TGIF Lite Post
Thursday, 4. June 2009
Favorite Quotes on MSM
As you must already know I have a ‘thing’ for well-crafted, punchy, witty, deep, or sometimes ultra sarcastic quotes. I truly envy those who can deliver a loaded message, a deep philosophical thought, or a mucking criticism, in a few wisely selected words and in one or two simply but effectively crafted sentence(s). Just take a look at my previous analyses and op-ed pieces. You see what I mean?!!! I am certainly not ‘talented’ that way 
How do I make up for it? Well, again as you can see, I borrow theirs, and place them in the openings and closings of my humble writings. Just in case people don’t have the time to read the painfully longer part written by me!
Okay, I am going to list a few favorite quotes of mine, those related to the media in general, and invite you to bring in and post yours. Here goes:
- • What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.
– W. H. Auden
• Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.– Thomas Jefferson
• People shouldn’t expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the ‘fringe’ media. — Ted Koppel
• The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.- – Eric Sevareid
• Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We’re supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We’re not supposed to be their megaphone. That’s what the corporate media have become. – - Amy Goodman
And, here is the latest cartoon on the MSM by Paul Jamiol; priceless, isn’t it?
Have a nice weekend!
Metemneurosis Says:
“We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.”
Dave Barry
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Thomas Jefferson
"Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed."
Elbert Hubbard
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one."
H. L. Mencken
Sorry if I went overboard
Kathleen M. Dickson Says:
My favorite quote:
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”
Winston Churchill
Anonymous Says:
Nice. Let me go dig. since someone already got this one:
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Thomas Jefferson
Elvis Says:
Sibel – thank you for having the courage to say anything at this point. Our country could use more people willing to point out the illusion of the right and left media.
Thank you for your service to us all – and keep blogging !!
mmonk Says:
Here's a quote people in the media today must know of:
"Get your facts first,and then you can distort them as much as you please."
-Mark Twain
A Progressive Alamedan Says:
This one's easy – I collect thoughtful quotes to get appended to the "signature" part of my emails. Here are a few relevant ones:
"Don't hate the media, become the media." — Jello Biafra
"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
— William Colby, former CIA Director
"I never thought I'd live to see the day that Americans would need to read Pravda to learn the truth about what's happening in the world." — (OK, not a famous quote; it's anonymous, and from a blog comment I found a while back. The source is lost.)
There you have it. Three quotes provided by one of your biggest fans.
arealjeffersonian Says:
A couple of my favorite TJ quotes have already been presented – here is another:
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. — Thomas Jefferson
Of the ones already presented, I like them all – my favorites are the Ted Koppel quote from Sibel and
the Mark Twain quote from mmonk
Sibel Edmonds Says:
Metemneurosis: As always, good choices! How did I miss listing that Jefferson quote?! One of my all time favorites. I have to add Dave Barry's quote to my own long list of favorites (not the one here, the 'real' long one I use for my writings).
Kathleen: I should have used this one as a banner for my NSWBC site. Every member, including me, needs to hear that (let's say daily) when things get so very hard…
Elvis: Welcome, and thank you. I see you are listed with my blog; hope to have you and your comments here regularly.
MMonk: Thank you for making me giggle; especially tonight, after a day spent dealing with AC guys fixing and re-fixing my unit. I love Twain, and this one on media: priceless!
A progressive Alamedan: Hello and welcome. I like the idea-add it to the e-mail 'signature.' One more item added to my list
Great quotes. Pravda quote-sadly true; let's help change it.
Jeffersonian: We should have a subgroup here for Jefferson Fans! 'Fringe' is one of their favorite labels…
Metemneurosis Says:
Sibel
Updated links on your Wikileaks page and (more significantly) made an interesting addition to Mr. Isakoff's Wikipedia page. Let me know what you think (may want to check before someone changes it or takes it down)
Roskilde Says:
A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get.
— Ian Williams Goddard
The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this, it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.
– Herbert Spencer
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. … corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
- Abraham Lincoln
Elvis Says:
You folks are beautiful. Those quotes remind me of one from when I was a kid:
“Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer,” said
English jurist William Blackstone. The ratio 10:1, now known as the “Blackstone
ratio,” expresses the classic Anglo-American ideas of the presumption of
innocence and (insofar as the statement speaks of “guilt,” “conviction,”
“imprisonment,” and the like) the burden of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that prevails in criminal law.
Sibel Edmonds Says:
Metemneurosis: Checked them out, looks good. Greatly appreciated!
Roskilde: Good ones. fav: Goddard.
Elvis: good point. You know, the other day I was thinking of all the great songs/lyrics written and performed in the 60s & 70s; those with political/activism angles. One good example: Leo Cohen. I am so out of touch with the current wave, but from what I see, despite the late awful political climate, for some reason (s), we don't have that revival. Why do you think that's the case? Are there any you know of? This may make an interesting TGIF Lite Post, but I need material. Is this a good/interesting idea? Any suggestions? This is what happens when you pick 'Elvis' as screen name and list your musical interest!!;-)
Elvis Says:
Think about it: 100s of TV channels and the illusion of range we're being sold these days is Rush on the right and Oberman on the left but it's just loudness at the edges of a very narrow distinction. Jon Stewart's comedy coverage is more objective than the news channels or networks.
eric zaetsch Says:
Aging -
Watching CBS covrage of the 1968 Dem convention in Chicago, as it happened – Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff, in the process of nominating George McGovern, referring to “Gestapo tactics on the streets of Chicago.” Then, 2008 RNC in St. Paul, same street tactics but in the 'burbs thinking, "The traffic will be heavy, we should plan another route."
Song lines-
Marley, "You be a big, big tree, we be a small ax."
Hunter-Garcia
"Went to see the captain, strangest I could find,
Laid my proposition down, laid it on the line.
I wont slave for beggars pay, likewise gold and jewels,
But I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools."
Springsteen, "57 channels and nothing on."
Dylan, "Twenty years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift."
Joni Mitchell, "Don't it always seem to be, you don't know what you got 'til its gone. They paved paradise and put in a parking lot."
Then, Pynchon-
Proverbs for Paranoids (Gravity's Rainbow):
1. You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.
2. The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.
3. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
4. You hide, they seek.
5. Paranoids are not paranoid because they're paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.
(Mason & Dixon)
"Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir'd, or coerc'd, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,- who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish'd, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev'ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government."
Ishmael Says:
"If you don't like the news, Go out and make some of your own." Scoop Nisker-Former KSAN News Director. More about him here:
http://www.jive95.com/
Anonymous Says:
From today, a nice quote to add from Glenn Greenwald…
What's most ironic about what the NYT did here is that on the very same day this article appears, there is a column from the NYT Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, excoriating the paper for having published a deeply misleading front page story by Elizabeth Bumiller, that claimed that 1 out of 7 Guantanamo detainees return to "jihad" once they are released. That happened because Bumiller followed the most common method of modern establishment reporting: she mindlessly repeated what her government sources told her to say. [emphasis added]
whole thing about our propaganda coverage is worth reading
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/07/torture_memos/index.html
Claudia Says:
I think Ames really nails it here:
"We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally. It would be easy to enlarge on its evils. They are in England, they are here, they are everywhere. It is a precious pest, and a necessary mischief, and there would be no liberty without it."
Fisher Ames, Review of the Pamphlet on the State of the British Constitution, 1807
Isaac and the Awkward Situations Says:
Hi Sibel.
Ive been reading this blog and there's lots of great quotes!
Here is one from Daniel Ellsberg
"Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed," "idiotic," and "dangerous to national security," as well as "criminal." -Daneil Ellsberg
we could probably add "embarrassingly Expensive" to that list
"America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society."- this is credited to Peter Kropotkin- a Russian Anarchist writer who served time in the Peter Paul fortress.
Isaac Paris
I wrote an interview with Sibel Edmonds . it is available here
http://www.esterrepublic.com/Archives/iparis1.html';
Sibel Edmonds Says:
Isaac: Good to have you here. You are right, that's a great quote from Dan.
Metemneurosis Says:
A kind of quote within a quote.
"Liberal Democracy is moving to a form of corporate dictatorship. This is an historic shift and the media must not be allowed to be its facade, but itself made into a popular, burning issue and subjected to direct action. That great whistleblower Thom Paine warned that if the majority of the people were denied the truth and the ideas of truth it was time to storm what he called 'the Basitlle of words'."
John Pilger
Elvis Says:
I can't even express how great it has been reading the other comments as they've arrived in my email. There are some great minds and great people still alive in this great land.
Thank you all for sharing.