One of the more enduring myths accepted as reality in our modern society is that America has a relatively free press. The ruling authorities and their entrenched accomplices promote that lie as diligently as they work to ensure that it never again becomes true. America did have a mostly free and independent press until the rise of broadcasting in the 1920s. Within a few years, a small group of Republicans, progressives and corporate interests successfully nationalized the airwaves with restrictive licensing that blocked competition, rewarded insiders and squelched dissent.
Over the next few decades, the increasingly powerful medium of radio and then television drowned out the previously broad spectrum of information and ideas—with often three or more diverse choices of daily newspapers in many U.S. cities—and turned free speech into carefully rationed federal broadcasting privileges, their anointed urban newspaper monopolies and a few approved magazines.
One of the more ironic parts of this forgotten history is that a Republican, Herbert Hoover, led the initial charge to politicize the press. When the more authoritarian FDR took the reins in 1933—holding onto power until his death in 1945—he would ultimately purge the airwaves as well as the newspaper and magazine stands of the nation’s greatest commentators, publishers, editors and writers. In their absence, only pro-war / pro-welfare state neo-liberals and neo- conservatives would survive in mainstream media for generations to come.
During Roosevelt’s tenure in office, administration officials and prominent associates would wage a scorched-earth campaign against any independent voice of dissent while generously rewarding supporters. Popular radio talk-show hosts Father Charles Coughlin and Boake Carter were dramatically forced off the air. New Republic columnist and author John Flynn was successfully targeted for censorship by FDR himself. Independent newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, a lifelong Democrat who initially supported FDR but later soured to New Deal abuses, was vilified and marginalized. Robert “Colonel” McCormick of the Chicago Tribune got roughed up by Roosevelt’s cronies in a similar fashion.
(Anti-New Deal publishers Hearst and McCormick were so popular with the general public that their newspaper “holdings comprised over 50 percent of the country’s Sunday circulation” according to pro-FDR media historian Betty Houchin Winfield. Once those independent newsmen’s reputations were destroyed, establishment papers in New York and Washington D.C. would come into prominence.)
The Hollywood studios of Walt Disney were occupied by federal troops one day after Pearl Harbor. The editor and lead columnist for the Saturday Evening Post— middle-America’s most admired weekly read—were run off the magazine. Libertarian writer, Albert Jay Nock, was blacklisted. Editor for the liberal Nation magazine, Oswald Garrison Villard, met the same fate. Famous aviator and anti-war spokesman, Charles Lindbergh, found himself viscously condemned by pro-war media for quietly speaking the truth. Popular syndicated columnist at the Baltimore Sun, H.L. Mencken, may have “voluntarily” went into oblivion under hostile conditions that still don’t make sense.
These are just some of the big names that went down with a fight. (All of the bolded names above will receive some overdue exoneration a bit later.) No one will ever know how many other smaller fish were scared off from honest reporting as a result of political pressure.
Today, this would be like President Trump having his underlings run coordinated smear campaigns and putting the Washington Post, Time magazine, and both MSNBC and CNN out of business or replacing their editorial staff with reliable pro-Trump lackies. To complete the parallel, a Trump campaign spokesman in Hollywood would have to direct a movie portraying a major publisher (say, Arthur Sulzberger of the NYT) as a hideous demagogue… all in good sport, of course......
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NN SEZ: The title may not be as sexy as some, but these are MAJOR, juicy revelations. Article got carried at (among other places) Winterwatch, LRC, and something great-looking called Missouri Free Press.
At this point I have to start asking meself whether Herbert Hoover was a jew. FDR certainly was -- he and Eleanor may have only been like 1/16, but Oh GOD the jew tyranny and terror they shoved on the world!
I spent an hour earlier today learning yet further what scum the GOPers in the South Carolina legislature are. It's so handy, the GOP, for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory just in the nick of time. Isn't it?
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Via missourfreepress.com -- not vetted yet, just discovered it:
Mencken quote! www.azquotes.com/quote/196795
Why are Most People Cowards? | Obedience and the Rise of Authoritarianism
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOJLGpfnX34
Non-Compliant the movie
libertyfirstsoci ety.com/noncompliantmovie/
Most Controversial Document in Internet History: The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia
missourifreepress.com/2021/01/18/most- controversial-document-in-internet-history-the-hidden-history-of-the- incredibly-evil-khazarian-mafia-verterans- today/
Click for Full Text!