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Obama Blames ‘the Balkanization of the Media’
CNSNews ^

Posted on 11/16/2013 8:20:55 AM PST by chessplayer

(CNSNews.com) - At a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee event in Philadelphia on Thursday night, President Barack Obama ended his speech by bemoaning what he called “a level of polarization that seems unique”—citing as one cause to blame for this phenomenon “the Balkanization of the media.”

“Obviously, this year and over the last three years, we’ve seen a level of polarization that seems unique,” said Obama. “But the truth is, is that as you travel around the country, the country--ordinary folks--aren’t as polarized as Washington would make us think.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: achillwind; alphabetnetworks; dissentispatriotic; dnctalkingpoints; mediabias; obamunism; partisanmedia; staterunmedia
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1 posted on 11/16/2013 8:20:55 AM PST by chessplayer
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To: chessplayer

He doesn’t even know what “Balkanization” means.


2 posted on 11/16/2013 8:22:32 AM PST by La Lydia
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To: chessplayer

I’m getting so tired of this whinyass, Chicago punk. Poor Barry. Everybody b pickin’ on him. Geeesh. What a crybaby. 2016 just can’t come fast enough for me. I’ve never read about Hitler, Stalin or even Castro being this big of a whiner. I guess Barry wasn’t cut out to be a fascist dictator.


3 posted on 11/16/2013 8:24:31 AM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Repeal ObamaScam NOW!!!)
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To: chessplayer

So what does he want? A media in which only Chris Mathews types are allowed to air their views??

Obama was re-elected with only 51% of the popular vote. It’s arguable that the boost he got from the MSM helped tip the balance in a close election, based on the way they covered the election.


4 posted on 11/16/2013 8:24:36 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: chessplayer

“But the truth is, is that as you travel around the country, the country—ordinary folks—aren’t as polarized as Washington would make us think.”

He thinks that only because he surrounds himself with yes-men and adoring acolytes inside an echo chamber inside a bubble.


5 posted on 11/16/2013 8:25:15 AM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Vote Republican in 2012 and only be called racist one more time!)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

“So what does he want?”

What any dictator wants — a totally controlled press. Pravda maybe.


6 posted on 11/16/2013 8:27:51 AM PST by AMDG&BVMH
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To: Dilbert San Diego
I would say one of the biggest boosts Obama got in the last election was not having hundreds of Tea Party groups able to mobilize because he blocked them thru the IRS.
7 posted on 11/16/2013 8:28:13 AM PST by what's up
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To: chessplayer

8 posted on 11/16/2013 8:28:41 AM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: chessplayer
The truth is, Obama has purposely Balkanized the United States as part of his leftist agenda.
9 posted on 11/16/2013 8:30:50 AM PST by RC one (I blame all typos, grammatical errors, and spelling errors on my iphone.cu)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

“Christiane Amanpour Calls Obama Admin Most ‘Litigious Against Journalists’ ‘In Decades’ “

http://tinyurl.com/kxwr8mn


10 posted on 11/16/2013 8:30:58 AM PST by chessplayer
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To: chessplayer
Obama (or to be more accurate, his teleprompter) is correct about that. The media is very balkanized.

But what Obama doesn't understand (or won't admit) is why the media has become balkanized. Shortly after Nixon became president, the media as a whole made a conscious decision.

The media would no longer just report the news. Instead they would shape the news. Democrats = good (always) and Republicans = bad (always).

That just didn'tt sit right with huge numbers of Americans. So of course those Americans went looking elsewhere for information.

11 posted on 11/16/2013 8:31:52 AM PST by Leaning Right (Why am I holding this lantern? I am looking for the next Reagan.)
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To: chessplayer
“Obviously, this year and over the last three years, we’ve seen a level of polarization that seems unique,” said Obama.

"Bush doesn't like black people" - Kanye West at a nationwide telethon appeal to help out the victims of Democrat corruption in New Orleans.

12 posted on 11/16/2013 8:32:14 AM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: chessplayer

>> “But the truth is, is that as you travel around the country, the country—ordinary folks—aren’t as polarized as Washington would make us think.”

Yes, we are! Decent, honorable, productive people cannot occupy the same landmass as the human locusts who vote for Democrats. We’re actually more polarized than DC because in DC, the Progressive Dems can always count on the Progressive Pubbies to ride to the rescue when they shoot themselves in the foot with their typical tyrannical overreach.


13 posted on 11/16/2013 8:33:00 AM PST by Bryanw92 (Sic semper tyrannis)
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To: FlingWingFlyer
one need only to have been exposed to ONE of the Great Leaders Petulant Scowls to note what a seriously reality deficient whiney crud bucket he truly is.

That one so UTTERLY out of touch...was ever considered worthy presidential material is UTTERLY SURREAL

From the Resolute Desk...to the Desolate Desk....


14 posted on 11/16/2013 8:33:04 AM PST by MeshugeMikey ( Visit http://icantenroll.com/ In Glitch We Trust....;o})
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To: chessplayer

Had to look up the word Balkanization, which means the breaking up of a larger whole into smaller, often antagonistic fragments. Ok, so Obama thinks the media are breaking up into smaller groups that are hostile to each other... If this is so, I think the groups reflect the multiplicity of reactions of citizens to having a guy in charge who is relentlessly trying to pull the wings and beak and claws off our American eagle. Some like it. Some think the country ought to be brought down, declawed, incapable of feeding except by the hand of the government. Others are angry or afraid. Count me in the last groups — angry AND afraid. Where is my America going? How could we have elected this man to the presidency?


15 posted on 11/16/2013 8:33:26 AM PST by Toucan Dance
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To: chessplayer

Yes its too bad the media is only 95% in lockstep with your agenda.


16 posted on 11/16/2013 8:34:07 AM PST by skeeter
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To: chessplayer
He simply turns truth on its head.

In the days preceding and following the adoption of the United States Constitution--the document which structures and limits the powers of Durbin's office and that of every other segment of the federal government--the circulation of ideas was accomplished in numerous ways. There were newspapers, pamphlets, speeches and other forms of oratory, broadsides and "committees of correspondence."

From the Massachusetts Historical Society web site come these paragraphs:

"Ignorance is slavery -
"By the early 1770s, Boston's patriot leaders have had many opportunities to rally townspeople against perceived injustices (usually acts of Parliament or other objectionable activities undertaken by the British government or soldiery). Men like Samuel Adams understand that an informed citizenry is the best weapon against unfavorable government policy. Political ignorance is simply another form of slavery. How do patriots impart political knowledge to such a vast audience? Ministers, newspaper publishers, and even the Massachusetts General Assembly work to educate the public, but in 1771, patriot leaders in Boston experiment with a new form of instruction. They initiate an annual town lecture, which will be held each year on 5 March, an important anniversary for Bostonians. Some colonial leaders are skeptical, and question whether the general public can be educated in the ways of politics through such popular means."

In the fall of 1772, Bostonians address the latest rumors from Parliament: judges of the Superior Court of Judicature will no longer be paid by the colony's General Court. Instead, judges will be paid directly from the royal treasury, using money collected by the American Board of Customs Commissioners. Fearing this new process will "pervert the judgment of men," Bostonians petition their selectmen to act. In the process of debating the matter, Samuel Adams proposes the creation of a corresponding society to gauge the sentiments of other Massachusetts towns. On 2 November 1772, a committee is born when the Boston selectmen vote to establish a twenty-one-member Committee of Correspondence.

The Committee's first assignment is to prepare a series of reports outlining colonists' rights and Parliament's infringements upon those rights. The reports are gathered into a single document that becomes known as the Boston Pamphlet. Copies of the pamphlet are distributed to every town in Massachusetts, and town leaders across the colony debate the wisdom of following in Boston's footsteps.

Many towns do eventually appoint their own committees of correspondence, a development that troubles governor Thomas Hutchinson. As advocates of the committee system boast that Bostonians (and their committee) will prove to be the "saviors of America," Hutchinson and his opponents take every opportunity to disparage the town's Committee of Correspondence.

More positive news arrives from the "patriotic province of Virginia" in the spring of 1773. The House of Burgesses proposes some enhancements to Boston's committee of correspondence idea. In response to Virginia's proposal, Massachusetts creates a colony-level committee of correspondence chaired by Samuel Adams. The rhetoric of freedom, rights, and liberty bandied about by politicians is soon adopted by other colonists struggling with issues of slavery. In one poignant broadside, four slaves petition the Massachusetts General Court, hoping that the "divine spirit of freedom" will extend to the thousands of men and women literally enslaved in the colonies.

By the summer of 1773, the committees of correspondence have yet another issue to debate and discuss. In May, Parliament passes the Tea Act, giving the East India Company a monopoly over the sale of tea in the colonies. Committees are quick to share their thoughts on this "impending evil," but will their vitriol be enough to stop the tea from coming?"

Why is it that now, in the Year 2013, we have a regime in place which fears the formation of groups of citizens who may call themselves "tea partiers," or any other such name who, like their forebears of the 18th and 19th Centuries, call for liberty and freedom from elected and appointed government officials and their oppressive rules, regulations and "taking" of their income?

The free circulation of ideas in America, with all the technology available today, has the potential for restoring the concepts of individual liberty which so-called "progressives" have censored from the nation's textbooks and public discourse. As in the founding period, with current technology and ability to circulate ideas, the time has come to follow John Adams advice and, "Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing." - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." - JOHN ADAMS, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers." - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

"Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear the dangers of thralldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence; in short, from civil and political slavery. Let us see delineated before us the true map of man. Let us hear the dignity of his nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God-that consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust, as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest or happiness - and that God Almighty has promulgated from heaven liberty, peace, and goodwill to man!" - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

"Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell." - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

"They (the Puritans) saw clearly that of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve, and as always must, from the constitution of human nature, be dangerous to society. For this reason they demolished the whole system of diocesan episcopacy, and, deriding, as all reasonable and impartial men must do, the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from Episcopal fingers, they established sacerdotal ordination on the foundation of the Bible and common sense." - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

"They even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that God Almighty had entrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they might open and close at pleasure; with a power of dispensation over all the rules and obligations of morality; with authority to license all sorts of sins and crimes; with a power of deposing princes and absolving subjects from allegiance; with a power of procuring or withholding the rain of heaven and the beams of the sun; with the management of earthquakes, pestilence, and famine; nay, with the mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and wine the flesh and blood of God himself. All these opinions they were enabled to spread and rivet among the people by reducing their minds to a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity, and by infusing into them a religious horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable servitude to him and his subordinate tyrants, who, it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God and that was worshipped." - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

"But none of the means of information are more sacred, or have been cherished with more tenderness and care by the settlers of America, than the press. Care has been taken that the art of printing should be encouraged, and that it should be easy and cheap and safe for any person to communicate his thoughts to the public. And you, Messieurs printers, whatever the tyrants of the earth may say of your paper, have done important service to your country by your readiness and freedom in publishing the speculations of the curious. The stale, impudent insinuations of slander and sedition with which the gormandizers of power have endeavored to discredit your paper are so much the more to your honor; for the jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing." - A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

Here

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." - Thomas Jefferson

17 posted on 11/16/2013 8:34:31 AM PST by loveliberty2
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To: chessplayer

He obviously was in a Coma from about 2000 to 2008.


18 posted on 11/16/2013 8:34:32 AM PST by Kickass Conservative (Good news, Federal Funding for my Tagline has been restored. Crisis averted.)
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To: La Lydia
He doesn’t even know what “Balkanization” means.

They probably spelled it out phonetically for him on the teleprompter.

19 posted on 11/16/2013 8:35:07 AM PST by GreenHornet
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To: chessplayer

Related...

None Dare Call It Fascism
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3092037/posts


20 posted on 11/16/2013 8:35:23 AM PST by Jack Hydrazine (Pubbies = national collectivists; Dems = international collectivists; me = independent conservative)
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