If Hitler had intended from
the very beginning to install a small elite group of supporters in a position
of authority in a democratic country, which mostly disagreed with his basic
premise that only a limited number of citizens were qualified to run the
affairs of state, would it have been a wise course of action for him to
candidly admit from the start what his ultimate goal was; or would it have been
more expedient for him to do a bit of prevaricating and then use the principles
of democracy to subvert the very system of government which he was trying to
eliminate?
Didn't he explain in detail,
before he started in earnest, how he would achieve his nefarious objective by
reducing all issues down, via über-simplification, to a basic slogan and then
coast to an easy win? Were some Germans caught off guard when he did
exactly what he said he was going to do?
If a country had a political
party that had openly announced that they swore allegiance to the country's
flag and were fully committed to returning to that country's founding
principles; would anyone who fully understands the meaning of the word
"Republic" really be surprised to learn that such a party was working
to disenfranchise citizens they deemed ineligible to vote?
Could they secretly have a
broad mental reservation about not being obliged to adhere to election results
that they considered invalid? If they did, could they openly announce an
effort to challenge the system's validity or would it be better for their
ultimate goal if they ostensibly asserted that democratic values were so
important that they would send their kids into battle to earn and keep those
principles, while secretly working to restore the right to vote only to men who
owned land?
Obviously their efforts
would initially be better served by very loud assertions of their belief in the
method they hoped would become obsolete rather than being so crass and blunt as
to proclaim: "Vote for us so we can disenfranchise you!"
Reducing the issues down to
absurdly simplistic slogans (as Don Imus would say: "bumper sticker
it for me.") might seem to streamline the debate, but more often than not
it means "the lowest common denominator" rather than providing
"a level playing field."
For example could a pseudo
intellectual liberal pundit who resorts to long complex sentences, with
subordinate relatives clauses and numerous prepositional phrases which would
challenge a tea bagger's analytical ability and stymie any effort to correctly
diagram it on the chalkboard, be dismissed by a diabolical troll for being
"rambling and incoherent"? Surely Hitler would bestow kudos
for such a "slip the punch" response.
In the film "Point
Break," the surfing guru Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) advises an FBI agent:
"Think it through, Johnny." In politics the
conservatives prefer to toss out a hot potato and offer the advice "Think
fast!" with an accompanying smirk.
Conservatives would not dare
to say: "Don't worry folks, the only thing at stake here is . . .
the future of your country!" Nor would they be very likely to admit
the relevancy of the advice from William Claude Dukenfield (AKA W. C. Fields):
"If a thing's worth having; it's worth cheating for."
Recently some Republicans in
Florida
Ostensibly Florida
Will his Florida
Since there is a lot of
disgruntle teachers (especially in Wisconsin?) out there waiting for their
chance to vote for the next President and since one former governor of Florida
can easily be branded as the "education candidate" (isn't his
family's name an integral part of the history of the "No child left
behind" movement, and didn't he do great things for education in his
state?) maybe he can be persuaded to give it a try?
Before any representative of
the Columbia Review of Journalism magazine or the American Journalism Review
voices strenuous objections saying that the free press might howls of
indignation in response to such a (admittedly bucking great odds) hypothetical
election result, we would ask them to remember just how quickly the mainstream
media (like a dog and pony show) responded admiringly (and submissively?) to
the idea that Howard Dean, in one rash soundbyte, had forfeited his
"frontrunner" status to Sen. John Kerry because he had manifested
symptoms of being emotionally unstable.
The Fox Views team proposed
the idea that Dean had suffered a mental breakdown in public and the Free Press
of America, which is normally completely paranoid about being vulnerable to
damages for liability lawsuits, quickly seconded the motion without a single
instance of a quote from a reliable knowledgeable source about the
psychological soundness of the candidate's state of mind. (Does that
mean that the gullible journalists were actually guilty of practicing medicine
without a license? Whatever. It's too late to worry about the
validity of the 2004 Election frontrunner substitution now.)
Does the World's Laziest
Journalist really think that the quality of news in America today is so
decrepit and unreliable that the mainstream media would meekly follow the lead
of some invisible, diabolical Svengali to say (on cue) that by winning the
Florida Primary, the Republican Frontrunner for the 2012 Republican Election no
longer had to counter a negative (family) brand name image? Yes.
Wouldn't such a travesty of
journalism indicate that the Free Press in America
Isn't a free press necessary
to permit informed citizens to make intelligent voting decisions? Isn't
that precisely why Hitler clamped a censorship lid on the newspapers in the
country where he served as chancellor-for-life? Did he say:
"Elect me and I'll start a state run news agency"?
Has the Fox Views audience
been informed bout the latest news developments at the Japanese nuclear
reactors? Has the Fox audience heard the stories about the feral dog
packs now roaming in the Fukushima USA
and England Occupy Wall Street
Did Australia send troops to
aid with the invasion of Libya?
How many American troops
were killed this week in Iraq?
In Afghanistan, how many
American troops were killed this week?
Hitler specifically made
listening to foreign new broadcasts punishable by death. (Were Murrow's
Boys that good? Yes.)
Back in the day, the
newsstand in the Pan Am building in New York City carried the current edition
of Paris Match. Can New Yorkers still buy that publication there?
On Saturday, October 1,
2011, a promotional event for the publication of the 2012 edition of the
Project Censored book was held at Moe's Bookstore in Berkeley CA. One of
the problems presented to the editors for this year's installment in the book
series, was fitting it all into the book. They used smaller type but
still it sets the record the most number of pages for any of their annual
publications.
Of course if some tea bagger
troll (speaking ex cathedra) says that Project Censored is
"just" a collection of "Best of" articles substantiated by
"scientific evidence" from crackpot sources, that should be
sufficient to prove that the 2012 Project Censored book will be regarded by
conservative pundits as the latest product from the Amalgamated Conspiracy
Theory Factory. Murdoch's lap dogs will be expected to automatically
"second the motion."
Isn't it so easy to refute
the implication that America's Free Press (which may have been worth the cost
of some of your family members' lives during World War II) is DOA? All
you have to do is point to Fox Views as living proof that Journalism is alive
and well in the USA.
The debate over the death of
Anwar al-Awlaki was put to permanent rest when Herman Goering said:
"Shoot first and inquire afterwards, and if you make mistakes, I will
protect you."
The disk jockey thinks that
the Tea Bag party needs an official song and therefore he will humbly offer his
suggestions by playing us out with the Horst Wessel song, the 1938 hit (in
Germany) The World Belongs to the Strong, and Richard Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan
und Isolde. We have to go (to try to) buy a copy of today's issue of
the Volkische Beobachternewspaper. Have a "Die
Dreigroschenoper" type week.
Read also: Where Has JournalismGone?
Read also: Where Has JournalismGone?
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