tie with Bachmann in the Ames poll than he’s gotten to date. Suddenly everyone’s noticing the “mainstream” media is trying very hard not to notice the twelve-term Texas congressman and libertarian icon, despite his success in quadrupling his previous Iowa showing and barely being edged out by Bachmann. Jon Stewart’s takedown of the Ron Paul media blackout is devastating, and, for the most part, funny....

I don’t think anyone has been more astonished by his success than Ron Paul. He is clearly thrilled at the sight of thousands of young people cheering him on and chanting “End the Fed!” at campus rallies across the nation. I don’t think he expected the outpouring of support that greeted his announcement: in fundraising capabilities alone, he’s a top tier candidate no matter what the Beltway pundits say.

The media’s refusal to report Paul’s growing support, beyond grudging acknowledgement that he’s come in from “the fringe,” reflects its institutional bias in favor of the right-left red-blue narrative that has, up until now, dominated American politics, and in which so much of the news industry is heavily invested. This narrative doesn’t allow for any significant deviations, and certainly not on the presidential level: all must submit to its tyranny, in spite of its archaic and increasingly obstructionist character. What it obstructs is any meaningful challenge to the functioning of the Welfare-Warfare State. If one party is in power, welfare is given more weight than warfare, if the other takes the throne, then welfare is given the axe. In any case, these two aspects of the modern American state are inextricably intertwined, as “defense” spending in the age of empire becomes just another dollop of pork to be ladled out to corporate and political interests – and welfare becomes a way to keep the disgruntled quiescent in wartime.

Think of the media as the Greek chorus to the two “majors,” with different media actors cheerleading one party and razzing the other – but never straying outside the bounds of the red-blue narrative, with its rigid definitions and litmus tests. This mindset is encoded in the two-party system, and institutionalized in our ballot access laws, which privilege the two “major” parties – the very same two parties that have led us down the path to endless war and imminent bankruptcy, and are now running away from their dual responsibility for the present crisis.

In this indirect but not insignificant sense, then, the “mainstream” media is an arm of the State, and, indeed, not only acts to police the political discourse, but reports government propaganda as if it were fact. We saw how this worked during the run-up to the Iraq war, when the Bush regime played the New York Times and its “mainstream” colleagues with ease, using the front page of the Times as a veritable bulletin board of government talking points. The Bush administration may have lied us into war, but the supposedly “liberal” media facilitated it in every possible way, acting like stenographers taking dictation rather than journalists out to discover the truth.

That these same people have a real problem reporting on a growing anti-war, anti-Washington movement fast taking hold in the GOP and in the general population is not at all surprising. That’s because the mainstream media is the enemy of all these things, invested as they are in sucking up to power and vaunting their role as court “intellectuals.” No one should be either amazed or disturbed that they’re downplaying the success of the system’s foremost opponent: after all, that’s their job...MORE...LINK
--------------------------

Chris Moore comments:

This blackout scandal is one of the best outcomes Paul could have hoped for. It’s going to open a lot of people’s eyes.

When Jon Stewart was doing his bit, the dismay and disgust from even his hipster-liberal audience was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

From here on out, every mainstream media smear, sneer and critique will be seen for what it is: a paid establishment stooge’s attempt to sandbag Paul, or kill his candidacy by a thousand cuts.

Americans don’t like it when the corrupt powers that be put the fix in on an honest man, and they’re going to punish both the slick, depraved-establishment lickspittle candidates and its media whores and lackeys mercilessly. And the best way to do that is to ram Ron Paul right down their throats.

No comments: