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Of Palace-Court Stenographers and Democracies on Autopilot

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Beth Hunter

I write this comment in response to a stellar piece penned by Mark Hertsgaard in Salon.com on October 15th. The launching pad is this: "Contrary to their claims of neutrality and independence, most journalists in Washington function as palace-court stenographers; that is, the tone and content of their coverage reflect the views of the government officials and other elites who run the palace known as official Washington."

I’ve been cogitating a great deal of late, my beautiful friends, a very great deal, about how Americans get their news. The fact is, the vast majority of Americans do receive our news from a vast coterie of palace-court stenographers who simply pass off the views of government officials (particularly this administration) like royal water-carriers. One aspect of fascism is when the government and the corporations become one. When the foxes run the henhouse, and corporate media wolves are running with the foxes, there can be no such thing as journalistic integrity.

Until relatively recently, I was one of those Americans who listened to the mainstream news believing that most of what was said was true. Ha-ha, what an idiot am I! Now, before you call me a horn-swoggling, swamp-beast from the backwoods, I will tell you, with great embarrassment, that as an undergrad, I attended Michigan State University’s James Madison College studying for the degree, "Justice, Morality and Constitutional Democracy"; I spent my last two years at Northwestern University, majoring in Political Science (where I often wondered why I was paying so much to go to a school in which my Soviet Politics professor often swayed to a Vodka rhythm as he feebly taught my class of five billion students...but alas, I’m veering from the subject); and finally, to put the death knell on my coffin of no excuses, I went to law school and became a lawyer, while still ignoring politics. (Having canvassed my brilliant husband, he too affirmed that only until recently did he conclude not all was well in news-station-land.)

And yet, despite all of this grand-faluting education, I was a freaking idiot when it came to mainstream news. I tended to view it much like a wide-eyed little child who, looking up the aisle in church or synagogue, sees the commanding presence of the priest or rabbi, hears their powerful oratory, and thinks they’re god. But news about the world around us cannot be compared to religion, which operates on the principle of faith. If I look out the window and see a tornado speeding my way, it won’t cut the mustard for me to turn on the news to hear Dan Rather tell me that no such tornado exists, or that if I have faith, it won’t ram into my shack.

We are entering -- we already have entered -- a singularly dangerous and disturbing period in our country’s history. We have fallen down the rabbit hole, and are imprisoned within a political pod that is sucking the very life out of us, but we're dreaming, Matrix-style, that we're just going to and from our jobs, dropping the kids off at ballet practice, making chicken a la king, and then settling down to a satisfying evening of reality television before reading the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly in our comfy beds and nodding off to sleepy-land. (I am not including in this picture those in our country too poor to enjoy such "luxuries.")

And we do these things, I believe, with the subconscious certainty that our democracy runs on autopilot; that all battles that were necessary to be fought in this country are now behind us; that we can now rest on our laurels, ruminating about what gizmo to buy next at Wal-Mart while chomping away on Ho Hos. And what's really happening is this: Bush & Co. are loving how we think democracy runs on autopilot, and loves even more the army of palace-court stenographers. And they have used just these weaknesses, these cracks in the system, to roll their fascist steam engines over our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our standing in the world community, and last of all, but most importantly, our collective sense of decency and goodness. And if the average American doesn’t start waking up and sensing this virus of mainstream news fakosity, governmental demagoguery, and corporate misogyny spreading exponentially across our great land, then we are doomed.

I ask you to wake other people up to the steady drum-beat of a democracy that refuses to die under Bush & Co.'s boot. Lady Liberty is hiding under her tattered flag, and tears are silently being shed. Get up, get out, make a stink, have your voice heard, and do it for the Lady.

Beth Hunter

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION