Today’s Free Press

Posted on August 8, 2011 by George Scaggs in Opinion

As you are currently reading alternative media, you probably already recognize that the entertainment-obsessed behemoth regarded as “the press” is anything but the free press that was intended way back when its rights were codified in the U.S. Constitution.

Any objective analysis of today’s traditional media industry can only conclude that the protection granted to the press in the First Amendment has been utterly wasted on it.

Here we confront the modern American dilemma – our ill-advised defiance of the Constitution. Much of the nation seems perplexed as to why our society no longer seems to work quite right but considers the continual assault on our Constitution to be virtually inconsequential.

The bold declarations contained in the Bill of Rights are clear, concise and axiomatic. But, more importantly, they are intended to bind government and ensure the Constitution’s efficacy. Once the tenets of the Bill of Rights are ignored or become twisted to mean something other than what was intended, the Constitution quickly becomes unraveled and is bit by bit rendered meaningless.

Unfortunately, we appear to have forgotten that those first Ten Amendments were necessarily added to our Constitution to guarantee its ratification. In sum, without the Bill of Rights there would be no Constitution. You cannot have one without the other.

That our system of governance no longer harmoniously works should be of no surprise. Once the rights which were codified to protect free men are considered flippant and left to the whimsical interpretations of the day, why should we expect anything less than trouble?

The problem is that large swaths of the population are indifferent about the whole matter. To our collective detriment, many a contemporary citizen has come to believe that government exists to provide for him. Blinded to the reality that he could ever possibly need protection from his government, he has become dependent and subservient. In essence, the state is now his master, because he has relegated himself to life as a lowly creature intended to serve at its will.

Rather than acting as an agent of protection against an intrusive government, today’s mainstream media — or Big Media, as I call it — at best merely seeks to entertain us. At worst, it has become an unofficial agent of the state, acting almost exclusively on its behalf.

Whether or not big media intends to promote the central government is irrelevant, for the net effect exists regardless. The point is that it has defied the system as it was designed, begetting a serious problem.

Fortunately, even those who torment us cannot defy the natural order of things. Again we find the rules of cause and effect at work. Alternative media was born from man’s innate struggle to be free, his natural resistance to the authoritarian nature of the state. The current rise of a new press is nothing less than the attempt to re-establish a free press – an essential component of a free society.

This too is easily misconstrued by an unsuspecting public, for the phenomenon is miscast, politicized by the advocates of big government. Having willingly assumed a supporting role in advancing the concept of infinitely expanding government, Big Media has been a central player.

Today’s large media outlets in conjunction with government, academia, and various corporate interests constitute what Angelo Codevilla succinctly identified as “the Elite Ruling Class” in his prodigious essay on the subject.

This relatively minute class is adept at manipulating that plurality of Americans who have come to view the state as an entity that does “for them” rather than “to them”. Once enough citizens buy into the charade, a self-perpetuating momentum is created. Over time, society becomes conditioned to adopt whatever this ruling class chooses to foist upon it. Anything goes, from “efficient” light bulbs to TSA pat-downs.

Used as a tool to keep the whole sordid system propped up, one of Big Media’s primary roles is to simply parrot big government’s daily proclamations, aiding in creating the perception of authority and omnipotence.

Of course, they do much more than that — constantly distracting the populace with endless circuses, and obfuscating the importance of what is happening in the world around us by presenting entertainment as information and information as entertainment.

Along the way, the protestations voiced through alternative media sources are merely presented as just more political squabbling. Reduced to just part of the overall noise in an age of too much information, sound objections are easily lost among the incessant trivial chatter.

Today, the dynamics of the whole struggle have become significantly more fluid as technology and social media rapidly change the relationship between citizens and their governments. From the Tea Party in America to political unrest in places like Egypt, the dramatic results are evident throughout the world.

In large part, alternative media has helped fuel the Tea Party movement, America’s latest manifestation of man pushing back against the state. As exemplified by Andrew Brietbart’s ACORN expose, these sources serve as catalysts, ultimately helping to animate the enormous discontent long simmering within the citizenry.

For the Tea Party to continue to advance its demands of smaller government and constitutional adherence, it must learn to wield this new media as a sword, just as the elite ruling class has done with traditional media outlets.

To maximize effectiveness, the new breed of constitutional conservative activists, like-minded legislators, and alternative media sources must all work in concert. It will prove incumbent upon conservatives to walk the walk. They must understand whom and what their dollars ultimately support — and then spend accordingly.

It will not do to keep propping up traditional media sources, their advertisers, and corporate interests who do the bidding of the ruling class. Starving the beast will prove essential to defeating it.

Of course, the other side has the right to their opinion too. It’s just they need to finance the dissemination of those opinions exclusively on the backs of those unfortunate souls who buy into their poppycock.

All hail the free press!

Tags: First Amendment, free press, media, tea party