Journalism blithely builds bridges for others to use to transport troops into the heartland. It has lost the skill to differentiate behavior that is antithetical to any society. As a surrogate for readers, it chases what it claims to be objectivity so hard it can no longer identify and label misbehavior. It does so because journalism — and the programs that teach journalists — can’t see what they can’t see. When they can’t see what they are missing no traction exists to convince them what must be done to recover their purpose.
[…]
Journalism does not see a society at risk. Thucydides, wrote “The History of the Peloponnesian War” 2,400 years ago about the war between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides warning to readers is that just as Athens’ weaknesses became its strengths and her strengths became her weaknesses, so do those lessons apply for all nations even today. The great strengths of America have been the roots of her foundation, her liberty, her wealth and her isolation, her unfettered press, her education, and her political processes. These strengths are the weapons turned back against us so long as we fail to recognize our strengths can be double-edged.
Two hundred years of stability have left America believing the freedom citizens enjoy is more permanent than it is. Her liberty is presumed to exist by nature rather then the product of constant vigilance. Her wealth and her isolation have let citizens become complacent. Her education has turned into schooling of easily-tested clichés that supplant honing skills to think. Her unfettered press allows propaganda to be injected unchallenged into every corner of the country into minds unprepared to defend themselves against it. Her political processes have become adversarial, tuned more towards winning power than serving principle. She is, as Athens was, at war with herself as much as with any external enemy, yet does not anticipate the consequences.
A wonderfully insightful and well articulated article. Good catch on this one Kate.
It tends to explain the present global phenomina of the western media witch hunt of Kyoto’s non believer heratics. The month long international, industry wide harrange and herd mentality and lockstep concurrence between competing media in pushing the hysteria politics of climate change is absolutely awe inspirering. It has been relentless non stop total media saturation of hysteria over climate change. I cannot recall a time in my life-span when the global media was so relentlessly vocal and aligned in propagating an alarmist agenda.
Reading that article we can ask the question: Is this just the nature of the beast, proving a genetic media predisposition towards sensationalism that spans the cult of commercial journalism…or is it by design…or a combination of both?
Another good info post made. So far, though, I haven’t seen a piece about the “whys” behind the “global warming” hype/spin. I took a stab at it here, but it’s just too brief and shallow a cut.
http://www.thiscanada.com/2007/02/04/blowing-their-load/
Anyone else cone across posts or pieces on the “whys” and impacts of this alarmist stance?
Is it just hopeful thinking on my part, or are there more jounalists taking a new and critical look at the UN report?
Could it be explained by the apparent willingness of the Government to embrace the conclusions of the report?
Dam, id hate to play chess against Mr. Harper.
Prior to the year 2000 it was Y2K computer hysteria.
AIDS is still on the radar screen bigtime. No effort to call ‘lifestyle’ the root cause there.
But the mother of all frenzy now is “global warming / climate change.”
Mark Steyn aptly calls it “group think journalism”
but like a truly deadly virus it has infected mostly Western country politicians (and prticularly most Canadian journalists) to irreversible fever levels.
And journalism “can’t see what they can’t see!”
Global-Global warming derangement!
I spoke at a teachers conference this week and was again reminded that our children are mostly taught by people neither intelligent enough or sufficiently well read to engage in any form of critical thought. Too often instruction is predicated on sound bites and a left leaning philosophy. In the end, we graduate students who cannot think but think they are thinking.
Our journalists are products of this system. Their lack of critical thinking and numercy skills renders them generally incapable of correctly or objectively interpreting even the most simple data. In the end we become Oprahfied; affect rather than objectivity provides the basis for most reporting–how the reporter feels about the issue rather than an objective discussion of the facts takes precedence. The blind leads the blind and the result is, in too many cases, a hysterical response to the crisis du jour, in this case climate change.
Someone once said that we love people who make us think we’re thinking but hate those who actually make us think because it is such hard work. Why do we tolerate such shoddy journalistic practices–because they make us think we’re thinking.
Perhaps the most effective propaganda technique used in Nazi Germany was that of the “Big Lie”— repeating something so loudly and persistently that people began believing it. It worked then and, obviously, our friends in the media feel it will work again.
I think PMSH is using reverse phsycology re global warming. Considering everything he does is lambasted in the media, his stand on this report might cause the media to do their job and actually read the report, the Kyoto Protocol and do some investigating of the scientists who prepared the thing. How much were they paid, who do they work for, who paid them. Just maybe some or all will be discredited. We all know the UN is involved in many money scams, oil for food, money for kim, and the majority of the members of the UN are from dictatorships, where their people live in abject poverty, while the delegations live like kings and ignore the laws of the country they are in. The only reason algore is getting all this attention is because the democrats and liberals and many others really believe he was cheated in 2000 and this is their way to feel sorry for him. Remember how he was all over the tobacco industry years ago, until it was discovered he was growing tobacco and making millions from it, while treating his help very badly. Just an example of the envirowackos saying, do as I say, not as I do. What kind of footprints is Suzuki and entourage leaving while on this tour. Hope someone gets photos of him living it up.
What annoys me the most about the whole global warming thing is that it ignores actual pollution. The Chicoms are turning much of that country into a smoking, stinking ruin just to fill the shelves at Walmart a little cheaper.
Do any lefties decry this? Nope. Do any MSM talking heads even mention it? Nope. All we hear about are the eeevile Exxon and the poor little sea otters and cute helpless polar bears.
Probably 20 million Chinese kids have serious heavy metal poisoning, the Yangtse river is a sterile ditch running with pure industrial effluent, and all I see in the paper is friggin’ bears on icebergs.
Oh, and how China is getting these great deals on raw materials from Sudbury, meanwhile you can’t get a manufacturing plant going in Ontario unless you’re a buddy with Dalton.
Sometimes these MSM morons irritate me just too much to even describe.
Journalists are people who have egos where their brains are supposed to be. They think that somehow only they possess the truth and it is their duty to make sure the rest of get it.
They are also completely impervious to criticism – they can dish it out but they can’t take it. Despite the massive financial problems and layoffs at the major media news organizations there is no movement for journalistic reform or attempt to look at their own role in their head long march to irrelevancy.
Thank God for the Internet.
Widespread ignorance, cowardice, fear – ‘journalists’ today are too afraid to ask questions because they live in fear of their peers, activists, public relations departments etc.
So they attack George Bush and call themselves brave.
Tom Olson, you couldn’t be more correct about what is being churned out of the halls of academia at all levels.
This current cause celebre is like a disease becoming an epidemic.
What proof do we need to deduct it’s a scam when we see all the faded Stars and failed Politicos getting on the bandwagon? Last gasp scenario maybe?
Have faith, Harper is on the way to sorting out the Big Lie.
“liberty is presumed to exist by nature rather then the product of constant vigilance”
In essence, this is the true motto of the liberal and democratic parties of North America.
A couple of years ago Right Wing News had a poll asking bloggers who they thought the most dangerous/destructive person in America was. My choice wasn’t offered – Oprah. For all the reasons articualted.
Has anyone else noticed how few people–not just the MSM but our friends, family members, and neighbours–don’t want to deal with reality? As the article above points out, Western democracies “[are], as Athens was, at war with [themselves] as much as with any external enemy, yet [do] not anticipate the consequences.”
When I point out that our society is at a dangerous tipping point (I teach and I can totally affirm Tom Olson’s assessment of the swamp our “educational” institutions have become), the most frequent response is “Oh, the pendulum’s soon going to start swinging in the opposite direction.”
When I ask for evidence of their cheerful assessment, they just stare at me and say, “Well, it has to.”
I then point out, “well, no, it doesn’t have to. Look at the Greek and Roman civilizations; they fell for much the same reasons our society is slipping into the mire, and it could happen to us.”
Eyes glaze over. They look for someone else in the room to talk to. End of conversation. The thinking process was just beginning and they bail.
O Canada! O s**t!
Correction: Sentence above should have read: “how few people…want to deal with reality.”
The depressing question is, can we stop the decline? Are there enough of us?
For the past 40 years, conservatives haven’t made a dent in the cultural agenda advanced by the left. Our schools are so dumbed down, it’s pitiful, worse, they are future voters. Our colleges offer lefty swill unchallenged. The MSM, enough said. Is there enough time left to turn this around?
The watershed event to me is the ’08 election. I really think this is the most critical election America has ever had since Lincoln.
God bless you, Penny, and God bless the U.S. of A. I guess I really need to add the U.S. election to my prayer list. Thanks for the reminder.
Can we turn things around? No, we can’t. But nothing is impossible with God. A spiritual rescue is the only one that I can see. Human idiocy, greed, corruption, and bloody-mindedness is quite capable of doing us in.
I always liked that Bob Dylan song, “Gotta Serve Somebody.” As he sings, it’s either going to be the Devil or it’s going to be the Lord.
We’re at a crossroads, and it’s our choice.
Penny, I agree about the next election. I’m concerned that we don’t have an obvious conservative choice. There are some good people, but it’s hard for me to see many of them getting past the primaries in the South.
Been around the block, please add us to your prayer list. We need it.
I have to take issue with Stephen Waters here a bit: “Two hundred years of stability have left America believing the freedom citizens enjoy is more permanent than it is. Her liberty is presumed to exist by nature rather then the product of constant vigilance.”
The implication here is that libery in and of itself causes a degeneration among citizens. We have had liberty, and therefore it is natural that our possiblities would diminish.
I really disagree with this. And frankly, I’m going to say rather pointedly that I think a lot of America’s problems lie with the drumbeat we’ve been forced to endure from Europe and earlier from Canada before Stephen Harper came to rescue it.
The conservative movement in the United States is still the hope of the world. It is the only conservative movement as strong and as organized in any country.
However, in the past I have said that the time may come when despite the fact of the US and its strength, we may not be able to do all the heavy lifting by ourselves.
A lot of our problems do not stem from a passion for liberty. Just take a look at the number of American citizens who have volunteered for all branches of our military and their attitudes about the dangers they face in Iraq. The US still has a huge complement of people who are willing and able to defend the principles of freedom.
However, we have had to endure the incessant undermining of everything we hold to be true by Euro-centric demands on our culture. Everything that conservatives try to put into action has had to face being undermined by this UN-centric point of view that has screamed at us from every direction.
This has all provided cover and reinforcement for socialistic forces in our own country. While conservatives dismiss European criticism, liberals lick it up and use it as a bulwark against conservative opinion.
In the US, liberals have been constantly aided and abetted in their attempts to undermine American values by people who are supposed to be our friends.
So ultimately I do not believe that liberty contains within it seeds of its own self-destruction. If this were true, it would be foolish to try to export freedom around the world. Rather I believe that the US has been betrayed by friends who add strength to the forces of degeneration in our own country.
A couple of years ago Right Wing News had a poll asking bloggers who they thought the most dangerous/destructive person in America was. My choice wasn’t offered – Oprah. For all the reasons articualted.
Posted by: Kate:
lol Kate. I used too call it the Oprafication of the Americas. Y’all. I find my self using the term now grrrr.
People keep saying it’s 1939 again. It’s more like the 1850’s (leading to the Civil War) in the U.S. though this time the division will not be geographic, but ideological, just as Islamic Terrorism doesn’t have a nation state against which to declare war. Today’s left is an extension of the ideology of “world communism” and there are so many uselful idiots out there, right Hillary?
Greg in Dallas: “I believe that the US has been betrayed by friends who add strength to the forces of degeneration in our own country.”
I agree with you, sadly. We “conservatives” (which, in my vernacular, means those of us who wish to conserve what is true, noble, and time-tested) have all been betrayed by friends, friends who are myopic and lack the forward vision which recognizes that which is destructive, degenerate, and degrading to our common humanity and, therefore, wants to do something to stop the resulting carnage.
I’ve just watched the half-time extraveganza at the Super Bowl–Prince and his prancing princesses. The excess is a stark contrast to the heartfelt and hard-fought contest being waged between two highly disciplined and groomed sports teams. I thought, “They’re putting on this over-the-top travesty BECAUSE THEY CAN, because they have the technology to do this.”
I’d like to see this can-do feat of technology turned to the furthering of our democracic freedoms. We ARE at a crossroads, and either we, as GID says, “defend the principles of freedom” and “a passion for liberty” or we forfeit them to the ” Euro-centric demands on our culture.”
I’m sorry Canada has not done its share of the heavy lifting. We have made wrong decisions. When we should have stood shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. in this Islamofascist threat to our Western civilization, we wimped out: “Thanks,” Liberals and Jean Chretien.
We need your prayers, too, Greg. Canada is also at a crossroads. Another Liberal government will seal our fate–and it won’t be a happy day for either Canada or the free world as we have known it.
Quebec and Ontario choose who governs this Country with an ingrained ‘what’s in it for me’ mentality.
We can toss in Atlantic Canada for the same reasons.
Liberals are the best example of snake oil salesmen you’ll ever see in the 21st century.
They smile, pat you on the back, (they know what’s best for you) at voting time. After that? They laugh and sneer and do whatever the hell they benefit from the most. A buck for you and two for me.
If the Eastern part of Canada returns the Libranos to power anytime in the next decade, the Country is lost.