Return with us now to those glorious days of yesteryear, when honest reporters were just starting to turn into “journalists,” and CBS’s 60 Minutes was the top-rated program in the nation for a reason: it played fair.
Exhibit A is this remarkable piece that Morley Safer did in the mid-late 1980s about “The Loony Left” in Britain — a chilling and prescient look at how the hard left was busily injecting political divisiveness into the minds of young children all over the country, hollowing out British culture and institutions in the name of “anti-racism,” and turning Britain into the sad, dilapidated, disunited and likely doomed Orwellian society it has become today. Perhaps there won’t, after all, “always be an England.”
It’s a classic example of leftist tactics, and in retrospect turned out to be a last warning of the fate that was soon about to overtake a country that had been waging a low-level civil war between Fabian Socialists and free-market capitalists since the days of H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw — a losing battle only briefly won by Margaret Thatcher, and now likely lost for at least another generation as Shaw’s famous “Fabian Window” is at last out and proud:
As Safer says in his introduction:
You may wonder why we’ve turned Big Ben into a cuckoo-clock. Well, the name of this story is “The Loony Left,” a group holding power in Britain’s inner cities whose policies many believe are aimed at destabilizing both the party and the nation.
Watch the program, then ask yourself: can it happen here? Or is it already happening?
Here’s part one:
And here’s part two:
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73 Comments
Neo-Stalinists are on the rise. Very sad. They make Putin look like a conservative capitalist.
"Journalists" in the MSM are lined up in front of Obama on their knees waiting for an opportunity to be a tea-bagee. How dat black tea taste, bro? Mmm, mmm, mmm!
Sorry MSM.
We are awake now.
Y'all go sell crazy somewhere else.
How's that John Edwards love child expose' coming along?
It's like unpleasant foreshadowing. Now if the parallels hold true, look at where we are today and where Britain is today. Is that destined to be us in another 15-20 years?
Well the Left can only take my God given rights and freedom away once they pull my gun from my cold dead hand !!
Holy Moly! Fantastic find! When I scrolled down and saw the "Fabian Window" I was floored. Until now, only those who had read some select works like "The Creature from Jekyll Island" or "None Dare Call it Treason" or listened to Mark Koernke would know of this.
Remember when the media was honest
During my lifetime I don't think the media was ever honest. Now with the advent of new media they've exposed what sinister devious liars these leftwing propagandists are.
Long live FOX News.
The slow suicide continues….Only they don't even realize it….The unmasking of the leftist MSM by sites like this, speeds the process along….Fun to watch…
It is truely great to live in such a diverse media age. Anyone is free to pick and chose how and where they comsume their news. Don't like NBC? You can watch the coverage of the same event from another network, an online paper, or a radio program. The old "news monopolies" are crumbling, and I'm loving it. It's allowed us to become more skepical as a country, and as Fox news puts it "they report and we decide".
They'll be more than glad to have "Law Enforcement" do that for them.
Good look back.
I'd forgotten that 60 Minutes wasn't always a decrepit Left wing mouthpiece. Thanks for the reminder of what they once were.
Anyone that can't see the blatant sexism and racism of a white girl feeding a black horse a sugar cube obviously is in need of a trip to the re-education camp.
Michael, I don't know if you can find it…but fast forward a few decades and there's a Morley Safer piece with Swedish college kids (around that age) talking about why Americans are "too capitalistic" and need to appreciate the wholesome nature of Socialism.
Hollywood, academia and the entrenched media bit…and bit hard…on the utopian sales pitch …but it came with an anger, an arrogance, a "by any means necessary" bent this time around. Lying, cheating, stealing, …is all fair game in delivering the "message". Thus, you get the BBC treatment of Israel…naked, open, obvious and notorious. You get the East Anglia/Penn State conspiracy to thwart scientific peer review. You get Genin. You get Green Helmet Guy. You get McCain's eyes reddened and his image photoshopped to obtain a visceral negative response. You get Dan Rather/Mary Mapes and forged documents….with the "false, but accurate" alibi.
You get the highest officers of the land calling concerned citizens "teabaggers", a sexual slur that would get a Republican removed from office.
You get a fundamental unfairness so profound, that the playing field for fair dissemination of information into the mass market may be shattered beyond repair. Every utterance is suspect on its face coming from the entrenched media, it begins with a trust blemish…and often devolves from there. Hollywood can't make a movie that has a political message, subliminal or sledge hammer subtle…that doesn't tilt left.
Which is why I say this…I don't wish to see burglars under every bed and snipers behind every tree. It's unpleasant always having to be on one's guard…against fraud and deceit at every turn. However, alternative media has uncovered so many plots, so many prevarications, so many instances of intentional deceit…it is now axiomatic that every position advanced by the repeat offenders is the utterance of a known liar.
One last point, Michael…if you permit. Because it is so unpleasant to be bombarded with lies, it feels so good when it appears to abate, to get a moment of respite.
I see in the last few days, some of the most rabid "messengers" of the "message"… appear all at once, mind you…to be "turning".
All of them.
At once.
One of those things that makes you go….hmmm.
I remember when a "journalist" was a newspaperman out of work.
Actually, most of the sucking currently occurring is ON the plantation, bro! Mmm, mmm, mmm!
60 minutes has never had a shred of integrity in my opinion. I remember an episode where they advocated court sanctioned religious bias in child custody cases – apparently Jehovah's Witnesses aren't fit to raise children. I remember another one where they joined the anti-fur propagandists by targeting traps that are rarely used because they cost 50 times more than more humane ones. I'd have more examples but I quit watching years ago.
They aren't alone, I remember Dateline NBC planting firecrackers to make the Chevy pick-ups blow up. Truth is I think "journalistic integrity" is a load of hogwash and always has been. Just like climate scientists, journalists are human and subject to all the sins and temptations that plague the rest of us. Caveat emptor.
I agree to your last point about some of the MSM to be 'turning' the past few days. I don't think it means much yet but we'll wait and see. I just believe that they are incapable of looking back at their actions the past many years and this last year for sure with the adolation of Prez Obama and say that maybe they reported on things unfairly.
I wish Tim Russert were alive. Tim was a Lib but atleast he was reasonably honest and allowed the other side to have their say. Once he died NBC/MSNBC has completely fallen deep and way to the left.
Love how she wants her children to eat "African" food but wants to live in the UK.
In 2001, my mother was watching the news. She did not see the biases. So, I started to point out words on how liberals were portrayed versus conservatives. It took a few days and she then realized that I was right. Like I said then and now, it is in the words. A lot of people do not get the subtleties of language.
However, the subtleties have dissipated almost completely. Now, it is outright disdain for conservatives and the liberals are paying dearly for it. I am still waiting for the day, when the NY Times goes under. Liberal "Air America" was a great day for the best bear. When the times goes out, I have a nice bottle a 25 year old scotch that will break out.
The Times will go down!
Not if we realize and acknowledge what is happening and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, act against it.
Get involved. Get on a school board. Help in a campaign. MAke phone calls. DO SOMETHING.
They'll get a gov't bailout.
This reminds me; What's the latest in the "Fistgate" scandal? Has it been covered anywhere but here?
60 minutes should do a where are they now story on these pinko's.
macronesia, I mean something seems odd to me, that all of a sudden…these "believers" turned into non-believers.
Overnight.
Just because Scott Brown won an election? It's possible. Rats leaving a sinking ship and all…but, it seems more likely that they are purchasing "objectivity bona fides"…"SEE, we criticized and opposed and disagreed…but NOW, that he's (done "X" or said "Y")…we believe all is on the right track and he's magnificent!
"And YOU…you just keep criticizing…so YOU have no credibility. Unlike us…we're able to be "objective" and put forward our feelings pro AND con."
Head fake. Sleight of hand. Misdirection play….to grab the independents back.
Problem is Mr Walsh, im 55 yrs old and have ALWAYS viewed the MSM as a large group of far leftists. As a teenager, I worked as an intern at the Chicago Suntimes. The most notable name I worked there for was Mike Royko, writer of the anti-Richard J Daley book “Boss” and a reporter who would fit in well with “big Government ” today, as Royko was one of the few true investigative journalists even of his day. I remember him telling me I had too much common sense to be in journalism, even in 1970 Mike Royko was telling us young interns that the media was loaded with leftist ideologues. I remember “60 minutes” and there sensationalizing “acid rain” during the early 70s, blaming Love Canal on a chemical company more than the incompetent local government bureaucracy that refused to move when notified of the problem. I also remember them trying to smear Gen William Westmoreland. Not to mention the 2004 forged papers on GW Bushes national guard service. Im still waiting for DAN BLATHER to be faced with the facts that he KNEW the documents were forged , but went with them anyway. Makes you wonder if the Pentagon papers may have been forged, after all, no internet or conservative blogs to hold the media accountable. It will take at least one more generation to undo the damage the COMMUNISTS in the MSM have done. Kieth the Uberdork a “journalist”? Hes nothing more than a pathetic POS.
I haven't watched this shame of a "news magazine" since they did the hatchet job on Audi with that bogus "Unintended Acceleration" hit piece.
Doesn't look like I've missed much.
I wonder how radical Islam thinks of Martin and Eric as parents? Will under burkha masturbation be an acceptable topic? Or has the loony left of the 80s been emasculated enough to actually make this 25 year old flick hilarious? Now English liberal facism is being replaced with Islamic facism which is racist, homophobic, and anti-gay. Both are detestable and American democrats are figuring out how the left in America has trashed the core values of family, entrepreneurship, capitalism, profit, religion, security hard work and happiness or at least the ability to pursue it.
Once you wrap your mind around the idea that the Progressive ideology is anathema to the very premises of what makes this country truly great, you'll see these progressives as not just detestable but in need of extermination.
"in the words"…you mean like …"practice middle-of-the-road socialism" in this clip from when the media was "fair?" Isn't "middle-of-the-road socialism an oxymoron? Even then, Morley Safer was editorializing!
I rember while attending school in the late 70's two of the part-time jobs I had during summers where part of 60 Minute hit pieces. Household Movers and Manufactured Homes. I saw families who relied on husband and wife or sons and fathers at the same plant affected by the blatant half truths and lies. They faced job loses particulary at the plants making affordable housing. I saw the tears from ladies that were laid off and sent home because of the what I learned later was a nation wide slowdown in mnfg. home sales. The moving agent I worked for had a well built business but after 60 Min. our job was hell because we worked under suspect eyes for months. A pox be on you 60 minutes. Say hi to Dan R. for me.
I'm sure the swedish kids believe that their government works for them effectively. That's why they harp on about socialism – because it works for them.
If your government has does not represent the will of the people (like now!) then it'll never work, no matter if it's liberal nor conservative. That's what we need to fight.
They must be waiting for something like a sex-tape to surface…but until then…?
Until then?
They'll keep beating the James O'Keefe drum………….
I thought maybe you had seen this: (haha!!)
http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/01/27...
cheers, CL!
With all their faults, at least the Kennedy's had a modicum of class.
John F. Kennedy had Marilyn Monroe.
Then Slick Willie slunk off and had the fat chick with the blue dress.
……..and finally John Edwards slithered off with this bleached blonde skank.
How far we have sunk, as a society, is demonstrable through our politicians and their whores and mistresses. I can hardly wait to see who Obama diddles.
I have never seen one of these lefty groups that did not promote victimhood before making that victim a slave.
I remember the 80s when the stuff in that report was considered extreme over here. It is now the unchallengeable mainstream with even the "conservative" party buying into it. Any deviation from its mantra is now subjected to the most vile abuse.
American conservatives must not allow this to happen over there.
Stand by for the "Dope and Strange"…
We are making "progress" against these pinkos – 10 months to go then we get to force this communist to sign legislation that eliminates the Department of Education(indoctrination). You are going to want to live to see that so be careful with your pistol.
Bo Diddley………had to say it, could not help myself. I am better now. (Cowboy wrote " I can hardly wait to see who Obama diddles").
OK, let me pile-on………….maybe John Edwards was looking to Prince Charles as a shining example of how to select a diddleeee. This was Titanic-like in sinking to a new depth. Every time I see Camilla I think of Mr. Ed the talking horse saying "Oh, Wilbur"
I'll pack my bag…..
Now that was funny!
We gotta keep a sense of humor. Glad you have one.
Ol' Camille sure was horse faced, wasn't she?
Speaking of Titanic like, and sinking to a new depth, perhaps James Cameron could do an expose' film on Barry the Brazen's big brass balls.
When I was growing up in the 1950s and -60s, I thought Cronkite was creepy and wouldn't watch the news unless my father put on The Huntley–Brinkley Report.
David Brinkley:
In an interview in 1992, he said "Most of my life, I've simply been a reporter covering things, and writing and talking about it".
Chet Huntley:
Only days before his retirement, Huntley gave an interview with Dick Cavett, … On that broadcast, he described his political views as conservative on economic issues, but liberal on social issues. However, he insisted to Cavett and the other guests that he took pains to ensure that his personal views did not adversely affect his reporting during his years as a journalist.
After they retired, another great newsman, John Chancellor, took over at NBC news.
It depresses and disgusts to realize that the organization that gave us these giants now gives air time to Kieth Olberman and Rachel Madow.
Walter 'Crocodile tears' Cronkite was creepy to a kid, come to think of it…
Frank Reynolds was FAR preferred at our households. Maddow and Olbermann are the Glenn Beck's of the left without the talent…
Edward R Murrow, in his much talked about sinking of Joe MaCarthy, turns out to be a socialist sympathiser or just stupid because everyone MaCarthy pointed to as communists in our government was just that. KGB records exposed after the fall proved that years ago but the general press never even mentioned it. The same New York Press that got General George Patton fired over the publicity for slapping socialist trators in American uniform, did the same thing to General Ulysses S. Grant when he started stomping the life out of the southern democrat/socialist army in the Civil War. Yes! It goes back that far. And the same "gray" paper was also screaming global warming in the late 1800's and that oil would run out in twenty years in the 1920's. Once I got a chance to see Provda regularly, I knew that American newspapers were just as socialist as the communist ones. and walter learned his craft during thirteen years of association with the KGB when he lived there.
I, like many, think the huevos on Barry are coming off, just like the wheels on his administration. He's taken the socialist tendencies of Dems to a whole new level, and the people are speaking. Cameron would have a difficult time with this story line……….and you are correct, we have to keep a sense of humor even when we know what Obama and his like are doing is dead serious.
Please, O Editor-in-Chief, that headline should read "Remember When the Media WERE Honest?"
The word "media" is plural. One, "medium"; two or more, "media."
Gallows humor is empowering.
It allows US to walk up the steps of the gallows, and prevents our legs from buckling.
Indeed we are seeing an awakening; I just wonder if it is already too late to correct our way without lots of pain.
I knew there had to be some reason for the memories of my dad watching the show religiously. Sadly, the memories are very dim, the show has been a sham for quite a long time.
My post is ment to reflect a revolution, not a one man crusade.. Believe me when I say I'm very glad to see whats going on in America today with the awakening of so many, there was a time not to long ago ( Like last year ) I thought we would end up in a armed revolution ( not that I want one it just looked like we were heading that way ), but I'm seeing light as so many others and I darn glad..
Cronkite was an actor–that grandfatherly demeanor beguiled a simple-minded, trusting nation.
"Remember When the Media Was Honest?"
Actually, no.
My first conscious awareness of media bias was a "60 Minutes" report in the mid-80s regarding, of all things, Dungeons and Dragons. Since I played, I was able to clearly recognize the fact that the anti-game voice in the piece was articulate, while the pro-game voice was not. While the anti-game voice was free to voice its complaints without real challenge, the pro-game voice did not even attempt to promote the positive aspects of gaming.
I realized then that the media could not be trusted on more than sports scores and maybe the weather forecast; anything else they report cannot be taken at face value.
Unlike that classy brand of journalism James O'keef got nailed for yesterday.
The left and right will eat us all alive until we have all been drug down to their level.
The media is doing what it ALWAYS has done from misfortune.. PROFIT from it.
That is happening NOW in our schools! If you are a parent and are lucky to get your kids to graduation with an intact brain, the damn college PROFESSORS go at them. The teaching profession, just like the MSM is too far left. We need openly right-leaning schools and colleges. Just like Fox news, they would be wildly successful, but more importantly the kids could have a fair shake at LIFE. These leftie zombie kids hit the streets and are angry at the "injustice" that they have been programmed to see behind every tree.
Conservatives and center-right people are HAPPY. Libs are MISERABLE.
Journalism hasn't been honest in the US since Douglas Edwards was on CBS News before the propagandist
Walter Cronkite took over. Whatever thread of honesty was compromised by the Progressive movement's coopting of the language of debate. Nazism is right wing evil, and Stalinism is 'misunderstood'.
That nonsense has been the de riguer' teachings for decades, and they are LIES. Lies meant to inculcate a populace to accept Fabian Socialism as a slow, painless death of Free Markets- and Free Men.
This fraud has been exposed, and the public is waking up…
THIS man tried his best to warn us in the mid 1980's about Marxist radicals who had infiltrated our schools, but we did not listen to him.
HE WARNED US: "Marxism/Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least 3 generations of American students… without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism… American patriotism".
But we did not listen. We triumphantly threw our hands up in the air and announced that we had won the cold war. We were blind to the "slow march through the institutions" that was going on in our own country.
If we would have listened to this man, maybe, just maybe we would not be in the disastrous state we are in today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeMZGGQ0ERk
(forward to 2:10 if you are truly limited on time)
Yuri Bezmenov, wherever you are, we are very, very sorry that we did not listen to you.
Yes, we used to call 60 Minutes "Yellow Journalism'. I don't think they've ever been on the up and up. I heard first hand stories in the 80's from some customers where I used to work.
Just sucks to get kicked off that plantation, eh whitey?
I am not sure the press in my lifetime has ever been honest. What comes to my mind is remembering watching Walter Cronkite as I grew up and discovering his politics were Progressive. He was like a grandfather to many American children growing up watching the news with their parents. Finding that out was one of those moments in life that pushed me into cynicism. Where I question everything….everything!
As I watched the video of 60 Minutes, something I also grew up watching, I was struck at many of the battles I have seen in our Public School system over the last thirty years. It reminds me to be grateful and not forget the freedom my Forefathers afforded me. We have let progressivism creep in to our schools, to where we are beginning to reap the consequences of it. This last Presidential election is evidence of this, it is how a radical has finally reached the office of President.
Our public school system is probably the greatest battle ground of taking our country back. It is so entrench with progressive ideology it will take decades to clean up. The only way to truly win that battle is every free thinking American that fears progressivism pull their kids out of the public system and either Homeschool them or put them in Private Education. It would break the back of the system, cause last I checked there are at 40% of us vs. 21% liberal.
Your freaking nuts!
Absolutely correct! I am amazed that any conservative or moderate would send their child to public school. I homeschool mine, but private school is a decent option if both parents work full time. I'm thinking of starting a movement — The Private School Project — both to get conservative suburbanites to abandon the leftist-controlled public schools, and to give inner-city parents an option other than failing schools for their kids. It is amazing how much less expensive a private school (parochial school) education is compared to the public one. Think about it. Parents think they are getting a free education for their kids, but they are paying for it with over half of their property taxes for their entire adult lives — way more than the cost of a parochial school education or online education. Would conservatives, Republicans, Tea Partiers, libertarians, corporate leaders please get behind this?
I homeschooled our daughters during the 80's and 90's. It was the best thing I ever did in my life. When our girls were in college they did have a while where the indoctrination was influencing them. It didn't take very long for the indoctrination to wear off. I thank God for that and would encourage anyone considering it to do it. It was a lifestyle I loved and look forward to with my grandkids…..cause this grandma will be there to help!
That part of the clip made me giggle out loud. Except when I think about it, it isn't really funny that people actually believed/believe that junk.
The part that made me go hunh and scratch my head was when Safer pointed out the girl used brain over brawn, wasn't that good, to tame the horse, and something else was said and then another woman said "I'd rather she have a choice". I don't understand that. What, a choice to be really strong or smart? Isn't it almost always better to do things the least complicated most efficient way (obviously there are exceptions)? Wouldn't it be more fair to teach children to use their brains to solve problems instead of physical prowess (like fighting maybe)? But then I don't understand the way these people think.
There are some right-leaning schools and colleges. They aren't public universities though. I think most private religious affiliated colleges/universites tend to be right-leaning. I know BYU is (and it is less expensive than the in-state tuition for a lot of state schools). Kids just have to suffer through (or enjoy, who knows) a few religious classes they may or may not agree with.
I don't know a lot about other religious schools because I didn't attend them, but I do know that their are others out their that are right-leaning. But they are probably not open about it because they don't make it their goal to be right-leaning politically, but to educate students in a fair and moral manner. The problem is other schools teachers/professors think it is their job to teach students the political opinions they think they should have instead of just teaching them what they are supposed to and letting the kids come to their own conclusions.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Vince Humphreys, greychampion, Hankers, Geoffrey J Gowey, Delaware Tea Party and others. Delaware Tea Party said: RT @BigJournalism: ‘The Loony Left’ — Remember When the Media Was Honest? http://bit.ly/d1jhLp [...]
i would rather see my daughter come home with the guy that cleans the spitoons at the local brothel than a "newsreader" once know as a journalist.
The far left is basically a fringe segment of the culture, but uses intimidation and propaganda to insert themselves as if they were now becoming THE mainstream. We of the mainstream center, must courageously stand up against their attempts to hijack our culture and our values. God bless the internet! We are not alone and now we know it!
Democrats can change their names as often as they like…Progressive, Socialist, Fairy Sliipper Fanatics…they're still commies.
" But then I don't understand the way these people think. '
Don't try too hard, you'll just get dizzy.
.
Deja Vu all over again. Yikes!
.
Such "liberal bias" in this country. I am so sick of seeing Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein on the teevee. I mean geez.
[...] the 1980s, there was a brief moment when even the American MSM would report on the efforts of the Fabian Socialists to disrupt and atomize society, but that day [...]
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