“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson
A Free Press is one of the foundations of a free country. But as with all freedom, it comes with responsibility. The press, the media, in America has not just abrogated that responsibility, they have thrown it on the ground and urinated on it. With very few exceptions, they have become more of a public relations arm of the government than the absolutely vital component of democracy it is their duty to be. The Fourth Estate, they were once called, in effect the fourth branch of government itself, the keepers of truth, the arbiters of honesty, the last resort against corruption. A great objective equalizer, the conscience of the nation.
Journalism was once a sacred and noble trust. Newsrooms were once sacrosanct chapels of Truth. Now they are an industry. Now they are little more than pimps for fast food…and fascism.
I am thoroughly appalled and disgusted that the President of the United States of America admits publicly to approving an entire network….a entire segment of OUR government paid for with our taxes….to torturing, raping, and killing often innocent HUMAN BEINGS…..human beings no different than you, or your children or your parents (regardless of their place of birth) …and todays media treat it as just anther ‘product’ for their ‘industry.’ They have the power to emphasize and pound this home to the American People, the power to serve justice and the Truth ….but… They. Do. Not.
As with the Democrats in Congress, the Free Press has failed America. Tragically so. To the point of betrayal. I condemn them from the bottom of my heart.
I urge all of us in the Blogosphere to do so daily as part of our regime of taking back our failed society. Failed by the President, Failed by Congress, Failed by the Judiciary, and Failed by our Free Press. Take it back, We the People. Take it back. It is up to us, now, that sacred trust of Freedom. We are all that is left of the Dream of Democracy.
But hey! Let’s look on the bright side! At least the Fourth Estate is not actively cheerleading for torture as they did for the invasion of Iraq.
