Posted on 03/19/2007 8:25:29 PM PDT by jazusamo
I just finished a biography of BF and I was thinking about who was his modern day equivalent. I decided it was Rush. Franklin's inventor role was actually fairly minor to his overall life's wok. He focused on science only after after he retired, owner of a financial empire built on communication, just like Rush.
Ben Franklin's first job was entertainment, just like Rush: his newspapers, his almanacs, and his social and political commentary that he began with the Silence Dogood letters to his brother's newspaper.
BF, and Rush, both made financial empires out of communication; both learned how to influence public opinion.
BF had a network of newspaper/print shops throughout the colonies that were very loyal to him as he had helped them get into business, through training and financing. Rush has a similiar network of talkshow hosts who openly admit they owe their shows to his influence.
Both learned how to influence public opinion; Franklin was a master at influencing people through his newspapers, anyonomous letters to the editor, and his wide social network. Both are masters at using the available media of the day.
Now, if Rush would get into diplomacy, like BF, that would make the anaology complete.
"TV prevents the blacks we discuss on this site from access to the general public."That used to puzzle me until I figured out it was a form of discrimination. The MSM wants to present blacks as radical, dangerous, and stupid.
You are exactly right. "If it bleeds, it leads" - journalism wants bad news. But you don't have to call it racial discrimination; after all, journalisms wants to present whites as racists even more than it wants to present blacks as dangerous.But the combination of the two is synergistic for journalism - it creates a bind where the white audience is supposed to fear blacks but also be afraid of being a racist. The message is, "You can't trust whites and you can't trust blacks - you can't trust yourself or anyone else. Except journalism - that you can depend on. Journalism and the people whom Big Journalism approves and calls 'liberals' or 'progressives,' that is."
The only thing 'round' about the Sunday morning talk-shows... is their resemblance to a DNC circle-jerk. Fawning admiration and backslapping for anyone with a (D)... a mini-inquisition for anyone with an (R).
I hear what you're saying. If Juan could learn to settle down and not take umbrage at what is said on the panels, especially by Brit, he would come across much better. The more he gets worked up the louder and higher his voice gets and he gets worked up too often.
BTTT
Agreed...Much of what passes for journalism today is not.
I agree except if you are John McCain and you are looking for acceptance and popularity.
BTTT!
I enjoy Beck, too. Goes populist sometimes, but he is entertaining.
Most blacks I speak with have not idea who Sowell, Walter Williams, or ALan Keyes are. There are a couple other good ones. Niger Olsen is good. A guy named Cain on Neal Cavuto's business block is good. There is a young guy out there I see from time to time. Very soft spoken.
Agreed. But the most amazing thing to me is his eternal optimism and cheerfulness. Especially after losing his hearing, which, for a talk-show host, would have been devastating to anybody else.
Methinks he might have more surprises in store for our liberal friends.
journalism wants to present whites as racistsIMHO Marxists persistently tout their Americans as unapologetic racists trope to try to associate capitalism with the mortal sin of slavery.
ccording to a socialist historian, the study of economics was invented by Adam Smith as recently as 1776 (with the publication of Wealth of Nations) because capitalism hadn't existed until the end of the feudal system.So one of the reasons that doesn't fly is that capitalism is only about as old as America - whereas the institution of slavery is ancient and was universal, until Christian - and capitalist Europe became revulsed at the institution of slavery and ended it, to the extent that it has been ended, worldwide. As much as anyone, by the British following Wilberforce.
There was the Joe Pyne Show. Remember Joe?
(I'm kidding, mostly.)
exactly! that was my point.
it's called "segmentation" in propaganda--you drop different ideas into different communications channels. for example, in soviet propaganda, doctors might receive information not available to the general public.
likewise, the media barons that control american tv deny most of american blacks the awareness of black conservatives.
I have a lot of respect for Medved, but I find it hard to listen to the deranged lefties that he has on his show. Medved wins his debates, and I think they are necessary debates, but the freak show gets old.
It is perversely fascinating to hear Hewitt deal with the dumber lefties. Like a good prosecutor, he keeps feeding them the rope they need to hang themselves. And I always enjoy listening to smart lefties like Thomas Barnett.
Rush is a miracle of nature. He is ridiculously good at what he does. I listen to him much less than I used to, just because I drive less than I used to.
Prager can be good. Hannity and Reagan seem like lightweights, somewhat entertaining but not really worth my time. Same with Glenn Reynolds.
As for the others you mention, I either have never listened to them, or never acquired the habit of listening to them.
Whoops, in the above post Glenn Reynolds should be Glenn Beck.
That's exactly why I don't like listening to Beck, despite his many vocal talents and often humorous style--- the guy is a smug populist (is there any other kind?) who acts as though, whenever he disagrees with conservatives or, for that matter, leftists, that they are simply selling out pragmatic good sense in the name of political hackery and ideological dogmatism.... His attack on Scooter Libby for "lying" is a good example. Bill O'Reilly does the same thing, but imo, he isn't as arrogant or thoughtless in doing so.
Anyway, I'm disappointed Sowell didn't mention Hume and the Fox All Stars... Thinktank with Wattenberg and some other PBS mildly rightwing shows are also quite good.
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