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AUGUST 19, 2003 -
There's a lot of people out there doing an awful lot of complaining.
Young Americans are getting
their heads blown off in a war built on lies as the President claims
wonderful victory. And you complain.
Many of us don't have jobs,
and even those of us who do feel the wolves at the door, but the
President stands there in Crawford and says the economy is
wonderful. And you complain again.
You complain that the
"American media" is giving the President a free ride. You
complain that the "American media" is giving Arnold a free ride,
ignoring his lechery and infidelity while anointing him fuhror of
California. The foreign press reports it, you say, why does
the American press ignore it?
The "American media" is now
biased, you say. The right wing, corporations skew it.
Liberals skew it. Some guy named Fred who works in the mail
room skews the news.
Have you all lost your minds?
What do you think this "American media" is?
Thomas Jefferson used to say
he'd go weeks without reading a single newspaper if at all possible,
because all that was in there was crap. Yes, hundreds of years
ago our founding fathers felt the same.
Do you really think Rupert
Murdoch invented the peace of crap, bully-pulpit, puppet propaganda
paper? Do you really think rich tycoons and corporate
interests never operated papers before? What about Hearst, who
single-handedly created a war on his own? Or what about
Jefferson claiming way back in 1799 that a paper called Memorial
Edition was making "wicked use" of its power to drum up, if you can
imagine, anti-French sentiment? The fact that there are lots
of garbage news sources out there that suck and exist only for the
sake of some rich person's personal agenda is not new, and it will
not change. And, most importantly, the reality that you must
seek out a paper that does not suck will always be the case.
So I get confused when I hear
criticism of the "American media" not reporting the bad on Bush or
Schwarzenegger, giving nothing but a free ride to Republicans and
bashing Democrats. What do you think we are?
Don't you realize that The
Moderate Independent actually exists? That when you talk about
the "American media," you are talking about M/I as well?
Don't you realize that our
readership can, on any given day, be as large as that of NBC, FOX
News, CNN? Don't you realize our stories are just as out there
for the entire world to read as the NY Times or ABC News?
The world is different now in
a way, because there is no real differentiation between the
long-existing giant news sources and us moderate newbies. In
less than five months, we have built a weekly readership of
thousands. We have readers from every corner of the globe, and
have gotten enormously positive response and thanks, big sighs of
relief that there is some useful place to come to get the straight
lowdown on the important things.
So the next time you get
furious that the media missed the boat again or put some stupid,
partisan spin on things, you now know you can take a deep breath,
relax, and even laugh, because you now have a news source that will
be there for you to slap the head of any and all who deserve it.
The "American media" sucks?
Hmm. Maybe there are a large number of American media outlets
that suck. But, my friends, we, The Moderate Independent, are
the new "American media." And as more and more people continue
to switch from what they considered the only available news sources
to M/I, maybe "American media" will come to stand for a good thing,
a truly free-speaking, non-partisan, informative outlet that gives
you what you're looking for.
Jefferson also had an
interesting commentary, toward the end of his life, in 1824,
regarding the division of America into two parties completely
distinct and opposed. He said, "Men by their constitutions are
naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and
distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the
hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify
themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and
consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most
wise depository of the public interests. In every country,
these two parties exist... Call them... Liberals and Serviles,
Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists,
Aristocrats and Democrats, or whatever name you please, they are the
same parties still, and pursue the same object."
He said this was a good
setup, that the two parties served as "...censors of the conduct of
each other, and useful watchmen for the public." He declared
that he was, "no believer in the amalgamation of parties, nor do I
consider it as either desirable or useful for the public," to have
the two parties merge into one or simply disappear. He firmly
believed that people being so divided was a great balance not to be
tinkered with.
You know, even Tom couldn't
be right about everything. Welcome to The Moderate
Independent.
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