Posted on 11/20/2004 9:40:16 AM PST by Congressman Billybob
Like Confederate General Jubal T. Early, I make occasional raids into Washington, D.C. The raid this week included a visit with some of my children and grandchildren, meeting Judge Robert Bork, and assorted other pleasures. But the most telling moment of the trip came in a deserted corridor of Reagan National Airport on Sunday morning. Then and there I understood the mechanical voices of the MSM (Mainstream Media).
It was a politico-religious experience, a secular epiphany, if you will.
I took a wrong turn and wound up in an empty hallway. There were moving walkways on both sides, but they were out of service and marked off with orange cones. Still, every five seconds a female mechanical voice said urgently, “Caution! Moving walkways are ending!”
In that moment I suddenly understood a talk show I’d seen an hour before, starring Chris Matthews, Andrew Sullivan and Sam Donaldson, among others. (I’m not picking on these gentlemen. Most other talking heads – with or without bad hairpieces – would have filled the bill.)
I realized there is no significant difference between these “live” talkers on the MSM, and that disembodied voice in that empty airport hallway. Before the election the MSM thought the Democrats might win. After the election, when the Republicans had won, the underlying message did not change. In thousands of words the talking heads of the MSM are repeating, ad nauseam, the same seven word message. It is:
“Caution! Republicans are bad! Democrats are good!”
Try this experiment for yourselves. Pick any talking head show. Choose any MSM print outlet; the New York Times will do nicely, thank you. Take whatever apparent story they’re talking about, and boil it down like Vermont maple syrup in the fall. When you reduce the story to its essence, beneath the level of the apparent facts of the day, see whether any political story in the MSM has any core message other than the “Caution!...”?
Bias is usually subtle. Pay attention to the verbs. I read a story right after the election on the thousands of state legislative races. The article consistently referred to seats “won” by Democrats, but seats “claimed” by Republicans. Is it any surprise that the reporters writing that were primarily Democrats? Or, pay attention to the adjectives. Others have researched to a fare-thee-well the respective use of “left-wing” and “right-wing.” Republicans often get the second label; Democrats seldom get the first one.
Are there more right-wingers than left-wingers in American politics? Check out the websites of the Congressional Black Caucus, or of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, or of almost any union (but especially the National Education Association). See if you conclude that the left wing is alive and well. Its label disappears because the MSM reporters don’t perceive the left as being “left-wing.”
When the MSM had a monopoly, facts they chose not to report simply did not exist. The monopoly has ended. Facts get reported in the alternative media. The MSM no longer controls the agenda; it can only embarrass itself by pretending that it still does.
TV requires, of course, more than just words. There has to be something to point a camera at, the apparently live and sentient pundits sitting in their chairs. But is that any more than window dressing? Does that make the content of the political shows any more substantial than that mechanical voice in the airport?
The MSM are dying by degrees in the quarterly Arbitron reports on audience shares. The MSM are dying because they insist on producing vacuous bias in their political coverage. This task will be unsettling, but I recommend it. Read the MSM, listen to them, watch them with more care than they think “dumb” Americans can bring to the task. See if you reach the same conclusion, that you’re hearing repetitive, mechanical voices from the MSM.
When the voices are clearly mechanical, they may be annoying but they seem less threatening. The true menace comes from voices which present the illusion of being real. Think of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and the Hal 9000. Don’t the first three need the same cure as Hal got in the movie, 2001? Don’t they need to be deprogrammed, back to a time before they learned to lie, or worse, learned to believe their own lies?
Don’t they all need to go back to Urbana, Illinois, in 1992? Shouldn’t they all be asked to sing us a song before they fall silent? “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true ....”
"You will find your posting experience more pleasant if you disagree without being so disagreeable."
If you will review the thread, I didn't disagree. I merely posted a correction to some misinformation. I was then told I was wrong (though I posted documentation) and personally attacked.
And others have piled on because of my being perceived to be a newbie. (Never mind the facts.)
I have to say that I have seen this pattern quite a lot over the years. But it's gotten progressively worse.
I don't see you chiding the people who attacked me for nothing more than my recent registration date.
LOL!
Jeez dude, I'm surprised you didn't point out that the sugaring season is in the Spring, not the fall. Kinda voids the entire article, doesn't it?
Well, Jehngis...we've had an invasion lately.
"Just an observation, but if your manners don't improve, I don't think you're gonna be around long. FWIW."
I guess you missed someone telling me to "FOAD" just a couple of posts above.
Absolutely..destroys completely the whole basis for the article./s
ugh,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"You have the wrong website, which you could tell because I quoted word for word from the National Park Service website."
Then you should be able to provide the link. But you can't because you didn't.
You quoted from some local area site about the battlefield which made a silly mistake.
It doesn't matter to me how much you bluster and try to parade your expertise. There was only one Jubal Early in the CSA who was a General--and his middle name was Anderson.
And I highly doubt that Al Capp used him as his inspiration for his character, who was famous for his military disasters and his cowardice.
But it is clear you cannot admit you are in error. Which is pretty hilarious after your piece criticizing the media for getting things wrong.
(Which of course they do. But why do I doubt that you would do a better job?)
Enjoyed the article, CBB. Pay no attention to the small-minded rapscallion who is busy showing the rest of us how big his brain is and how little his character.
I can only guess what FOAD means. Something on the order of what Dick Cheney told shit-for-brains Leahy? Tacky, but...
FGS
Yes. It is Cheney--plus And Die.
In earlier days around here posting such would get you banned.
But it's okay I guess now, as long as you post it to a "newbie."
That said, you did in fact miss the point. Now I'd be happy to go over it with you if you'd like...
FGS
"That said, you did in fact miss the point. Now I'd be happy to go over it with you if you'd like..."
I still don't think I did. I believe the point was the media don't like Republicans and do like Democrats and they use their reportage (particularly noticable in their verbs) to get this across--oftentimes in a subtle fashion.
Given that I (and probably 61 million other adults) have been saying this (many of us on the internet and for about ten years), it isn't too earth-shattering.
But I had no desire to step on the message. I just wanted to correct a couple of errors. But like the MSM media, BB didn't want the facts to get in the way of the point he wanted to make.
The point is, you were rude. Congressman BillyBob is a well-respected FReeper, and you were impolite and nasty in the way you posted to him and responded to him. And you keep ignoring the hints to back off and let it go.
BTW, the only sound you can hear in most airports (and I spend a lot of time in them) is CNN.
If people wanted to do something constructive, they might start up a petition drive to open up the airports to other networks. Or failing that--or maybe even better--turn the blaring newscasts off.
It is, as I'm sure you are also aware, nearly impossible to read or even think in most US airports today. Last weekend I had to have Condi Rice's lack of credentials and Arlan Specters wonderous credentials beaten into my head for about three hours.
Surely there must be a way to put a stop to this. It's nothing less than sound trucks and speakers on the street trumpeting their propaganda in the worst sort of dictatorships--like North Korea. Why do we have to put up with it?
No. The point is I pointed out a couple of facts and in turn lied to and attacked for doing so.
Again, how was my treatment different from say Dan Rather's response to his memo story?
But I've made my point many times over to any fair readers.
You beat a dead horse. You sounded sanctimonious and holier-than-thou. You were annoying. We all got your point--over and over and over again. We grew tired of your perseverating. We like Congressman BillyBob. We don't like you.
"We like Congressman BillyBob. We don't like you."
Man, has this thread turned into a weird experience.
I hope everyone is learning the lesson to keep their mouths shut if they see misinformation posted--especially if it is posted by a popular poster.
Let me tell you, FR didn't start out this way. And it wasn't meant to be this way. Quite the opposite.
(In fact it was posters like you who got JimGod kicked off of Prodigy.)
Did you sense an Orwellian ring to any of it? The roteness(freshly coined) of it all? That we should be alert for the "announcement" signal???
But I had no desire to step on the message. I just wanted to correct a couple of errors. But like the MSM media, BB didn't want the facts to get in the way of the point he wanted to make.
The errors,if any, had nothing to do with the point of the article. They were placed there for whatever reasons the author chose to put 'em there. Maybe Grant in Richmond would have been a better scenario? If all of Billybob's points on this insignificant part of the article are wrong, it takes nothing away from the article.
FGS
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.