House of Eratosthenes

Terry Trippany, CEO and Chief Bottle Washer of Webloggin which currently hosts House of Eratosthenes, wrote up a revealing piece at Newsbusters about money changing hands between the New York Times and that advocacy group I like to call “Move On From Some Things, Dwell Obsessively On Other Things Dot Org.” Since, hey, let’s face it — that’s what it’s all about. democrat President lies under oath, move on…Florida is certified for President Bush in 2000, just keep picking at it like a little kid with his finger in his nose.

Betray Us? For the last handful of years, I’ve noticed being a good little leftist is all about telling others what to think. Move on from this…don’t move on from that…forget this…remember that. Never even think of allowing anybody to make up their own minds about things. Conservatives argue things, liberals chant things.

Really, since about the Great Depression our “progressives” have been hostile to the concept of the individual, so this is all to be expected.

What I really don’t get, though — and maybe this should make it on to the Things I Don’t Get list, because it really does baffle me — is the news monopoly. The dictatorship-ism of it all. I’ve encountered a lot of leftists, who don’t seem to even suspect they themselves are really leftists…bemoaning the dwindling number of corporate entities owning the news outlets. Much of this is inspired by the Murdoch acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, and on the surface it doesn’t seem to be a leftist argument. I personally find it pretty compelling. The theory is that our news drifts toward a railroad-baron-era monopoly, as the corporations that bring us our news, start to merge. Really, this just makes sense. The argument just boils down to this: Competition is healthy. What good American can argue with that?

Other than the speaker using the word “corporation” as a slur, like Ralph Nader, there isn’t much that’s even leftist about it.

But then I see our leftists going from that…to instructing me to believe, like Virginia’s daddy, if I see it in the New York Times it must be so. HELLO…big, leviathan, evil corporation? Monopoly? This was a concern just a minute ago?

Guess not.

So “Trip” finds out about this transaction and writes it up. Gets linked by Boortz, who for the moment has managed to screw up his archive page for September 12, so I can’t give Neal Boortz the customary hat tip with linky goodness like usual; I will when I can. Here’s the high level stuff. The notorious ad accuses General Petraeus of betraying his country, using a play on his last name. There is an argument used to support this accusation, and the argument is…well, the typical leftist bullcrap. He didn’t say what we leftists think he should have said, so that’s a betrayal.

See, when you’re a liberal-donk, you always start from the premise that someone owed you something. Must be a great way to go through life, in spite of the disappointments that must surface day after day.

The ad is freakin’ huge. The least you can expect to pay for a placement such as this is about $167 large. “Move on from some things, pick at other things like a skateboarding kid with a scab on his knee dot org” paid…drum roll, please…65.

Financially, so far as anybody knows, “Move on from some things dot org” is doing pretty well. The New York Times is NOT. Neither one of those is purely a private organization, so the public is entitled to know pretty much everything…and nothing has come to light to excuse this. In sum: If this isn’t an “in-kind contribution,” nothing is.

And there’s another angle to this as well, when one considers the laughable fantasy that the National Rifle Association or any other conservative-friendly group might get such a sweetheart deal. The “liberal press” angle. This is just one more piece of evidence to toss on the pile. It’s devastating, just like when the staffers at the Seattle Times erupted into applause upon hearing Karl Rove’s resignation. We are to presume when we read news out of a paper, it has been gathered with a sufficiently decent respect for truth and honesty, that we can make decisions based on what we read. This presumption depends on the supposition that there’s some objectivity at work here…some maturity. Maybe it’s impossible to be completely neutral when you’ve got a working brain and red blood in your veins, but if you do have some vicious slant and you’re a journalist, we the readers expect you to leave that at home.

Well…we’re running out of reasons to expect that.

It’s a “Why We Need Blogs” moment if ever there was one. Blogs are put together by loudmouths like me. We can lean right, we can lean left…whichever way we lean, we might as well ‘fess up about it because there isn’t much point trying to hide it. But newspapers on the other hand — they try to hide it. And it’s not like they can lean any ol’ way. They tend to slant left. They’re institutions. Institutions tend to harbor acrimony toward the individual, and when you’re hostile to the individual it just makes sense to lean left.

Which does wonders for the “move on from some things and stick to other things like krazy glue dot org” pocketbook.

Well — really, I think the public owes a thank you to the New York Times. Look what they let us know about for forty cents on the dollar: When you’re a left-wing activist group, you tend to define truth, honor and loyalty according to whether people say the things you like. This is a valuable chunk of information, and I know of some people who need to be told about it. Maybe if the Old Gray Lady gets in too much hot water, the feds should bail her out. And maybe, just maybe, that situation won’t be too long in coming.

Wow. This really SHOULD be a big, big news story.

You know, the [spit] Corporate [spit] Conglomerates who control all of our media and manipulate in to promoting the agenda of the Anti-Progressive Meat-Eating-Internal-Combustion-Engine-Driving Patriachal Facists that we’re all supposed to be moving on from … they should have a field day with this.

This is a “why we need blogs” moment indeed!
- philmon | 09/13/2007 @ 11:18

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Steep Discount for Move OnThursday, September 13th, 2007

Steep Discount for Move On
Thursday, September 13th, 2007