|
January 14, 2008
– The year was 1999. Seems a world away, doesn't it?
The name was George W. Bush. Most of the people of the nation
- myself included - had never heard of him. And yet,
everywhere in the media - everywhere - we were being told that he
was unbeatable to be the next President of the United States.
This was before the primaries.
This was in a race against a successful incumbency. This was a
race that George W. Bush ultimately would not win the most votes in.
The absolute control of the media by a
certain Bush-brand group of Republicans continues on into this
election. The search for a single positive article about
Hillary Clinton continues. She is one of the most amazing
success stories in American history, the first woman to ever lead
the national polling for President; the first viable, never mind
front-running, female. No stories honoring that.
She still leads by double-digits in
national polls (see
CBS' latest), and yet the media acts as if she is hated and on
her way out. Funny, that's exactly what right-wing
propagandists are saying. And even more amusing, that's what
fake liberals like Ed Schultz are saying. "Liberals" bashing
Clinton praising Huckabee.
Welcome to Elections 2008.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary
Clinton won big among Democrats. With Iowa's second round
voting, sore losers who switched to Obama brought him into a tie
with her among Democrats. In New Hampshire, he lost by 10
percentage points among Democrats.
What has propelled Barack Obama has been
"Independents" and Republicans. Obama noted this both after
Iowa in his letter to supporters: "...independents and even
some Republicans joined our party to stand together for change," he
wrote in his letter to supporters after his Iowa win. We he
didn't comment on was the fact that Republicans are registering as
"Independents" to vote Obama because they think he'll be easier to
beat. After New Hampshire he noted "Independent" support again
- and well he should have, as he lost massively among Democrats.
Again, he had Republicans who registered as Independents to
crossover to thank for even making the race close.
This is the simple reality of how the
Bush/Republicans operate. Propaganda and dirty tricks.
Fortunately John McCain is coming up on
the GOP side of things. If McCain is the Republican candidate,
and either Clinton or Obama are on the Democratic side, America is
in for a real treat, a period that would be a complete reversal from
the past eight years. Any of the three could be given
something that no one in the current Administration was worthy of:
our nation's trust. There will be differences in policies, but
all three are of the utmost integrity.
However, on the Independent side of
things, I was contacted by the head of the Draft Mike Bloomberg
movement. He was wondering where we stand with regard to this
possible renegade candidacy. Potential candidates like Chuck
Hagel are exciting prospects, but more needs to be known about
Bloomberg before a useful opinion can be given either way. We
are looking into an interview, so stay tuned and we will give you
the Moderate Independent lowdown on this possible Independent
candidacy.
I've also been informed that a liberal
radio station is starting up down in Jacksonville, Florida. It
sounds legitimate and anything to balance out the constant
right-wing lying is useful, however the station says it will
feature, if you can imagine, fake
liberal/right-winger-in-liberal-clothing Ed Schultz. So before
we pass along that information to promote the radio station, I am
looking further into the host and programming to be sure it is not
another station that claims to be "Progressive Talk" and carries a
progressive host or two, but really is just a trick to draw liberals
in and then feed them right-wing propaganda via hosts, like Schultz,
who claim to be liberals.
So to give you your 2008 primer on who
to trust in the media:
ABC News, as we saw last election cycle
with its airing of
The Path To 9/11 - a pure right-wing propaganda piece disguised
as a movie just weeks before the election - is now no more useful
than FOX News. ABC also operates lying right-wing talk
stations from coast to coast, from WABC in New York to KABC in Los
Angeles.
By the way - did anyone notice Don Imus
has just returned to the air? And who is carrying the racist
right-wing liar? Of course, ABC (see
New York Post story.)
That was a nice trick, huh? They
pretended they were firing him during a slow point in the election
cycle, and then just slip him back on under the radar just as the
elections start heating up.
And a friendly reminder: The Wall
Street Journal is now owned by FOX News owner Rupert Murdoch.
Who also own the New York Post linked above. Which is the
paper reporting about Don Imus' return. Which will be on ABC's
radio network.
Are you seeing the circle from Murdoch
to ABC?
NBC has it's wonderful stepchild MSNBC,
which operates almost exclusively right-wing liars, save for Keith
Olbermann - the lone actual liberal in the media these days.
Question: If a network carries known lying propagandists like
Scarborough, how can you trust anything the network carries (and
before Scarborough threatens to sue me again,
here is the article
I ran on his book - i.e. pages filled with lies - which he
threatened to sue me over exposing a little ways back.)
CBS - um, forget it. The CEO of
Viacom (which owns CBS) put it nicely last election. He said
regardless of his personal views, he had to support George W. Bush
because of the business interests of his company.
Not exactly impartial, huh?
Back in 1999, Washington Post media
analyst (now gone TV host as well) Howard Kurtz told me in an e-mail
exchange that the dirtiest little secret was that while many
reporters may in fact be liberal, 80% or more of publishers and
editors - the people who control what gets printed and the
tone/slant/content are Republicans. What you can add to that
fact, which he didn't at the time, is that the big bosses are
GOP'ers, or at least ally with them since Bush and friends are
willing to give the big media owners the right to own and
consolidate more, crushing out free voices and competition.
Which, as luck would have it, was just
done again on December 18th - one of the most important stories
which, nicely, went uncovered by the media that benefited from it.
From
Broadcast and Cable:
FCC Loosens Newspaper-Broadcast
Cross-Ownership Limits - Federal Communications Commission Voted
Along Party Lines...
"To cries of " unfair" and "this vote
is a sham" from a handful of protesters, the Federal
Communications Commission voted along strict party lines Tuesday
to loosen its newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule.
"Democratic commissioner
Michael Copps was the first
commissioner to weigh in with a public statement in advance of
that vote, saying that the FCC was "just inking up a rubber stamp
for another round of consolidation."
Now, thanks to the current Democratic
control of the Senate, the rule may be overturned. But in case
you were wondering one of the main reasons for the lockstep
right-wing bias across the entire non-Moderate Independent media,
there you have it. The news is a business, not a public
service. Their bread is buttered by Republicans.
Democrats are taking the media stand on the side of the nation.
This is why you won't see a single positive article about Hillary
Clinton. This is why every Democrat is dubbed "unlikable" by
the entire media. This is why you see such uniformity of
message.
Honestly, it's one thing for some
reports to say Barack Obama will roll after Iowa, or that Hillary
Clinton's victory in New Hampshire doesn't mean much. But to
have the entire non-M/I media all take those two views tells you all
you need to know. Not one has said Hillary's victory shows
that Obama doesn't have much hope - as we have reported; that New
Hampshirites didn't want to pull that trigger. That they came,
they saw him, and said no - that he got clobbered among Democrats
especially - and that this all bodes very poorly for him the rest of
the way. Which station is reporting that it looks like Iowa
was just a fluke caused by a bizarre voting process and abnormal
electorate? Right, not one.
Ok, now you are ready for your week of
election coverage, knowledge in hand.
As for the economy, the biggest story
was told rather quietly. What caused the Dow's big drop was
not simply more ARM mortgage mess fallout. It was the next
chapter, which only The Moderate Independent has reported about so
far - the looming credit card devt crisis. It was American
Express falling 10% - a Dow component - that dragged the index down
the most. And AmEx fell because of defaults and reduced use.
As we all know, AmEx is the high-end of
credit cards. If AmEx users are defaulting massively - if the
rich and those with good credit are defaulting on even these smaller
lines of credit - it marks a serious point in the coming reality:
that after a decade of setting a new record for personal
bankruptcies each year, the ARM meltdown is going to be joined by a
massive credit card debt meltdown. Recession is here.
The question is not will we have a recession, as some are still
asking. The question is will it just be a horrible depression
or all out collapse.
Which candidate has the best economic
vision to save the nation?
That my friends, is a much more complex
story. And you will have to stay tuned for that. To give
you the basic idea, it doesn't have as much to do with economic
policies as you would think. It all does - as I keep pointing
out - come back to the issue of the media. Our current
financial problem is not really an economic one, if you can imagine.
No, in fact, it is a cultural problem.
More on that later. Now, onto the
week...
. | 
