1 NATION, NO MORE?
Exclusive: Joseph Farah warns media’s propaganda war could ‘explode into a shooting war’
by Joseph Farah
WND.com
One nation, no more.
No.
The U.S. motto, “e pluribus unum,” no longer applies.
We don’t live up to the phrase “out of many, one.” We don’t even try.
It’s passé. The opposite is where we’re heading – “out of one, many.” We have lost our commonality. We have shattered the bonds that once held us together – namely the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the values that inspired them.
Everyone is beginning to notice it. The evidence is in the explosive, vitriolic political rhetoric of the day.
According to a new CBS News poll, three-quarters of Americans feel the current tone of politics and debate is encouraging violence among some people. Violence, not dissent. Violence, not just passion. Violence, not constructive change.
Ironically, the constituents of the party and ideology most responsible for the escalation of fiery hate speech are the very people whose views are reflected by these poll results. That would be the Democratic Party and its most fervent left-wing followers.
It’s no longer just a matter of disagreement between the leadership of this party and the one that controls the White House and Congress. It’s war. It’s incitement. It’s organized hatred – the kind one would expect to find in a nation engaged in civil war. But, honestly, there’s nothing civil about it.
America has been involved in many wars throughout its 240-year history. But the deadliest of all of them, in terms of American carnage, was the one it fought with itself – the one that split the U.S. in half. A nation that experienced nearly a million self-inflected deaths in four years should know better. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. Do we really want to go there, again? Is it even avoidable when we no longer find common ground on the most basic values and assumptions – like marriage, sex, the rule of law, self-government, right and wrong, borders, the principle of self-defense, etc.?
There is a cold war being waged within America over our basic way of life. And it threatens to explode into a hot war at any moment.
Do we just continue to slouch toward that inevitability? Or is there room for dialogue and respect for differing opinions?
At this point, I must say that only one side in this dispute seems to want to criminalize dissent and disagreement. It is the Democratic Party and the leftist ideology. They want to shut down debate with force and even violence. Oddly, they do this in the place where we once practiced “academic freedom” – the institutions of “higher learning” that claim to fight for “diversity” and “tolerance.”
If this be “tolerance” and “diversity,” the words have been bastardized beyond recognition.
So how do we begin to heal this rift?
You might be surprised by my answer. I actually think real “diversity” is the key. One side only considers race, sex, sexual activity, national origin, ethnicity, religion, etc. But notice how the left doesn’t tolerate one kind of diversity, the most important kind – the philosophical and ideological kind.
Isn’t that interesting?
And that’s precisely the kind we need in the major cultural institutions to quench the hate-mongering, the incitement and the sparks of violence we are beginning to see in America today.
We need to see this on campus. We need to see it in the media. We need to see it in the schools. We need to see it in the libraries. We need to see it in the major foundations.
I believe the most important starting point for this kind of diversity is in the press. This war is mainly waged on the propaganda front. That’s what so-called “mainstream journalism” has become – a weapon in the cold propaganda war that has the potential to explode into a shooting war.
Is that what CNN wants? Is that what the New York Times wants? Is that what ABC, CBS and NBC want?
If not, why are they acting like they do? Why do they act like there is only one valid worldview? Why do they push the agenda of the hard left without excuse, without self-consciousness and seemingly without thought?