The ol’ saying of these being interesting times in which we live only expresses a perverted tease to what is that we are all witnessing today. The Quickening is upon us. Events that change the course of our lives are occurring with more haste as the wind changes the ripples in the lake. But, just as the mighty crevices and gorges of the mighty Grand Canon didn’t happen over a couple of seasons, the great American Experiment hasn’t arrived at the point that we now have appeared to have reached in any less time. The question is, how many Americans truly understand the critical time in which where we find ourselves today? There are no loud horns blaring. The National News Media no longer works for the benefit of informing the American people on the detrimental moves and actions of the government. And in the wake of such socialist/Marxist political policies such as Political Correctness, that has morphed into “Cancel Culture”, we find ourselves too often self-monitoring our speech and even our thoughts before they even become words. The extremely sad part of this is that many of us are content, or at worst apathetic, with this situation.
The past 15 years have revealed in America what the precursors that occurred in pre-Nazi Germany and during the Communist Chinese Revolution may have looked like. We have witnessed the legacy National News Media Complex shed all pretense of objectivity and neutrality. We experienced a minor Covid-19 virus being used as the blame for our nation’s economy being thrown into utter disarray and the American people’s lives being restricted and negatively altered by the government in an unprecedented manner. The voices of dissent and opposition to the measures or the position or agenda of the government were bluntly suppressed or silenced. But, what may be the most concerning of all is the silent acquiescence and complacent acceptance of these actions by too many of the American people.
I believe that our Founders were concerned that this day would come, for they were great students of human nature and human history. They may be pleasantly surprised and impressed that it has taken this long. When Ben Franklin responded as he exited the Constitutional Convention after the drafting of the Constitution and was asked what form of government was agreed upon, and he sharply replied, “a Republic, IF WE can keep it.” He, and many of the Founders, knew that if this great experiment were to last it would be up to a well-informed and engaged populace to choose to want to keep it.
The Commission On Freedom Of The Press., which was founded in 1944 was created as a response to criticism from the public and government over media ownership gave this haunting revelation: The modern press itself is a new phenomenon. Its typical unit is the great agency of mass communication. These agencies can facilitate thought and discussion. They can stifle it…. They can play up or down the news and its significance, foster and feed emotions, create complacent fictions and blind spots, misuse the great words and uphold empty slogans … Protection against government is now not enough to guarantee that a man who has something to say shall have a chance to say it. The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public. Let that marinate in your minds for a tic.
A free and honest press was an essential piece in keeping the American people well informed to protect against government tyranny. So much so that they purposefully included that industry solely in the Constitution’s first Amendment. We can go back to one of the earlier State Constitutions to see how a free press was seen as vital to our liberties, “That the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.” [the Virginia Constitution of 1776]. Thomas Jefferson himself proclaimed, “I am…for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.” And more recently, 1930’s Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black clearly defined what the proper role of the press was intended to be, “The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people.” With regards to the American Press today, we can say that we are no longer in Kansas.
During the Presidential runoff of Barack Obama in 2009, the Nation News Media turned into an unabashed cheerleader, promoter, and defender of the national Democrat Party and it’s far-left Progressive-Socialist agenda. The wall between the national press and the government was no longer cracked it, was shattered into dust. The dominant National Press [NBC, ABC, CBS, & CNN] didn’t report on the deceptive nature of the passage of Obamacare admitted by it’s architect Jonathan Gruber. It was totally disinterested in revealing any information on the Marxist tenents of Barack Obama. It played an essential role in getting the country to hate a justly elected President Trump and his consequential removal from the Office in 2019. Totally ignoring the unprecedented success of his presidency, i.e the explosion of median household income and improving the competitiveness of U.S multinational corporations by lowering the tax rates, the line of Mid-East treaties in the Abrams Accords, and paving the way for America to become energy independent. Compare it’s grossly negative coverage of Trump’s reign to that of current U.S President Biden, it’s a literal lovefest. This guy can do no wrong. And is reversing nearly all of Trump’s successful policies to the detriment of the American people.
If there was ever a time that the American people needed a free and honest national Press it was over the last couple of years during the Covid-19 Pandemic. But it’s adherence to the Progressive-Marxist agenda of the Democrat Party’s line took precedence over that of honestly informing the people of the truth behind the virus and the subsequent “vaccines”. It muted reports involving reports like that in YahooNews, “Study shows hydroxychloroquine and zinc treatments increased coronavirus survival rate by almost three times.” Or the story by the Anthony Fauci-run NIH reported that, A five-day course of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 may reduce the duration of illness. It has been complicitly silent in the reporting of Americans dying in hospitals suffering from Covid-19, but denied other alternative treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin and the ineffectiveness and harm of wearing masks in the prevention of coronavirus as reported in the American Institute of Economics.
The slightest opposition or dissent from the Party/government line/agenda has been met with near immediate suppression and condemnation. The very presence of mothers questioning the need for their young children to wear air-restricting masks while in government schools has been met with fierce denunciation by the government and the media. The Biden Administration actually labeled parents as terrorists for vehemently objecting to the government’s school mask mandates.
The consequences of a National News Media Complex that solely works at the behest of the government is repugnant to the very intention of the Founder’s and has been revealed to be catastrophic to the freedoms and liberties of the American people. It not only makes the truth foreign to many Americans, it makes us devoid of the ability to effectively exist in a society that was built for free-minded men and women and defend themselves against governmental tyranny.
America has forever been changed. Change does not come by accident. It comes by dedicated and determined will. The Founders knew and understood that. They knew that in the end, whether America would be and remain a Republic would be inevitably determined by the will of the American people. We would choose whether we would be free men and women or be Wards of the State. We today have the government that we accept and condone. And so too, we have the Press that we accept and tolerate. Knowledge is the master key to freedom. It is not the sole property of the Press or government here in America. Many of us have super computers in our back pockets, in our purses, and in our homes that have nearly anything and everything that anyone wishes and desires to know and learn. But, we have to choose to access that information and knowledge of freedom and the will to stand up for it, protect it, and defend it. At the end of the day, it is up to each of us to determine what kind of America we will have.
