Sunday - September 12, 2004

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

How many of you read and understand Latin? Not many, I’ll be willing to bet, considering the sorry state of today’s education system in America. Our children are graduating from high school and cannot even read English, much less another language. That is sad because no one will know what the title of this post means unless they can Google the internet and find out. But the topic of this editorial is not our rotten education system but another important issue facing us today.

Over two hundred years ago our Founding Fathers sat down and invented a whole new form of government out of whole cloth. The inserted all kinds of checks and balances in the Constitution to insure that no one individual or group could obtain dominance over the majority of people in the country. They very carefully crafted a cunningly interwoven system of government whereby each branch of government constantly kept an eye on the other branches and they were all controlled by the citizen’s vote and even that was balanced by the Electoral College. They created this byzantine system of shared power and then, to top matters off, they added a “Bill Of Rights”, the first of which added another “check and balance” with the First Amendment that guaranteed freedom of the press. They reasoned that a free and unfettered corps of newsmen, outside the government, could maintain a vigilance over the government’s actions to keep the people informed in case that government started behaving badly. They became the “watchers” over the government and were to be given the freedom to keep the American people informed.

Today that system of checks and balances is in jeopardy. A large portion of the national “media” has come under the influence of Liberals and the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has become a haven for all sorts of Liberals and Socialists in modern-day America. That by itself, is not a bad thing. Unless that group manages to exert an undue influence over the “watchers” in the media. This has been evidenced in several alarming episodes during the current election.

First, the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth questioned John Kerry’s war record. Since Kerry was the Democratic Party’s nominee the media took it upon themselves to discredit this group. At first they ignored the story but when it became evident that the American people were paying attention to the story they followed the Democratic Party line and started attacking the veterans and their story. They covered extensively John Kerry’s complaint that President Bush was behind their attack on him. How did the American people become aware of the story of the SBVT and how did the American people get a chance to listen to the veterans and to hear their side of the story? It was not the national media, who have instead attacked ad hominem the veterans and picked away at bits and pieces of their story. No, the entire set of facts was brought into the public eye and covered extensively by .... the blogosphere.

Second, the recent documents presented by CBS News purported to show President Bush had not fulfilled his duties in the National Guard thirty-five years ago. This “news story” aired on CBS last Thursday night and immediately became a talking point for all other media outlets the next day. They were all eager to find fault with President Bush, as per the Democratic Party line. In fact, the documents are suspected to have been originally sent to the DNC which gave them to CBS. But then a strange thing happened last Friday and Saturday. A group noticed that the documents in question didn’t seem to be quite right and started an investigation to determine their validity. Those experts unanimously agreed that the documents were a forgery. The group that disclosed this trickery by the national media was .... the blogosphere.

What is the blogosphere? It is a diverse collection of ordinary people sitting down at their computers every day speaking their minds. Men, women and children all participate. A CBS News executive recently characterized them as “ignorant fools sitting around in their pajamas trying to write”. He couldn’t be more wrong. The blogosphere contains people from all walks of life, all occupations, all religions, all ethnic groups and all political parties. The blogosphere is the American citizenry armed with the ability to communicate instantly with hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens. The blogoshpere has become the modern-day method of communicating news and opinions all across the country at the speed of light but unlike the major national media there are two very important differences, (1) blogs cannot get away with reporting erroneous facts because the readers will fact-check your butt in a New York minute and tell you so .... publicly, and (2) bloggers have to reveal their sources .... those same readers who fact- check the bloggers constantly want to know “where did you find that picture?” and “what is the source of that statement?” .... the same readers won’t believe anything a blogger posts unless there are links to the source material. The readers are the American people and at times it seems that 99.9% of them are from Missouri (the “Show Me” state).

The national media hides behind denials and cover-ups. They pretend that there is some Constitutional protection over their sources and they have even defied the courts in this matter. There is no such Constitutional protection and if government has to reveal its documents because of the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA), why shouldn’t the national media do so also? They don’t do so because in so many cases it would reveal shoddy reporting based on lies and forgeries. Take a look at recent scandals at the New York Times if you want proof. CBS News and the forged documents last week are only the latest symptom of this disease in the national media.

But the blogosphere is the cure. Thus the Latin title of this post. Roughly translated it asks, “Who Watches The Watchers?”

The answer to that question is “you and me, sweetheart” .. and thousands of other people out there typing away even as I speak. They are all watching, researching and most importantly .... reporting. Something the national media has long forgotten how to do. At least .... they have forgotten how to do it honestly.

I would like to personally recognize the bloggers who researched and reported on the forged documents last week (or at least who were the first ones to reveal this false reporting by CBS). They all deserve a big pat on the back and a “thank you” from all of us.

The Honor Roll Of Watchers

Powerline
InDC Journal
Allah
Pacetown
RatherBiased.Com
Little Green Footballs
The Drudge Report
The Politburo Diktat
RightWing News

And Finally: Frank J. who put it all in perspective in his own unusual way.

In addtion, there are thousands of others out there who refused to buy into CBS News’ forgery and helped expose the lies and distortions of “major media”. Congratulations, everyone! Well done!

Memo To Our Readers: Naturally, we would normally have been first to reveal this story but Vilmar is out of town and I spent Thursday evening and all day Friday recuperating from surgery. We didn’t jump on this story until Friday morning at 5:00am - a whole six or seven hours after the story broke. We’ll do better next time. I promise.

As For The Latin: The answer to the question is simply derived as follows .... we take the word “blogosphere” and break it down into its component parts: WEB+BLOG+SPHERE and take the Latin translation of each as follows:

(WEB) tela : a web, that which is woven, cloth, tissue
(LOG) perscribo : to write out, write down, place on record
(SPHERE) orbis : world, circle

Or .... tela perscribo orbis. The Blogosphere.
Note for nit-pickers: don’t even expect me to remember proper Latin conjugation. It has been forty years since I had Latin in the Ninth Grade. Hail Caesar! Hail Yes!

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/12/2004 at 01:58 PM   
Filed Under: •   
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner