stephanie
01-13-2008, 07:15 AM
good article to think about..maybe it's too late??
By Selwyn Duke
Last year's scamnesty bill had widespread support among the powers-that-be, with the president, the Democrat majority and mainstream media all singing its praises. Yet it went down to defeat, slain by a new-media coalition of talk radio and blogosphere warriors. Working tirelessly to expose the truth and rally the grassroots, they became a David who slew a Goliath.
Forty-three years ago it was a different world. Ted Kennedy had co-authored the "Immigration Reform Act of 1965," which created a situation wherein 85 percent of our immigrants hail from the Third World and Asia. He took to the Senate floor, claimed his brainchild wouldn't change the demographic composition of the nation and passed the culture-rending bill under the cover of darkness.
This darkness was not absence of light but that of truth; it was a media blackout. With no Internet and little talk radio, mainstream journalists had a monopoly over the hearts and minds of America. And they knew best. The little people didn't have to worry their pretty little heads about actions that would forever alter the face of the nation.
This is why the old media fears the new one. The latter watches the watchers, polices the police. It has cut into the Rathersphere's market, causing a diminution of circulation, viewership and - this is what really gets their collars up -- power. They can no longer propagandize with Tass-like impunity, for the e-hills have eyes.
Yet this is no time for a victory dance. The new media is under attack, as the left aims to silence dissent before it grows strong enough to block the thought police's coup de grace. This is the race for the American mind.
And we are losing.
The attack upon free expression is more varied than one may think, but I'll start with the obvious. Most have heard of the euphemistically-named "Fairness Doctrine," which would essentially eliminate traditionalist talk radio. People such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage may then be relegated to satellite - assuming they're willing to leap into the ether - and its far smaller audience.
Then we have hate speech laws, which empower governments to punish people of politically incorrect passions. In Europe, Canada and elsewhere, average citizens have suffered persecution for criticizing homosexuality and Islam and voicing other unfashionable truths. And as hate speech laws become more entrenched and accepted, the list of taboos of the tongue grows longer - and more widespread. They're coming soon to a theater of social operations near you.
And these laws are netting the famous as well as the anonymous. Two Canadian "Human Rights Commissions" are investigating columnist Mark Steyn and the country's bestselling news magazine, Macleans, because it published an excerpt from Steyn's book containing criticism of Islam. In Britain in 2003, Scotland Yard launched an investigation of colorful commentator Taki Theodoracopulos - not for using more letters in a name than one ought - but for "inciting racial hatred" by writing that most criminals in northern English cities were black thugs who belonged to gangs. Across the North Sea in Germany, a leftist politician filed charges against the citizen encyclopedia "Wikipedia" because one of its entries contained too much Nazi symbolism. Here's the kicker: It was a piece about the Hitler Youth. Then there's Jewish historian Arno Lustiger, who filed a lawsuit in Germany against Vanity Fair magazine because it published an interview with a neo-Nazi.
While the stout-hearted Mark Steyn won't end up cooling his heels or capitulating, the same cannot be said of everyone. Wikipedia caved quickly and altered its content, and, although we can expect greater fortitude from more professional operations, the implications are ominous. As such investigations, charges and lawsuits become more prevalent and start to stick, the media will be increasingly gun shy about publishing politically incorrect views. Fewer and fewer will deviate from the new Tass line, until news and commentary are banal, barren and bereft of truth.
Surely, though, some of the millions of blogs and other Internet sources would not be cowed, and it would be hard to arrest every one of their operators. But the government won't have to. There's more than one way to skin a Constitution.
read the rest..
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/the_race_for_the_american_mind.html
By Selwyn Duke
Last year's scamnesty bill had widespread support among the powers-that-be, with the president, the Democrat majority and mainstream media all singing its praises. Yet it went down to defeat, slain by a new-media coalition of talk radio and blogosphere warriors. Working tirelessly to expose the truth and rally the grassroots, they became a David who slew a Goliath.
Forty-three years ago it was a different world. Ted Kennedy had co-authored the "Immigration Reform Act of 1965," which created a situation wherein 85 percent of our immigrants hail from the Third World and Asia. He took to the Senate floor, claimed his brainchild wouldn't change the demographic composition of the nation and passed the culture-rending bill under the cover of darkness.
This darkness was not absence of light but that of truth; it was a media blackout. With no Internet and little talk radio, mainstream journalists had a monopoly over the hearts and minds of America. And they knew best. The little people didn't have to worry their pretty little heads about actions that would forever alter the face of the nation.
This is why the old media fears the new one. The latter watches the watchers, polices the police. It has cut into the Rathersphere's market, causing a diminution of circulation, viewership and - this is what really gets their collars up -- power. They can no longer propagandize with Tass-like impunity, for the e-hills have eyes.
Yet this is no time for a victory dance. The new media is under attack, as the left aims to silence dissent before it grows strong enough to block the thought police's coup de grace. This is the race for the American mind.
And we are losing.
The attack upon free expression is more varied than one may think, but I'll start with the obvious. Most have heard of the euphemistically-named "Fairness Doctrine," which would essentially eliminate traditionalist talk radio. People such as Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage may then be relegated to satellite - assuming they're willing to leap into the ether - and its far smaller audience.
Then we have hate speech laws, which empower governments to punish people of politically incorrect passions. In Europe, Canada and elsewhere, average citizens have suffered persecution for criticizing homosexuality and Islam and voicing other unfashionable truths. And as hate speech laws become more entrenched and accepted, the list of taboos of the tongue grows longer - and more widespread. They're coming soon to a theater of social operations near you.
And these laws are netting the famous as well as the anonymous. Two Canadian "Human Rights Commissions" are investigating columnist Mark Steyn and the country's bestselling news magazine, Macleans, because it published an excerpt from Steyn's book containing criticism of Islam. In Britain in 2003, Scotland Yard launched an investigation of colorful commentator Taki Theodoracopulos - not for using more letters in a name than one ought - but for "inciting racial hatred" by writing that most criminals in northern English cities were black thugs who belonged to gangs. Across the North Sea in Germany, a leftist politician filed charges against the citizen encyclopedia "Wikipedia" because one of its entries contained too much Nazi symbolism. Here's the kicker: It was a piece about the Hitler Youth. Then there's Jewish historian Arno Lustiger, who filed a lawsuit in Germany against Vanity Fair magazine because it published an interview with a neo-Nazi.
While the stout-hearted Mark Steyn won't end up cooling his heels or capitulating, the same cannot be said of everyone. Wikipedia caved quickly and altered its content, and, although we can expect greater fortitude from more professional operations, the implications are ominous. As such investigations, charges and lawsuits become more prevalent and start to stick, the media will be increasingly gun shy about publishing politically incorrect views. Fewer and fewer will deviate from the new Tass line, until news and commentary are banal, barren and bereft of truth.
Surely, though, some of the millions of blogs and other Internet sources would not be cowed, and it would be hard to arrest every one of their operators. But the government won't have to. There's more than one way to skin a Constitution.
read the rest..
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/the_race_for_the_american_mind.html