Pull CNN’s Plug!
By Gary Aldrich (04/18/03)
Imagine you’re living in a totalitarian state where a dictator controls what you see or hear. Imagine being held captive in a room for a minimum of an hour while being forced to watch and listen to whatever the dictator decides is “news.”
You have no choice because you’re not allowed to change the channel. You can’t turn the sound up, down, or off. Becoming alarmed, you find that there is nobody present who knows how to turn it off.
Even in an emergency, when people need to be paying close attention to other information, the dictator’s propaganda drones on and on.
Becoming annoyed, you wonder if your glassy-eyed neighbors are aware that the dictator and his state controlled media are lying to them. They don’t seem to realize, or care. You question if the people sitting next to you have a clue about how much the dictator’s propaganda can influence the course of their lives or yours.
They may not believe that propaganda has much power, but the dictator and the state believe in the power of propaganda, and so do ad agencies.
After entering this state-authorized and controlled propaganda room, you’re advised that your continued presence is necessary, and if you walk off to get away from the constant flow of false images and inaccurate sound clips, you’ll most likely miss an important announcement. Ignoring this warning, you begin to walk down a long hallway, only to find that there are dozens of similar televisions, all tuned to the same channel.
You finally understand that there is no escape.
You’ve here because you need to be in this space to get what you want. You have no choice. You’re about to travel in a commercial airliner that flies out of one of 39 major airports in the United States.
Our airports are public places. You’re occupying property that’s controlled by the state, through appointed persons who are given cushy jobs by politicians—for the facilitation of transportation, not for the purpose of indoctrination.
Nevertheless, they decide what you see and hear. They insist you have no say in the matter. You are not allowed to change the channel!
Investigating CNN’s website, I’ve learned that, “CNN Airport Network is available in 39 of the busiest U.S. airports and is seen in more than 1, 775 gates and other viewing areas.” CNN Airport Network also boasts access to 27 airports “around the world.”
I can’t calculate how many people are forced to watch and hear CNN, but I’ll bet CNN has these numbers filed somewhere. Based on scientifically obtained numbers, they sell ad space. They make enormous sums of money from ads. CNN executives are driven around in limousines based on the revenue generated by paid advertisement.
Reporters and editors live in fancy mansions and send their kids to ultra-private schools and they vacation in Paris, all because CNN can claim to advertisers that they have an audience of X.5 million people being held captive at our nation’s airports.
CNN continually lies to that audience who are no less captive than zoo chimpanzees. CNN admits that they lie about important things; matters that can and do impact on our national security.
I think that CNN mostly lies about corrupt and abusive dictators and politicians in faraway lands, and sometimes right here at home. CNN tends to accept lies told by Hard-Left politicians, government officials and dictators like Saddam Hussein, and Fidel Castro. They say they do this to keep access, and to protect their reporters.
Why, then, did they lie about Bill Clinton’s corruptions for eight long years? Did they go easy on Bill Clinton for the same reasons? I’ve noticed they seem to save their outrage and contempt for politicians and others who hang their hats on the other side of the room.
When an attorney lies, it’s called defending his client. When a politician lies, we call that getting elected. When a policeman lies, we insist it’s abusive and unfair, and we demand his head. When a banker lies, we throw him in jail.
Where do we build news coverage into the framework of our lives?
Is news coverage a serious business, or is it entertainment? Do we take our news with lots of grains of salt? Maybe because of the blatant lies told by CNN and other unethical news organizations we’re having trouble believing anything.
But, if not for the news, how are we to stay informed, so as to remain free? If citizens are not properly informed, how can they vote intelligently and participate in our form of representative government?
Should the “state” ever become a full partner in the spread of any dictator’s lies and propaganda, for any reason? Is there ever justification for airport authorities to look the other way in return for a piece of the action? Is any contract enforceable, when one of the parties is engaged in confessed fraudulent activity?
Any lawyer will tell you that such a contract is not enforceable.
People don’t care if individuals choose to watch such “news”—it’s a free country, after all. If CNN wants to lie to its paying customers on a regular basis, and if CNN is certain to warn their paying customers that they can’t actually believe what they see or hear, then the First Amendment allows it, and the paying customer can change the channel or turn it off.
But it’s fundamentally wrong for our public airport authorities to force a trapped general audience to watch and hear a constant stream of lies and propaganda. When a foreign dictator has the ability to misuse our news so as to delay our president from stopping him from using weapons of mass destruction, that is a deception of such gravity that it defies description. Such collaboration is clearly anti-American, greedy, and dishonest. I also think it’s fraud and a threat to national security.
Saddam Hussein may be gone, but Fidel Castro and 20 others just like him are still in power, so join the movement to pull the plug on CNN in our nation’s airports.
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