Author’s Note - I began my most recent post with the following:

“I never imagined that I’d find myself quoting Bill’s one-time heart throb (okay, eons of time ago), but using her just happens to suit my purpose. (Guess Bill and I aren’t so different after all….)”

Due to an inadvertent title change (the title was to have been the same as this one’s), readers were no doubt puzzled by this. Hopefully, this will clear things up.

Anyone who registers even the faintest EKG response realizes that the “Mainstream Media” isn’t mainstream. So if you felt your not insignificant intelligence was being insulted…and therefore didn’t dive headlong into the piece, I’d ask you to reconsider, as I believe our perception of the establishment media (which almost no one in this audience either reads or watches) is at the very root of all that ails us…and I mean that with absolute sincerity!

Note that I did not say that the endangered media is the problem, but that our perception of it is. Hear me out….

Every national Conservative pundit I know, with the exception of Rush Limbaugh (who has famously – and accurately – dubbed them the “Drive-by” or “Endangered Media”), Michael Savage, and Joseph Farah (who both refer to them as the “so-called ‘mainstream’ media”), mindlessly refers to them as the “mainstream” or “MSM” – freely bestowing upon them the highest of both compliments and credibility!

Would we have called the Communists’ Pravda (far more conservative today than our own state-controlled press!) the Soviet Union’s “mainstream” media? Of course not! It was nothing more than a state-owned organ of propaganda…and while George Soros may not own the New York Times outright (or even in part), it is clear that he, his allies, and his pawns are in lockstep with its entire agenda. (Obviously everything I have said about the networks applies to the so-called “Newspaper of Record,” as well as to its counterparts from coast to coast – whose viewership and coffers are also universally, and happily, “on the brink.”)

To put this in perspective I will recount an experience I had last spring, when AZ State Representative Carl Seel took me by to introduce me to then Speaker of the House, Andy Tobin. It was a Friday afternoon, perhaps 2:00 or 3:00, and the Speaker had gone for the week, as it turned out. His secretary dutifully wrote down my name and phone number, however, promising to have him call me…which, of course, he never did. I knew little about the Speaker at that time, but have since learned all I need to know: he’s a “Republican” – not a Conservative, and a “politician” – not a Statesman, as best I can tell. (It’s difficult, of course, to know any of our “representatives” well when they refuse to respond to their constituents!

As I left his office that day, and passed through the deserted anteroom, there on a freshly-polished inlaid-Mahogany desk, positioned with almost reverential deference it seemed, was a symbol of everything that was wrong with our “veto-proof” Republican Legislature, buoyed up (?) by our Republican (CINO) Governor. There, as a voice from the past, lay the day’s copy of the once-great, once-revered Arizona Republic – no doubt in a far-distant time, the voice of the People of the Great State of Arizona…but no longer.

Like every other “news” outlet and major establishment newspaper in America, it had long since ceased to speak for the People, but had become a pointed instrument through which the errantly-named “servants of the People” could oppress them (in the name of “the oppressed”), and deprive them of their God-given, and at one-time Constitutionally-protected, rights.

Yet how are The Republic and its ideological counterparts nationwide referred to by virtually everyone on our side to this day? As the “mainstream media” – the theoretical “voice of the People.”

In truth, however, almost none of us reads The Republic any more (I know of no one personally); and its circulation attests to that; but as long as the politicians (our putative representatives) do – and as long as they mindlessly accept that the rest of us do – it will continue to inform their every emotional impulse. (I almost said “every thought,” but would have missed the mark in so doing!)

Make no mistake about it, John McCain, Jon Kyle (formerly), and now Jeff Flake have no doubt that The Republic speaks both FOR and TO the citizens of Arizona…although nothing could be further from the truth. (Circulation today is 275,622 daily, and 483, 556 on Sunday, out of a population of 4,289,323, or some 1,578,471 households; thus making the portion of households receiving The Republic 31% on Sunday, but only 17% during the week.

As long as they (our elected officials) believe that The Republic speaks for (and to) the citizens of Arizona, however – and they no doubt will continue to do so until we drive them from office for failing to represent us – they will continue to rule over us with disdain and disregard for our sovereignty and for our rights.

While they may well know that these outmoded organs no longer represent the views of the People, they simultaneously know that they DO represent the views of the elite Ruling Class…and towards the latter is clearly where their loyalty lies! (There are exceptions among elected officials, but they are just that…and rare indeed!)
Our president’s mentor Saul Alinsky said this: “Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have” (pp. 126-127, Rules for Radicals).

As long as we the People – and our “leaders” – continue to accept that the OEM (Obsolete Establishment Media) either represents the People, or is being listened to by the People, they will continue to be considered the voice of authority, the FINAL word on what WE want or believe.

And yet, they have ONLY the power which WE, the People, give them…and no more. (Those whom we employ to represent us may choose to follow the lead of the OEM, but as their employers we can terminate their employment when we finally rise up and do so (John McCain being the perfect place to start!).

This all begins, of course, with an understanding of the true strength of our position, and the abject weakness of theirs! (That is what this entire article has been about.) We needn’t mindlessly and obsequiously grant them a status and an authority which not only belie reality, but are completely undeserved!

So here is a tip for all of us: Turn them off! Don’t buy, watch, or read them…and refer to them no more as the “mainstream media” or “MSM”! You wouldn’t consciously give money to the DNC (or perhaps even the RNC at this point!), so why would you give money to, or otherwise support, those who trumpet their failed message to the world, in defiance of the voice of the majority of the American People?

Enough is enough! We don’t need to “tune in” in order to know what they are up to! (If you couldn’t write their every story, giving their every officially-approved party line – on any subject, on any given day – then, with respect, you haven’t been paying attention!) Any one of us could write for any one of their publications starting tomorrow…or sooner! All we’d need to do is lip-sync their anemic platitudes…and cease to engage in rational thought. Like you, however, I’m afraid I can’t – and won’t- do that!

To be continued….

Tom Ballantyne is the author most recently of Uncommon Sense…Apparently! A Call To Arms, and Oh Really, O’Reilly! – both available at Amazon.com and at his website: www.UncommonSenseNow.com.  You may email Tom with comments at ThomasMBallantyne@gmail.com.