It’s no secret to any non Kool-Aid drinking person actually paying attention to the world around them, that the Obama administration’s corrupt practices have led to a systematic dismantling of the protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Now that I have your attention, of course I realize that sounds blatantly partisan — like an alarmist Fox News rant, with a cup of Tea Party flavoring mixed in. However, if you’ve read George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, you know it isn’t.
The novel, originally published in 1949, is set in the superstate of Oceania, in a world perpetually at war, and where highly intrusive government surveillance of its citizens is omnipresent. Can you say NSA?
Public mind control is dictated by a political system known as “Big Brother.” It enforces the government’s invented language, “Newspeak” — or in our case, political correctness — both of which basically take away the right of free speech. In 1984, it’s all controlled by a privileged class of governmental elitists that prosecute all independent thinking and individualism as “thought crimes.” Sound familiar?
Nowhere is the scary comparison between 1984 and what is currently happening in America more evident than the recent announcement the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will be sending people to “investigate” television and radio newsrooms across America. Under the guise of something called the “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” the agency plans to send “researchers” to grill reporters, editors and station owners about the news philosophy of their stations, and openly demand to know exactly who decides which stories are covered.
Quite frankly, that’s none of the government’s damn business! That’s what the First Amendment is all about.
How long before this administration invades newspaper city rooms — which have become primarily Internet-based? How long before they use the government’s control over Internet access to regulate independent, web-based news content? And finally, overrun that last bastion of independent thought, bloggers?
MSNBC and the rest of the Lamestream Media — except for Fox — has become little more than the press office of the Obama administration. So they’ve not resisted this heavy-handed government initiative to control what news we get to see and hear. I have to wonder, why not?
However, the Radio Television Digital News Association has stood up to fight back, condemning the administration’s actions as, “ill-conceived,” and having the potential to, “...chill every journalist and every station which prides itself on journalistic independence.”
American University professor John Watson noted, “Whenever I hear of the government going into a newsroom to do something other than deliver coffee, I become frightened. Because the government should not, as a general rule, be any part of journalism.”
And former FCC commissioner Robert McDowell questioned, “How much government coercion might there be with all of this? Is the government trying to ultimately dictate speech and dictate how journalists are supposed to do their jobs?”
This certainly appears to be the first step in that direction.
The very last thing we need is the government involved in deciding news content. This Big Brother-ish effort by the FCC is little more than a Trojan horse meant to integrate federal officials into the newsroom — where they don’t belong.
And before all you Kool-Aid drinkers get your shorts in a wad, ask yourselves, what kind of outrage would you be expressing if this kind of government intrusion was proposed under the Bush administration?
