Armstrong and Beyond
I understand why liberals (and good conservatives) are outraged at the Armstrong Williams scandal, but why shocked I wonder?
If you've been watching media broadcasts since Fox cable news entered the airwaves in 1996, you have noticed news reporting cantilever and twist into crazy-making infotainment. In the last four years top stories of actual national interest (such as concrete WMD reporting) were routinely buried under murder victims long lost, dug up or washed ashore. Coverage of national security scandals like Plamegate disappeared into pundicrat spider-holes until they could be cemented flat under mounting Kerry-bashing. At first I was surprised at the sway Republican-funding media owners had over their paid hacks; I'd mistakenly believed journalism was a sacred trust. I got over that.
Now discovering that the Bush government actually paid free-lance journalists to 'report' its propaganda is surprising, but not shocking. Self-proclaimed "pure-entrepreneur" types like Armstrong Williams are the type to believe any brake on free enterprise is inherently illegal (and if he's of a certain religious type, probably even a sin to boot)! Good luck outing the rest of his ilk now....
For such folks, regardless of their career paths, government regulations prohibiting any particular free-enterprise activity are already dead deals; Bush reforms will be ripping regulatory laws apart in due time so why wait and lose big pay-offs now? Besides, anyone can see that politically juiced rule-breakers (look at Ken Lay and Tom DeLay) receive laughable penalties and a little bad PR, so what's the harm in trying?
Maybe folks like Williams see themselves as pioneers creating an opportunity for their buddy conservative pundicrats to wring their hands over career-crushing, regulation-bound restraints rooted in socialist New Deal regulations. The really creative ones may even figure out how to make payolla regulations First Amendment free-speech violations! And finally, evangelicals will get mouth-foaming wing-nuts to launch letter campaigns to every Republican in government demanding a righteous repeal! Hell, regulatory criminals are reformist heros!
Get a grip folks. Every law conservatives from the super-class choose to break was crafted under a democratic government. Republicans have stacked the deck with their judges to rule against current legal precedents and set new ones reflecting their radical free-market agendas. They seize issues of liberal outrage as excuses to bring stories on topics they want to debate into media play or onto the senate floor where they torture the truth of the inherent principles into twisted skeletons, claim the foundations to be reflections of so-called 'spiritual poverty' and judge the only recourse be a complete reversal mandated by their brave New Order.
When this government claimed it was creating a new reality it wasn't kidding. Blink at your own risk.
If you've been watching media broadcasts since Fox cable news entered the airwaves in 1996, you have noticed news reporting cantilever and twist into crazy-making infotainment. In the last four years top stories of actual national interest (such as concrete WMD reporting) were routinely buried under murder victims long lost, dug up or washed ashore. Coverage of national security scandals like Plamegate disappeared into pundicrat spider-holes until they could be cemented flat under mounting Kerry-bashing. At first I was surprised at the sway Republican-funding media owners had over their paid hacks; I'd mistakenly believed journalism was a sacred trust. I got over that.
Now discovering that the Bush government actually paid free-lance journalists to 'report' its propaganda is surprising, but not shocking. Self-proclaimed "pure-entrepreneur" types like Armstrong Williams are the type to believe any brake on free enterprise is inherently illegal (and if he's of a certain religious type, probably even a sin to boot)! Good luck outing the rest of his ilk now....
For such folks, regardless of their career paths, government regulations prohibiting any particular free-enterprise activity are already dead deals; Bush reforms will be ripping regulatory laws apart in due time so why wait and lose big pay-offs now? Besides, anyone can see that politically juiced rule-breakers (look at Ken Lay and Tom DeLay) receive laughable penalties and a little bad PR, so what's the harm in trying?
Maybe folks like Williams see themselves as pioneers creating an opportunity for their buddy conservative pundicrats to wring their hands over career-crushing, regulation-bound restraints rooted in socialist New Deal regulations. The really creative ones may even figure out how to make payolla regulations First Amendment free-speech violations! And finally, evangelicals will get mouth-foaming wing-nuts to launch letter campaigns to every Republican in government demanding a righteous repeal! Hell, regulatory criminals are reformist heros!
Get a grip folks. Every law conservatives from the super-class choose to break was crafted under a democratic government. Republicans have stacked the deck with their judges to rule against current legal precedents and set new ones reflecting their radical free-market agendas. They seize issues of liberal outrage as excuses to bring stories on topics they want to debate into media play or onto the senate floor where they torture the truth of the inherent principles into twisted skeletons, claim the foundations to be reflections of so-called 'spiritual poverty' and judge the only recourse be a complete reversal mandated by their brave New Order.
When this government claimed it was creating a new reality it wasn't kidding. Blink at your own risk.
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