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Leading in the polls in his race for mayor of Chicago,
Rahm Emmanuel, while presidential Chief of Staff once infamously
stated, "never let a crisis go to waste." After the recent
murders of Judge Roll, Christina-Taylor Green, a congressional aide
and three elderly Arizonans along with shooting of Congresswoman
Giffords, some might say, the Mainstream Media has modified that
quote to, "never let a tragedy go to waste!"
It seems the Mainstream Media has made a schizophrenic
call: when in the aftermath of this tragedy they libel and slander
Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party Patriot movements, and
other conservatives, while demanding that they, in turn, must remain
civil or utterly silent in their own response. As is often the case,
on both sides of the political spectrum, "Civility"
demanded by those who show none is being wielded as verbal gunpowder
against the backward "natives" in a clash of civilizations.
Cortez and hundreds of conquistadors conquered tens of
thousands of Aztecs and destroyed their civilization by employing
technologically superior weapons to their strategic advantage.
Today's media - both left and right - seek to employee television,
radio, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, newspapers, and magazines to
attack their own political enemies.
The media acknowledged there is no evidence to link
their enemies to the tragedy in Tucson, Arizona. Yet, even as
surgeries were being performed to save the lives of Congresswoman
Giffords and other victims, some in the media speculated (in
actuality) slandered Tea Party Patriots and conservative talk radio.
They searched their archives and quickly came up with interviews of
Congresswoman Giffords discussing the political technique employed by
Sarah Palin of placing a "target" on her district.
Armed with this tidbit of information the perfect media
storm began to blow at gale force. Here was their evidence,
incontrovertible truth, and proof that Sarah Palin was the dangerous
figure they all feared.
Of course, a strange thing happened on the way to the
witch burning - more evidence of targeting districts became known -
"Darn it!" Before Palin did it, the Democrat Leadership
Council did the same thing. Well that certainly didn't stoke the
bigotry the Mainstream Media wished to inflame. What to do? The
obvious answer, once again, ignore the evidence.
When the murderer's best friend came forward, and told
the world he didn't listen to talk radio, he didn't like politics, he
was not in the Tea Party Patriots, the media response was, again -
ignore the evidence, repeat the lie. When the murderer's
ex-girlfriend said that he was a pot smoking, Communist manifesto
reading, conspiracy theorist that believed the government was trying
to control us through grammar, media reaction - ignore the evidence,
continue the big lie!
Having savaged Palin, Limbaugh and the Tea Party
Patriots through the weekend, when the targets of their media bile
responded, what was the media's response? Initially, they stuck to
their strategy and ignored the evidence. When forced to abandon that
position because of overwhelming evidence of their own hypocrisy,
they then ran into a second line of entrenched defenses - the demand
for "civility".
This new-found "civility", seems simply a
coward's way of demanding they not be hit back for verbally lashing
out at someone first. Mildly disingenuous is this call for civility
that came so late. Those who would label dissent under the current
administration as being divisive, labeled it as patriotic, in fact, a
duty during the Bush presidency.
During the Bush presidency, the lack of
"civility" now called for was often missing as those on the
left presented:
- Bush as a Nazi;
- signs proclaiming
"Bush lied, people died";
- Bush and Cheney
burned in effigy; American flags being burned;
- a Hollywood movie
about President Bush being assassinated;
- Bush was ignorant,
illiterate, ill-informed an idiot;
- alternatively, Bush
was brilliant and deliberately planned 9/11 to murder 3000
Americans;
- Bush, Cheney, and
Palin all lynched on Halloween.
All the while this was hailed as political
speech, appropriate political theater, mindful dissent, satirical
comedy or simply something to be ignored. The hypocrisy is
breathtaking!
But it is not just the left that has engaged in such.
Backing up from this newfound strain of "derangement
syndrome", the Palin strain was preceded not only by the Bush
strain, but yes there was a conservative variety out there. We can't
overlook Clinton derangement syndrome.
Yes, this virulent variety ran far beyond the facts of
Bill Clinton's own personal history. While campaigning against his
first presidential run, I had no problem pointing out the irrefutable
evidence that Clinton had lied, admitted to smoking marijuana and
committed adultery; however, I did not fall prey to the more
hyperbolic charges being made, such as his conspiring in the deaths
of dozens of Arkansans. Unfortunately, some on the right bought into
the claims made in a "documentary", The Clinton
Chronicles, enumerating the many conspiracy theories of dozens of
deaths all of which supposedly inured to the benefit of Bill Clinton.
The problem with conspiracies, as with all
"shared" secrets, is more than one person knows about it.
And when it comes to criminal behavior, especially repeated behavior,
and public crimes of this kind of notoriety, somebody's big mouth is
going to brag and tell about it.
Think about it. If a small band of White House staffers
cannot covertly break-in to the oppositions offices at the Watergate
without it becoming front page news; or, if the CIA can't covertly
haul a terrorist picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan, fly
them on a plane that doesn't officially exist to a prison that no one
knows about and interrogate them there without reading about it in
the New York Times; then how in the world are dozens of people to be
shot down on the public streets of Arkansas and Washington D.C.
without someone connected to the dirty deed blabbing about it?
No, I'm not Bill's biggest fan, but he didn't pull the
trigger on Vince Foster or anybody in Arkansas. The Clinton
Chronicles were embarrassing to conservatives and they ought to
have been.
The problems of libel, slander, vicious backbiting and
gossip are numerous. They're rightly called sin, for that is what
they are. They're right there in the "Big Ten" handed down
at Sinai (no I'm not talking about Midwestern football, but the Ten
Commandments). As with all false witnessing it promotes injustice and
false judgment. The greatest casualty is the Truth.
Almost everyone knows the witness' oath: "Do you
solemnly swear or affirm that you will tell the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?"
That oath is designed for three purposes:
- "That you will
tell the truth" - that you will not tell or commit a lie.
- "The whole
truth" - that you will not omit some of the truth, thereby,
allowing a lie to be believed.
- "And nothing but
the truth" - that when your testimony is fully heard a
reliable record of the truth of what you witnessed and a
truthful impression of it will be left with the jury, so that
they can rightly do their job in rendering a proper verdict.
That's why perjury and false statements in court or to
government investigators are such damning things. It cost Dick
Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby his freedom and law license. It
cost Bill Clinton an impeachment and disbarment.
Lies destroy reliability! Crucial to the survival of our
Republic is a free flow of reliable and truthful information
regarding our government, governing officials, and their policies.
Citizens denied reliable information cannot accurately vote for or
against candidates for office, support or oppose public policies or
political stands. Their ability to discern the events and affairs is
degraded by the deliberate distortion of the truthful record of
events.
I personally have no problem with members of the
Mainstream Media choosing sides politically, philosophically,
socially, morally, religiously, economically, or even emotionally.
But what I do object to is the deceit in covering up an agenda they
are pushing.
Yes, I'm not happy when they push an agenda which
opposes my own; there I stated the obvious. But my unhappiness
doesn't poison the body politic. However, their lack of integrity,
when denying their own subjective perspective, or worse yet, lying
about their supposedly objective reporting will prove damaging to our
political system and possibly ruinous to this Republic.
Seeing as how it is unlikely for some outside influence
to suddenly make the Mainstream Media report dispassionately,
objectively and accurately it falls to us to seek out these three
characteristics.
- Develop a healthy
dose of skepticism - it will do no harm.
- Guard against
cynicism - an intellectual cancer, and
- Seek out reliable
sources of information - don't forget to check up on them, too.
The Holy Bible tells us in various passages to be shrewd
as serpents and gentle as lambs, to be discerning of men and spirits,
to examine the Scriptures, to rightly divide the Word, and to be able
to give a reason for the hope that springs within us. For those of
you spiritually inclined, the principles drawn from the passages
referenced will hopefully inspire you to further examination of the
information that you receive, as well as, its various sources.
For those seeking a secular reference point for
instruction, I direct you to someone who had to combat this problem
every day in his professional and personal life - Ronald Reagan.
Irrespective of whether you like him or not he offered some sage
advice on dealing with those with whom you are suspicious.
Reagan was famous for a saying he applied to his
political and national enemies, the Soviet Union and their
supporters, in the US and worldwide. In all dealings with the
communists President Reagan made it his policy to, "trust but
verify".
"Verifying - then trust!" This should be the
slogan, the new watchword, for today's discerning students of public
affairs when dealing with the sources of information that assails
them. This is true whether you lean to the left or the right, or are
dead-on center; and, whether the source is the professional or elite
media or it's the homespun Internet variety. Truth is just that
important!
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