'If I had a Son': Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman {CSPAN video}

I listened to the whole 55 minutes, including the Q&A. Interesting. Of course, you would (if you’ve seen me posting at all) understand my reaction when Cashill said that Zimmerman was suing NBC for $2 million. $2 million! That’s a poultry sum. (“Don’t you mean ‘paltry?’” No, I mean poultry - it’s chicken feed!) I understand, George Zimmerman is liberal - but after all, he’s a liberal who has been mugged - BIG TIME!
$2 million! I speak as one who has been sued for $1 million for a fender-bender - for a corporation, that isn’t even chump change! Here is a guy whose life has been uprooted and who is in fear of being attacked at any moment, by thugs or by the government, and who has an open-and-shut case of libel against the offending party - and he doesn’t sue for enough to even begin to finance the witness-protection program he requires merely to survive! Not to mention what this has done to his family, and to his friends - some of whom deserve more than $2 million in their own right!
And the other blunder is that he is only suing that one libeling corporation - and as Cashill recited, there were plenty of others, including ABC which Cashill said was the worst of a bad lot. Cashill started his talk by referring to the infamous case of the two Italians who were convicted of a crime, about 90 years ago (“Sachio & Venzenti” sp), and who were made a cause celebre’ by the left. Actually by Stalin, who wanted to besmirch the reputation of the US - and succeeded. Cashill mentioned other cases over the years, eliding the Duke Lacrosse one which is another classic of the genre. The point I’m making, which Cashill also made, is that the Zimmerman case is not remotely a “one-off.” It is business-as-usual.
The obvious reality is that “the MSM,” that is, essentially all of self-described “objective journalism,” is a cabal. It is clear that the Associated Press newswire is a virtual meeting of “the MSM,” and that
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (Book I, Ch 10)
is a picture-perfect description of the behavior of the (nominally competitive) journalism outlets of America. As to the motive of the MSM, Smith has that pegged as well:
The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. - Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments
. . . which obviously must be doubly true of the people who select themselves to be journalists.
The litany of cases cited by Cashill, and many others beside, constitute a clear pattern of corrupt collusion among nominally competitive journalism outlets - all of which, I suggest, are members of the AP. The AP itself is not shy about making style guide definitions which rule out certain expressions such as “illegal alien” - taking for granted its “right" to define the political landscape and control political debate in America. The AP, and its members individually, should be sued - not for $2 million but for $20 billion. Triple damages under RICO.
Back in 1945 the AP was found by SCOTUS to be guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, but back then the AP was “too big to fail” since its mission of transmitting the news while conserving scarce/expensive communications bandwidth seemed such and overriding public interest. In the age of satellite and fiber-optic communications and the Internet, that mission is less important by many orders of magnitude. Now the AP - and any other wire service - is too big NOT to fail. The concentration of propaganda power is unconscionable.

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