Let me add this: conservatives and classical liberals / libertarians professing an adherence to first principles need to wage rhetorical and political war not just within the realm of electoral politics, but instead should be concentrating their efforts on breaking down the leftist control over various institutions, starting with the press and the educational system in this country.
I’ve long advocated the idea the the real fight begins on the level of language, but as that’s a more difficult argument to make on a grand scale (and tends to be resisted by many on “our” side who would rather not surrender the ability to manipulate meaning to their own ends), I’d be content if we started a layer or two up from there for now and fought a well-organized, well-orchestrated campaign to bring down the legacy media, which today is nothing more than a wing of the statist government generally, and an advocate for “progressivism” or contemporary “liberalism” specifically.
Things like “Politifact” are just the latest meta-attempt by the left to control the narrative by presenting itself as a neutral arbiter of political messaging, when all it is is the next iteration of the mainstream press, developed in response to the public’s growing mistrust in the former iteration, which, too, presented itself as a neutral arbiter, speaking Truth to Power.
Until we do so, we have no hope of doing anything but winning a few elections here and there, which in turn will do nothing to structurally or substantively turn back the inexorable leftward push of the statists (who exist in both parties and who make up a permanent ruling class). It is an obvious fact that both GOP politicians and many of the mainstream pundits on the right fear the leftist messaging apparatus — and for very good reason: they set the narrative, define the players, control the rules of the rhetorical game, and — perversely — play the role of referee, despite demonstrably having joined forces with one of the two teams.
That power needs to be taken away.
We shouldn’t be giving any kind of federal tax dollars to schools or universities that are more and more mere anti-foundationalist echo chambers and training grounds for leftwing activism. No media should be receiving any federal taxpayer funding. That’s not being anti-education or anti-transparency. It’s being anti- anti-intellectualism and anti-propaganda-ist. And we need to make those arguments unapologetically and without blinking or allowing ourselves to be put on the defensive. It’s time to go on the offensive against the current status quo.
In fact, let’s go further: we need to insist that the federal government be returned to its originary functions, with a vastly neutered role for the President and Congress, and the end to nearly every federal agency with the ability to produce regulations that are, for all intents and purposes, legislation produced without the consent of the governed and without representation. We need to resist Supreme Court rulings that are clearly based on their own faulty prior rulings and not the Constitution that was written to provide guidance in protecting our liberties. And we need to insist on the messiness intentionally promoted by a separation of powers.
Lots of people talk about taking our country back. Well, here’s a newsflash: electing Mitt Romney, or getting some more TEA Party conservatives into Congress, isn’t going to do it.
We need to recapture the institutions that inform and promote the civil society. We need to break the leftist’s hold on the game board, the pieces, and the rule book. And we can do this by refusing to play their game — and by starting a new one of our own.
The US Constitution is at the bottom of what today is a palimpsest of accumulated and illegitimate statist verbal / legal garbage.
Strip it down. Return to first principles. When you are going “forward” into tyranny, it isn’t regressive to go backward toward liberty.
And screw any leftist who tries to shame you into believing otherwise.
Because it’s hard to bring down several generations of systematic subversion all at once, I advocate for starting small and close to home: just open the eyes of six people. Half a dozen people, whether they are co-workers, neighbors, golf partners, poker buddies, Bible study members, or whatever. Just find a handful of people that you can talk to, and keep prodding them until they comprehend just how corrupt our systems are.
Most people understand it subconsciously, but they usually don’t want to admit or think about how much we’ve lost already. It’s painful, after all, and it’s so much easier to embrace ignorance, and just accept the shallow, feel-good messages that bathe us every day.
You don’t have to beat them over the head with it, nor call them stupid if they resist. Just take their complaint of the day, and tie it back to the deeper problems we’re up against. Keep after them, little by little, until that resistance wears down and they’re able to face the truth. Just start with six, and work from there.
Unless, of course, you have a coupla billion dollars and access to a vast broadcasting and/or education apparatus, in which case get off your ass and put your megaphone to use! And maybe hit Jeff’s tipjar while you’re at it!
That’s the thing, Squid. There are GOP donors who do have that kind of money, but they spend it giving it to the GOP rather than using it where it might provide the kind of intellectual competition necessary to bring down the leftwing media establishment.
FOX tried, and it’s moving left now. It got viewership support, but it was alone, and it has buckled to the relentless attacks on it; it wants to be respected, and respect only comes from the left.
If only the right wasn’t an inert landfill that votes and occasionally comments on blogs.
Il. I, 232: “But I will speak out to you, and will swear thereto a mighty oath: by this staff [skeptron], that shall never more put forth leaves or shoots since first it left its stump among the mountains, nor shall it again grow green, for the bronze has stripped it on all sides of leaves and bark, and now the sons of the Achaeans carry it in their hands when they act as judges, those who guard the ordinances that come from Zeus; and this shall be for you a mighty oath.”
I still don’t understand what FOX is up to. They were the only successful media property on the block, and now they’re giving that up so they can fit in with the “cool” kids who are so phenomenally “popular” that they’re reduced to begging the government for subsidies? What kind of mental giant came up with that game plan?
I suppose it’s of a piece with everything else. The left has invested so much effort into convincing us that they’re the righteous, wise, popular ones that we’ve completely lost sight of the fact that the majority of our neighbors don’t respect, believe, or subscribe to them any more. I can only hope that the viewers and advertisers punish FOX accordingly, and remind them that trying to emulate unpopular properties just because they insist loudly that they really are popular is self-defeating.
But then, who are you going to believe: a chorus of talking heads, or five years of Nielsen ratings?
Fox will never be accepted by the left no matter how hard they try. The NBC/MSNBC’s of the world need to have an enemy. The only way the left survives is based on that premiss.
Glenn Beck is going to take over. Evidently, Beck has signed a deal with Dish Network.
I’m stocking up on popcorn because this should be an epic battle. The not so big three or four versus Beck.
Blake, is he going to be back on regular teevee, then? My husband will do cartwheels.
cable news is for stupid people
– The WH seems to be trying to prevent further damage over the Embassy attacks.
– Better late than never I suppose.
– Ok, who left the cupcakes on the conference table?
The MSM g0t Obama elected. They are now trying their best to get him reelected. And to boot, they are trying desperately to ensure that GWB’s legacy is something along the lines of “9-11 was an inside job!”
What they need are idiot viewers. They’ve got them. But they also need advertisers.
Brian Ross says that there’s a ” TEA Party guy by that name”, find out who’s advertising on that show and let them know that there chance for any business from at least one person just dried up.
When Carbonite pulled their advertising from The Rush Limbaugh Show, their stock tanked and they got hurt.
Imagine, hurting the MSM, and not spending your money, AND, maybe learning to do without something. Awesome!
Fuck those fucking dicks. Starve them.
their where there is there. Sorry.
Here’s the skinny on Beck’s network: TheBlazeTV.
He who was allegedly “kicked off” of FoxNews (but who really left after Murdock asked him to stop talking about George Soros) has made it back onto cable in about 18 months.
Dude.
Rats. I recall now that we have DirecTV.
What kind of mental giant came up with that game plan?
Mental giant; moral pygmy.
No offense to pygmies.
The left has invested so much effort into convincing us that they’re the righteous, wise, popular ones that we’ve completely lost sight of the fact that the majority of our neighbors don’t respect, believe, or subscribe to them any more.
Persuasion? It’s been mostly punishment. If you don’t buy what they’re selling, first they laugh at you, then they ostracize you. Few are the human beings who can endure ostracism from people they like and/or admire.
Hell, I’d prolly end up buckling after awhile.
– McOldFart: “The worst outcome would be for the US to leave Libya. We need more than ever to be there to continue the Democratic process that has begun there.”
– Democratic process to the Muslim extremists is when any non-Muslim dies in a pool of blood.
This is the part where I say we should bomb them back to the stone age, but that doing so would set them back a few weeks at most.
Bomb ’em back to the Pleistocene, then.
. . . the Cambridge police acted stupidly . . .
Media Building False Narratives on Top of Already Debunked Ones
– The so-called ‘legacy media’ is at war with every honest true American.
– Something needs to be done about it. A free press is essential to a Democracy, but a partisan politized propoganda machine, posing as an objective impartial news organization, is as dangerous as any subversive operation.
2008 was a media-driven coup. Talking heads should roll.
drudge
CIA SAW NO THREATS…
FOR FIVE HOURS, NO ONE KNEW WHERE AMBASSADOR WAS…
BODY NOT RECOVERED FOR 12 HOURS…
OBAMA WENT TO SLEEP NOT KNOWING WHAT WAS HAPPENING THERE…
– Heres the live feed from Reuters in Egypt. Crowds gathering ouside American embassy in Cairo.
– Hmmmm….the feed ran for a bit with a lot of milling around and a couple of what looked like small fires and then the feed cut off.
the feed ran for a bit with a lot of milling around and a couple of what looked like small fires and then the feed cut off.
allan didn’t want you to see that
Then get a Roku box and a Blaze TV subscription.
Tearing it down is their plan too. The question is who decides how to rebuild it.
Got ammo?
Rats. I recall now that we have DirecTV.
it’ll show there soon from watching beck’s show tonite
‘SNL’ Fades to Black, Dumps Its White Obama Impersonator
Oh good. Thanks, nr.
That guy is Asian. What a bunch of racists.
– If one of MSNBC’s butthead Libturd ‘hosts’ asked me that, I’d ask him back “Who’s more dangerous, MSNBC orTehran.
– We used to own smug elitist whimps in school, and they’re still owned.
The Benghazi consulate had “lock-and-key” security, not the same level of defenses as a formal embassy, an intelligence source told POLITICO. That means it had no bulletproof glass, reinforced doors or other features common to embassies.
for peggy noonan;) of pw
Glenn Beck And Dish Network: The Beginning Of The End For Pay TV Tyranny?
This is another example of how the left’s investment in first taking de facto control of the universities pays off. What is the pool from which all organizations draw their upper management and stars from? They draw from those who have gotten advanced degrees, especially degrees from those few select institutions.
Shape the minds of those going through those programs, and/or influence which ones (chosen by ideology) shall receive those “blessed” papers easiest and you then push to the left all organizations which hire from your slanted pool.
Two tricks were needed. Taking power in the faculty and also convincing everyone on the outside that the product being turned out, by said faculty, was superior to all that was formed elsewhere or by other means entirely.
The most fallen of organizations are those in which there are no outside measures of the success of them which they need to heed. Foundations, public schools, union management, government bureaucracy.
The media are only tempered by the lack of sales and/or ad revenue. But looking at the financials of Hollywood, book publishing, TV news, and the print press it seems that they haven’t cared about the money as much as being on the correct side politically. There is a lot of ruin in them and they are fast coming up against the limit.
What is the pool from which all organizations draw their upper management and stars from?
that’s where beck is attacking. he’s finding talent outside the usual credentialed class.
nr is the $5 for GBTV only or is it part of the package deal?
nr is the $5 for GBTV only or is it part of the package deal?
don’t know i have $9.95/month package from gbtv/blaze and watch on line
We have limited bandwidth out here in Boondocks. I can only listen to Beck on the car radio.
Y’all forgot that some Arab named Al-Waleed bought 46% I think it was of Fox shares from Murdock. That was in 2009. Exactly when did Fox start going insane? About the same time.
Correllation or causation? Let’s just say Glenn started getting major pushback from the corporate wing about the same time, too.
– Here’s Gleen’s online radio link.
Thanks, BBH.
We have limited bandwidth out here in Boondocks.
you have a 56 k modem?
– Welcome Leigh. I’m not sure but they may sream his TV shows on there as well, but at leats you’ll be able to listen.
Heh. No. I’ve forgotten how much we have, but if we watch too many videos or other media we drop way down and may as well be on dial-up.
– The Cairo link is back up.
friday after the totalitarians have their cult gathering should be fun
….and back down. They seem to be having “trouble”.
– He really ripped Jug ears several new ones on the enbassy circus, and over Israel.
Gaaaafuckingrrrrggggg;lasjkas#$^%@&()&%#@#@^**(killkillkillkillkillkillblrrgggggrrrrrrrrrmotherfuckingcommiefuckingpunkpieceofshit….*gasp*:
This fucking sack of shit is going to make me vote for Mitt Romney, isn’t he?
Sorry, HTML. I’ll try to calm down and put the link where you can find it.
– Somethings going on…..gun fire and explosions….smoke, and the entire crowd ran off.
For a while, Romney was going to keep me from voting for Romney. However, our illustrious president is demonstrating what an incredibly horrible human being he is, and that might sway me.
That’s WWIII starting, BBH.
– Several fires have been lit and it sounds like they’re hammering on the embassy gates trying to break in. Police keep chasing them off with armored jeeps.
Infuriating, ain’t it?
I’ve already betrayed my principles.
– He’s going to keep pissing people off with his Marxo-Socialist crap once too often one of these days
– The Left have an Illusion of safety in their treachery that doesn’t exist..
A few more weeks of Obama exercising his foreign policy will likely get me to where you are now, McGehee.
– Daylight is starting to break, so things will be much clearer soon.
Are they going to take a break from vandalizing and hit the prayer rugs?
leigh, after eating goat nuts and raping little boys, where do they find the time?
They are some kind of multi-taskers, aren’t they charles?
If only our youths had the same work ethic, imagine what our country could become…..
– The police seem to be content just to keep them scattered. They keep lobing smoke gernades and they’re letting the street fires burn.
– Things seem to have quieted down.
I had a chance to go to the State Dept. to comfort some of the friends and co-workers of the the folks who had fallen…
Listen up, Jugears — our embassy staff didn’t fall. Nobody’s blaming you for not issuing fucking LifeAlert necklaces to everybody just in case they trip on the stairs. No, instead what happened is that a group of armed men sympathetic to al-Qaeda decided that they’d mark the anniversary of the WTC attacks by attacking our embassies. In Cairo, they broke in and defiled our flag; in Benghazi, they broke in and killed our embassy staff.
So let’s quit pussy-footing around with our clever little euphemisms. Our embassy staff are not fallen; they were murdered in cold blood by enemies of our country, and your feckless brainless spineless Foreign Service Twitterer marked the occasion by sucking up to our attackers and then getting all butt-hurt when decent Americans told ’em to sack up and remember who they fucking are and who they fucking work for.
You wanna compare your campaign workers with those who died in Libya? Fuck you. The more apt comparison is to the dickless wonder in Cairo who pretended like these attacks were justifiable because of some fucking YouTube video produced by some idiot nobody ever heard of. I can totally see your campaign staff selling out American principles to curry favor with people who will never respect them, and see them as useful tools and/or cannon fodder. I can also totally see them selling us out for reasons that are obvious lies; excuses made up in order to convince the weak-minded that yesterday’s attacks weren’t carefully planned and executed on a very specific date.
If there is any justice in this world, your Cairo Twit and your campaign drones will all be unemployed real soon. Maybe you can hire them to tend your gardens in Hawaii next year. ‘Til then, how ’bout you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, and save the rest of us a lot of headaches.
– I doubt he heard you Squid. Casino’s are noisey places.
But Squid, if they were murdered, that means we’re going to have to do something about it. And if we have to do something about it, that means, plans meetings, discussions, options, alternatives, revisions.
Decisions, decisions decisions!.
You know, the part of the job that’s above his paygrade.
Can we swap Obama with Governor Le Petomane? Or would people not notice the difference?
Is this over the top?
http://i48.tinypic.com/358ox1k.gif
I don’t think so.
nicely said Mr. Squid
nicely said Mr. Squid
I would like to put the whole thing on a bumper sticker, but I’m going to need a bigger car.
I wonder if perhaps this whole incident with the embassies wasn’t just a sting gone bad.
Chickens…
coming home…
to roost.
A sting, BT? By the Egyptians/Libyans on Salafists? I haven’t seen any evidence so far that the Egyptian MB are in any way opposed to this operation. I think to the Libyans, this is a colossal embarrassment, but not to the Egyptian MB. I see only collusion between the MB/security services and the ‘protestors’.
Ach, this Squid person is just running dog capitalist trying to increase sales of his torches and pitchforks business, which he knows he did not build.
In Soviet Russia, business didn’t build you!
OT: This could be a Pauline Kael thing, or it might not. This morning in his Morning Jolt email Geraghty writes:
I get the exact same impression, that most people — even those who seem to consume only BSM narratives — simply aren’t buying them anymore.
The match that set the demonstrations off was the film “Innocence of Muslims” . Who is behind that? Who dubbed the trailer into Arabic? Who got the buzz going on it ? Who wanted to rouse the rabble and why and why now?
– More of Baracky’s foreign policy.
– And the Obama ‘bounce’?…….Well its Thursday so, you know, its gone: R 47% , O 46%
– Axelrod is goimg to need to work those WH phones tofay. WTF do those assholes over at Rasmussen think they’re doing? Don’t they know they’re messin’ with the Messiah?
Good question, BT.
There may be no anti-Islamic movie at all
Heh, Pablo…
Somewhere Charles Johnson is wandering aimlessly and muttering, something about being a contendah…
In Soviet Russia the State was the only business and so instead of you owning the
Statebusiness theStatebusiness owned you.Geoffb, that’s the idea I had in mind, but you said it better.