Can the Old American Republic be restored in the absence of a Free Press?

[tom_paine]

Ok, people, we all know that Imperial Media, consisting of the Bushevik Party-Loyal Sub-Media and the Corporate Pravda (all kinds) who is cowering, weak, bullied, and thoroughly parasitized by Mockingbirds and Bushevik Fact-Free Loyalists...

We ALL know that it is as pathetic in many ways as Commie Chinese media or Old Soviet Media...but we do have better production values and KOOL GRAPHICS to go with the half-truths and lies.

We ALL know that the Free World Press isn't in the Empire today because Imperial Amerika doesn't technically BELONG in the Free World, and many would say that one of the reasons we don't belong to the Free World anymore is the dissolution, bullying, parasitization, and general weakening of the Free Press is a dirct cause.

Now I have noticed, along with everyone else here, that things just aren't getting better. The Orwellian Double-Standards continue and perhaps deepening...

Whoopi plastered all over the Pravda while Dick Cheney gets mostly Orwellian silence, a few back-page stories and a nahdful of editroial cartoons? Janklow gets 100 days and a US Attorney (working for US...well, supposed to though we all know that the Imperial Government officials work for the Imperial Family and could largely care less if we all perished) ARGUES THAT WE the PEOPLE PAY for his callous vehicular manslaughter?? Then gets SILENCE on the issue?

So the BIG QUESTION is, do we have ANY hope of restoring the Free America we all love and grew up with in the absence of a Free Press, staying either the same pathetic joke that it is now or if it gets worse as it liekly will and descends into full-blown Sovietism?

DUers, what do you think? Remeber, I am not asking if the Free Press can be saved. That may or may not be possible and should be the topic of another poll or thread. What I am asking is if it turns out the the Free Press is as dead as Prescott Bush, can we STILL restore the Old Republic?

[tom_paine]

1. Wow, no discussion?

Maybe if I'd brought up a SERIOUS topic, like the Scott Petersen Trial...

:silly:

[hang a left]

2. I think I have brought this up before several months back.

No one wants to talk about the infiltration of the media by the operations of the elite. I even wonder about the so called news sources our left leaning society here at DU tend to trust. Is it all just a show? We do get bits and pieces here and there of the things we want to read about. But....is it all just a test? I have this feeling that the country is being tested on how much it will be willing to roll over and take.

[htuttle]

3. The Old America never existed -- it was a myth we taught our children

Can we someday have a 'better' America? I hope so, for the sake of the planet.

And no, it's not possible without a free press.

[tom_paine]

10. Disagree, htuttle. The Myth was always bullshit. The Reality...

Was that, when weighing the "bad" that nations do vs. the "good", through their history, the Old United States of America stacked up pretty good.

yes I am including

Iran Iraq Chile Argentina Guatemala El Salvador, etc.

I know of these things, but I still stick to what I said.

Yes, the Myth you speak of was Bullshit, unless considered with the bad that we have done.

Not to accept it and say it's ok. But to accept it and try to be better.

[funkybutt]

4. y'all going to see "outfoxed" sunday

that should be an eye opener. No i don't think a democracy is a democracy without a free press. Hopefully movies like "outfoxed" will force the media to report on their OWN partisanship. No i think that maybe the old republic is a thing of the past but internet could be the new free press.

[Solon]

5. With the exceptions of Party Papers of the past...

and in the last 50 years, a few maverick reporters, we have never had a true independant press. Look at this quote:

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

“There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.

“If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

“The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread.

“You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press.

“We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.

“We are intellectual prostitutes.”

— John Swinton
New York Times editor
in a speech before the New York Press Club
1953

ON EDIT: Corrected Spelling

[Kolesar]

6. "We are not going to win this with strident ,accusatory TV ads"

"People are tired of that. The message does not get through." The head of the Sierra Club spoke at the City Club last month and those was his response when someone asked him how we are going to defeat George Bush. Carl Pope imagines a more effective method of reaching people individually, knocking on doors, and finding people where they live and play.

I know that does not solve the problem as you describe it of the media being owned by the GOP and how to solve the problem of unsticking it and returning it to the people. We don't have the media and cannot even buy the ads we want to play, because Clear Channel, et al will not post them. We are going to have to solve this through the means that we do have at our disposal.

If people get a chance to hear the details of public policy from an activist, they will spread the ideas through word of mouth. The shocking points of policy about forests, tax policy, war, the media, etc., will stand out and they will want to tell people they know about it.

It is about the only method we have left. In our favor is the details behind this. We have the truth on our side. Also, information spreads rapidly in the internet age. The internet age also enables real personal connections for organizing. Watching the local Kerry meetup morph into a grassroots dynamo has been a thing of beauty.

I have been doing a lot of tabling (and a bit of canvassing on one particular issue). Those moments when I know I enlighten people about stories are wonderful and motivate me to keep talking. The way I think of it, there is nothing else to do at the moment and would highly recommend it.

[MallRat]

7. First order of business for President Kerry: STOP MEDIA CONSOLIDATION.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

-MR

[robbob]

8. It won't be easy

The majority of Americans get their opinions directly off the tube. Even if they are dubious about the reliability of the news, it is still what they are watching. How can we have a discussion about the really important issues if we never hear about them?

Why are Whoopie's "bush" comments newsworthy, but when Dennis Miller gets up at a political rally and insinuates that Kerry and Edwards are gay lovers we hear not a peep from the media?

[Demeter]

9. Freedom of the Press: He Who Owns the Press Has the Freedom

Since traditional media has sold out to large corporate interests, we the people have come up with alternative press: Hardcover books, Internet sites, documentary movies, alternative magazines, the Freedom of Information Act, toll-free 800 numbers, and more than I can imagine.

Consider what the Russians had to work with: mimeograph machines for their zamidzat, black humor, and sabotage. We have so much more in resources to subvert the tyrant. And in this country, it's hard to explain why the government is supressing such outlets of expression, and so far, it really hasn't tried (other than the usual smear campaign).

I am hopeful. Having a really bad economy is its own silver lining in these fascist times.

[tom_paine]

11. Silver lining? A crushed economy helped Hitler gain power

I cannot agree with you on that one.

A bad economy makes fascism MORE likely, not less. How far would the busheviks be along if we had a TRULY CRUSHED ECONOMY.

DU would be shut down and we'd already be fighting for our lives, IMHO.

[Kolesar]

12. (1) it is not going to play out like Communist China or Soviet Russia, and

(2) What are you prepared to do about it?

[tom_paine]

13. 1) Did I EVER say it would play out like Commie Russia or China?

No. It will be a grotesque amalgamation of those nations (minus the Communism, substitute Free-Market), Imperial Rome, Nazi Germany (hopeuflly not TOO much of Nazi Germany, though it doesn't look good right now), farenheit 451, Brave new World, and probably some new features new to humankind in the way the Bushevik Lie Laundry Goebbels v2.0 is new, yet so very old.

2) I am working and donating my ASS off for Kerry and all the Dem candidates I can. I spend my weekends (which I would much rather not) working for them. I speak out dailyt and ETC ETC ETC.

3) JUST :wtf: ARE you DOING?

Perhaps if you did 1/10th of what I do to keep the Darkness from descending, maybe I would give credence to yoru sneering dismissals.

Naah. Come to think of it I LOATHE sneering dismissals with no concrete or even rhetorical backup. NOTHING you are doing right now could make me lend credence to a steaming pile of (REDACTED) such as the post I am responding to.

Still, I now want to KNOW. What are YOU doing?

[Kolesar]

16. (3) I guess you missed my post #6 in *your* thread

Plenty of "rhetorical backup" there.

I have given a steaming pile of money to the Kerry campaign and to congressional and local candidates. I have given up my hobbies to do political work. Except for working on the house, I spend all of my free time on political work.

[Kolesar]

17. & missed the movie line

from "the Untouchables"

[Solly Mack]

14. "Thomas Paine" asks this?

:)

A free press is needed. Very much needed.

Even if it has to begin again with pamphlets mailed far and wide...passed on from person to person.

[tom_paine]

15. Even the original Thomas Paine asked many a hypothetical question

:hi: Solly

It doesn't mean neither he nor I supported it.

If it helps, I am one of the many who voted with Option #3, as I believe the original Tom Paine also would have...

[mandyky]

18. I chose the 4th choice

The internet is our free press - read Joe Trippi's "The Revolution Will Not be Televised".