In the year of 2001 we witnessed as a nation the smearing of an entire race and creed of people based on the actions of nineteen muslim individuals. The mainstream media successfully wiped out the decades of peaceful co-existence that Americans had shared with millions of American Muslims here in our country. According to the mainstream media all Muslims were the enemy, all Muslims were hate filled religious fanatics that wanted to destroy our way of life. And the United States was ushered into a new era of respectable bigotry.

Next up the media smeared the pacifists. Anyone who spoke out against the illegal war against Iraq, a war based on lies and fought for control of oil, was a traitor to our nation. The media directed the thoughts of the pro-war right to attack and criticize the anti-war left, and they did. Booing catcalls at patriots like The Dixie Chicks and the media concocted moniker of “freedom fries” were all the rage. Freedom fries? Forgotten was the history of the founding of our nation, a nation that would not have ever come into existence were it not for the help of the French military. The French shed their blood for America, and as a token of our thanks we poured their champagne into our sewers.

Then the conservative “Right” got their taste of media bashing and propaganda and were decried as racists for daring to speak out against the government. Surely no criticism of the government takeover of our health care system could have any validity, the media directed. And the left piled on, eager for vengeance on the right who ignored and marginalized their angry protests only months before. But two wrongs still don’t make a right.

And now today they come for the constitution. Today they come for you and I. They will take the Joe Stack plane crash incident and drum it over and over again, creating a crisis in the hearts and minds of the America people until they demand that, “Something must be done!”. Arguments that the government breaks the law and does not obey the constitution will be twisted and distorted as nothing more than the manic and irrelevant babbling of madmen. The actions of one individual (or perhaps even the actions of a few) will be used to smear an entire political movement that is asking only for a return to the constitution of the United States.

And through it all one entity is consistantly at the epicenter of the turmoil, the hatred and the finger pointing.. the mainstream media. They are preachers to a choir of citizens lost in a sea of concocted fear-mongering and hate who are now confused, scared, and feeling ever more alone. Forgotten by them are the principles of what it is to be an American.

Never before has the quote from Pastor Martin Niemöller been more true in our day. With modifications..

First they came for the Muslims, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Muslim;
Then they came for the pacifists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a pacifist;
Then they came for the conservatives, and I did not speak out—because I was not a conservative;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

And so today more and more of us are coming to the realization that the Mainstream media’s propaganda is the number one enemy of people who wish to live under the constitution of the United States. But we are still lucky. The mainstream media does not come to take away our lives, they come to take away our voices. But know that once our voices are gone, our lives will be in the greatest of danger. Perhaps now, that the vitriol of the mainstream media has come full circle and touched us all, instead of listening to how they tell us we should think, Americans will finally start listening to one another.

Sincerely,

Trevor Lyman

http://trevorlyman.com/commentary/first-they-came-for-the-muslims/