Posted on 11/25/2008 5:27:08 AM PST by Kaslin
That the news media were biased in the 2008 presidential election is now acknowledged by fair-minded people, left or right
As Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin said this weekend at a Politico/USC Conference on the 2008 election: “It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business. … It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
Given how obvious this bias is, the question is not whether liberals in the media tend to offer biased reporting. The question is why? Why can’t liberal news people report the news without any slant?
The answer is that for people on the left, all -- I repeat, (set ital) all (end ital) -- professions are a means to an end, not ends in themselves. That end is the social transformation of society, meaning the promoting of “social justice” as the left understands that term.
For most liberal news reporters, therefore, the purpose of news reporting is not to report news as objectively as possible. The purpose of the media in general and of reporting specifically is to promote social justice and the social transformation of society.
For most liberal judges, the primary purpose of being a judge is to promote social justice and transform society. That is why liberal judges are so much more likely to be judicial activists than conservative judges. Most liberal judges do not see their roles as merely adjudicating a dispute according to the law. They see their role primarily as using the law and their power to rule on the law to promote social justice.
For most university professors -- and many high school teachers, as well -- outside of the natural sciences and math, the same holds true. The task of a teacher is to teach, i.e., to convey the most important information as honestly as possible. But, again, this conflicts with the social justice goal of the left. History teachers who merely teach history are of little use to the left. History -- and English and political science, and sociology and other liberal arts -- teachers must use their classroom to produce young people who will wish to engage in society-transforming work for social justice.
For most liberals in the arts (there are very few conservatives in the arts) there is no denial of their having an agenda. They state quite candidly that the purpose of the arts is to challenge the (conservative) status quo, to raise political and social consciousness by advancing a “progressive” political and social agenda. The artist whose agenda is merely to produce beautiful art is looked upon as a reactionary buffoon, and is not likely to be taken seriously -- no matter how talented -- in the worlds of music, dance, painting, and sculpture.
Even the natural sciences are increasingly subject to being rendered a means to a “progressive” end. There was the pseudo-threat of heterosexual AIDS in America -- science manipulated in order to de-stigmatize AIDS as primarily a gay man’s disease and to increase funding for AIDS research. There are the exaggerated secondhand smoke data popularized so as to decrease smoking and fight “Big Tobacco.” And now we have the scientifically questionable belief in man-made carbon emissions causing global warming leading to natural catastrophe – and recommended “solutions” many of which, if adopted, will serve the goal of undermining corporate capitalism.
The best analogy of the directing of all human endeavors toward a left-wing purpose would be those early medieval centuries of European life when just about everything man made was supposed to reflect a religious consciousness. Virtually nothing stood apart from the Church. The arts were religious, the sciences were handmaidens of theology, and schools were religious in nature.
Most moderns look upon that period as a dark age -- perhaps a bit unfairly at times. But the people who most scorn what they deem the religious “Dark Ages” are trying to building a secular-left dark age in our time. Because the left is a religion, a substitute for the Christianity it seeks to displace.
“Perhaps the most alarming fact is that contempt for intellectual liberty is not a thing which arises only once the totalitarian system is established but one which can be found everywhere among intellectuals who have embraced a collectivist faith and who are acclaimed as intellectual leaders even in countries still under a liberal regime.”
Mainstream media is changing, not dying.
Perhaps liberals are drawn to some of these fields? You can see how liberal journalists see themselves as slanting their reporting towards their goals. You can see how liberal movie men can see themselves promoting certain messages by making “Brokeback Mountain” and other movies which have a certain social message behind them.
Speaking of gays, I hear that there are gays in Hollywood, who for years have made sure that any homosexual character must be a positive portrayal of same.
You can see how liberal lawyers and judges see themselves as shaping our laws with landmark judicial rulings. The judges especially are in a unique position as they rule for same-sex marriage or make other policy decisions, rather than just applying the law. It’s difficult to overturn Supreme Court decisions that are unpopular but further leftist causes.
Bump for later...
Oops Shazbot...dang fat fumble fingers of mine...that's marxist.
It never fails to drive me bananas that the people who insist that that the universe and life have no absolute meaning, and that there is no absolute right and wrong, feel that they've been personally authorized by something to repair all of society's "wrongs." They scream bloody murder at the very idea of the Creator's rules being followed but somehow think that their own utterly subjective hang-ups should be submitted to by the entire human race without a whimper.
Freaking hypocrites.
So true.... but the "progressive left" functions with some of the very worst aspects of the perversions of religion, with a cult-like fervency which includes demented rage at "heretics" and "unbelievers"..... Worst of all is to be regarded as a heretic from the left, i.e., leaving from within the folds of progressivism due to doubts and criticisms. Then the fury of the progressive cult is truly astonishing.....
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