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May 01, 2009
Obama's War on Free Speech
Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are intent on nationalizing media in the U.S. much the same way they nationalized the U.S. auto industry and the nation's banking and financial institutions.
This isn't the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."
It's much worse.
Here's what you can expect in the coming weeks and months:
* a new appointment to the position of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who will implement a plan to create "community advisory boards" of community activists to monitor the content of talk-radio programs, threatening stations that carry dissenting content with broadcast license challenges;
* billions of additional dollars to be invested in so-called "public broadcasting" – those entities already funded and controlled by government;
* bailouts of failing newspapers perceived as essential propaganda tools for the party.
It's a program worthy of the old Soviet Union – where the old joke noted there was no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia.
But this is no joking matter.
The First Amendment is at stake.
The FCC is currently composed of two Democrat and two Republican commissioners. Obama has nominated a new chairman, Julius Genachowski, which would give Democrats a 3-2 majority once he is confirmed.
But the nominee is not just another Democrat. He's a Democrat with a plan.
Genachowski advocates creating new media ownership rules that promote a diversity of voices on the airwaves. In fact, Genachowski is credited with helping craft the Obama technology agenda, which states:
"Encourage diversity in the ownership of broadcast media, promote the development of new media outlets for expression of diverse viewpoints, and clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation's spectrum."
Translation? Government control of broadcast media – particularly the kind of talk radio Democrats find so annoying.
The party in power wants to remain in power perpetually. And to do so, like so many other power-hungry parties of the past, it seeks to control the debate and stifle dissent.
Because the party in power looks to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System as the models of fairness and balance, look for massive new "investments" in these official voices.
And, lastly, look for the bailout model to be used to keep the party's choice newspapers on life support.
Just last week, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., all but assured employees of the deeply troubled Boston Globe, a newspaper owned by the New York Times, that he will not allow the paper to go out of business despite falling revenues.
All of these may seem like unrelated developments. But they are not. They are part of a sophisticated plan to socialize the media – preserving with taxpayer dollars failing media institutions that support the party in power and using the coercive power of government to crush those media institutions that are critical of the party in power.
The plot was not hatched inside the White House or even in the halls of Congress. It was developed by John Nichols of the Nation magazine and Robert McChesney, a self-described neo-Marxist media theoretician.
The essence of their program – "the need to promote an understanding of the urgency to assert public control over the media."
"Our claim is simply that the media system produces vastly less quality than it would if corporate and commercial pressures were lessened," they wrote in "Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media."
Amazingly, they cite the founders' commitment to a free press as their inspiration.
I guess they forgot to absorb the literal meaning of the First Amendment that begins: "Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech or of the press. …"
That's the origin of the game plan.
You can watch it unfold soon.
Or, you can put your foot down and say boldly, "Not with my money, you don't."
Wild Thing's comment........
Hussein and his people understand the First and Second Amendments, implicitly. What they understand the most, is that those Rights stand in their path to totalitarian rule. As such, they also understand that those amendments must be subverted, any way possible. Without free speech, there is no true dissent. Without dissent, Obama has total control.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 06:48 AM
Comments
I bet if you looked at the library of each elected official with a D after their name, especially those who are members of the Progressive Caucus, you would find Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky's books, well-worn and much read.
Gaining power is everything ~ you know, for the Common Good.
Posted by: yankeemom at May 1, 2009 07:42 AM
Remember back in the Cold War era they had Radio Free Europe which broadcast behind the Iron Curtain? Pretty soon we may have Radio Free American which will be broadcasting into the United States from Canada and Mexico.
Slowly the heat is being turned up on the cauldron as Americans don't realize their Constitutional Rights are slowly boiling away.
Posted by: BobF at May 1, 2009 09:53 AM
Maybe Rush can rent a ship and do his broadcasts from outside the 3 mile limit.
This abortion, aka obama, has been an assault on the Constitution since January 21. I don't know where this is going to end.
Posted by: Mark at May 1, 2009 11:17 AM
The newspapers bent to the left and people didn't care to read that drivel. So in a free market they go out of business. In a socialist(Obama) state, the government takes over the papers. Then their readership really goes down, but the government doesn't care. Free speech is quelled and tax money is subsidizing the fishwrap. Besides, the government can make it a la we have to buy a pape.
Rush may have to do a Wolfman Jack and broadcast on 50,000+ watts from Mexico.
Posted by: TomR at May 1, 2009 11:37 AM
Every day Obama and his regime are getting more and more just like Hugo Chavez, totalitarian control is coming to our neighborhoods and the media is willfully committing it's own suicide.
Posted by: Jack at May 1, 2009 02:23 PM
Yankeemom, that gave me chills, I bet
your right. Hillary was a huge fan of
Saul Alinsky's just like Obama, so there
are two of them and the rest would be too.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 07:27 PM
barry hussein o'vomit is playing with dynamite. The silent majority will bring this halfbreed commie puke to his knees and I pray that it is soon.
Posted by: cuchieddie (DHS suspected terrorist)) at May 1, 2009 07:29 PM
BobF., oh yes, "Radio Free Europe".
That is the thing too many Americans
don't realize their rights are going
right out the window.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 07:31 PM
Mark, now there is an idea too.
I agree, it is going so fast and
what the end will be no one knows what
will happen. Very concerning.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 07:36 PM
Tom, giggle Rush as Wolfman Jack.
Good one!
He is creative and I would bet he is
planning something just in case. I do hope
so. I have listened to him since 1988 and
it would be a real shock to not have talk
radio.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 07:39 PM
Jack, they sure are, they get bolder by the
day and hour. I never saw so much stuff in
the years since I started to blog. With
Bush there was only political news a few
times a week. With Obama I could do 20 or
30 posts a day of what all he is up to.
That is also very telling in how much he
is doing and how fast.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 07:41 PM
cuchieddie (DHS suspected terrorist)), I pray
it is soon too. With all my heart.
Posted by: Wild Thing at May 1, 2009 07:43 PM
