There was a time when the media was almost totally consolidated into a few movie houses. That was extended to a few TV networks.
That media, being the only audio-visual information source available to any American, was able to create "heroic" stars who had such status that their word probably was a factor in public opinion.
When I think of the powerful figures of that era: John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Audrey Hepburn, Huntley/Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson....it seems natural that their opinions were significant because they were part of a fairly small media elite.
Today's media includes all the above PLUS. There are DVDs, CDs, Internet, Radio, Satellite, cable, etc.
People are inundated with personalities. Stars are no longer "STARS." There are more so-called media stars, it seems, than any one person even cares to keep track of.
They are commonplace, mundane, everyday.
No more important than an actor in a toothpaste commercial.
In other words, they have no impact. But the funny thing -- quite humorous -- is that they see themselves like a bygone era saw a John Wayne. Such an un-self-critical ego is hilarious.
I just don't think that today I'll be letting Linda Ronstadt influence how I vote. Just another media bimbo.
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Hollywood did its part to instruct the masses, Fahrenheit 9/11 being only one of the anti-Bush movies. Documentaries almost never make it into mainstream movie theaters, but just before the election the local multiplex was playing fare like Bush's Brain (on the president's sinister Svengali, Karl Rove), The Hunting of the President (on the vast right-wing conspiracy that tried to overthrow Bill Clinton), Outfoxed (unveiling the shocking secret that Fox News is conservative), and Going Up River (about the thrilling exploits of John Kerry).
The Moral Relativist Shock Troops have been in full battle regalia, tearing down the moral bulwark of Western Civilization, crushing religious freedom. The libertine left's claim to moral superiority is spurious. They have always been about disestablishmentarianism-----tearing down our morally-based cultural strengths. Whether its the ACLU juggernaut to remove all vestiges of Christianity from the culture, ripping prayer out of schools, promoting the killing of the unborn as a constitutional right, the left's irreligious-hating politics are calculated to destroy.
As Cicero wrote: " A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear. "