it is only a matter of time before progressives use the power of the state to regulate speech on the internet and on talk radio I fear you are absolutely right about this. The left is relentless and their time horizon is as elastic as is necessary to accomplish their aims, witness their century long commitment to enact Obamacare. Their endurance would rival that of the Chinese. Their recent attempts to strangle free speech on the Internet is only the preliminary skirmish in a war which they are prepared to wage until we are exhausted. Most well-intentioned Americans are not even aware of what is coming.
If we are convinced that a top down approach to political sanity probably cannot work because the media dominates the process, we might feel one more layer of the onion and ask what influences the media? You properly point out the financial control progressives exert over the media. I had not been aware of Warren Buffett's purchase of Media General but that is very frightening. I had been aware of his participation in the Washington Post and its affiliated companies beginning with his relationship with Katharine Graham but I had not known that it had matured into ownership across the board.
Is there another layer below financial control of the media? I think there is the matter of intellectual conceit. If Harvard and Yale dominate American law, Columbia and a few other institutions dominate American media. The influence is subtle and I think best described as "intellectual conceit" which lays down a menu of political correctness which locks the media in place. We are all familiar with how the New York Times defines what is newsworthy for the day and we see how the electronic media conforms to that dictate. For a reporter or an editor in a lesser publication or in a regional television newsroom to deviate from the established order is to betray oneself as a Philistine.
We see this phenomenon at work in our eleemosynary institutions such as our great foundations like Ford, Rockefeller, Pew and others originally established by their benefactors with conservative values animating the gift but over time the professionals insinuate themselves onto the boards and guide the institutions to the left. This is also a matter of intellectual conceit.
We know this is at play in academia. The college campus has become one of the most fascistic pieces of geography in America. The intellectual conceit at work there is not covert but very much in your face. Gown seems to have a need to say, "fuck you" to town.
In many of these institutions, especially the college campuses, we see progressives somehow funding themselves with our money. College tuition costs have gone through the roof as academicians have learned how to farm the government. Our foundations flourish in a tax-free environment. So in peeling off layers of the onion, we see that we have multiple institutions, many not mentioned here such as unions, especially teachers unions, hospitals etc. funded with public monies in some manner or other which makes these institutions immune to the frictions of capitalism and, worse, insulates them from the popular will.
All of this comes together in Washington. We Americans somehow sense that this Leviathan is out of control and the visible evidence of it appears to be the shenanigans in Washington. So we blame Washington or we blame the politicians there when they are only the symptom of a progressive infiltration of our entire culture.
How then do we reform our politics if we cannot reform Washington? We know the top down approach will not work because it has not worked. The system is defended by the media, our own institutions and our own tax dollars. I do not think for a moment that even rank progressives who dominate the Senate are unaware of the looming threat represented by our $17 trillion debt and our $120 million or more set of unfunded liabilities. I cannot believe they do not care because they make a religion of "caring."
I think they are in a psychic cage and can do no other.
The only approach for which I see even a glimmer of hope is the Article V movement and that hope, as feeble as it is, exists only because it attempts reform from outside Washington.
” I do not think for a moment that even rank progressives who dominate the Senate are unaware of the looming threat represented by our $17 trillion debt and our $120 million or more set of unfunded liabilities.”
The collapse of the dollar and the economy is coming within the next five years. As the pre-election September 2008 financial crisis demonstrated, the left has the ability to precipitate an economic crisis in order to achieve political objectives and has the capability to coordinate such efforts with foreign powers. While we the people have been told the cause of the 2008 crisis was due to a bad mortgage bubble, there were certainly deliberate actions by a few actors who caused a run on US banks at a specific moment in time. This run on the banks caused the stock market crash and the subsequent sharp downturn in the economy. Certainly those in power, in both the Bush and Obama administrations, know who the forces were tipping the scales in September 2008. However that information has not been shared with the public nor have any of the bad actors been brought to justice.
The absence of any real effort to investigate these actions, or protect the economy from a future concerted attack of this kind, suggests the power structures of both political parties are more allied with protecting the Wall Street establishment, and concealing the actions of foreign powers (likely Russia, China, and some of the Middle East oil states) than the American people. It is clear federal government and Federal Reserve policies since the 2008 crisis have been designed to impose the costs of malfeasance and poor management by the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury, and the “too big to fail banks” on the public instead of the bondholders, shareholders, and management who would suffer if we had a free market economy.
I fear the next economic crisis, a major meltdown, will also be triggered for political ends. In a dollar meltdown scenario, where other nations refuse to use the dollar to settle accounts and hyperinflation appears rapidly, I can see a progressive president declaring a national emergency, sending Congress home, and assuming “temporary” dictatorial powers.
It is also conceivable if somehow the GOP wins the White House in 2016, as well as the House and Senate, a financial crisis could be triggered in late 2017 or early 2018 with the Republicans being fully blamed by the media and public for the crash. In that scenario the Democrats would capture overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate in 2018 allowing them to block any action by the Republican president for the next 2 years while blaming he/she for the economic depression. By the election of 2020 demographics and the perceived failure of Republican rule will set up the nation for a decades long period of one party rule. With control of enough statehouses as well it would be possible for the progressives to amend the Constitution to formally institutionalize an all powerful central authority.
My other near term concern is the Supreme Court. Over the past 50 years it has become highly politicized. Leftist Supreme Court justices, will read whatever they wish into the language of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress. Scalia and Kennedy are reaching the age they could leave the Court at any time. If one of them leaves the Court before the end of the current administration it is certain Obama will appoint another far left justice and the balance on the Court will be shifted forever. Even if the Republicans win the Senate in 2014, I don’t see a RINO Republican majority having the backbone to fight a radical leftist Obama Supreme Court nominee, much less rejecting one. Based on his past behavior, Obama and the Democrats would relish such a confrontation and will likely nominate a radical leftist female and/or minority so they can blame any opposition on sexism and/or racism.
If Scalia and Kennedy make it to 2017, and there is a RINO Republican in the oval office (Jeb Bush, Romney, Christie), I have no expectation a conservative will be nominated to the bench. We’ll see a moderate Harvard or Yale law school graduate who will turn to the left once on the Court.
With respect to the Article V movement, I also have little hope. Any amendments drafted by such a convention would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states to become part of the Constitution. Progressives control more than 1/4 of the states so any amendments limiting the power of the federal leviathan would certainly be rejected by the legislatures of those states unless there was such a groundswell of public opinion in favor the state legislators would fear for reelection. I don’t see the poorly organized conservative movement, with most of the media against them, being able to create that groundswell of public opinion in states such as Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, Maine, and others.
While at this moment I have little hope, I do not suggest giving up the fight. It is always dark before the morning light. There are still enough Americans alive who remember better times and believe in the historic concept of America. Plus the progressives are not yet fully in control. History gives us many examples of good besting evil when times seemed darkest. A series of events none of us can anticipate may yet occur to wake up enough of the American people to force radical change. Add a dynamic, patriotic, and visionary leader and many things are possible.