Can You Feel It Yet? FOX News in the Crosshairs.

I'm getting a little squirmy now.  I don't cotton much to conspiracy theories and I like to hope the best for the U.S., but this pogrom by the Whitehouse against FOX News is a little unsettling.

Imagine if you will some past and present dictatorships.  At the time of their rise, the dictators capture the support of a few newspapers and other news outlets.  Somewhere along the way, those news outlets develope a bias toward the despot and/or his way of thinking.  In time the bias is so ingrained that it passes for news and not editorial content.

Now along comes a dissident voice.  One that gains power and influence because it strikes a "chord" in the hearts of those who have, for some time now, been subjected to a slow brain washing by the heretofore "unbiased" media.  People starved to hear once again what it really means to be an American and who pays homage to the sacrifices of the founding fathers.  This "voice" gains enough influence to begin to direct public opinion against the entrenched leadership.  No longer does the political establishment have interpretive control of what the public sees and hears.  The voice is now a threat.

Now imagine that the politicians undertake an attack to discredit this new dissident voice.  In preparation for what?  Control?  Muzzling? Takeover?  Shut Down?  Can you say that this unprecedented attack on the independent media is without purpose and direction?  I think not.  Despots have long known that control of information and education is imperative for consolidation and fortification of power.  The techniques of media control made history in the form of Hitler's right hand man Josef Goebbels.  Today, we need only look south to Venezuela to see how it's done.  Is not what is happening to FOX News what must have been happening in Venezuela before Hugo Chavez began stripping away the right to free speech and muzzling all but the faithful?

The First Amendment is at a crossroads.  Never in our history have we been more vulnerable to seeing our ability to speak freely slip away into the night.  Never before have we seen the government directly attack and attempt to discredit a news outlet.  What remains to be seen is who will notice and who will take action.