Yes, Virginia, there IS a real conservative

Media exclusion and American politics

July 25, 2007
Helen Weir, RenewAmerica analyst

If anyone still needs decisive evidence of liberal media bias and its devastating impact on the current political climate, here it is: "Who's Alan Keyes?" This question was put to me recently at a neighborhood get-together, during a discussion of the shortcomings of Rudy Giuliani and company.

The people who wanted to know are solid, family-oriented folks who take time to keep track of political happenings, insofar as their schedule permits. They are troubled at the prospect of "having" to vote for someone whose "socially liberal" stances constitute the only apparent alternative to what can best be described as encroaching Communism. And, in a bloodless coup for propaganda over democracy, they have never even heard of the one prospective candidate who most staunchly stands for the principles they believe in — principles they know in their hearts to be non-negotiable, yet they feel politically checkmated into abandoning.

Who's Alan Keyes? The question is answered easily enough. He's the Reagan-era Ambassador to the United Nations who ran for President in 1996 and 2000, and who has stated his readiness to run again, if he sees evidence of sufficient grassroots enthusiasm driving the effort. As Dr. Keyes himself explains:

The whole idea (of the American system) was that people would organize, that they'd agree among themselves as to who could really represent what they thought was best for the country, and they would promote that person, who would then have to give a yea or nay as to whether or not they were going to accept the support that these people were offering. [1]

But how can concerned people promote Alan Keyes when they don't even know he exists? The real question we need to ask as the Crisis of '08 looms on the horizon, therefore, is not "Who's Alan Keyes?" — but rather, how did the current radical and dangerous disconnect between an incomparable conservative leader and his natural constituency ever come about? And let's not forget its critical corollary: How, while there is yet time, can it possibly be overcome?

Exclusion is more biased than distortion

When people hear the term "media bias," they generally think of well-groomed anchorpersons using slick phraseology that twists the theme of their news coverage in a left-leaning direction. And, Heaven knows, this dynamic takes place often enough. Even with one's mental filters set at maximum security levels, it is almost impossible to avoid being affected, and most people don't have their filters set at maximum in the first place.

They are paying more attention to the children awaiting their dinner, the big game that's about to start, or the bills that still need to be paid, while the federal government surreptitiously confiscates an ever-increasing portion of our income, than they are to the talking head blabbing away in the background, which is just the way the talking head actually wants it. But there is a type of media bias that goes even deeper than that. It is this type that is reserved — not that he is spared the subliminal-message strategy, either — for the likes of Alan Keyes.

What people aren't thinking of when they hear the term "media bias," but need to be, is the power of the newsbrokers not just to distort but actually to determine that which reaches the level of our common conversation. Now, here is something radical indeed — a process so pervasive as to approach invisibility, so pernicious as to invite incredulity. And in fact, incredulity is what it is generally met with, on the rare occasions when it is pointed out at all.

Perhaps, you remember the incident that took place in 1996, when Dr. Keyes was dragged away in handcuffs from a debate in which he, as a declared candidate, had every right to participate. The people who have never heard of him obviously don't remember. This is the most apt image of what radical media bias does, but when you mention this event as an illustration of the overall problem, the indignant objection invariably comes back, "You must be making it all up!"

Why don't people believe that what they see and hear through the mainstream media — and, therefore, what they are led to reflect upon in their political decision-making — is being rigged by those who understand better than they that the power to control information is the key to the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, all at the same time? Why — when they know that liberal media bias undeniably exists — do they not take the trouble to discover the true extent of the disorder, and demand that it be uprooted from our democratic republic entirely?

The reason is simple. Admitting that we are having the wool pulled over our eyes requires us to confront our abdication of civic and Christian responsibility that alone makes such manipulation possible. It is easier to go on believing what we are told than it is to digest one shocking realization that challenges our complacency.

The realization is this: when the Democratic Party and their de facto public relations arm — the mainstream media — are allowed to dominate the public conversation to such an extent that bedrock American ideas and those who express them are simply not allowed in the debate, then we have effectively left the realm of our own political system. And if we are tempted to take comfort in merely demonizing the "other side" on this account, it becomes necessary and even more uncomfortable to recognize that it is the globalist GOP leadership that has been, tragically, acquiescing in the face of this domination, if not actually aiding and abetting it.

There is no one we can look to but ourselves, then, and those few real leaders like Dr. Keyes who have the country's best interest at heart, to correct this life-threatening civic situation. The ones to champion the renewed functioning of "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" will certainly not be those who have dragged us beyond its pale in the first place.

Making sense and making waves

"But surely" — an objection I hear raised when there can be no further challenge to the factual nature of what happened in 1996 to Dr. Keyes — "the affair of him being dragged from the debate cannot be what you make it out to be. Maybe it did take place, but there has to be some other explanation for it. This kind of thing just doesn't happen in the United States of America."

Doesn't it? Most of the time, it just doesn't happen as egregiously. Consider for a moment the fate of the MSNBC program Alan Keyes is Making Sense — that thought-provoking, innovative, interactive, and entirely bracing if brief foray into real dialogue about vital things, on the big-time airwaves no less.

People who took an interest in my personal circumstances kept asking whether this one program would finally be enough to get me to bring cable into our home. Apparently, in our society, lifestyle choices like homosexuality are seen as safely within the purview of privacy, while the decision not to watch a lot of TV is a cause for some sort of public concern. "Oh, no," I would say. "By the time I get the guys here to set it all up, the show will be canceled for sure." (In case you're wondering, I used to go over and watch at a friend's house.)

"But, why? Why do you say this?" the viewership police would want to know.

"Because," I kept trying to explain, "someone at the network has temporarily mistaken Dr. Keyes for a person who can be induced to play the media game, and will soon find out that Alan doesn't play any games at all. He's deadly serious, and will prioritize the truth above all else."

"Now, if you have been paying attention to the parameters of the content of mainstream news and commentary shows," I would say, "you have already realized that producers don't want real conservatives. They only tolerate the 'killed virus' version — hosts who will bring to their programming the appearance of open-mindedness, without actually placing any seriously liberal presuppositions in jeopardy. If you don't believe me, just wait and see."

As a case in point, consider Sean Hannity's vigorous advocacy of the Giuliani candidacy. What America really needs is not Hannity and Colmes, as though these two represented fundamentally opposing viewpoints. What we need is Hannity-Colmes and Keyes, if we are ever to get more than one side of the story.

But the ideologically-committed media machine is constantly at work, seeing to it that the ability of its own agenda to set the boundary lines of "legitimate" debate will not be challenged and, preferably, will not even be perceived.

You can talk about varying — in a liberal or conservative direction — the conditions under which innocent human life will "legally" be destroyed, but opposing all such destruction in principle is out.

You can talk about fiddling around with the percentages and convolutions of the tax code by which Americans are kept economically enslaved, but the notion of redressing the underlying injustice through replacing the income tax with a National Sales Tax is out.

You can portray the genocidal threats and actions of the enemies of our country as seen through the PC-colored glasses of either major party, but to propose doing what is morally and practically necessitated by the very nature of the terrorism crisis is out.

And so it goes, program after program, issue after issue, until we are so used to hearing certain things, it evidently becomes all but impossible for us to hear anything else. The realm of perceived possibility shrinks as the constantly-repeated alternatives come to be viewed as the only viable ones.

As everyone knows, Alan Keyes Is Making Sense didn't last long enough for, say, my good-hearted neighbors to find out about it. Its host, by making sense, was evidently also making waves. I haven't the slightest idea what happened behind the scenes, as far as the cancellation of this show goes. I make no claim to being anything but an outside observer. The only thing I know for a fact is that I wouldn't have had time to get cable installed for the purposes of watching Alan's program at home, after all.

But has anyone so much as noticed how devastating this cancellation has proven to be? For all practical purposes — no. Just about everybody would have heard of Alan Keyes by now, if the networks hadn't turned him into a Soviet nonperson back in 2002.

Let's face it. The presidential election of '08 isn't becoming a crisis because there is no real conservative out there to get behind. No — we have a crisis of White House proportions developing because we have naively accepted the premise that the American political process takes place only among a handful of elitist-appointed Delphic Oracles, all incestuously appearing on politically-correct network shows.

To the extent that Dr. Keyes is banished from the mainstream media conversation, those of us who think as he does are banished as well. The question is, what do we intend to do about it? If we cordially agree to remain sidelined spectators while these restricted and constantly recycled conversations are carried on — rather than insisting on being the proactive participants in the political process that our rights as Americans entitle us to be — is it any wonder that we end up not liking what we hear and see?

A warning label for the media product

J.R.R. Tolkien gave us a marvelous metaphor regarding the dangers of manipulated media in the palantiri of Middle Earth. Sometimes mistaken by less-than-careful readers for mere crystal balls, the Seeing Stones were actually the advanced communications technology of their fictional world. Originally good, they are subverted by Sauron, and only then is their potential for devastation unveiled. It is the nature of that devastation that concerns us here.

Gandalf's explanation of the functioning of the Seeing Stones under the Enemy's control parallels the actual condition of the modern-day mainstream media almost eerily. They "do not lie, and not even the Lord of Barad-dur can make them do so," the White Wizard tells Pippin. "He can, maybe, by his will choose what things shall be seen by weaker minds, or cause them to mistake the meaning of what they see" (emphasis added).[2]

A captured palantir, in other words, presents actual events, but only when and how the Enemy wants them presented, leaving out completely that which does not advance his agenda. When you stop and think about it, this is exactly how liberal media bias works, with the sole difference that many things appearing in our real world news actually do turn out to be lies. And what effect do the Seeing Stones have on those who buy into their seductive alternate reality?

Denethor son of Echthelion is one of the characters who definitively shows us. Under the impression that he is using a palantir when the truth is, through it, Sauron is using him, Denethor meets with a self-imposed end. But first, something equally instructive happens.

He abdicates his role as Steward of Gondor. He stops seeing himself as a proactive player in the events of Middle Earth, and begins to accept as inevitable that which the Enemy plans and desires, but cannot bring about unless Denethor can be convinced to give up.

And succeed Sauron does — with Denethor, anyway. What the Enemy wants, needs, and ultimately gets from him is acceptance of his new role as mere spectator, with its severely limited scope of active participation in the unfolding of events.

Yet the tragedy of the Steward of Gondor is as much Denethor's fault as Sauron's, for it is Denethor who made himself susceptible in the first place to being "persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve." Gandalf says this of all who injudiciously use the palantiri — including Saruman, the once-White Wizard, who should by rights have been the leader of the anti-Sauron effort overall.

The problem with these originally good guys, then — the reason they turn away from the struggle and, in so doing, imperil all of Middle Earth — is that they've been watching too much MNN (Mordor News Network). And the problem of countless daunted conservatives who are increasingly advocating the cause of capitulation in '08 is precisely that of Saruman and Denethor.

Yes, Virginia — and California, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Illinois . . .

When we speak, act, and think as though the political conundrum facing us in the upcoming Presidential election cycle consists of the fact that there is no one out there who will really represent us, no one steadfast enough to turn America away from its headlong course towards self-destruction, then it is time to realize that we too have been peering into a palantir. The evidence of our failure to consume the media product responsibly is the fact that our perception of the actual state of affairs is simply not true.

There IS a real conservative out there who is prepared to participate in the primaries of '08, if only we are willing to support him to the point that he can give us his "yea."

Whether the manipulative power-brokers of either major party manage, through their media yes-men, to rook us into believing that the man of whom Ronald Reagan once said, "I've never known a more stout-hearted defender of a strong America,"[3] cannot be taken seriously — or whether they actually succeed in eliciting from good-hearted, well-meaning Americans the puzzled query, "Who's Alan Keyes?" — the effect is the same. They end up controlling what we, the electorate, can and cannot do.

And as long as we fail to challenge these un-American conditions, electing a real conservative will always turn out to be something we cannot do — not only through their fault, but also through our own.

Folks, we need to start thinking outside the TV screen. Why should the Democrats, or so-called Republicans who actually belong on the other side of the aisle, be allowed to succeed in their media-orchestrated power grab, while we sit around trying to solve the false problem they have posed for us — concerning which one of them we will "have to" cast our vote for two Novembers from now?

Dr. Keyes has said he will lead us, but he has also rightly pointed out that he cannot lead — no one can — those who have already, falsely, been "persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve" into remaining on the sidelines of the democratic process. Informed conservatives know — or have no real excuse for not knowing — who Alan Keyes is. It is high time to find out who we really are as well.

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© Helen Weir