33 Years Ago

Been reading many threads on FR recently and have been horrified and saddened by the general feeling of defeat pervading the threads. So I want to share something that happened back in 1979, here in the UK.

We had an economy so far down the toilet that it could see the sewage works. A Labour government that was frantically bribing it's traditional supporters to keep power. A strong conservative leader, very unpopular, who was mounting a challenge. She won in one of the biggest landslide victories ever recorded.

Had the election been 6 months earlier - our elections are called at the will of the Prime Minister, on a successful vote of no confidence or after 5 years, whichever comes first - Margaret Thatcher would have remained Leader of the Opposition instead of not only becoming the first female PM but a conservative icon. Even 3 months earlier and she would not have won, though it would have been close. Remember it well, it was my first voting election, as a snot nosed kid stationed in Germany.

There are three people who get almost constant respect here on FR - Churchill, Reagan and Thatcher. Not one of them had victory handed to them, they all had to fight like hell for it.

I see people giving up. Already drawing lines in the sand, when they should be fighting hard for the last conservative in the race.

To me, conservatives do not quit. We fight. We may lose, but we do our best not to, because we know what is important. Family, God and keeping our word and our freedom.

I know I have not been here terribly long as a posting member, but a lot of people here I consider friends already, and their sadness affects me, and makes me feel mad at the same time.

To modify a quote, "As America, so the world." Like it or not, that is a truth that the only remaining superpower cannot ignore. We had that burden for a couple of hundred years - you have had it for less than a century.

Unlike most posters here (not all), I have actually met and talked to Obama. You look into his eyes and there is nothing there. No soul, no feeling. It is like looking into the eyes of a shark. Watching Romney, who I have not met, I feel the same basic revulsion.

Please friends. There are still 40% or so of the primaries to go. To give up now is to disenfrachise 40% of the population and to kill any chance of America becoming once more that infuriatingly proud country that acts as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world.

I got kids too, and grandkids for that matter. Your fight goes way beyond the borders of the continental USA. Please .....

Thanks. There are two conditions in the USA that might interest you.

* The US economy is far worse than broadcast in both sponsored and government propaganda (see political/regulator class sponsorships).

* Regulatory efforts in the USA against economic activities and even owner-builder activities—regulatory efforts using irrelevant environmentalist and animal “rights” arguments—have saturated all levels of government down to even very remote and sparsely populated areas. Establishment interests of both political parties drive those efforts against new small production businesses and even small private projects (e.g., storage sheds).

We’ll resume personal spending and political gestures, when the problem is remedied.

The aforementioned media have been saying for about five years that Asia is collapsing. They’re blowing smoke. Watch Asia, as it rises, with western sponsors continuing incomes from debts (The City, government interests, other western globalists).

We have a real problem with the MSM here in the US and I know it is global. Our system was never designed to allow a President (ANY President) to be the unconditional spoiled darling of the MSM.

Our system was never designed to have an “MSM,” period. I was already approaching 40 yo before it came clear to me that journalism wasn’t objective, and I spent decades agonizing over why that was so. After three decades of studying on it, I have a model which explains the situation approximately to my satisfaction. I even know what must be done - but there is always the issue of who will “bell the cat.”
First, we should abandon talk about “the media.” TV and radio and the movies have their systematic influences, but the real problem is intrinsic to journalism as we know it. Instead of using generalities like “the media,” we need to look directly in the eye of wire service journalism.
Although the wire services are plural in number, that is no thanks to the Associated Press, which was the first wire service in America and which would have gladly strangled all competition in the cradle. But no matter that there is more than one wire service, they all inherently have the same effect - they homogenize - and empower - journalism. Before the wire services, newspapers were fractiously independent of each other (and often directly connected to political parties). With the advent of the AP, the editorial page of the newspaper became a ghetto of idiosyncrasy in a sea of conformity of AP style stories written the way the AP itself would write it.
The homogeneity of AP journalism empowers the reporter who signs on to a member of the AP. Because what is good for journalism is what is good, so the journalist can say, for the country. But a moment’s serious thought would tell you that that can’t be true. Journalism promotes itself by denigrating the people and institutions upon whom/which we depend. But bad news for society is good news - a great story - for journalism. A war? Just think of all the overtime for journalists! Meanwhile the people suffer.
At present we have the Trayvon Martin affair in the news. It’s a gripping story, and it sells newspapers. The fact that to all outward appearances it is a given that the arrest and charging of Zimmerman is a travesty makes it terrible news for society, which makes it all the more difficult to ignore. But what is really a danger to society is the fact that journalism - NBC News, exhibit A - is actively promoting lawless thought and threatened behavior among the segment of American society least resistant to demagogic appeals. If there were actual diversity in journalism, NBC would have known before it demagoged the Zimmerman police call tape by putting Zimmerman’s reply to an explicit police question in a context which made it appear to be blatantly racist, when it was no such thing, that it would be sharply criticized for its tendentiousness.
The fact that NBC could think it could get by with that is of a piece with Dan Rather’s assumption that he could stonewall charges that the “Texas Air National Guard Memos” were patent frauds. Why was Dan Rather, why even at this late date did NBC, make the assumption that the rest of journalism would circle the wagons with them, and use their propaganda power to carry the day? Because that was precisely the tradition of wire service journalism. The only unforgivable sin of journalism, far from being a failure to be objective, was criticizing the lack of objectivity of a fellow journalist. The solution is bound and gagged, and lying on George Zimmerman’s doorstep (even in prison). He should sue NBC News for every dime they own. But he shouldn’t stop there. He should also sue the rest of journalism, jointly and severally. The Associated Press, and all its membership. The result would put the fear of God into the whole “MSM.”
But George Zimmerman is only the most obvious victim of this demagoguery; society as a whole is endangered by it. There ought to be a way to launch a class action lawsuit against that whole bunch, alleging not only fraud but collusion between all journalism outlets and between journalism and “community organizers” everywhere. With the “community organizers” being the source of the threatened “muscle.” Call them out for the racketeers they are, and sue for treble damages under RICO.

An MS with an unchecked and wholesale bias (in either direction) was never in the equation and should not continue. It compromises the political dynamic, it hobbles our strength, unity and stability as a nation and it disfigures our national character.

Voters MUST reject leaders who gratuitously polarize Americans, AS policy! This will keep the media honest as well.

The AP was “too big to fail” when SCOTUS held it to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1945. In the laser/fibre optic/microwave/satellite era, its mission - the conservation of bandwidth in the transmission of news - is an anachronism.
It can be obliterated without being missed.

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