| TheTip.org |
| Polls | Members | Refer | Forums | Write for TheTip! | Home | Impeach Bush |
Impeach George Bush
Creeping Fascism at Sinclair
As Huey P. Long once said, "Sure we'll have fascism in America, but it'll come disguised as 100 percent Americanism."
Source: Molly Ivins, 2004-10-17
Candidate: Big Government
Don't look now, but your local network is a propaganda machine
AUSTIN, Texas -- Now is the time for all good men -- and women -- to race to the aid of their country. Liberals and libertarians unite! The Sinclair Broadcasting Group, with their biased "documentary" on John Kerry, has moved this election into the realm of creeping fascism, state propaganda, Big Brother and brainwashing. What me, hyperbole?
This is SO simple -- how would you conservatives feel if NBC, CBS or ABC decided to pre-empt primetime programming a week before the election to air Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"? And then announced, "But we've offered President Bush a chance to reply"?
Sinclair has also offered President George W. Bush the inestimable service of diverting attention from his record and is using OUR publicly owned airwaves to do it.
For Sinclair's lobbyist and on-air editorialist Mark Hyman to claim this long attack ad is "news" is ludicrous -- almost as strained as his claim, somewhere between infelicitous and crackers, that those who disagree are like "Holocaust deniers."
Sinclair Group is the perfect example of what's wrong with the concentration of ownership in media: Just a few companies now own almost all the major information outlets. Sinclair is the largest owner of local TV stations in the nation. It controls 62 stations in 39 markets and reaches at least 25 percent of Americans every day, all day.
As FCC Commissioner Michael Copps noted in a 2001 decision: "Over the last several years (Sinclair) has pursued a strategy of acquiring interests in or management of more than one station in each market in which it has a television station. In so doing, it has continually pushed against the parameters of ownership structures prohibited by the commission. With the investigation before the commission today, Sinclair has crossed the line into behavior that the majority has found to violate the commission's rules.
In assessing a fine on Sinclair for this violation, the majority purports to stop the expansion of Sinclair's forays ... but in fact it merely points out that lines have been crossed, while allowing Sinclair to run over those lines and to continue its multiple ownership strategy." Truer words were never written.
When Sinclair bought a second station in Pittsburgh, it sold its existing station to the first station's manager, an employee of Sinclair, on favorable terms, and then proceeded to operate both. It repeated this trick at least twice and then used a new one: The president of Sinclair had his mother "buy" the new station.
The new corporation's stock was 70 percent owned by his mother and the same station manager, who then transferred control of these stations to Sinclair.
Sinclair sends prerecorded right-wing editorial commentary to its affiliates to be broadcast as "local news." Sinclair's management has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars almost entirely to Republicans (97 percent this year), as it continued to lobby for looser ownership rules. The Bush administration is pushing aggressively to remove those same rules.
The producer of the alleged "documentary," which is actually just a very long Swift Boat Liars ad, makes the same arguments and features some of the same people as the thoroughly discredited short ads.
Carlton Sherwood, the ad's producer, was part of a Gannett team that won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1980, but he has since moved far to the right and away from anything resembling actual journalism. In 1986, he joined The Washington Times, a right-wing daily owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. In 1991, he wrote a book "Inquisition: The Persecution and Prosecution of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon," defending the self-described "Son of God." Sherwood then went to work for then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, now homeland security director for Bush.
I have not seen Sherwood's ad. I am relying on press reports that its central thesis is that John Kerry's congressional testimony in 1971 prolonged the Vietnam War. Sure, the North Vietnamese would have surrendered long before they never did, if it hadn't have been for Kerry. Look, 14,000 more Americans died after his testimony -- how many would it take to make that war anything other than a mistaken horror?
The ad also alleges that Kerry impugned the good names of all those who served in Vietnam. That is not only false but malicious. I heard his testimony at the time and have reviewed it since during this campaign -- it is honorable and patriotic. I am also familiar with the Winter Soldier hearings on which his testimony was partly based, and they were just as he reported.
I am sick of the right wing claiming patriotism as its exclusive purview. No one serves this country well who blindly supports misbegotten wars in the name of patriotism. The right to dissent is one of the founding principles of this country and is in itself a high form of patriotism. What you owe your country is your best evaluation of whether we are or are not going in the right direction.
As Huey P. Long once said, "Sure we'll have fascism in America, but it'll come disguised as 100 percent Americanism."
Add a comment to this Message in our Forums.
While you're at it, check out our forums too!
User Originated Comments:
From:
2005-04-12 12:52:59
re: the misinformed use of "fascist" as a fatal
dart by leftist "liberals" -
excerpt from
www.en.wikipedia.org:
hannah arendt and
other theorists of totalitarian rule argue that
there are similarities between nations under
fascist and stalinist rule. they condemn both
groups as dictatorships and totalitarian police
states. for example, both hitler and stalin
committed the m-ss murder of millions of their
country's civilians who did not fit in with their
plans.
in 1947, austrian economist ludwig
von mises published a short book entitled "planned
chaos". he -sserted that fascism and nazism were
socialist dictatorships and that both had been
committed to the soviet principle of dictatorship
and violent oppression of dissenters.
From: purpleland
2005-04-12 12:46:43
"creeping fascism at sinclair"
i say
there is strident "fascism" practiced by leftist
democrats in their ruthless attempts to suppress
oppositional viewpoints, distort facts, and forbid
citizens'testimony and opposing opinions. no
matter what they call others, leftists are the
ones using ruthless "fascistic" tactics.
"huey p. long [a populist demagogue and
a corrupt politician] once said, 'sure we'll have
fascism in america, but it'll come disguised as
100 percent americanism.'" (circa
1935)
therefore, according to huey long
and the person here in this group who quoted him,
should it be concluded that today all loyal
americans are "fascists" and america is a fascist
state?
if this outrageous statement had
an iota of truth or rationality to it, there
would be no leftist/neomarxist "liberals allowed
to live in america, wouldn't you agree? they'd be
marched off to the proverbial ovens, true?
fascism is as fascism does...as did the
rising soviet bolschevic and nazis
parties...manifesting the same centric group
pathology as manifested by the hate-mongering
activism and persecution employed by leftists. the
democrat party is the neomarxist, pro-socialist
leftist party inspired by hitlerian-type
hatred.
i am an american and not a
"fascist", but i sure know a "fascist" when i see
or hear one. italy's fascism and germany's nazism
were pro-socialist leftist movements formed to
subvert and overthrow, the established government.
when finally in power, inhumane tyranny,
intimidation of citizens and ruthless dictatorship
immediately rooted.
usually those misinformed,
brainwashed "liberals" mindlessly calling people
who don't agree them "fascists" and "nazis" have
no comprehension that they emulate "fascists" and
"nazis" by using the same propaganda tactics and
intimidating ad hominem warfare.
fascism is as fascism does...
From:
2005-04-12 11:11:27
quoting huey p. long???
From:
2005-04-12 11:08:40
"since when has the word liberal, become so
poisonous.."
"liberal" doses are
poisonous to decent wholesome rational people.
"liberals" falsely presume for themselves
"liberal" attributes. yet hate-inspired
"liberals" have obscured if not destroyed the true
meaning and spirit of cl-ssic liberalism.
"liberal" is a leftist pro-socialist political
party designation. leftists are tyrannical and
persecuting activists. leftist ("liberals")are
not truly liberal - they are too radical, too
unwise and too perverse. true liberalism seeks
wise and comprehensive balances through free and
fair thinking. leftism foments and deconstructs
because it's mandated by a dehumanized dogmatic
ideology which offends rational free-thinkers and
threatens the freedom to think.
face it:
groupthink is leftthink. neurotic atheism is a
bore. the world is better-off if it chooses to
praise a benevolent god and biblical moral truths
than worship marxist and hitlerian tyrant - the
god-government.
From: Purpleland
2005-04-12 10:33:50
the only "fascist" oppressive and propaganda
tactics operating in america are overtly executed
by "liberal"/leftists/democrats. the attack on
sinclair and swiftboat vets is but one of many
proofs that the leftist-dominated democrat party
is ruthless in its tactics to suppress
oppositional free speech and to vilify political
opponents.
cannot trust people who
that.
leftists use "fascist" tactics.
historically speaking, italy's "fascism" was a
leftist movement as well as the radical nazi party
was leftist movement.
leftist
belligerence emulates quasi
nazi/fascistic/bolschevic.
"fascism" is
as fascism does -defaming propaganda and
oppressive tactics.
truth is...and
prevails...
Related News
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
||||||
owned by TheTIP.
[ Skip Next | Next | Random Site | List Sites |Previous ]
NEWS | ACTION | RESULTS | POLLS | MEMBERS | SEARCH