Twenty American Embassies Under Attack September 20th.  Media: Not a Problem

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The Audacity of Corruption

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Media: Enemy of the American People

Pat Caddell

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Below  are some excerpts from Pat Caddell’s speech at the Accuracy in Media Conference, 9/21/12, in which he claims that the media have made themselves the enemy of the American people.

Pat Caddell is a former Democratic pollster who worked for the campaigns of McGovern, Carter and Biden. He is the founder of Cambridge Survey Research, and a world-renowned expert in analyzing public opinion.

For Pat Caddell’s entire speech, see links below; You Tube video and transcribed text links provided at conclusion of this post.

Excerpts from Pat Caddell’s speech at the Accuracy in Media Conference:

I think we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not…

Twenty American embassies, yesterday (9/20/12), were under attack.  None of that is on the national news.  None of it is being pressed in the papers…

Sixty percent or 80%—it’s closer to 80%  I think, now—of the money given under the stimulus to green energy projects—the president and this administration’s great project—has gone to people who are either bundlers or major contributors to Barack Obama. 

But nobody says a word. 

Of course Republicans don’t raise it because in Washington, they simply want to do it when they get back in power.  And, of course, the press doesn’t because they basically have taken themselves out of doing their job….

It is one thing to bias the news, or have a biased view.  It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know…

The President of Egypt, we find out now, that his whole agenda has been getting the “Blind Sheikh” [Omar Abdel-Rahman], who’s responsible for the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, out of jail.  Prison.  I’ve been told specifically, by a member of the intelligence community that the White House and State Department are negotiating that now…

Puppet Media

But no press person has investigated this, just as no press person will go and ask the most obvious questions, when there are really good stories here, good media stories, and good news stories.  They are in the tank and this is a frightening thing…

Another example has been the polling…   it’s very complicated.  Some of it is error, some of it is miscalculation, but some of it is deliberate, in my opinion—to pump up the numbers using the 2008 base to give a sense of momentum to the Obama campaign… polls that have the preference of Democrats over Republicans higher than it was in 2008, which was a peak Democratic year,  are polls that shouldn’t be reported…

60% of the American people are in on the secret here—I mean, they’re no idiots—yet Republicans and those candidates who are not the candidates of the press refuse to call them out… too many political people in the Republican Party in this town want to maintain their relationships with the press…

The fundamental danger is this: I talked about the defense of the First Amendment. The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power.  When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know,  they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people.

And it is a threat to the very future of this country if we allow this stuff to go on. We have crossed a whole new and frightening slide on the slippery slope this last two weeks, and it needs to be talked about.

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You Tube of Pat Caddell’s speech:

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Transcribed text of Pat Caddell’s speech: (click here)

Related links:

Mainstream Media is Threatening Our Country’s Future- FOX report

Accuracy in Media

What Do We Do Now?

We make the extra effort and find the news ourselves.
From smaller, more reliable media outlets.
Here are a few:

CNS News
the Drudge Report
Breitbart.com
FOX News

email me to share your favorites.

Inform Ourselves, and Vote November 6, 2012!

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What is Truth?

Does Truth Matter?

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Scala Sancta, the Holy Steps

The Scala Sancta (the Holy Steps)

Last Saturday I had the incredible privilege of climbing the Scala Sancta in Rome reverently on my knees, and of standing near the place Christ must have stood when Pontius Pilate first asked Christ “What is truth?,”[1] then solemnly declined to condemn Him, ceremonially washing his hands of guilt[2].

Feeling that same floor under my feet, kneeling on those steps where the Passion of Christ occurred, and contemplating how St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, located Pontius Pilate’s Praetorium steps and transferred them from Jerusalem to Rome, I was filled with an even deeper sense of connection to the reality of our Christian beliefs, and of the importance of acknowledging the conversation that took place on those steps, located now at one of the holiest places in the world.  “Non est in toto sanctior orbe locus;” There is not in the whole world a more holy place.

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Truth

What is Truth?

Truth does exist, truth does matter, and even our world’s great secular leaders, including Pontius Pilate, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, instinctively cared about and respected truth, not to mention every parent who instinctively insists on truth from their children.  Christ willingly DIED for truth, because truth is so important.

Truth is most often defined as the state of being in accord with fact or reality.  It is clear to most of us that humans, while young, must learn certain facts or realities about life in order to negotiate the world safely and effectively, and in order to become functional adults who are responsible for the perpetuation of our society. continue reading…

Liberals and conservatives might both be surprised to read in the World Book Encyclopedia that “liberalism is a confusing term, because its meaning and emphasis have changed considerably over the years.” The definition of liberalism has shifted dramatically over the past several centuries. (1)

Fundamentally, liberalism is a political and economic philosophy that emphasizes freedom, equality, and opportunity. However, freedom can be understood in more than one way, with the emphasis either on freedom from specific restrictions, or emphasis on the freedom to have opportunities. (1)

The liberalism exemplified by the revolutions of the 18^th century (American, French) emphasized curtailing the ability of governments to restrict the individual freedoms of citizens. In the 21^st century, however, liberalism has come to mean the use of government to assure many opportunities for some citizens at the expense of other citizens.

These two perspectives on freedom are at odds with each other. The more a nation frees itself from governmental restriction of citizens, the more the number of government-created opportunities shrink. Conversely, the more government “guarantees” or creates opportunities, the more mandatory restrictive legislation (which encroaches on individual rights) must be passed.

Never has this been more obvious than in the present Obama administration. Present day liberal Democrats seem to define freedom primarily in terms of access to opportunities – such as health care, education, immigration, and sexual freedom. However, as more legislation is passed to guarantee these “freedoms,” more money must be spent, and those footing the bill become more irate and feel less and less “free.” The liberalism of 2010 boomerangs, and begins to be viewed as tyranny by citizens who must pay the taxes.

In 2010, 47% of Americans will not pay any income tax at all. These non-tax-paying Americans collect numerous benefits and are entitled to numerous opportunities. Credits for middle-income families have grown so much that millions of people earning more than twice the poverty wage pay no federal taxes at all. The remaining 53% of Americans, who are actually paying the bills for the benefits, and whose taxes are rising astronomically, feel that they have lost their freedom, the freedom to enjoy the fruits of their labor, their paycheck. Thus, the Tea Party movement is born, and citizens who were previously politically unengaged decide “enough is enough,” and band together and rebel to win freedom from excessive taxation and governmental control. Liberal attempts to increase freedom boomerang and result in decreased freedom for many, as well as encroachment on the right to own property.

Liberalism in the extreme can also encroach on freedom of religion. The bill-paying half of the American population is now forced to pay for services which they consider to be morally reprehensible — abortion, contraception, and state-mandated Planned Parenthood sex education (or promiscuity education!) in public schools. When 67% of our citizens oppose the government funding of abortion, but they are forced to pay the taxes which provide abortion for others, it becomes difficult to call this liberalism—instead, it resembles totalitarianism.

Now, it becomes the conservatives who must become the revolutionary activists and must lobby for change. They are lobbying for liberation from oppressive taxation and oppressive legislation. Thus, in 2010, the conservatives have become the new “liberals.”

This system reversal has a darker side, too – the more unrestricted “freedoms” become guaranteed for all (such as free health care), the higher the cost, and ultimately, rationing becomes a necessity, as admitted by President Obama . Ironically, the initial goal of the government health care plan was to include all, not to ration health care. But now, rationing will simply change which group must forgo health care—for example, shifting from the jobless doing without health care, to the aged forgoing health care.

Escalating costs of health care also motivate modern “liberals” to use distorted logic. The Speaker of the House recently represented abortion as cost-saving— saving the cost of birthing, raising and educating extra human beings. However, the killing of preborn humans is suicidal for our society, and extreme liberals do not seem to realize that a future without children is a future without workers and without tax revenue.

Ultimately, “freedom” is an elusive commodity, and what creates freedom in one sphere generally also reduces freedom in another sphere. It is not possible to guarantee all freedoms for all people at all times, since our freedoms impinge on each other. As the two factions of our society battle out their preferred freedoms, the pendulum of history (and of the definition of liberty and of liberalism) swings back and forth and makes adjustments.

In 2010, by my estimate, we have gone full swing.

Conservative is the new liberal!

(1) World Book Encyclopedia, 75^TH ed., s.v. “Liberalism.”