The News Media: On the Road to Fascism

        I found it quite helpful to read the first post on the role the Wall
Street Journal has been playing. As a reader interested in analyzing what
is happening on a daily basis with respect to global political economy, I
read it every day, as, I am told, leading Marxist intellectuals also always
used to do.  I, too, have been struck with the hysterical and virulent tone
of the paper with respect to its unrelentless attacks on Clinton.
[Remember the guy in the Clinton entourage who committed suicide (Foster)
-- he cited the Wall Street Journal's viciousness in something found in his
briefcase (unclear if it was a torn up suicide note, or what, but I
remember the Wall Street Journal reporting and responding that if he
couldn't take it, he was obviously not of sound mind, or something like
that.]  I never could understand why there was such vitriol coming from the
WSJ when Clinton was doing exactly what the Republicans have always stood
for: reducing the deficit, making the bond traders (and Wall Street) happy,
ending welfare as we knew it, etc. 
        The WSJ, using its OP ed pages for right wing think tank pieces, and its
own editorials, does seem to be taking a leading role in directing the
Republican Party, making accessible ideas and ideology as well as strategy.
         Here is an interesting editorial from, of all places, the New York 
Daily
News, also pointing to the alarming situation of the Republicans busing in
mobs of people and using verbal and physical intimidation in Florida.
>
>NY Daily News Lead Editorial 
> Sunday, November 26, 2000 
>
>
>
> Rule Out Mob Rule 
>
> What has happened so far in the dizzying swirl of 
> events in 
> Florida, by and large, has not been a 
> constitutional crisis. It 
> has been a political drama. And a wonderful drama 
> at that, 
> rather like the photo finish of a great race with 
> incredible stakes. 
>
> But if there is a constitutional crisis in the
>making, 
> it is what was 
> portended by the rioting that took place in
>Miami-Dade 
> County, 
> when a group of Republicans - inspired by the 
> Republican Party, 
> collected by the Republican Party and bused to the 
> site by the 
> Republican Party - not only demonstrated on the 
> street, but 
> entered the building where ballots were being
>counted. 
>
> There, by dint of yelling and screaming and 
> brandishing of fists, 
> they intimidated the county canvassing board into 
> abandoning the 
> hand recount it had been conducting. As Joseph 
> Lieberman 
> correctly put it, that is not the rule of law, it is 
> the rule of the mob. 
>
> And once you use those kinds of extra-legal means to 
> begin to 
> intimidate the legal electoral process, you are on a 
> slippery slope 
> towards a constitutional crisis. 
>
> Even if it doesn't show up that way, even if a lot of
>
> people are not 
> aware of it or choose to overlook it, this begins to 
> give sanction to 
> the use of extra-legal means to pressure the lawful 
> political 
> process. This is what has undermined democracy in 
> other 
> countries. 
>
> While it would be an exaggeration to say that our 
> democracy is 
> too weak to withstand this, nevertheless the fact
>that 
> the action 
> was organized, or at least condoned, by one of the
>two 
> major 
> political parties is a very bad sign. The Republicans
>
> deserve to be 
> condemned for it, or at the very least, to be 
> condemned for not 
> condemning it. Indeed, they condoned it. 
>
> With Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris -
>who 
> also 
> happened to be co-chairwoman of Bush's Florida 
> campaign - set 
> to crown her man the winner come 5 p.m. today, Al
>Gore 
> and the 
> Democrats are perfectly justified to insist upon 
> contesting this vote. 
> The fact that 10,000 ballots sit uncounted in 
> Miami-Dade County 
> - uncounted because GOP agitators disrupted the 
> counting last 
> week - is more than enough reason to call the final 
> tally into 
> question, regardless of who is ahead. 
>
> The Florida Supreme Court wisely foresaw the 
> possibility of 
> exactly such a step and built time into its order to 
> allow for it. 
>
> All the legal wrangling since Election Day shows that
>
> our 
> Constitution is alive and well and working. Since the
>
> beginning of 
> the Republic, it has been the courts that have 
> resolved disputes 
> between the legislative and executive branches. This,
>
> thankfully, is 
> what separates us from the rest of the world. 
>
> It is not the rule of law, but the threat of the mob,
>
> that puts the 
> country on the path toward a constitutional crisis. 
>
> After Miami-Dade election officials reversed 
> themselves and 
> halted their hand recount, the Republicans said that 
> it was a 
> perfectly rational decision. It was hardly a rational
>
> decision. It was 
> an irrational decision made under pressure from the 
> mob. And that 
> is what is unacceptable. 
>
>