November 14 2004

Amid Criticism Of Election Coverage, An Assessment Of The New Relationship Between Politician And Press

By LIZ HALLORAN
Courant Staff Writer

November 12 2004

A Tom Toles cartoon published in Monday's Washington Post depicts President Bush looking down at the White House, the Supreme Court and the GOP-dominated Senate and House, asking, "NOW who do we blame?"

The answer, in the cartoon's right-hand corner, is "We'll always have Clinton," but Toles could just as easily have added, "and the media."

Fairly or not, this past year has been a rough one for the nation's so-called mainstream media.

Buffeted by criticism from the political right and left, dissected by partisans in the Internet blog world and serving increasingly skeptical audiences, the traditional media of daily newspapers and network television are sorting out what went right, what went wrong and what has fundamentally changed.

"It's like some gigantic farm animal is being attacked by thousands of insects," National Journal columnist William Powers said this week. "There is so much change happening, and everyone feels a little lost and disoriented."

Mainstream (or "establishment") media are biased, liberal or corporate and fear asking tough questions, critics say. They ignore stories, fail to challenge conventional wisdom and serve warmed-over dishes of he said/she said. They're slow and lazy and on the road to irrelevancy.

Adam Nagourney of the New York Times views the avalanche of criticism as part of a broader tearing-down of American institutions, coupled with the emergence of the Internet and other new ways to communicate.

There is difficulty, he said, in wanting to be sensitive to criticism but having to sift between "legitimate criticism, which is mixed in with ad hominem attacks."

Reporters like Los Angeles Times political columnist Ron Brownstein have heard the criticisms over the months of the bitterly fought presidential campaign and beg to differ.

There was an "incredible cacophony coming out of the campaigns and the 527s," the new special-interest groups allowed to raise and spend unlimited money, Brownstein said. "And by and large I think we did a reasonable job.

"I really feel that the press was tested this year in the intensity of the attacks and the money spent. I'm not in a high flagellation mode."

When, for example, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, one of the new 527s, broadcast ads attacking Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam service, major newspapers very quickly published detailed accounts undermining the claims, Brownstein said.

"But the problem is, of course, you may disprove something once, and it just keeps going," he said, arguing that there is a mistaken assumption among many news consumers that the press can drive political discussion.

"The candidates decide the discussion," Brownstein said. "The press is never going to be the opposition party. The opposition party is going to be the opposition party."

USA Today White House reporter Richard Benedetto said he doesn't know "where the whole concept of we, the media, as referees came from. I'm not sure it's one of our primary roles.

"It's more incumbent on the campaigns to defend themselves against scurrilous charges than for us to do it."

But in the wake of the election, some press critics, most notably PressThink's Jay Rosen, are arguing for a more partisan mainstream press.

"The contraption that journalists inherited worked very well for a long period of time," Rosen said this week. "But it's just been overwhelmed and superseded by events."

The working pieces of that old "contraption," he says, include objectivity, neutrality, the role of watchdog and "a lot of different purposes and claims, a set of instruction for relating to the world and other people."

He says the Bush administration has effectively stripped the mainstream press - and in particular the White House press corps - of its relevancy by largely ignoring it and delivering its message through other media.

Previously, "the White House press and the president needed each other," Rosen said. "The relationship was assumed to be of common interest."

"What's different about Bush is that he says, `What relationship?'" Rosen said. "The dependence that the president once had on the news machinery as a whole for getting his message out has basically evaporated."

Rosen, chairman of the journalism department at New York University, also argues that the events of 9/11 and the subsequent "war on terror" have shifted people's views on how much information they are willing NOT to know in the interest of catching terrorists.

"We're in a different world now," he said. "The rulebook does not have rules for the situation that journalists are in now, and there's a tremendous pressure to pretend that there are.

"I think journalism has to become more political because it's been politicized."

Brownstein agrees with Rosen that the Bush administration has altered the historic relationship between politician and press.

"Bush more than any other president ever has felt that he does not need the traditional mainstream media to reach his voters," he said. "That is an important change."

But he cautions that the shift can be overstated: "They still care when the networks and print press put out something they don't like."

And Brownstein does not buy the theory that the mainstream press needs to become more partisan to survive and remain relevant.

"I think the reality is that red and blue Americans trust different sources of media - and I can't think of one that has trust across both," he said. "We are drifting into an era, perhaps like the 19th century, where partisans gravitate toward different media for news."

"I don't think that changes the responsibilities of the mainstream press," he said. "There are people who are not ideologically locked into either, and they don't want a highly partisan press."

Says Benedetto, "The elusive goal of objectivity should remain, especially for newspapers."

Mainstream reporters have, however, been moving away from what Nagourney calls "false equivalents" - producing stories that give equal weight to the claims of both sides, even when one may be demonstrably inaccurate.

"There has been a realization among reporters, certainly me, to move away from false equivalency," he said. "A newspaper needs to help people understand, and if [one candidate] is qualitatively worse, we ought to say it."

In the end, though there are no easy answers, the self-examination is helpful, said Powers of the National Journal.

"There have been endless moments of silliness and mistakes and habits that the media fall into every four years, he said. "We've also been through a period of pretty shocking media scandals, and media people and consumers feel there is some problem that needs to be resolved."

"The establishment media earned respect by getting it right a lot of the time, but maybe not as often as they thought they did," Powers said. "A lot of the cracks are being revealed now, more quickly and more dramatically."

But, noting that the presidential debates were substantive and that a record number of people went to vote, the mainstream media have earned a right to pat themselves on the back amid all the kvetching.

"There is a place for rants and messy noise," Powers said, "but there will also always be a place for someone trying to be the honest broker."

Rense.com

93,000 Extra Votes In
Cuyahoga County -
Outrage In Ohio
By Teed Rockwell
Philosophy Department, Sonoma State University
11-12-4

Smoking Gun

You may have seen the associated press story about the precinct in Cuyahoga county that had less than 1,000 voters, and gave Bush almost 4,000 extra votes.

But that turns out to be only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. The evidence discovered by some remarkably careful sleuthing would convince any reasonable court to invalidate the entire Ohio election.

In last Tuesday's election, 29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters - at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website:

Bay Village - 13,710 registered voters / 18,663 ballots cast
Beachwood - 9,943 registered voters / 13,939 ballots cast
Bedford - 9,942 registered voters / 14,465 ballots cast
Bedford Heights - 8,142 registered voters / 13,512 ballots cast
Brooklyn - 8,016 registered voters / 12,303 ballots cast
Brooklyn Heights - 1,144 registered voters / 1,869 ballots cast
Chagrin Falls Village - 3,557 registered voters / 4,860 ballots cast
Cuyahoga Heights - 570 registered voters / 1,382 ballots cast
Fairview Park - 13,342 registered voters / 18,472 ballots cast
Highland Hills Village - 760 registered voters / 8,822 ballots cast
Independence - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Mayfield Village - 2,764 registered voters / 3,145 ballots cast
Middleburg Heights - 12,173 registered voters / 14,854 ballots cast
Moreland Hills Village - 2,990 registered voters / 4,616 ballots cast
North Olmstead - 25,794 registered voters / 25,887 ballots cast
Olmstead Falls - 6,538 registered voters / 7,328 ballots cast
Pepper Pike - 5,131 registered voters / 6,479 ballots cast
Rocky River - 16,600 registered voters / 20,070 ballots cast
Solon (WD6) - 2,292 registered voters / 4,300 ballots cast
South Euclid - 16,902 registered voters / 16,917 ballots cast
Strongsville (WD3) - 7,806 registered voters / 12,108 ballots cast
University Heights - 10,072 registered voters / 11,982 ballots cast
Valley View Village - 1,787 registered voters / 3,409 ballots cast
Warrensville Heights - 10,562 registered voters / 15,039 ballots cast
Woodmere Village - 558 registered voters / 8,854 ballots cast
Bedford (CSD) - 22,777 registered voters / 27,856 ballots cast
Independence (LSD) - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Orange (CSD) - 11,640 registered voters / 22,931 ballots cast
Warrensville (CSD) - 12,218 registered voters / 15,822 ballots cast

The Republicans are so BUSTED.

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us
/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm#top

...is the official website of the Cuyahoga county election board, providing irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000. Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere.

I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election. I'd say the game's up.

America, it looks pretty much like you've been had.

Sincerely,

Teed Rockwell
Philosophy Department
Sonoma State University


OUTRAGE IN OHIO: ANGRY RESIDENTS STORM STATE HOUSE!
MASSIVE VOTER SUPPRESSION & CORRUPTION DEMOCRACY FAILURE By David Solnit

Hundreds of angry Ohio residents marched through the streets of Columbus, Ohio's Capital, this evening and stormed the Ohio State House, defying orders and arrest threats from Ohio State Troopers.

"O-H-I-O, Suppressed Democracy Has Got To Go!" they chanted. After troopers pushed and scuffled with people, nearly a hundred people took over the steps and entrance to the State's giant white column capital building and refused repeated orders to disperse or face arrest.

People prepared for arrests, ready to face jail, writing lawyers phone numbers on their arms, signing jail support lists and discussing NON-COOPERATION and ACTIVE RESISTANCE (linking arms, but not fighting back).

A freshly painted banner held on the steps read, "ONE VOTE DENIED = DEMOCRACY IN TROUBLE! 100'S OF 1000'S OF VOTES SURPRISED = DEMOCRACY FAILED".

An unprecedented massive grassroots voter registration and get out the vote effort and widespread opposition to Bush went up against the massive coordinated Republican effort to suppress, intimidate and possibly steal millions of votes.

In addition to the voter suppression and intimidation is the fact that Bush campaign co-chair Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell is in charge of the election and vote counting.

But much deeper questions about fundamental flaws in the system hang in the air.

Rense.com

Mass Media In 'Lock Down'
Not To Cover Vote Fraud
By Peter Coyote
11-13-4

There is a bumper sticker I saw months ago that sums up the current state of affairs in our country regarding what is the biggest news story you'll never see on the General Media reported. It said "IF YOUR NOT OUTRAGED, YOUR NOT PAYING ATTENTION".

On Friday I received a phone call from a good friend who works at CBS--I've known her for years and she is a Producer for some of the news programs, one well known one in particular. She tipped me off that the news media is in a "lock-down" and that there is to be no TV coverage of the real problems with voting on Nov. 2nd. She said similar "lock-down orders" had come down last year after the invasion of Iraq, but this is far worse--far scarier. She said the majority of their journalists at CBS and elsewhere in NYC are pretty horrified--every one is worried about their jobs and retribution Dan Rather style or worse. My source said they've also been forbidden to talk about it even on their own time but she was pissed and her journalistic and moral integrity as what she considers to be a gov't watchdog requires her to speak out, while be it covert and she therefore asked me to "spread" the word... She said that journalism and the truth is at stake. She said another friend of hers, a producer at MSNBC, said that an anchor by the name of Keith Olbermann had brought it up on his show on Friday eve and the axe came down. He's at least fighting back and talking about it on his "Blog", but she said that people there are worried that he's going to be fired by higher ups. She said at this point the only way that the "real news" was going to be if the people started talking about it and made a big enough stink about it to our elected officials, the FEC, and "noise" to the international media, that our own media won't have any choice but to cover it. (Yes, this is really happening in the good ole' supposed "democratic" free press of the US of A). The only place you'll see this talked about right now is on the internet and on AirAmericaRadio.

Everyone--this is serious....I can't emphasize it any more than saying if there was ever a time to speak up and take action it is NOW. If you are feeling sick to your stomach (like me) about the possibility of 4 more years under Bush and the future of our country, and yet you feel helpless, here's your opportunity to take action. Imagine if you saw a loved one drowning--what do you do? Well, our country's democracy is drowning and she needs us. In an email I sent you last night, I used the F-word--FRAUD and mentioned to you that I felt strongly that there is a lot of mounting evidence that this election was not clean. I say that not only out of a result of my observations while out in the field as a poll watcher in the key battleground state of Ohio, I say it with the knowledge and information of reports that have been circulating around the country in various voting precincts involving irregularities and problems with the voting machines and numbers not matching up with the exit polls or actual numbers of registered voters in various precincts. I've been busy researching this issue and compiling for you below some details of these reports and where you can get more info:

To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe:

1- That the exit polls were WRONG...(remember--they have been used for over a decade and considered reliable)

2- That Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning OH, FL were WRONG. He was within a less than 1/2 % point margin of error in his 2000 final poll and previous polls for other elections.

3- That Harris Poll last minute polling for Kerry was WRONG. They were also within a 1/2% point margin of error in their 2000 final poll.

4- The Incumbent Rule
I (that undecideds primarily break at the end for the challenger)was WRONG.

5- The 50% Rule was WRONG (that an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling)

6- The Approval Rating Rule was WRONG (that an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election)

7- That Journalist Greg Palast was WRONG when he said that even before the election, 1 million votes were stolen from Kerry. He was the ONLY reporter to break the fact that 90,000 Florida blacks were disnfranchised in 2000.

8- That it was just a COINCIDENCE that the exit polls were CORRECT where there WAS a PAPER TRAIL and INCORRECT (+5% for Bush) where there was NO PAPER TRAIL.

9- That the surge in new young voters had NO positive effect for Kerry, even though it was the largest number of youth voters 18-29 ever and a huge jump from 2000 and they were over 55% in favor of Kerry. >> 10- That Bush BEAT 99 to 1 mathematical odds in winning the election.

11- That Kerry did WORSE than Gore against an opponent who LOST the support of SCORES of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000.

12- That Bush did better than an 18 national poll average which showed him tied with Kerry at 47. In other words, Bush got 80% of the undecided vote to end up with a 51-48 majority--when ALL professional pollsters agree that the undecided vote ALWAYS goes to the challenger.

13- That Voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were NOT tampered with in this election.

Some Examples: (There are many more, but I won't list them all here--this is to give you an idea)

- The City of Gahanna in Ohio discovered a discrepancy that gave 4,000 votes to George Bush. After media scrutiny, city officials have admitted to an electronic "glitch" that caused the problem.

- In Broward County, FL, errors in software code caused a referendum on gambling to be completely overturned. The error caused totals to count backwards after reaching a ceiling of 32,500 votes. The problem existed in the 2002 election as well however the issue was never resolved by the manufacturer of the electronic voting machine.

- In North Carolina, a Craven County district logged 11,283 more votes than voters and actually overturned the results of a regional race.

For more info, go to: <>http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

<>http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1106-30.htm

Rense.com

Kerry Won Ohio -
Just Count The Ballots At
The Back Of The Bus
Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry.
Here's how the votes vanished.
By Greg Palast
11-13-4

This February, Ken Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State, told his State Senate President, "The possibility of a close election with punch cards as the state's primary voting device invites a Florida-like calamity." Blackwell, co-chair of Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, wasn't warning his fellow Republican of disaster, but boasting of an opportunity to bring in Ohio for Team Bush no matter what the voters wanted. And most voters in Ohio wanted JFK, not GWB. But their choice won't count because their votes won't be counted.

The ballots that add up to a majority for John Kerry in Ohio -- and in New Mexico -- are locked up in two Republican hidey-holes: "spoiled" ballots and "provisional" ballots.

OHIO SPOILED ROTTEN

American democracy has a dark little secret. In a typical presidential election, two million ballots are simply chucked in the garbage, marked "spoiled" and not counted. A dive into the electoral dumpster reveals something special about these votes left to rot. In a careful county-by-county, precinct-by-precinct analysis of the Florida 2000 race, the US Civil Rights Commission discovered that 54% of the votes in the spoilage bin were cast by African-Americans. And Florida, Heaven help us, is typical. Nationwide, the number of Black votes "disappeared" into the spoiled pile is approximately one million. The other million in the no-count pit come mainly from Hispanic, Native-American and poor white precincts, a decidedly Democratic demographic.

Ohio Republicans, simultaneously in charge of both the Bush-Cheney get-out-the-vote drive and the state's vote-counting rules, doggedly and systematically insured the spoilage pile would be as high as the White House.

Vote spoilage comes in two flavors. There are "overvotes" -- too many punches in the cards -- and "undervotes." Here we find the hanging, dimpled and "pregnant" chads created by old, dysfunctional punch card machines, in which the bit of paper covering the hole doesn't fall out, but hangs on. Machines can't read these, but we humans, who know a hole when we see one, have no problem reading these cards ... if allowed to. This is how Katherine Harris defeated Al Gore, by halting the hand count of the spoiled punch cards not, as is generally believed, by halting a "recount."

Whose chads are left hanging? In Florida in 2000 federal investigators determined that Black voters' ballots spoiled 900% more often than white voters, mainly due to punch card error. Ohio Republicans found those racial odds quite attractive. The state was the only one of fifty to refuse to eliminate or fix these vote-eating machines, even in the face of a lawsuit by the ACLU.

Apparently, the Ohio Republicans like what the ACLU found. The civil rights group's expert testimony concluded that Ohio's cussed insistence on forcing 73% of its electorate to use punch card machines had an "overwhelming" racial bias, voiding votes mostly in Black precincts. Blackwell doesn't disagree; and he hopes to fix the machinery ... sometime after George Bush's next inauguration. In the meantime, the state's Attorney General Jim Petro, a Republican, strategically postponed the trial date of the ACLU case until after the election.

Fixing a punch card machine is cheap and easy. If Ohio simply placed a card-reading machine in each polling station, as Michigan did this year, voters could have checked to ensure their vote would tally. If not, they would have gotten another card.

Blackwell knows that. He also knows that if those reading machines had been installed, almost all the 93,000 spoiled votes, overwhelmingly Democratic, would have closed the gap on George Bush's lead of 136,000 votes.

JIM CROW'S PROVISIONAL BALLOT

Add to the spoiled ballots a second group of uncounted votes, the 'provisional' ballots, and -- voila! -- the White House would have turned Democrat blue.

But that won't happen because of the peculiar way provisional ballots are counted or, more often, not counted. Introduced by federal law in 2002, the provisional ballot was designed especially for voters of color. Proposed by the Congressional Black Caucus to save the rights of those wrongly scrubbed from voter rolls, it was, in Republican-controlled swing states, twisted into a back-of-the-bus ballot unlikely to be tallied.

Unlike the real thing, these ballots are counted only by the whimsy and rules of a state's top elections official; and in Ohio, that gives a virtually ballot veto to Secretary of State Blackwell.

Mr. Blackwell has a few rules to make sure a large proportion of provisional ballots won't be counted. For the first time in memory, the Secretary of State has banned counting ballots cast in the "wrong" precinct, though all neighborhoods share the same President.

Over 155,000 Ohio voters were shunted to these second-class ballots. The election-shifting bulge in provisional ballots (more than 3% of the electorate) was the direct result of the national Republican strategy that targeted African-American precincts for mass challenges on election day.

This is the first time in four decades that a political party has systematically barred -- in this case successfully -- hundreds of thousands of Black voters from access to the voting booth. While investigating for BBC Television, we obtained three dozen of the Republican Party's confidential "caging" lists, their title for spreadsheets listing names and addresses of voters they intended to block on any pretext.

We found that every single address of the thousands on these Republican hit lists was located in Black-majority precincts. You might find that nasty and racist. It may also be a crime.

Before 1965, Jim Crow laws in the Deep South did not bar Blacks from voting. Rather, the segregationist game was played by applying minor technical voting requirements only to African-Americans. That year, Congress voted to make profiling and impeding minority voters, even with a legal pretext, a criminal offence under the Voting Rights Act.

But that didn't stop the Republicans of '04. Their legally questionable mass challenge to Black voters is not some low-level dirty tricks operation of local party hacks. Emails we obtained show the lists were copied directly to the Republican National Committee's chief of research and to the director of a state campaign.

Many challenges center on changes of address. On one Republican caging list, 50 addresses changed from Jacksonville to overseas, African-American soldiers shipped Over There.

You don't have to guess the preferences registered on the provisional ballots. Republicans went on a challenging rampage, while Democrats pledged to hold to the tradition of letting voters vote.

Blackwell has said he will count all the "valid" provisional ballots. However, his rigid regulations, like the new guess-your-precinct rule, are rigged to knock out enough voters to keep Bush's skinny lead alive. Other pre-election maneuvers by Republican officials -- late and improbably large purges of voter rolls, rejection of registrations -- maximized the use of provisional ballots which will never be counted. For example, a voter wrongly tagged an ineligible "felon" voter (and there's plenty in that category, mostly African-Americans), will lose their ballot even though they are wrongly identified.

KERRY BLACKS OUT

It was heartening that, during his campaign, John Kerry broke the political omerta that seems to prohibit public mention of the color of votes not counted in America. "Don't tell us that in the strongest democracy on earth a million disenfranchised African Americans is the best we can do." The Senator promised the NAACP convention, "This November, we're going to make sure that every single vote is counted."

But this week, Kerry became the first presidential candidate in history to break a campaign promise after losing an election. The Senator waited less than 24 hours to abandon more than a quarter million Ohio voters still waiting for their provisional and chad-spoiled ballots to be counted.

While disappointing, I can understand the cold calculus against taking the fight to the end. To count the ballots, Kerry's lawyers would, first, have to demand a hand reading of the punch cards. Blackwell, armed with the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore diktat, would undoubtedly pull a "Kate Harris" by halting or restricting a hand count. Most daunting, Kerry's team would also, as one state attorney general pointed out to me, have to litigate each and every rejected provisional ballot in court. This would entail locating up to a hundred thousand voters to testify to their right to the vote, with Blackwell challenging each with a holster full of regulations from the old Jim Crow handbook.

Given the odds and the cost to his political career, Kerry bent, not to the will of the people, but to the will to power of the Ohio Republican machine.

We have yet to total here the votes lost in missing absentee ballots, in eyebrow-raising touch screen tallies, in purges of legal voters from registries and other games played in swing states. But why dwell on these things? Our betters in the political and media elite have told us to get over it, move on.

To the victors go the spoils of electoral class war. As Ohio's politically ambitious Secretary of State brags on his own website, "Last time I checked, Blackwell said, "Katherine Harris wasn't in a soup line, she's in Congress."

NEW MEXICO GOES KERRY - BUT WHO'S COUNTING?

Why single out Ohio? So it also went in New Mexico where ballots of Hispanic voters (two-to-one Kerry supporters) spoil at a rate five times that of white voters. Add in the astounding 13,000 provisional ballots in the Enchanted State -- handed out "like candy" to Hispanic, not white, voters according to a director of the Catholic Church's get-out-the-vote drive -- and Kerry wins New Mexico. Just count up the votes ... but that won't happen.

Investigative reporter Greg Palast is author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (Penguin 2004).

Oliver Shykles and Matthew Pascarella of GregPalast.com contributed to this article.

View Greg Palast's BBC Television film, "Bush Family Fortunes," now available on DVD, at http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm

To receive Greg's investigative reports go to: http://www.gregpalast.com/contact.cfm

Rense.com

HBO Programming -
Overrated & Often Disgusting
By Michael Goodspeed
Thunderbolts.info
11-13-4

"Televison -- a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done."
--Kovacs

The pay-cable network HBO has been credited with forever changing the face of television programming. Over the past 10 years, an increasing number of cable TV shows have been nominated for Emmy awards, with vanguard HBO dominating, sometimes outnumbering the "free" networks in total nominations.

Critics have heaped nearly universal praise on virtually every HBO original series. The New York Times once referred to The Sopranos as "the greatest work of pop culture in the last quarter-century." In case you've been living on another planet for the last several years, The Sopranos is a gritty crime-drama whose protagonist happens to be a mob boss.

Other HBO shows to receive lavish critical acclaim include the now-defunct Sex and the City (a comedy centered around the sexual escapades of four "hip" New York women), Six Feet Under (a drama about two brothers running their deceased father's funeral service), Deadwood (a graphic western coming off its inaugural season), and numerous documentary programs that explore the darkest aspects of the human condition (Taxicab Confessions, Autopsy, Real Sex).

As a viewer who has long since tired of the homogenized and dumbed-down programming of the "free" networks, I've been a fairly loyal fan of HBO for many years. My favorite comedy of all time is probably the Larry Sanders Show (a hilarious parody of late-night talk shows), and I've seen every episode of Six Feet Under. Many of these shows have earned their critical praise, but I'm bothered by some disturbing themes that run through several HBO series.

The worst pattern that can be found in more than one HBO show is an apparent celebration of sociopathy. On the aforementioned Sopranos, viewers are essentially given only one rooting interest: a mob guy who commits murder whenever it serves him. Call me close-minded if you wish, but I've never understood the public's fascination with obese, inarticulate, linguini-guzzling "wise-guys" who kill at the drop of a hat, and generally lack any redeeming qualities.

I've only watched the show sporadically since the end of the second season, so maybe I've missed something, but I cannot remember Tony Soprano -- a fat, cruel, infantile pig of a man -- ever saying or doing anything of interest. The episodes that I saw were occasionally funny, but they provided no real insight or drama, and were utterly bereft of uplift. To call this show "the greatest work of pop culture in the last quarter-century" is a ludicrous exercise in hyperbole.

As foul and oafish as Tony Soprano is, he is a saint compared to the protagonist of HBO's latest dramatic hit, Deadwood. The show centers on a late-19th century saloon and brothel owner -- the aptly named Al Swearengen. This is a man whose mouth is so foul, it would mortify a young George Carlin. Swearengen blusters a dizzying variety of "curses," many of which were almost certainly not in use over a hundred years ago. But Al's tongue is nowhere near as sharp as his blade, which he uses often and remorselessly. Like Tony Soprano, he kills whenever "necessary," i.e. whenever the act will increase his wealth.

The closest thing to a "hero" on Deadwood is Seth Bullock, a young business owner and ex-lawman who spends much of his time raging against the injustices perpetrated by Swearengen and his ilk. But Bullock himself is a near-homicidal maniac, using extreme violence or threats of violence to "persuade" his antagonists.

I don't object to shows like Deadwood and The Sopranos simply because they feature dark story lines and cruel characters. I'm all for an honest and even painful exploration of every aspect of the human condition. What bothers me is the apparent attitude of the shows' writers and producers that sociopathic behaviors are not objectively bad, and perhaps even admirable. Millions of Americans actively ROOT for Tony Soprano. Is that not the least bit troubling?

But even the most graphically violent HBO shows are nowhere near as twisted or bizarre as the network's sexually oriented programming. One of HBO's longest-running programs is the documentary series, Real Sex. One would think that any show with the word "sex" in the title would necessarily carry at least a smidgen of erotic appeal, but not in this case. That is, unless you are aroused by such "hot" topics as "midget-hermaphrodite nudist colonies" or "penis puppeteers" or "transgender escort services." It is almost as if the show's producers intend to make sex look as weird, aberrant, and unappealing as possible.

Disgusting sexual images are also common on the documentary series, Taxicab Confessions. This show features taxi drivers recording the comments of unguarded passengers on hidden cameras. The ones who make it on the air are usually the most drunken, drug-addicted, mentally ill, obliterated folks imaginable. Hookers of every variety, particularly transgenders and transsexuals, are frequently taped offering graphic and stomach churning descriptions of their "work." Couples are also sometimes taped engaging in animalistic, backseat sex.

Watching these "titillating" shows has the same effect on one's libido as an ice-cold shower. For what alien life-form is this brand of "erotica" intended?

In depicting human "eroticism," HBO does not shy away from homosexuality. The aforementioned Six Feet Under focuses on the romantic lives of multiple gay or bi characters. Let me make it clear that this is not something I object to on a priori grounds. I have no problem with a show portraying gays in a realistic and positive light, and it's only logical that this would include an exploration of same-sex romance. But by the end of the fourth season, I noticed a peculiar thing: all but a handful of the show's characters are either gay, bi, or have had (or attempted to have) at least one gay experience.

The show is centered on a family-run funeral service. The patriarch of the family recently died, and his two adult sons have taken over the business. David, the younger of the two men, is gay, and has an ongoing relationship with a cop named Keith.

In season three, Claire (David's college-age sister) breaks up with her boyfriend Russell after finding out he slept with her male art teacher. Brenda (the on-again, off-again flame of David's brother Nate) has a dysfunctional brother named Billy, who reveals that he has also slept with Claire's male art teacher. And in season four, Claire finds herself deeply attracted to an avant-garde bisexual female, and the two make an aborted attempt at physical intimacy.

If Six Feet Under is intended to be about gay people, that is fine. But it seems to me that as the quality of the writing declined (which most critics agree began in season three), the show became less about exploring the characters' humanity than making "socially conscious" statements. I'm all for tolerance and diversity, but I don't appreciate attempts to manipulate me. And I don't require a TV show to know that gays deserve to be treated with parity.

What makes me most uneasy about the creative minds at HBO is the apparent contempt they feel towards so-called normalcy. I suppose they think it's not interesting to center a show on kind, compassionate, law-abiding human beings who have only one sexual partner. They may even believe they are providing viewers with educational insights into the "real world." I guess I've been asleep for all 29 of my years on planet Earth, because the world I see on HBO looks nothing like the REAL WORLD I live in.

And no, I don't live in Mayberry.

Rense.com

Wake Up Call - What Will YOU
Do When It's Too Late?
From Ted Twietmeyer
tedtw@frontiernet.net
11-12-4

What you're about to read is based on facts, plans and stated goals to destroy America to bring about globalist rule - a feudal system where YOU mean nothing to the rich and powerful. No matter how much money you have in the bank right now, it will all be meaningless IF THEY STEAL IT FROM YOU. Give this to your friends and family to wake them up. Some will laugh, some will not. Those that do not have a chance of being saved...and it will be your efforts that do it.

Let's move ahead in time. Perhaps just a few months - but no more than 4 years. It's early morning and you're driving to work. You listen to the news like you always do. They announced that a major building in a key city was just dirty-bombed. It's not that the building itself suffered that much damage - but the bomb was up on the 50th floor. It scattered plutonium and depleted uranium waste over more than a city block, and the wind and rain is expected to make it worse. The newscaster tells you that experts have deemed it impossible to clean up. The cancer-causing waste has been drawn into the ventilation system and has settled into all the ductwork. It will remain at a radioactive level that will be harmful to human life for thousands of years.

The building can't be demolished, as this will make things far worse for the surrounding structures and people. They are planning to encase the entire building in concrete - just like Chernobyl. But they add that it is already cracked and failing - a long way from the 4,000 year life required of the caisson. The newscaster goes on and interviews other experts, who deem the situation as perhaps the worst environmental disaster of all time. Then the real bad news - they repeat the address of it building, and its where you work is. Presto - now you're unemployed. But that's not so bad, is it ?

You turn around and head back home, and then sit down to watch the talking heads on the tube. The president has just declared condition RED. You are also reminded that if you are caught out on the road or even outside, it can be sufficient reason to be shot or imprisoned. Sometime ago you heard that would be the case with RED, but laughed it off. Not in America, right ?

So you trundle off to the fridge for something to eat, as it's getting near noon now. You open it up, only to be reminded that this was your day to go shopping tonight. Almost no food remaining. One piece of meat in the freezer. Slowly, the grim reality of the empty cupboards hits you like a brick...when the newscaster states "officials expect condition RED to go on for a week or more." Well, you'll just eat out cans for now...but your appetite is ruined because the news announced that under FEMA condition RED, your children have already been taken to a "safe place" by the US Army. You recall hearing somewhere that meant a POW camp-like environment. You call the school, only to get a recording

"Do not attempt to pick your children up or call again. Stay tuned to your local news." No one is at school, because they too, are under RED.

As you remain in a trance to the television's glare for the latest news like you did back in 2001, your ears are assaulted with details of yet another attack in another city. When and where will it end? None of the "experts" seems to know. No one even knows who did it. The "experts" are just speculating like they did on November 2nd. You're thinking back to how the exit polls, conducted at random around the country, were completely wrong regarding the final election results - in states
that had paperless electronic voting systems. But then, that's not you're problem and it certainly can't have anything to do with this new attack...or could it ? But you don't have time to think about it - your children, your survival and your future are all that you care about now. It's too late to think about "what might have been."

It's a few days later, and you still can't get out, or get the safety of your children out of your mind. You know you can't, because it's instinctive. Realizing you can't starve to death because you believe that that your children will be released (?) soon, you open a can of chicken noodle soup. You've poured it into a bowl and put it in the microwave. Just as your finger is about to hit "START," the power goes out. But this has happened before, and the power company will take care of it. They always have. Then you remind yourself about RED - will they fix it ?

Hastily you flip the channels on the cold winter evening, only to hear the worst of the worst news. The power company workers went home to their families in the next county. Because the power plant must be monitored for safety reasons, they thoughtlessly shut it down on their way out. The National Guard went to the plant, but they have no idea how to bring it back online. And when the workers shut it down, the circuit breaker ripple-effect went for hundreds of miles and now no one has power. You heat with natural gas, but your furnace can't run. You start to notice a chill in your home as the sun sets. You can't cook with your electric stove or microwave. What little food in the fridge will soon spoil as it's expected to take up to a week or more to restore power. Your public water supply can't function without power. The water will soon lose pressure...and the toilet, sinks and shower will no longer work.

You feel a 10 ton iron weight in the pit of your stomach that won't go away...now you're starving, no power, no food and now no water. And you'll be shot if you try to reach a grocery store. So how much worse can it get ? You'll soon find out from your car radio. But before you do, the next morning a UN Hum-V rumbles down your street. These don't look like the friendly types you saw recently on a documentary. These smiling men look like Germans or French, and are wielding machine guns and appear to be enjoying themselves. At least they get to eat everyday you think to yourself. Going to the store seems out of reach now.

Your trusty car radio tells you the local station is operating at reduced power from a diesel generator. They don't know how much longer they will be on the air. You're told FEMA is now in charge of the station while on the air. He says the school children are all safe, well fed, warm and secure. You begin to wonder now, about all those things you heard people talk about just last week on the radio - and how this could happen ? Your laughter at them was boundless. Conspiracy nuts. This is America, right ? Can't happen here. Now you wished you listened instead of laughed. You had the money in the bank to be self-sufficient and not go hungry, and to help prevent this but your didn't.

Finally, the next day, you're told that your last name's initial is your ONLY day to go to the store, buy gasoline and be home before dark. Apparently the largest chain in town is now a military ration center. All other store's inventories have been confiscated. The distribution center isn't taking checks or credit cards, because the banking system is down. There is a rumor the USA economy has collapsed, but that can't be true. We're the greatest country on earth. No one is saying anymore about it on the radio either, but you feel something is very wrong. You look in your pocket to see what cash you have - $1.49. You can't even buy a loaf of bread with that. Now that gasoline is $5.00 a gallon, you'll be lucky to buy a 5 second squeeze of the handle at the pump with it.

The pit in your stomach isn't hungry anymore - now it just aches. Prolonged hunger changes as you starve to death. The hunger disappears, but new symptoms have surfaced. The broadcast also tells you that you can go to a government facility and get free room and board on uncle Sam. But you can only travel on your grocery store day, which is once every two weeks. Now you're dehydrating, and know you won't make it that long. A nice hot meal sounds good, and it tastes even better when someone else has to do the dishes. Into your car and down the road you go, following the broadcaster's instructions to get there.

The area is about 10 miles from the nearest town, and deep in the woods on public land. You don't care because you're driven by an insatiable hunger. Your old army medical training told you how the body begins to use muscle to keep the fire of life burning within, and now you know you're wasting away. You just want food. You begin to see the signs ahead. Doesn't make sense why the Homeland Security logo is on them for a dining hall. But who cares ! You round a bend in the road. A 12ft. gate is there, with giant red high voltage warning signs on it. Two men with machine guns approach your car. You're told to pull over into a parking area and leave the keys in it with the engine running - they will take care of it. Something is very wrong here...

You are asked to enter the facility through a turnstile in the wall - like that of an amusement park. This place is strange - huge tents, huts, Porta-potties. People are suddenly groping your pockets reaching through a fence near you. It makes you jump back. They must have built this hastily in about a day. A voice on a speaker barks out that all new visitors to report to registration. But there is a chute-like structure you find yourself in - it's taking you straight to registration. Ahead are medical type people that appear to be doing examinations. What are they doing ?

As you step up, you get a quick physical much like one given to new hires for jobs. At the next station, a nurse is holding a hypo with a very large needle - she wipes your skin and jams it in before you can complete the sentence "what is it ?" You are informed of your new number that is encoded on the chip. Because of privacy laws, you are forbidden to use your name for anything. Even in conversations. All this processing for a hot meal ? Orientation instructions tell you there are portals where you must wave your arm to use the outhouses, to eat and to enter sleeping quarters. That weight in your stomach has turned to terror now. You are told you will not be leaving the camp for the foreseeable future, unless part of a work detail. Your children are now property of the state, and to continue thinking about them will just make your life even more unbearable. They will all be sorted and trained for the New World Order. Attempting to leave or climb the fence results in being shot. The psycho-guards show it in their eyes - they are just looking for fool #1 to try it. This is worse than any nightmare you ever had in your life. And you can't wake up from it.

What you just read, is an extremely real possibility. These camps exist, and chipping everyone is coming. It WILL happen to you, your family and your friends if no one lifts a finger. It's horrific in scope, as it means the complete destruction of ALL freedoms and liberties you presently enjoy. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM. So when you get that email that warns you about new liberty-stealing laws that are "to protect America" from your friend ? And your other friend that wants you involved to bring back all liberty and expose tyranny ? Please remember my words.

Ted Twietmeyer

Americans Apologize to the World: http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/

SenderBerl: We regret the future that our children and the next generation are about to face. That was a dominant motive in trying to change the course. While many in the media are smug in their viewpoints because they don't dare imagine for themselves that tomorrow will be different today, of what we fear takes place, and they themselves are impacted, their point of view will quickly change, then abandoning the corruptive aura that permeates their every word. The NWO has used "national security" to corrupt and control so many events including now no doubt the election fraud due to the true state of war we are in today where on any day and at any time there can be a dire response to the decisions to trample over religious mosques when the terrorists abandoned the area and notably had the opportunity to do so. Speaking of polls, why don't they do a poll as to whether the Iraqi people would jump at the opportunity of moving back to Saddam if everything could be restored as it was the day before Bush invaded. Would you dare guess at the poll numbers on that question and issue? Saddam was never a threat to the USA militarily. Where he was a threat was that he was going to go to the euro for Iraqi oil to be followed by Iran and Venezuela. So what do we have today? We have a situation where Bush doesn't protect the dollar moving it toward that very reality. Bush is in the oil business. He doesn't want dollars. He wants euros. So factor this out, and all you have is the same thing: an invasion to steal the oil. Thus, any way you compute it the entire war has everything to do with the fact that the Bush family is in the oil business and so are there closest friends. Of course, the oil was critical to the next step: world domination and control as we explained. Now that China figured it out, Bush and the NWO have problems. So they will have to look like patriotic American now until they figure out how to blow up China.

Are Mainstream Media Ignored And Irrelevant?

Amid Criticism Of Election Coverage, An Assessment Of The New Relationship Between Politician And Press