The New Samizdat
Blah3 has a good observation about of what's been happening to the media in this country:
"The free press in this country has been utterly destroyed by the Bush administration, and they've done it without taking the usual extraordinary steps that most totalitarian regimes resort to.
When the issue of press freedom has been brought up in the past, a common response from the Right has been along the lines of 'No newspapers are being shut down. No TV networks are being censored. They can still print whatever they want.'
But the point is this - because they have decided to spy on media outlets and they've come right out and told those outlets they were being spied upon, there's no need for them to censor them or shut them down. Because their phones and networks are being watched, media outlets have altered their behavior - and that alone has changed the nature of news reporting whether anyone wants to acknowledge the fact or not.
When a major news daily has to go offline or buy disposable cell phones to work stories - when they have to resort to what the Bush administration describes as terrorist tactics in order to simply get their jobs done - it is no longer an exaggeration to state that free media in this country has been all but extinguished."
It's been a pattern of stealth fascism. They know they can get away with whatever they want if people think they're free. No need for all the clunky, overt trappings of a totalitarian state. Visible repression is always fought; this new fascism is quiet, behind the scenes and injects just enough fear in the right places at the right time for clandestine control.
Of course sometimes a little skull busting goes a long way too.
"The free press in this country has been utterly destroyed by the Bush administration, and they've done it without taking the usual extraordinary steps that most totalitarian regimes resort to.
When the issue of press freedom has been brought up in the past, a common response from the Right has been along the lines of 'No newspapers are being shut down. No TV networks are being censored. They can still print whatever they want.'
But the point is this - because they have decided to spy on media outlets and they've come right out and told those outlets they were being spied upon, there's no need for them to censor them or shut them down. Because their phones and networks are being watched, media outlets have altered their behavior - and that alone has changed the nature of news reporting whether anyone wants to acknowledge the fact or not.
When a major news daily has to go offline or buy disposable cell phones to work stories - when they have to resort to what the Bush administration describes as terrorist tactics in order to simply get their jobs done - it is no longer an exaggeration to state that free media in this country has been all but extinguished."
It's been a pattern of stealth fascism. They know they can get away with whatever they want if people think they're free. No need for all the clunky, overt trappings of a totalitarian state. Visible repression is always fought; this new fascism is quiet, behind the scenes and injects just enough fear in the right places at the right time for clandestine control.
Of course sometimes a little skull busting goes a long way too.
posted by nolocontendere at 9:02 PM
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