Rage Against "The Machine"
Boy, I don't know if Hunter realizes this, but his recent entry at DailyKos entitled "A Million Tiny Strands" does a hell of a lot more than take us through a roller coaster ride, exposing the myriads of connections in the rightwing's penchant for "Swift Boating" dissenters, particularly the recent campaign against Sen. John Murtha and Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 Election. That's only the tip of the iceberg -- this shows exactly how the Rightwing Noise Machine was built in the first place. Armed with those blueprints, the Rightwing Noise Machine can be completely torn down and cast into the vast sea of irrelevancy within the confines of public discourse forever! Read the whole thing first - I'll wait ...Christ, the connections Hunter has uncovered speak volumes: CNSNews (and it's parent - Media Research Council, helmed by FOX News mainstay L. Brent Bozell), Fumento, Ron Arnold, Exxon-Mobil, Monsanto, Marc Morano (former producer for Rush Limbaugh during Mid-1990s and current CNSNews "Journalist"), CORE and its talking head Niger Innis, Paul Driessen, Patrick Moore, Joseph Farah WingNutDaily, biotech lobbying firms BIO and AgBioWorld, Robert Bindinotto, Dennis Avery the Hudson Institute, Fred Smith's Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institute, Tech Central Science Foundation, Alan Gottlieb's Center For The Defense Of Free Enterprize, Rev. Sun Myung Moon's American Freedom Coalition, and last but not least Karl Rove.
These connections underly three basic tenets that serves as the bricks and mortar of the entire Right Wing Noise Machine but before I get to them, let me remind you that the departed (and sorely missed) blogger Arthur Silber earlier last year wrote an essay where he pointed out that Republicans really don't hate the media -- they're obsessed with it. That obsession is evidenced by the Right Wing Noise Machine's presence itself, how well organized it is, how many pundits and ditto-heads it employs to advance the GOPs talking points and rhetoric via their penchant toward opinionated journalism. But it is by their obsession of the media and their desire to influence and/or control it at all costs where their other more darker obsessions are laid bare for all to see -- Race, Religion, & Revenue. As far as I'm concerned, those are the three "R"s of Republicanism today and they likewise function as the triangular cornerstones of their entire propaganda machine.
Obsessions with fetuses, crotches, darkies and wetbacks, Islamic terrorists, welfare queens, and homosexuals pale in comparison simply because those smaller obsessions are just the bastard children of their larger obsessions -- race, religion, and revenue. Republicans are deeply and tragically scared shitless of anybody that isn't white (e.g race), are constantly in anxiety on whether or not God approves of their conduct (e.g. religion), and totally quake in their penny loafers wondering when their God returns as "King Of Kings - Lord of Lords", what is going to be the nature of beast? What's going to be Christ's political and social policies? In other words, "Will Jesus be a Marxist/Socialist and redistribute all my hard-earned money to the parasitic welfare state?!?" That really makes them shudder because they know that if Christ happens to be someone other than a Conservative Republican, they can't bribe, can't impeach, and sure as Hell can't assassinate Him. Been there, done that, and look what Satan's getting for the effort. Besides, he's King. Here for a 1,000 year reign -- like it or not, right?)
They don't know how to deal with such things and it fills them with anxiety and worry that permeates every fiber of their being. No ammount of praying, fasting, seeking advice from a pastor, visiting a psychiatrist, popping perscription anti-anxiety drugs, NOTHING can help them cope with it (since their pastors, counselors, and psychiatrists worry about them, too) and so they need to surround themselves with something insulatory; something big, loud, and powerful enough to outblare the din of their own consciences. This is where the obsession with the media comes in -- it isn't so much as to control the media and necessarily bullshit the masses (although for the Strassians, that does help) but it's more along the lines of controling the media in order to bullshit and reassure themselves.
The power of the mass media can make anything popular, and therefore acceptable (e.g. "right") thus the bullshitting of the masses is how they create "popular opinion" and the "popular opinion" is used in their own minds to keep the imaginary boogey men at bay for, in their minds, "right" makes "might". I think this is evidenced by that way Republicans/Conservatives and their pundits often touted Bush's popularity polls 18 months ago as a means of poo-pooing away any arguments to the contrary that'd show just how much of a total knuckle-dragging asshat their Dear Leader might be. Now with Bush's approval rating hovering around 39%-40%, those same yokels no longer bring that subject up and rabidly castigate those that dare so (e.g. "damned liberal media").
Back in my days at NvNews, whenever I'd get lambasted by resident Conservatives for "playing the race card", "playing the religion card", or "defending the lazy and shiftless welfare state", I've always retorted that as long as a Conservative Republican exists in this country, both the race and religion cards are in a perpetual state of play because it's the Conservative Republicans whom must keep them in play. Their obsessions with them eat them alive. Along with their obsession with money, all three are constantly at the forefront of their rhetoric-based media empire. However, they must be disguised from detection by pushing ear-tickling platitudes and "feel-good" journalism. Through their obsessions with race, religion, and revenue, all of those racial/big business/religious connections Hunter discovered in CNSNews's attempt to Swift Boat Sen. Murtha shows that by having such a morbid obsession with the media, Conservatives and Republicans at this point aren't concerned as much as using their stranglehold with the media in trying to advance a story (e.g. does Murtha's deserve his medals) as they are in using it to kill one.
That story is the first casualty of every war -- the truth.
Got enough fucking blood on your hands, Karl?!?
posted by Sizemore at
12:18 PM
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