The old saying about ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’ is, like all old sayings, as relevant today as it ever was. Few people take much notice of something that is all around all of the time. We no longer notice how awful pop music is because we hear it incessantly. We no longer notice the noise of urban living for the same reason. We no longer notice that the Media Class shapes just about every aspect of our politics and culture because it is doing so 24 hours a day. Thus I find it illuminating when a scandal of sorts about the influence-peddling of journalism surfaces in Washington DC. The source of the little scandal was a proposed ‘salon’ to be hosted by Katharine Weymouth, the owner of the Washington Post. For $25,000, lobbyists and corporate executives were to be granted exclusive access to members of the Obama administration, Congress, and Post journalists. The venue was to be Weymouth’s plush home. Because the news of this salon leaked out, the event was quickly cancelled and some commentators have talked of it being a lapse of journalistic ethics and that the Post was acting as an “influence peddler”
We should not be taken in by any expressions of condemnation, as though this proposed event was somehow a rupture of some principle of Media independence and objectivity. On this website we maintain that the Media Class now calls the shots for politicians. They dance to the Media’s tune, as do administration officials, most Big Business leaders (and many smaller ones) and virtually all public figures who wish to remain ‘public’. What was proposed by Miss Weymouth was that leading CEO’s and their lobbyists (who all dance to her tune in Washington, where it really counts to be a good dancer) would pay to schmooze with Obama’s officials (who also dance to her tune) and with Democrat Politicians (who also dance to her tune). All this schmoozing was to be done at the behest of a modern day Queen. Here on this website we assume that this kind of schmoozing goes on all the time, though ‘schmoozing’ makes it sound too much like a harmless party of fun.
Salons were popular in Paris in the days when rich aristocrats dominated French Society and entertained the intellectuals of the day and ensured that they and their writings were bought and paid for. In Weimar Germany, the rich industrialists of the post-war era also held salons and the politicians of the day attended to get their orders and to get their noses in the trough. Adolph Hitler, being a quick learner, polished up his act and joined in and it is said that he soon found funds flowing to his new Party. As it turned out Hitler was not a typical politician and subsequently out-maneuvered the ruling Class of his day, but that is another story.
Members of the ruling Class hold salons and all those who aspire to get on in business, politics and the professions, jockey to get invitations. First and foremost it enables those who attend to discover exactly in which direction the wind is blowing. This is vitally important for those who wish to succeed for it amounts to learning what is the agenda of the Ruling Class. If our website visitors want to know why homosexual privileges are so high up the ‘to do’ list of big corporations it is probably not because big corporations are stuffed with homosexuals but because at such gatherings the ruling Media Class people make it clear that the ‘Gay Agenda’ is a priority. FedEx has just, without shareholders approval, introduced new rights for the ‘transgendered’. Surely no-one thinks that the ‘transgendered’ are a popular or the most important client group for the mail business?
The Weymouth salon that never was, but which will nevertheless be replicated many times in other places, lifts the lid just for a moment or two on the seamless quilt that is the Media Class, the political world and the Business world and it tells us who holds the whip hand. Let us not forget that Business is largely precluded by legisaltion from campaigning on political matters but the Media Class has no restrictions on who it endorses in elections, who it writes favorably about and which issues it elevates to the headlines. On this website, we rest our case!
Attendance at the salons also enables politicians to discover, if they didn’t already know, what new legislation is required by the Rulers, especially in the field of morals and social services. Politicians, who can rarely be accused of passing up the chance to get richer from holding office, are also able to sell their votes for favorable legislation for favored businesses. Government, especially Obama’s new Government, is in the business of picking the winners and losers of the corporate world. Finally, we should not overlook the attractions of rubbing shoulders with the Ruling Class just for the excitement of being on the inside, especially when the Ruling Class is mostly composed of celebrities and celebrity-makers. What Business leader and his wife or mistress would pass up the chance to rub shoulders with Al Franken or Barney Frank? If you think I am being facetious here, then you overstimate today’s Media-obsessed and Media-brainwashed masses. In a world dominated by the Media’s outpourings (the wood having been obscured by the trees!), most people, even those seemingly educated and intelligent, would give anything for the chance to mingle with a celebrity.