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All White House administrations have a history of message control. Controlling the message is the White House’s highest priority. This administration is no different. However, this can lead to infringement ‘creep’ on free speech and press.

Glenn Beck clearly demonstrated this administrations efforts to control their message October 29th television show. I have taken the time to reiterate his points by redistributing the powerful quotations he provided from White House staffers and parties associated with the White House. I have also added a list of White House actions that have taken place just this year.

The context of these statements should be realized in full. That is, an awareness of the number of different people involved; their affiliation with liberal, often anti-capitalism and pro-socialist ideology; and their relationship to the power element.

I normally don’t write blogs of this length but I feel it is important to demonstrate all of these components together so one has a better appreciation of their relationship to the premise.

Directly White House Related

During President Obama’s campaign, in September of 2008, television reporters in Missouri said this [2:30]: “Senator Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign has asked Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs misleading television ads. Prosecutors and sheriffs from across Missouri are joining something called the Barack Obama Truth Squad“.

In the same month, Robert Bauer, Obama’s General Counsel, and husband of the White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, sent a letter to television stations in Ohio and Pennsylvania:
“You need not air this [NRA] advertisement. You have a duty to protect the public from false, misleading, or deceptive advertising…we request that you immediately stop airing this.” Glenn reported that television stations in Ohio and Pennsylvania were threatened with FCC license revocation if they did not comply.

Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar [8:40]: “Once we are in the situation where people who agree with more than we don’t are governing, the role of Progressive media [snaps his fingers] could change. You can’t have an opposition movement without opposition media.”

Mark Lloyd, the Federal Communication Commissions (FCC) Diversity Czar has said this: “What we are really saying is the Fairness Doctrine is not enough. Put some hard structural rules in place that are going to result in fairness. Who is going to step down so someone else can have power. It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often exaggerated. At the very least, broad references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communication policies.”

Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, in his book Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech said this: “A legislative effort to regulate broadcasting in the interest of democratic principles should not be seen as an abridgment of the democratic guarantee.”

Yosi Sergant, at the time the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Communications Director [3:38]: “This is just the beginning. We are now just learning to really bring this [NEA] community together to speak with the government. What this looks like legally. I would encourage you to pick something, whether its health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as key areas of service.” And this [bottom of article]: “This is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally?…bare with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely… “ This was a lengthy conference call with 75 NEA affiliated artists. Key points in this call as reported by one of the NEA artists, Patrick Courtrieiche: they were encouraged to bring the same sense of enthusiasm to these “focus areas” as we had brought to Obama’s presidential campaign, and we were encouraged to create art and art initiatives that brought awareness to these issues. …Obama has a strong arts agenda, we were told, and has been very supportive of both using and supporting the arts in creative ways to talk about the issues facing the country. A full transcript of the conference call can be found here.

During the same NEA conference call, Michael Skolnick, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons said this: “And so I’m hoping that through this group, and the goal of all this, and the goal of this phone call, is through this group we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign. But to continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the President’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the President and push his administration.”

Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director said this: “The reality of it is that Fox often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party, but let’s not pretend that they’re a news network the way CNN is. It’s opinion journalism masquerading as news.”

Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff said this: ” “The way to look at it and the way we — the president looks at it and we look at it — (it) is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” Emanuel said of FOX. “And that’s a different take. And more importantly does not have the CNNs and others in the world basically be led and following FOX, as if that — what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides and a sense of value (and) opinion.”

David Axelrod, White House Senior Advisor said this: “Mr. [Rupert] Murdoch has a talent for making money, and I understand that their programming is geared toward making money. The only argument [White House communications director] Anita [Dunn] was making is that they’re not really a news station if you watch even — it’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming. It’s really not news — it’s pushing a point of view. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate but understanding that they represent a point of view.”

President Obama has said this about the media [7:53]: ” When companies like Clear Channel start to gobble up all the radio stations, or Rupert Murdock starts eyeing a bunch of media outlets, they can outbid a bunch of smaller outlets. What I said is I am committed to having our FCC review what our current policies are in terms of media diversification.” In another statement [0:00]: ” The most important thing we can probably do is to preserve the diversity that is emerging through the Internet. That starts with an open Internet. I will take a back seat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality.” And this [1:00]: Part of what I want to do is expand the diversity of voices in media or have policies that encourage that.”

Indirectly White House Related

Free Press, whose motto is Reform Media Reform Democracy, who is closely affiliated with
Media Matters, and according to Glenn Beck has a sympathetic ear with the FCC and whose Co-Founder, Robert McChesney has meetings at the White House several times, who has vowed to take apart capitalism brick by brick, has said this [7:18]: “Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.” He has also said this: “I think it is absolutely indefensible to allow this concentration of media industries. We need a viable anti-trust plan to break up these concentrated media conglomerates. There is no justification to have figures like Rupert Murdock [Fox News] news corporations - break it up.”

Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver, has said this (in regards to Public Broadcasting)[3:30]: ” the growing crisis facing commercial journalism - and public media’s unique ability to address it - makes such reform all the more urgent. You [Obama] have a rare opportunity to achieve real change and reinvent public media. Just as the economic crisis has put an end to free market fundamentalism, so too should the failure of commercial media to adequately serve the public interest and the myth that government has no role in fulfilling society’s information needs.”

Free Press Senior Program Director Craig Aaron [6:45] ” We need new policies to support the media, and I hate to break it to some of you, but the government is going to have to be involved…so what if instead you took a few thousand AmeriCorp jobs and gave them instead to news gathering organizations.”

Actions (Where Words are Not Enough)

Emphasizing this articles LIMITED REVIEW is a brief list of actions the White House has taken JUST THIS YEAR:

1. Bill would give President emergency control of Internet
2. Proposals and debate to provide Net Neutrality
3. White House refusing to put Obama on Fox News during Sunday morning press rounds
4. White House attempt to have citizens send ‘fishy’ information to flag@whitehouse.gov
5. World Net Daily reports on several instances of the White House scrubbing the Internet
6. Wiki pages are frequently being scrubbed of contrary content
   
7. There have been high level meetings and discussion regarding newspaper bailouts, something President Obama is open to
8. AmeriCorp funding tripled this year, the largest amount ever (Free Press’ proposed future journalists)
9. NEA funding was just increased to the largest amount in sixteen years (proposed propaganda machine)
10. Yosi Sergant was ‘reassigned’ after his NEA conference call became public (White House distancing)
11. President Obama promised to create an ArtistCorp during his campaign
12. US Dept of Justice subpoena’s news website user list and other confidential information
13. Honorable mention (not White House related): New Hampshire will bail out a failing newspaper

Clearly, this administration has a zealous desire to CONTROL the message. They certainly have overtly demonstrated the desire to SUPPRESS the message (Fox News). They even have expressed a desire to CREATE the message (NEA conference call). What was a weekly assault on free speech is becoming almost a daily event.

It is clear to me that a systematic and purposeful endeavor is afoot by the White House to control the media perhaps in ways that we have never seen before. Admittedly, I lack a necessary historical perspective in order to determine the scale of egregious this approach has or will become. I certainly have more than an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I have an uneasiness in my gut.

I hope this helps you to realize and discover your own truth [please read the post The Manipulators of Reality].

LIBERTY IS MEANINGLESS WHERE THE RIGHT TO UTTER ONE’S THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS HAS CEASED TO EXIST. THAT, OF ALL RIGHTS, IS THE DREAD OF TYRANTS. IT IS THE RIGHT WHICH THEY FIRST OF ALL STRIKE DOWN. -FREDERICK DOUGLAS

Todd
ideapalooza
@ideapalooza
November 11, 2009