Dear Friend of Liberty,
It's been a while since we have written our last newsletter. We've been sending out Liberty Quotes for 17 years now - and some of you have been with us since the beginning! (Hey, when are you gonna make a donation?) My hearty thanks for supporting us for so long! :-)
After a tumultuous year of the new Reality TV series, 'The Press Gets Trumped,' the mainstream media's facade has fallen and its underpinnings revealed. Prior to the digital communications age, we got our TV news from one of 3 channels, with round table discussions like Meet The Press on the weekend. It was all very professional, with newsmen and anchors who spoke with solemn authority - it was serious business. Their tone set the national tone. |
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"I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry's planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence."
~ Edward R. Murrow
(1908-1965), American Broadcast Newsman |
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| The discovery of this immense power, to reach into the hearts and minds of nearly everyone, has resulted in multi-media telecommunications giants that 'literally' write, cast, and produce the 'narrative' for our daily lives, (re)defining the meanings of fundamental concepts and words, and drawing power and authority to themselves in the process. Billions are spent on campaigns, with media moguls pumping out the 'message.' |
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"And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, [President Trump] could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control what people think. And that, that is our job."
~ Mika Brezinski
MSNBC Co-Host of Morning Joe
2/22/2017 Morning Joe program |
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"I would not be fooled by the old myth that reporting is about objectivity. Deciding what is news is the most subjective of acts and it is probably the most important thing that we do."
~ Carl Bernstein
investigative reporter for the Washington Post |
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| What this brings home for me is just how important it is to those 'producing' a culture that I adopt their narrative as my own. Without my buying into it, the deception is seen for what it is, a program, something to tell myself to make it all OK. What excuses do I give myself when I do not live up to my own principles? Often I find those justifications within the 'narrative.' |
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"Framing is a process whereby communicators, consciously or unconsciously, act to construct a point of view that encourages the facts of a given situation to be interpreted by others in a particular manner."
~ Jim Kuypers
Assistant Professor of Communications, Virginia Tech |
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"... political reporters love to write about politics as if they are merely disinterested observers of political events and the public's perceptions of them, when in fact they play a very key role in shaping those events and perceptions."
~ Greg Sargent
columnist for the Los Angeles Times |
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Independence has always been a driving force in my life; ever since a child, I wanted to be treated as an adult. To this day, I am still waiting... :-)
But I realize that the responsibility rests with me. The 'narrative' is mine to write, I am the protagonist of my own story. I am constantly being bombarded with storylines to adopt that cast me in a disparaging light or in subservience to another leading role - I am not to be the hero of my own journey but to give my power to another, a more worthy character, and happily wait in the wings until the final curtain. Frankly, I do not want the part, thank you. I prefer my own script. |
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"Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil."
~ John Adams
(1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President |
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| "In the beginning was the Word..." How much power is there in my own declarations? "Why am I here?" Am I not held to account by Heaven and Earth for how I have answered that question in practice? When falsehood is revealed, it loses its power - what power the truth does wield! Liberty includes liberation from the bondage of that which is not true - isn't it the truth that sets us free? |
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"Truth: the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death."
~ John Gilmore
(1935- ) Author |
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| The media's illusion-machine has been exposed. People are writing their own narratives, having their own dialogues, without the information monopolists, and word police - the individual has never been more empowered. But Natural Law still rules - if the truth sets you free, what will fiction do? Are my own assertions perfect? I doubt it. But I expect a response, and through an honest dialogue, the truth reveals itself further, at least as much as I am willing to bear. |
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"The main thing is to have a soul that loves the truth and harbours it where he finds it. And another thing: truth requires constant repetition, because error is being preached about us all the time, and not only by isolated individuals but by the masses. In the newspapers and encyclopedias, in schools and universities, everywhere error rides high and basks in the consciousness of having the majority on its side."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832) German writer and statesman |
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| When I remember that I get to color in the lines to make a little bit of this world my own, I do want it to be a picture others will enjoy, just as I have enjoyed what others have drawn. I see that we ALL have a share in creating our world, improving upon what has already been built. Such is the pursuit of happiness. |
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream."
~ Mark Twain
(1835-1910) |
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