Simon: We live in a Media State

The other day I criticized Roger Simon as hysterical. But I think he has it mostly right in this piece from October 1, which I’ve abridged below:

We Live Under a Media Coup d’État

… We are the victims of a media coup d’état and are currently living under it.

You will see that clearly in evidence on Wednesday night when the debates commence, each one moderated by a member of the liberal media nomenklatura. It is under the guidance of this liberalism, under their own version of sharia, if you will, that the debates will be conducted and Mitt Romney judged.

We have long lived under this assumed reign of liberalism—in our media, in our schools, and through our entertainment. It is as pervasive as the air we breathe and as unquestioned….

Barack Obama is a product of this coup d’état. In a very real sense, he helps them cement it, but he has, at most, four more years to reign. The real coup plotters, the New Media Class (to cannibalize Milovan Djilas), can go on in perpetuity. And that has always been their intention.

It is the media that rules us then, not politicians. Politicians come and go; journalists, pundits, commentators—in print, on television, and now on the Internet—last forever, or nearly, as they pass the baton to the next generation without a semblance of an ideological blip, seamless as a gold medal track team.

They are the ones who tell our story to us. They are our mirrors and they are indeed a new class, as resistant to change as any entrenched group of the rich and powerful….

This class, more than any, determined that Barack Obama should be president and they consequently will work more assiduously than any to assure his reelection, because a failure in that would be a serious, perhaps fatal, attack on their hegemony.

The coup would be in danger of a counter-coup. That can’t be allowed to happen. No facts, no events (Benghazi, Fast & Furious, endless unemployment, a healthcare fiasco) will get in the away or be allowed to be given serious credence….

[The coup] was so powerful that this year the Republican Party allowed the coup plotters to control the debates, even those that determined their own nominee.

And the rest of us sat outside, tweeting, blogging, hoping Charles Krauthammer would say something smart on Fox News or Rush would get his revenge. But the narrative is set. The coup has taken hold. It’s too late now—or is it? We live in a Media State.

- end of initial entry -

Dave T. writes:

That was a great article by Simon! Mainstream conservative pundits and those who pay attention to them have long recognized the bias of the “left-wing media,” but in my opinion they have rarely (if at all) appreciated the fact that these are the people that implicitly rule us. The leftist media doesn’t just distort the public consciousness in minor ways that can be corrected by non-leftist media; it actively molds it, which is why someone like Barack Obama is our president also why things like “gay marriage,” which would have been unthinkable a generation ago, are increasingly being accepted.

LA replies:

Exactly. When conservatives complain about liberal media “bias,” you know that they don’t see the problem at all. “Bias” means an unfair tilt in favor of one side. But what we have is the vicious and total liberal media control of information, opinion, everything, in which the media suppress most information that hurts their side and create a negative and hateful picture of the other side, making any normal politics impossible. They have virtually abolished politics toward the end of building a controlled society. Yet your average conservative commentator or Republican politician keeps talking about the problem of liberal media “bias.”

Also, it is impossible to respect Republican candidates who consent to appear in debates which are wildly slanted against them. Romney is the GOP presidential nominee. He can insist on an forum that would be acceptable to him. That recourse doesn’t occur to him. He—and all Republican candidates—willingly and complacently go like bulls to the slaughter. These Republicans are not men. They are terminally vapid nice guys totally unable to wage a real war against leftists.

Buck writes:

Patrick Caddell calls the press “the enemy of the American people.” He gave a talk at the Accuracy in Media Conference two weeks ago in which he describes the media’s “audacity of corruption” and gives examples.

It seems to me that we have long known that modern liberalism controls our media, especially the major outlets, just as ML controls all of our important institutions. We also know that the reason that most members of the media are members of the media is to push the modern liberal agenda. Has something changed? No, it’s just being solidified. Caddell says that “it needs to be talked about.” Mr. Simon lamely asks if it’s too late, after arguing that he thinks it is. No one seems have to the slightest idea what to do about it.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 02, 2012 10:36 AM | Send