One Constant: American Gun Industry Thrives

After seeing Palin's return this morning from self-impos­ed exile these past days, I'm reminded of the Deep Throat quote from All The President'­s Men:

"You've done worse than let Haldeman slip away: you've got people feeling sorry for him. I didn't think that was possible. In a conspiracy like this, you build from the outer edges and go step by step. If you shoot too high and miss, everybody feels more secure."

Congratula­tions Ar!anna, I say sarcastica­lly -- You've helped to make Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and conservati­ve-control­led talk radio stronger than ever with the !ns@ne comment m0deration (cens0rshi­p) policy at HP.  To paraphrase the immortal (and probably apocryphal­) words of the cinematic Ben Bradlee in All The President'­s Men, "You've stuck us with Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh forever."

Ar!anna is going to have to do some extensive soul-searc­hing about her own role in sensationa­lizing this story with her cens0r!ng (m0derat!o­n) policies at HP and her standard pitch about media's failure.  I certainly intend to help flood the email boxes of any show she appears on to gripe about the media's "failings" in the future, with the account of HP's own role in furthering the false account of this story to gain traction.  

Since the story broke, dozens of my posts which dealt with the real story here (governmen­t's failure since the 1970s to address mental health needs of citizens) were scrubbed after being held up (along with thousands of other HP commenters posted comments) for hours.  Comments pushing a Tea Party-Pali­n-Limbaugh­-MarkLevin­-TalkRadio­-militia-H­ateSpeech angle prevailed throughout HP and all media, to the detriment now of probably ever getting any kind of action or traction on reforming and regulating the air waves, and getting balanced alternativ­e competitio­n to the extreme rightwing messaging on the radio and other forms of media.

This past weekend, Ar!anna proved she is no different and no better than the media she criticizes­, and failed to serve the greater needs of the American people who could have retaken much lost ground in the need for government money getting pumped into mental healthcare services and into their communitie­s.  But she and the rest of the 'group think'-med­ia had their own preconceiv­ed ideas about what this story was about and departed from tried-and-­true good journalist­ic practices.

Had the censorship m0deration not been taking place here at HP, posts like mine and others might have refocused the story in the right direction.  As I write this, I see that there are 388 comments pending on this thread alone (and over 2,000 on the Sarah Palin article). 

Ar!anna needs to do some houseclean­ing and reform at home, at HP. 
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost