by Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

“If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” _Joseph Goebbels.

 

Shooting Ourselves In The Foot

 How many times have you heard the phrase, “liberal media?” “Mainstream media?” Or as some like to call themselves, “progressive media?” Let me give you a little clue. No such thing exists! It’s a myth and I’ll prove it by citing relatively recent history.

Remember when Al Gore ran against George Bush for President? This was the first time Bush ran. George Bush was never actually elected. I remember watching the election returns that night and everything came down to that mess we call “Florida.” By the way this is when I lost my virginity with the media. It wasn’t pleasant. They didn’t even kiss me first.

Liberal Media? Yeah Right!

ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN were watching the returns come in and they called the election for Al Gore. Then something peculiar happened. FOX News suddenly called the election for George Bush. They were the only news organization to do so. Now a reasonable person might expect there to be some disagreement. If everyone else is seeing it the same way and suddenly *ONE* person sees it differently, logic says you give more weight to the consensus not the outlier.

It gets better! It later came out that only one person at the FOX news agency was responsible for calling the election for George Bush. Turns out he was a cousin of George Bush. So, based on a relative of George Bush making a proclamation backed by neither evidence nor fact, all the other News Agencies, halted and fell in line with FOX News.

I submit, this never would have happened had these news agencies been truly independent. Imagine everyone looking up at the sky and saying, “it’s blue,” then one person exclaims, “no, it’s red!” Normally everyone would look at this person and conclude that he had the problem. If everyone around you said, “well I guess we were wrong, it must be red,” you would be convinced you were in the middle of either a very strange dream or a nightmare. Yet this is pretty much what happened that fateful election night.

George W. Bush – Our First Appointed President

Remember, the governor of Florida at that time was George Bush’s brother Jeb Bush. Due to voting chicanery – the blueprint for what we now see with every election in a “red State” – hanging chads, machines casting votes for persons other than people attempted to vote for, many votes were not counted. Many votes were simply thrown out. You knew there was a problem when Pat Buchanan received a majority of the vote in Florida’s Jewish communities.

Bottom line? The whole thing wound up before the U.S. Supreme Court. This was when I lost my virginity regarding our legal system and it was even worse than the first time. George Bush’s father had previously stacked the Supreme Court with his appointments. Not surprisingly, they handed the election to George Bush. Thus, they nullified all those uncounted votes in Florida and technically, our democracy ended. We now had a President for, of and by the plutocrats. I refer to the reign of George W. Bush as America’s Dark Ages.

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night…” _Dylan Thomas

America Strikes Back

Rather than simply fasten our shackles about our necks and walk into their prison camps, Americans fought back. In 2008 we did something nobody saw coming. We elected our first African-American President. Personally? I think one of the things that made it possible was the GOP’s right wing machine was all geared up to take on Hillary Clinton. They had ads sitting on the shelves ready to go. They were caught completely flat footed, and a step behind by the candidacy of Barack Obama.

All they could do was to try to paint him as “other.” Remember? First he was a secret Muslim, because his father whom he never really had any interaction with was supposedly Muslim. They rode that horse right up until they discovered Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Then, no he wasn’t a Muslim, he was a Baptist who believed in “Liberation Theology.” Sure would have been nice to have that so called “Liberal Media” to come to his defense. Hardly a peep!

Where Exactly Was The Liberal Media?

Next they slandered the entire State of Hawaii, by claiming his official birth certificate was fraudulent. Their claim? He was actually born in Kenya. Never mind that Kenya didn’t exist when President Obama was born. British East Africa didn’t become Kenya until several years after our President’s birth. I got a good laugh at those photoshopped birth certificates they claimed to have discovered. They all had the date of his birth correct… which of course proved they were frauds because they had Kenya on the masthead. If they’d simply Googled Kenya they would have seen they’d of needed to change the date, making him 3 years younger. Of course, never missing the opportunity of shooting ourselves in the foot, our so called, “Liberal Media” must have been on vacation somewhere. Perhaps they were hanging out with Donald Trumps Private Investigators whom, by the way, we still haven’t heard from.

Of course, changing his date of birth would have created another can of worms since his birth announcement was carried in two Hawaiian newspapers and those newspapers are on microfiche in the Library of Congress. President Obama’s parents would have to of been the greatest psychics the world has ever known, to foresee their son becoming President of these United States and orchestrate such a fraud, when their interracial marriage wasn’t even recognized in many of the Southern States at that time. But I digress.

The fact is, if we truly had a liberal media, many of you my readers, wouldn’t be hearing some of these things for the first time. A truly “liberal media” would have been all over this and stamping out the outright lies. They were strangely silent weren’t they?

Predator Drones Make Me Moan

This latest fiasco deals with the use of Predator Drones. Who needs the Republican party when we are so insistent on shooting ourselves in the foot? From February 2002 up through the end of he Bush Presidency in 2008, Predator Drones were used to good effect. Yes, President Obama increased their use, however the protocols and methodology remained the same. If a Predator Drone gets shot down, malfunctions or crashes, we don’t lose American military personnel. No rescue missions to retrieve an American airman stranded in hostile territory. It is just an expensive piece of military equipment. No piece of equipment is more precious than the life of a son, daughter or father serving in a theater of war.

And Now For Their Objections

If you pay careful attention to what the real objections are, they are as follows:

1.) Use of Predator Drones is unsportsmanlike. The enemy has no chance against them.

That seems to be a problem for some. War is not a sporting contest. It is not like a football game to be watched for entertainment. War is a bloody business. You want to be able to strike down your enemy from a place of safety.

2.) Predator Drones have killed civilians.

Yes, I’m sure they have. However, let us not be naive. What do you expect *them* to say? “Damn you got us?” We’re fighting an asymmetrical war. Our enemies don’t wear uniforms and march in formation. That group of civilians they show you may have just finished planting a road side bomb. Would it be somehow better if instead of a Predator Drone, an F-117 stealth fighter did the deed?

3.) Predator Drones have been used to kill American Citizens.

Depends upon what you call a citizen. If a person goes to a foreign land… one we happen to be at war against, dons the attire of our enemies, takes up arms against us and or incites, encourages or recruits others to murder our soldiers, I’m comfortable with the notion that he has given up his citizenship.

A Really Inconvenient Truth

Where is our so called “liberal media?” Why am I having to make these arguments? Why? Because they’re taking their marching orders and agendas from the right wing news sources. The question you ought to be asking is what even makes these right wing nincompoops relevant?

What’s changed? Could it be that our President is Black? I would hate to think so, nevertheless, given our propensity for repeatedly shooting ourselves in the foot, I’m inclined to believe this has a lot to do with it.