So, it goes like this...late last night, I read Frank Rich's article on McLellan. Filled with anger, I jump on the comments section and rattle off some thoughts. Despite my history of writing things there that are too filled with truth to get posted, imagine my excitement when I just clicked over and saw...TADA...my post is number 1...with 94 people recommending it. You can check it out here: http://community.nytimes.com/...
But then...I get to the end, and my blood boils, my faith in democracy is once again crushed, and I start cursing like mad...
Those motha @#$%^&* took out the last, most important part. Everything I wrote led up to the last paragraph, where I said that none of this will change, until the American people take a good hard look at why the media failed us, at who owns them, who profits from the war, who was pressured to not ask the tough questions, who was silenced when they tried to do so. That summed up my last part, and it was completely taken out.
Now I sit here, once again ready to cry over the state of my country, wondering how all you Kossacks keep up the fight day after day, when I can barely keep from exploding over this.
It's very simple...the NY Times, the most influential paper in the world, decided that those last points were not appropriate. They could not be shared with my fellow Americans. Citizens of our free country were not allowed to be reminded about these things.
And all I can think of is my favorite Noam Chomsky quote:
"If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech."
But this isn't about things they disagree with. No...it can't be. They have no problem posting comments from people who continue to rant and rave that 9-11 was an inside job or that the Towers were brought down by Bush himself. Things like that, with not even a remote chance of factual support, get posted regularly.
This is about the most important media outlet supposedly dedicated to free speech in my supposedly free country, not allowing me to share my views with my countrymen. It is absolutely sickening, and I really don't know what I hoped to accomplish by sharing this. I just know I'm sitting here in my small town hoping to have some small impact on informing Americans and helping them improve our nation, and this pathetic excuse for a genuine media outlet has once again proven beyond a doubt to be nothing but a right wing, repressive propaganda machine, and here we are, again, with no way to hold them accountable for all of their failures. What, if anything, can be done? If these organizations have failed at their main task, failed as badly as such an organization can fail, and still we cannot make it known, or get anyone to admit mistakes, then what else is there to do?