Steven D posted a front-paged diary called Olbermann: No More Democracy in America today.

Right on the money, as far as it went.

But there’s more to be said.

Here’s my two cents.
From my diary It Was Only A Dream…Eddie Cleanhead Vinson.

Quoted by the wonderful Joe Bageant in “Carpooling with Adolph Eichmann”. A series of quotations from a book written over 50 years ago by Milton Mayer about the rise of Naziism in Germany called “They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45”  (University of Chicago Press,1955)

Read it and weep for your country.

“What no one seemed to notice. . . was the ever widening gap. . .between the government and the people. . . And it became always wider. . . the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway . . . Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about . . .and kept us so busy with continuous changes and `crises’ and so fascinated . . . by the machinations of the `national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. . . Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, `regretted,’ that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these `little measures’. . . must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . . .Each act. . . is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone. . . you don’t want to `go out of your way to make trouble.’ . . .But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. . . .You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father. . . could never have imagined.”

Sound familiar?

“…one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. . . “

And…

“You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow.”

Keith Olbermann.

168 to 1.

Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog group, did an analysis of the so-called “expert witnesses” brought onto the news programs of the major networks during the runup to the Iraq invasion. ALL major networks, 24/7 right at the peak of the flame fanning.

The results, which were shocking even to me, a long-time media skeptic, were as follows.

168 to 1 in favor of the government. “Ex”-government officials, purveyors of right wing academic studies, etc.

That’s 168 to 1!!!

It went like this. 168 men and women in Washington drag…suits, uniforms, “nice” haircuts, etc., then one nun from Topeka, 168 more media clones, 1 student from Bennington, 168 more government spokespeople, another harmless and vaguely foolish left-winger.

Well…that’s about right.

Olbermann is their token opposition. Slightly nerdish, relegated to some backwater cable station, he can easily be ignored or dismissed by the REAL people, and he is certainly useful in selling stuff to that benighted segment of the American public that still believes the media are not under a tight lockdown that is always and forever administered by one faction or another of the PermaGov.

Olbermann vs/168 other talking heads with a DIFFERENT…and fairly consistent…script.

Same old same o;d.

WIPEOUT!!!

Does he realize this?

I imagine that he does…he seems very intelligent.

Is he doing what he is doing in some cynical manner?

I think not, myself. But the question is irrelevant. Cynical or full of hope, he is always outnumbered, always outgunned.

Once again, people…when you involve yourself in a battle…when you REALLY BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN WIN THAT BATTLE…and the odds are 168 to 1 against you…

You must wake the fuck up.

“But what about the power of the truth?” you say.

What about it?

This system will destroy itself eventually. (I mistyped “destory”. Yup. That too.) Or be destroyed from without. Or a little of both. THAT is “the truth”. How do I know this truth? Every religion on the face of the earth, every spiritual discipline that has ever successfully succeeded in moderating and guiding a well-functioning society says the same thing.

From the Richard Wilhem translation of the I Ching

A law of nature is at work here.
Evil is not destructive to the good alone but inevitably destroys itself as well.
For evil, which lives solely by negation, cannot continue to exist on its own strength alone.

Yup.

That’s the way it works.

Always and forever.

But this resident evil (See my recent diary The Existence of Pure Evil for more on THAT idea.) has gone way too far for our little segment of society to do the destroying. Or the de-storying. WAY too far. They will not even let us on the air to try to tell the real story. Not in sufficient numbers to make any real impression. They won’t even let us run the so-called opposition party. The fix is in, babies, The fix is IN.

About the only real choice we now have is to either continue to lend our support to this media-based trance system by believing  that it actually works in the manner in which it is advertised (A “free press” that functions as a watchdog for the rights of the people.) …or withdraw our support from this shell, this hologram of that idea and go on about our business.

The single most effective blow that the left could land on this machine today would be to TOTALLY drop out of participating in its maintenance.

Yes…NEWSTRIKE!!!

It would be both a cultural shock and a financial one.

A sudden mass awakening among the intellectual elite of this country (“WE” are the intellectual elite? Sad. Well…everything’s relative, I guess…) would have PROFOUND effects on how the game is played. On any number of levels.

So…WHO’S WITH ME!!!???

(The silence of the lambs…)

Poor little sheeple…

Ain’t gonna happen, is it?

Nope.

Next order of business…

Those of you who DO hear what I am saying…prepare for the crash.

Fasten your seat belts…it’s going to be a rough ride.

Hunker down and hope you survive the storm.

Get to high ground if you can.

It’s about to get even nastier.

“…no one was laughing, least of all Keith and Craig…”?

“It had the appearance of two desperate men facing the gallows…”?

Yup.

Like I said…Keith is pretty smart.

HE knows what’s up.

Betcha he’s got his escape route already planned. (Money’s pretty good in broadcasting, and he’s been at it a long while. I notice that he already has a spot on ESPN radio…”Oh. Well. I’m just a sportscaster at heart…” Whatever is necessary to survive, Keithy. I understand. The family, the mortgage…)

Hunker down…storm warnings are out.

Everywhere.

And you don’t even NEED a weatherman to tell you which way the wind’s blowing…

(Whatever happened to that nice Patrick Fitzgerald fella again…???)

AG