Oddly, He’s A Subscriber
This is great piece of irony, which is lost on this particular Rockefeller. The greatest part about the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution is that through its successful implementation, the mental vacuity of people such as Jay Rockefeller is on full display for people to see. It’s always curious that many who champion the views of the liberal left, who notionally support the poor and downtrodden are themselves blessed with obscene wealth often passed on through the generations rather than by virtue of their own efforts. Our man Jay is a prime example of this. Great grandson of the legendary John Rockefeller, he of the Standard Oil Fortune, Jay’s only connection to the common man in his entire life was likely the filling station attendant at the family gas pump.
The most obnoxious feature of such leading citizens is their genuine belief that the worldviews conjured up in their fantasy worlds are the only ones that are valid and must be passed on as decrees to the unwashed masses. Despite reaping great wealth, success and respect within a political and social framework which enabled their ancestors to attain such success, they do their best to deprive others of exactly the same privileges and benefits. Our hero Jay’s most recent wisdom is that the FCC should shut down Fox News, MSNBC etc, to stop all them from broadcasting their inflammatory views. Of course, he really means FOX; MSNBC is on his team. That was thrown in to support the illusion that he was rational and fair.
“…There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX and to MSNBC: ‘Out. Off. End. Goodbye.’ It would be a big favor to political discourse; our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly, in their future…”
Well, first of all, the FCC doesn’t regulate cable. Secondly, unlike mainstream TV where all the distortions are free to any who will believe them, you actually have to pay for cable channels. Which means that people would rather pay up for the quality of information of FOX, than get for free the pretense of objective news on the networks. But it’s the unmitigated gall of this guy to promote muzzling free speech because some don’t happen to agree with him. The bug inside of him that he refers to can probably be fixed with a lobotomy day procedure. Our hero is dismayed that the popularity and reach of FOX has so successfully blunted the leftist propoganda that masquerades as news from his camp. The last set of midterm elections showed that people had a chance to evaluate the messages by the opposing political sides and his side lost big. Essentially, the public gave the Dems a big AS IF!
Third and most importantly, the main role of the press/media is to be an advocate for the people, not cheerlead the government. The First Amendment was crafted specifically so that governments could not run amok and spread propoganda to influence the public. By having a skeptical media, people were protected against a tyrannical regime. Hmm.
People in America are somewhat unique in the world in that they don’t really have the inclination to be governed by a ruling class, nothwithstanding the Camelot idiocy. The roots of the country predisposes the population to be skeptical of talkers and supportive of doers. As is now clearly obvious, people are more inclined to be partial to those who share their values than those that just talk about them. And if you’re talking about taking away the rights of free speech, well, that’s just un-American.