IS THE TIDE TURNING? 10 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP

~~By Grail Guardian

Something strange has been happening since the Vice Presidential Debate last Thursday. I first noticed it as I watched the debate with my Dad. He follows what’s going on (like most people his age) but gets most of his news from the MSM (thankfully, he watches Fox a lot, so he gets some reality). Not a dyed-in-the-wool political junkie at all, he’s learned most of what he knows about Obama from me. So I was a bit surprised as we watched and he began to call Biden out on his BS. In my head I was yelling “Way to go, Dad!” In real time, I agreed with him and began to call out a few things he missed. I left afterwards feeling pretty good about the debate since a non-political guy like my father had seen through the crap.

On Friday and Saturday, I began to notice that people I spoke with fell into 1 of 2 categories: they felt that Palin had won the debate and the media was wrong in deriding her victory OR they were repeating the MSM line about why Palin hadn’t really done that well. But there are 2 important things of note here. Just about everyone I spoke with had actually watched the debate in its entirety (including my 92 year old great aunt), and those that fell into category 2 (regurgitating the MSM bull) were very easily convinced that Palin really did well. It took almost no effort on my part to get them to agree that her performance was actually better than Biden’s; obviously they had felt that way when they watched it, but were simply spitting back what they’d heard afterwards so they wouldn’t appear uninformed. Once they knew someone agreed with them, they abandoned the groupthink stance practically at once and praised Palin’s performance.

Fast forward to this afternoon when, driving on a local expressway, I spotted something unusual. It was one of those hand-lettered sheet signs hanging from an overpass. I don’t normally see a lot of the homemade variety here (the City hangs their official festival announcements and reminders to change the batteries in your smoke alarms, but not many protest signs), and I was rather surprised to see that the sign was demanding that there be “No Bailout.” I noted it, and the fact that at least 1 person was riled up enough about the “Rescue” bill to create and hang a sign (there was some artwork on it that was rather well done) on a busy overpass. There must have been some serious anger involved, as this is not an easy task and the sign was well anchored and not fluttering in the wind.

This was all kind of rolling around aimlessly in my brain for a day or so before I spotted this piece at Not Your Sweetie about calling Obama on his bs on the new $ trillion bailout. In it, she quotes a post called Obama Betrays the Middle Class: Votes for “Bail out the Rich Act” from one of the folks over at Fire Dog Lake, one of the progressive blogs that drank the Kool Aid early on. I’ll let you check out the links for all the details, but here’s a quote from author Ian Welsh I couldn’t resist:

I assume he’s [Obama] willing to give up the 700 billion for the near dictatorial power over the US economy which is still embedded in the bill, power which he will wield through his Treasury Secretary. Or maybe, encouraged by his economic advisers, almost all of whom were amongst the architects and cheerleaders of the policies which made this crisis occur, he really believes that bailing out the rich with middle class money is how the country has to operate. After all, some people are important and some people aren’t, and since the middle class can vote for him or for a man who has made himself into a national joke with Sarah Palin as the punch line, what are they going to do?

As if that wasn’t juicy enough, the comments aren’t much more optimistic. For instance, poster MsAnnaNOLA said:

He will get what he deserves. If Paulson and gang are stealing this money, and all indications are that they are:

This could be the nail in the Dems coffin.

I am talking 3rd party all the way.

What will the Dems have to offer us after this? Seriously?

Answer: Nothing.

Read next this piece by Jake Tapper who seems to think that the October dogs are about to bite Obama’s backside with the story of his shady associates like Rezko and Ayers, then this one by Uppity Woman which supports that the MSM is starting to talk about Ayers. Add to these the plethora of links to ACORN problems on You Tube and across the Blogosphere (here and here and here and here and so on) and this excellent article Understanding Obama: The Making of a Fuehrer on Obama’s mental state and massive Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and pretty soon you can’t ignore it all.

So I started to ponder, and all these random events started to come together. If America is starting to see through the MSM’s crazy con job (all they need is a little encouragement and they’re practically PUMAs), and they are pissed off enough about this feeding frenzy known as the Wall Street bailout (even those that seem resigned to it being a necessary evil are still mad, and the adding of pork to get Republican votes was like poking a hornet’s nest), and they are blaming Obama for the bill (I think he’ll be regretting taking credit for someone else’s work this time – be sure you read the post from Fire Dog Lake about how Obama owns this bill) then you really need to wonder: Is it possible that Obama’s house of cards is starting to implode?

That’s when it hit me: We are about to break through. The brass ring (America) is ours for the taking (or keeping) if we’re just willing to do a few things:

1. Talk to anyone and everyone about the shoddy and unacceptable state of the media in this country. This seems to be something everyone is starting to agree on, and needs to be reinforced in peoples’ minds as frequently as possible. Talk about CNN and MSNBC being so over the top that you can’t believe anything they say anymore, even if it’s not about the election. After they lied about an election as important as this, who knows what else they lie about?

2. Express how you can’t understand why they’re saying Palin didn’t win the debate. If they watched (and I’ll bet they did) they know what happened. They saw it first-hand and unedited. Talk up how the Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric interviews were edited to make Palin look bad, but obviously when she had the eyes of the world upon her and every network rolling tape she stood up to the incredible scrutiny quite well and didn’t have to lie outright 14 times like Biden did.

3. Relate the moment you personally felt Palin won the debate. Many say it was when she asked Ifill if they could go back to talk about Afghanistan, but for me it was when she said to Biden that she wasn’t going to answer the way he wanted her to or the way the moderator wanted her to, but she was going to speak directly to the American people; game, set, match for me.

4. Redirect the attention back from Palin to Obama, especially on the experience issue. The Obama campaign has actually managed to divert America’s attention away from the fact that he hasn’t done anything prior to running for POTUS.

5. Focus on the bailout bill and how Obama owns it, but we’re going to be stuck paying for it. Point out that it’s been the Democrats that forced this mess down our throats after people like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and Jimmy Carter were responsible for creating it and ignoring it until it exploded. And be sure to let them know that it’s the Democrats that are supporting George W. Bush! Things aren’t right in Oz once the Wicked Witch becomes the heroine and the Wizard becomes the bad guy.

6. Remind people that we sent the Democrats to Congress with a majority and a mandate in 2006, and they haven’t done a damned thing! They refused to impeach Bush, haven’t done anything to end the war in Iraq, and pretended nothing was wrong on Wall Street so we’d all continue to invest our life savings into GSE’s like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while their former chairs walked away with tens of millions of dollars and left us with no savings and the 700 billion dollar check. Point out that when House Republicans voted against the bill, the Dems added plenty of pork in order to entice the naysayers to the taxpayer funded trough.

7. Point out that Obama is now using the Wall Street Crisis to back out of any campaign promises he may have made (or “put them on hold” as the campaign calls it). He’s using the massive feeding of the political pigs at the trough to say no to Universal Healthcare, Education reforms, Alternative Energy, and just about anything else he vowed to do. Where’s the change in that?

8. Discuss ACORN and all the instances of voter fraud being reported across the country. Be liberal with the You Tube videos, and point out that ACORN was included in Obama’s original bailout bill (earmarked to get 20% of any profits, even if the taxpayers were still paying). Bring up ACORN’s ties to Saul Alinsky and Cloward-Piven and how the far left wants America to become a Socialist state, and this bailout is just one more step in that direction.

9. Stress that a McCain presidency will last only 4 years. He will not be re-elected, and he does not wish to run for a second term. America can handle 4 years of a moderate McCain Administration with Congress as a counter-balance. No laws get passed without Congress, no Supreme Court judges get appointed without the Senate’s approval, and as Senator Obama is so fond of pointing out – no wars get started without Congress’ say so. We can all tread water for 4 years as long as Bush is out and the country is safe.

10. Discuss how many Centrist Democrats that may have been thinking about voting for Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader as a protest vote against both of the major parties are now saying they just cannot afford to waste their votes; this election is too important to America and the world.

If we can keep letting friends and neighbors know that there’s no shame in seeing the light now, as long as they’ve seen it before it’s too late, we can help them to accept that this election is no longer about Hope or Change or ending the Bush regime. It’s about saving America, and we must all put our country above politics and parties. It’s OK to be a Republican for a day (or even for 5 minutes inside the voting booth). Americans need to know that they are not alone; we’ve all been hoodwinked and bamboozled. By the media, by George W. Bush, by the Democratic and Republican Parties, by Wall Street, and by our own unwillingness to take a long hard look at ourselves and what we’ve allowed our political process to become.

This is a time for change, but not some empty slogan or political promise. Change must be what we the people deliver to the electoral system of the United States. That is our only Hope.

SHILLING and CHURNING–the State of the Media and the “Mass Production of Ignorance” (A Double Post by kenosha Marge and InsightAnalytical-GRL)

The two pieces in this post are intertwined. First, there is “American Media Shills for Obama” by kenosha Marge.  Then, check out “Flat Earth News–The State of ‘Churnalism'” by InsightAnalytical-GRL, an introduction to the acclaimed journalist Nick Davies and his courageous expose’ about the “news” business.

American Media Shills for Obama

~~By kenosha Marge

Has the time finally come when ordinary citizens stop listening to the drivel coming from the mouths of multi-millionaire pundits? Have we really gotten mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more?

Going back as far as William Randolph Hearst it is easy to see that media moguls were always about money and power, not journalism. It was in fact Hurst’s engaging in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer‘s New York World which led to the creation of “yellow journalism“–sensationalized stories of dubious veracity.

There was a time between Hearst and the Current Millionaire Media Morons that infest our newspapers and airwaves today when some actual journalism occurred.

Having been raised with the Huntley-Brinkley Report and Walter Cronkite what passes for journalism these days is wretched. Certainly Edward R. Murrow, must be spinning in his grave knowing that a hack like Keith Olbermann, is using his signature line, “Good Night and Good Luck”.

It is interesting that Murrow gave a speech before the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Chicago in which he blasted TV’s emphasis on entertainment and commercialism at the expense of public service. That was on October 15, 1958. I suspect he would be appalled to see how far down that road the media has traveled.

Today’s media gives us such stalwarts as Charlie Gibson of ABC who sneered his way through an interrogation disguised as an interview. Gibson tried to embarrass and demean Governor Sarah Palin. Instead he embarrassed himself and the occupation he represents so poorly. We really aren’t interested in whether you like Governor Palin or not Charlie, we just expect you, as a professional to conduct an interview that allows us to make our own decisions based on what WE perceive to be the truth. Your opinion Charlie is irrelevant.

This election cycle, like many before has shown us a media increasingly less interested in reporting the news than in making it. We expected that the Clinton-hating media would attack her relentlessly without regard for truth, fairness or integrity. We didn’t expect their blatant misogyny and their slobbering preference for Obama. There wasn’t even a pretense of fair coverage.

Now John McCain is being treated in the same way. Must be a surprise for him since he is used to being the media darling. He is learning that media, like jackdaws, are attracted to the newest shiniest object to enter their sphere.

Oprah Winfrey had the honesty to admit being an Obama acolyte. She is just a talk show hostess so her opinion is just that, her opinion. She might better occupy her time recommending Diets or Authors but then she’s missed a few times on those issues too.

Chris Matthews is a silly, sexist, twit. Had Matthews forthrightly admitted to being in the tank for Obama you might at least have respected his honesty. His pretense of being neutral was absurd. The tingle up his leg is probably a sign of poor circulation and not enough blood getting to his brain.

The list of Obama fans in the press is nearly endless. Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, and Chris Cillizza are press agents for the Washington Post. Like many papers its circulation is dropping and will likely continue to drop as readers find themselves faced with fewer journalists and a proliferation of cheerleaders.  Were it not for Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks the Post wouldn’t be worth reading.

Frank Rich, and Bob Herbert love them some Obama for the New York Times. The Times should no longer be allowed to proclaim itself a newspaper of record. Professional and unbiased? Were it not for Paul Krugman the current Times would only be useful for the bottom of my parrot cage.

Only on the right is Obama not fawned over like the second coming. Even there he isn’t pummeled with the fervor to which a democrat is typically subjected. If Corporate Left and Corporate Right likes someone, that someone might not be the best choice for all us little peons out here that don’t have media contracts worth millions.

Our media has decided that they want Obama to be president. In pursuit of their wish that such a thing come to pass they are willing to slime anyone, tell any lie, spin a few words into something unrecognizable as from the truth and show us their true, corporate colors. There may be a few, a very few, honest, decent, hardworking journalists around. But real Journalists don’t work on cable “news” programs and they seldom show up on the pages of the top newspapers in the country. Like common sense, integrity and honesty are becoming less common all the time.

MSNBC has become the Obama network. I believe the “M” stands for misogynistic. CNN has become the loving Obama all the time network. CNN was once a respected news channel. Now there is more blather than news and more opinion than fact. Jumped the shark a while back. FOX, to everyone’s surprise has been the most unbiased of the 3 cable “news” network. Whoever would have believed that would come to pass?

Few people respect or believe media. Seven out of 10 voters (69%) are convinced that reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and this year by a nearly five-to-one margin voters believe they are trying to help Obama. What does that say about how voters view the integrity of the media?

As if the misbehavior of the media were not enough they sneer down their exfoliated noses at the rabble for being “low information” voters. They do not do their job to inform us, then insult and demean us for NOT being informed.

Who, what, when, why and where as journalistic ideology? Gone with the snows of yesteryear…

*****************************

“Flat Earth News” — The State of ‘Churnalism'”

~~by InsightAnalytical-GRL

While listening to the BBC World Service months ago, I heard an interview with author Nick Davies, an acclaimed investigative reporter from Britain (see bio below). Davies, who had written a book entitled “Flat Earth News” (published in February 2008) lambasted the present state of journalism. In the book, Davies “exposes falsehood, distortion and propaganda in the global media.” Check out his website of the same name.

The part of the interview that has stayed with me these many months was his discussion of what Davies calls “churnalism.” If you scan the reaction by the journalists who have commented on the book, you’ll see the frustration of many of them who have experienced the process of taking press releases that have been rehashed and passed off as real news gathering and those who have been forced to rely on “automated news-sifting services” because they are no longer given the time to investigate stories or check their facts. In other words, as one comments, most news “isn’t original anymore.”

A video of a more recent interview with Davies on “churnalism” is available here at the BBC site and is well-worth watching!

Here’s a synopsis of the book from Davies’ site:

“Finally I was forced to admit that I work in a corrupted profession.” When award-winning journalist Nick Davies decided to break Fleet Street’s unwritten rule by investigating his own colleagues, he found that the business of truth had been slowly subverted by the mass production of ignorance.

Working with a network of off-the-record sources, Davies uncovered the story of the prestigious Sunday newspaper which allowed the CIA and MI6 to plant fiction in its columns; the daily newsroom where senior reporters casually refer to ‘nig nogs’ and where executives routinely reject stories about black people; the respected quality paper which was so desperate for scoops that it hired a conman to set up a front company to entrap senior political figures. He found papers supporting law and order while paying cash bribes to bent detectives and hiring private investigators to steal information.

Davies names names and exposes the national news stories which turn out to be pseudo events manufactured by the PR industry and the global news stories which prove to be fiction generated by a new machinery of international propaganda.

He shows the impact of this on a world where media consumers believe a mass of stories which, in truth, are as false as the idea that the Earth is flat – from the millennium bug to the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, tainting government policy, perverting popular belief.

He presents a new model for understanding news. With the help of researchers from Cardiff University, who ran a ground-breaking analysis of the contents and sources for our daily news, Davies found most reporters most of the time are not allowed to dig up stories or check their facts – a profession corrupted at the core.

Read All About It. The news will never look the same again.

An extract from the book is here.

Needless to say, this book has raised the hackles of many in the established media.  A paperback edition will be published in early 2009.

Check out Nick Davies’ site for updated posts on recent media distortions and for many links about the book and reactions to it, as well as media-monitoring sites, including:

http://www.flatearthnews.net/links

http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/2040

****

Nick Davies’ Resume

“Nick Davies has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year for his investigations into crime, drugs, poverty and other social issues. Hundreds of journalists have attended his masterclass on the techniques of investigative reporting. He has been a journalist since 1976 and is currently a freelance, working regularly as special correspondent for The Guardian. He also makes TV documentaries; he was formerly an on-screen reporter for World In Action. His four books include White Lies (about a racist miscarriage of justice in Texas) and Dark Heart (about poverty in Britain). He was the first winner of the Martha Gellhorn award for investigative reporting for his work on failing schools and recently won the award for European Journalism for his work on drugs policy.”

EXCLUSIVE: Brian Williams Writes Home…

NOTE: My nephew occasionally goes into New York for his job and last night, while walking past the GE building, he came across this note, which had apparently been dropped by Williams as he left the building following his nightly newscast.  Hat tip to my nephew for typing up the note and sending the contents along to me via email.

General Electric, Inc.

“We Bring Good Things to Life”

30 Rockefeller Plaza

Rockefeller Center

New York, New York 10112

FROM THE DESK OF:

BRIAN WILLIAMS

NBC Universal

NEWS DIVISION INFOTAINMENT DIVISION

NBC Nightly News

MOM,

Just a quick note to tell you that I won’t be able to come to the annual family reunion this year.  I’ve gotta go out of the country next week.

Katie, Charlie, and I are all going with Barack to Europe!  I really wanted to get to the reunion, but the Obama campaign offered us free drinks and extra bags of peanuts to get us on the flight! Ha, ha!

Heck, I know he’s not even the official nominee yet, let alone the President, but we all thought it would be nice to break new ground and cover the trip.  Get sort of a preview of what might go on once he IS President. You know I’m doing all I can to make sure that happens! (SHHH, don’t let THAT get around!) Even though there won’t be any real news being made in terms of foreign policy, it will be fun to see Europe through Barack’s eyes. This will be almost as fun as when I interned and then worked in the White House when Jimmy Carter was there and Billy and Miss Lillian came for visits!

It’s going to be a pretty hectic trip, but don’t worry. I know you think I rely on Ambien too much, but at least you don’t have to worry about me mixing it with booze during the trip since I don’t touch the stuff.

I was thinking, Mom, how Katie and Charlie both have this DEEP BACKGROUND in morning TV, and how Charlie started out as a local anchor and reported for ABC.  But I’ve always been a SERIOUS JOURNALIST.  And now we’re all anchors…I’m going to really pull out all the stops to show that I’m A LOT better at reading the news than they are on this trip!!  I really think, though, that my former job as a lobbyist for the National Association of Broadcasters gave me leg up before I became a real journalist.  It gave me the experience to give a sales job to anyone who’ll listen!

We’ll be taking a lot of pictures and filming a lot of stuff and we’ll all do interviews with Barack and I bet that the Obama campaign will be using some of it to make their own campaign ads for later use…so much better than the usual photo op with lots of people just standing around! I’m sure I’ll be able to help out, since I’ve traveled so much more than he has and can point out what sights look good on camera and what will work well for inspiring backgrounds. And I’m sure we’ll get lots of good video of cheering crowds, which will help his cred here at home!  And, it’ll be a “feel good” thing and have the public thinking America is No. 1 and that everybody loves us again, too!

This whole trip should be a blast because Obama is a real cool guy…and his wife won’t be with him! I bet we’ll have even more fun than when I went to Africa with Bono–poverty and disease is such a drag to cover! I bet I’ll have some things to tell that I can use later to write a book. Then I can go on Leno if I hurry up and write it, or Conan or Letterman or Jon Stewart and show off my clever wit! I always like doing that!

And I’m SOOOO glad they stuck Tom Brokaw with Meet the Press! It would have been a pain to have to work on Sundays, too, after a full week of reading the teleprompter. And I’m glad he isn’t going on this trip!  He’s just so OLD. I’m glad he’s staying home!!  Especially since he criticized our coverage of the primaries when we all wanted Clinton to quit the race.

You know, McCain has traveled overseas lately a few times, but we haven’t gone along. He’s like Brokaw–OLD and without that “charisma” thing. (Chuck Hagel is pretty old, too, but if Obama likes him…well, then, that’s OK.)

(Hey, Mom, you know I don’t think YOU’RE old!)

Well, Mom, I have to get home so I can start packing.  Give my regards to the rest of the family and tell Uncle Stan to watch it with the keilbasie.  You don’t want to have a repeat of what happened last year…

Brian

*****

I looked up some of his references in his note to find out what he was talking about and came up with some places that gave me more information on Brian Williams and:

Ambien

National Association of Broadcasters

Travels, Bono,White House intern, Jimmy Carter