I've been invited to talk to the New York City Ron Paul Meet-Up group at 7:30pm this Tuesday - in particular, about the media's misreporting and in one case outright attack on Ron Paul, and what can be done about it.
I'll be talking at the Village Pourhouse on 11th Street and 3rd Avenue (southwest corner) for 30-45 minutes, followed by 15-30 mins for questions and answers.
The meeting room will be spacious. The general public is welcome. Admission will be free.
I think the media coverage of our election campaigns thus far should be of concern to anyone who values our democracy.
Ron Paul and his supporters, in particular, have received less than truthful treatment from a variety of media. ABC News and its affiliates has had the greatest confluence of misreporting, and I'll be talking in particular about ABC's posting of misleading photos, reporting of Internet poll results which left out Ron Paul's standing, and, in the case of ABC radio talkshow host Mark Levin, about his urging listeners to call Ron Paul headquarters with hostile comments. In short, I'll be discussing the many abuses I've been loudly blogging about here for the past weeks.
Readers of Infinite Regress also know I'd be outraged about such media malfeasance whomever I supported, but I do support Ron Paul for the Republican nomination for President. That's easy for me to do, for two reasons. 1. I think our country's disregard of the Constitution - whether it's trampling on the First Amendment or going to war without the Declaration of War required - has gotten us into enormous difficulties. Ron Paul is the only candidate in either party with a lifelong commitment to supporting the Constitution. 2. My second reason for supporting Ron Paul for the Republican nomination is that the other Republican candidates are simply impossible for me to support - three of them don't believe in evolution, and most support the Bush administration's continuation of the war in Iraq. (In all honesty, the last Republican I voted for in any election was John Lindsay in the 1969 NYC mayoral race. He won, and soon after switched his affiliation to the Democrats.)
But there are Democrats I admire in this Presidential election, too. Indeed, any of them is easily better than any of the Republicans, with the exception of Ron Paul. But the three leading Democratic contenders - Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards (in that order for me) also have qualities that would make me consider their candidacies very seriously (not to mention Al Gore, who at this point is not in the running). And "second-tier" candidates Kucinich and Biden have much to commend them, too.
Accordingly, I'm urging everyone to work for the best candidate receiving the nomination in each party. And in the happy event that this happens, we can then decide in the general election who is better - the Democrat or the Republican - to lead this country.
But, whichever candidate you support, I hope you agree that our democracy is best served by truthful media coverage. How can we make a rational decision when we're fed misleading and false information? When that happens, we are being starved of the basis of our democracy.
It would be good to see you on Tuesday. And I'll be posting a postscript here to my talk later Tuesday night or early Wednesday.
complete YouTube video of my talk
Further details on two of the above points:
ABC's Abuse of American Electorate to Be Included in my Curriculum This Fall
Something New: How About We Look for Best Candidates in =Both= Parties?
6 comments:
Paul,
Good luck at the meeting on Tuesday.
After last weekend, I will never take the time to post a thoughtful comment on a MSM site without utilizing my "screen capture."
I entered the fray of comments after Klein's slanted story re: Edwards and Coulter.
In each post, I avoided bad lanquage or impolite behaviour of any kind.
In my posts, I simply attempted to clarify some of Coulter's statements and put them into context.
I utilized direct quotes from verifiable sources.
And an hour later...only one post remained and it had been edited to sound both angry (which it was not) and incoherent; the edits were seemingly random other than their intent of making me sound illiterate.
I found it more than a little ironic that this was done by the ABC blog's moderator in a thread that was criticizing ABC's objectivity.
The posts (from self-described conservatives)that remained (over 800 total?) were almost universally from (sorry to say) people that did sound semi-illiterate or were defamatory or rude or indecent (much vulgarity).
The only conclusion I could draw was that ABC's moderator had made a concerted effort to portray all posters that criticized ABC's position as "grunting racist cavemen" (if there is such a thing).
They had NO interest in letting stand non-rude, non-defamatory posts...if they disagreed.
If nothing else, this whole "Ron Paul experience" with the MSM during the campaign will provide an object lesson in how an archaic medium is frustrated and (hopefully) overrun by a newer, more independent one.
If you are for Democrats you have no business talking to Paul supporters. He is a Republican..
Another infiltrator?
Robert: absolutely ... but keep on posting as much as you can ... every rational post and person helps tip the balance against the frightened censors...
anon: wake up... the world isn't black and white ... you're just having a bad dream...
Glad to see you're still following the coverage of the Paul campaign. There are many interesting aspects of this campaign due to it's unconventional nature. Your attention to the media component is greatly appreciated... not just as a supporter of Ron Paul, but perhaps more importantly as a consumer of media.
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Thanks, Dave - good to see your comment.
anon - thanks for the info
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