Wondrous to behold, in these degraded days, an equally-degraded national media blob, nakedly and unashamedly going all-out as the Democrat Party’s publicity department. Yes, we always knew or it became clear to us over the last decade or so that the major news publications, to include the broadcast version as well as the most notable internet sites skewed progressive. They got down on their knees and worshipped the Kennedys back then, and just carried on, quaffing deeper and deeper of the intoxicating brew that proximity to power appears to provide. They haven’t yet got off their knees and realized in the cold light of day what their job ought to be, which is our loss. Ah, well we do have the conservative side of the internet, social media, and the ability of everyone with an up-to-date cellphone to record video of anything interesting happening right in front of them. (Like Hillary Clinton being rushed away from a 9-11 memorial event and flung into the back of a van like a sack of potatoes.) And it would seem that the national media machine is losing consumers and viewers in substantial numbers, so we have that to cheer us up, at least a little.
Big Government
To the Great Surprise of Many…
… It turned out that there was one genuine, for real, professional old-line journalist still working at National Public Radio. Was being the operative word, as business reporter Uri Berliner quit, after spectacularly blowing up any lingering pretense of the publicly financed institution being an impartial and unbiased news-gathering organization, reporting on news without fear, favor or partisanship. Frankly, anyone claiming to be the teeniest bit rightish of center and believes that load of codswallop is likely too innocent to be let out in public without a dedicated keeper. They probably believe every word in the NY Times, as well although as Agent K of Men in Black observed that publication stumbles into the truth on rare occasions.
“Comedian Jon Stewart says Apple asked him not to interview FTC Chair Lina Khan”
CNBC:
Stewart asked Khan why the company might be “afraid” to have certain conversations out in public. Khan said it “shows one of the dangers of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of companies.”
An alternative explanation might be that it shows what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision-making in a small number of government officials.
Quote of the Day
When you watch a country fall apart, you understand things can actually fall apart. Americans are complacent.
The Question of When…
The question of when to talk to your children, when you live in a repressive dictatorship was something I remember from reading James Michener’s essay into political reporting The Bridge at Andau; an account into the Hungarian Revolt of 1956 against the Soviet Union, published the following year. There came a time when parents of school-aged children, Michener wrote, had to open up to their children, if they were anti-Soviet dissidents, religious, or simply Hungary-first patriots. It was a fine line; either live a lie in front of your children regarding your own beliefs, and at worst, see them irretrievably buy into the whole Soviet system if you left it too late, or trusting that they were sufficiently mature, to be adept at concealing such dissident beliefs in front of their schoolfellows, Communist-indoctrinated teachers and informers among them. How old did your children need to be, before they could dissemble in front of peers, teachers and spying informants among them? It was a matter of deep concern to Hungarian parents, as Michener related. (Parenthetically, as a teenager and young adult I had never been the least bit enchanted by the golden chimera of communism in any guise. Growing up, my parents knew too many people who had fled from Communist-dominated or threatened countries and had heart-rending stories to tell of their experiences in living in and fleeing Cuba, Russia, Eastern Europe, the far East. Reading Michener’s account of the Hungarian Revolt definitely drew a line under my antipathy towards all-powerful dictatorships of the so-called proletariat.)