We wrote Monday of Leftist, George Soros-funded "media reform" outfit Free Press, and their extensive relationships with people currently in power at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and in the White House - up to and including President Barack Obama.
With current FCC Chief Diversity Officer ("Diversity Czar") Mark Lloyd and the Leftist, George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, Free Press co-authored the 2007 report The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Which calls for the FCC to enforce exceedingly broad (we would say warped) new definitions of the media diversity and localism FCC broadcast license requirements. These new definitions and their enactment are intended to force conservative and Christian talk show hosts off the air, to be replaced by those of a Leftist bent.
Free Press developed then-presidential candidate Obama's communications policies portfolio. Now-President Obama's FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hired Free Press Press Secretary Jen Howard to serve in the same capacity for the FCC. And Marxist 9-11 "Truther" Van Jones - who was President Obama's "Green Jobs Czar" until his multi-layered, anti-American and paranoid past came to light, forcing him to resign - was a Free Press Board member until 2008.
We also mentioned Free Press's co-founder, college professor and avowed Marxist Robert McChesney. (Some fairly interesting video quotes from him at right; inordinately interesting print quotes from him below the fold.) If you have not yet already had enough Marxism and Marxists, please - read on (warning - there's a Reverend Jeremiah Wright on-video sighting beneath as well).
McChesney is a busy man. In addition to teaching (Heaven help us) and having founded Free Press, he was the editor (2000-2004) and is a current board member of Monthly Review, which he himself describes as "one of the most important Marxist publications in the world, let alone the United States." (President Barack Obama's anti-Jewish, anti-American Reverend of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright, spoke at the Monthly Review's 50th anniversary celebration in September. Video of said stylings can be found here.)
McChesney is an acknowledged (renowned?) industry leader of the "media reform" wing of the "social justice" movement. McChesney views private ownership of media outlets as an impediment to the overturn of America's capitalistic system, which he seeks to see replaced with Marxist socialism. He wants to eradicate these owners of private property via "media reform" regulation so as to replace them with government as the sole purveyor of news and information. This, he says, is a fundamentally necessary precursor to his desired Marxist revolution.
Because it would certainly be better for the First Amendment if the federal government was our sole source for news and information.
Behold some of McChesney's frightening written thoughts on where he wishes to take first the media, then the nation. (You will note that, unlike the Jurassic Press [i.e. the traditional media] with Rush Limbaugh, we actually cite date and source when quoting someone.)
"There is no real answer (to the U.S. economic crisis) but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles."
A New New Deal under Obama?
December 21, 2008"Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself."
The U.S. Media Reform Movement
September 15, 2008"Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism. It is impossible to conceive of a better world with a media system that remains under the thumb of Wall Street and Madison Avenue, under the thumb of the owning class."
Journalism, Democracy, ... and Class Struggle
November 2000 issue of Monthly Review"At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control."
Media Capitalism, the State and 21st Century Media Democracy Struggles
August 9, 2009"The last thing we want to do, however, is rebuild the old media system. We are moving ahead toward a new kind of journalism. ...We want to democratize the media system so that people without property can play a much larger role in the media and in political life. The result of such democratization will, in my view, be a marked shift to the political Left."
Media Capitalism, the State and 21st Century Media Democracy Struggles: An Interview with Robert McChesney
August 9, 2009"To the extent commercial activities are given First Amendment protection, it makes the rule of capital increasingly off-limits to political debate and government regulation. In my view, progressives need to stake out a democratic interpretation of the First Amendment and do direct battle with the Orwellian implications of the ACLU's commercialized First Amendment."
The New Theology of the First Amendment: Class Privilege Over Democracy
March 1998 issue of Monthly Review"Advertising is the voice of capital. We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it. The fight against hyper-commercialism becomes especially pronounced in the era of digital communications."
Media Capitalism, the State, and 21st Century Media Democracy Struggles: An Interview with Robert McChesney
September 8, 2009"Walter Isaacson has proposed that newspapers come up with a plan to charge readers ‘micropayments' for online content. Even if such a system were practically possible, the last thing we should do is erect walls that block the openness and democratic genius of the Internet."
The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers
March 18, 2009"Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism...The democratic state, the government, must create the conditions for sustaining the journalism that can provide the people with the information they need to be their own governors."
The Death and Life of Great American Newspapers
March 18, 2009"Venezuela is a constitutional republic. Chavez has won landslide victories that would be the envy of almost any elected leader in the world, in internationally monitored elections."
Venezuela and the Media: Fact and Fiction
June 1, 2007"Aggressive unqualified political dissent is alive and well in the Venezuelan mainstream media, in a manner few other democratic nations have ever known, including our own."
Venezuela and the Media: Fact and Fiction
June 1, 2007"If (critical of Hugo Chavez Venezuelan station) RCTV were broadcasting in the United States, its license would have been revoked years ago. In fact its owners would likely have been tried for criminal offenses, including treason."
Venezuela and the Media: Fact and Fiction
June 1, 2007
Are we going to see this anti-free speech, anti-free market "media reform" roadmap implemented by an FCC and a White House so closely aligned with its authors?
Not if we can help it.
