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ACORN is shutting down because of a fraudulent video pimped by the corporate media. U.S. forces in Afghanistan have heroically laid seige to and conquered a fictional city, helping build the case for further escalation. A cable news channel has created a right-wing mass movement by pretending it already existed. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a health insurance bill he believed would deprive more people of healthcare (and wealth and homes), because fraudulent reports had convinced his constituents of the opposite. The peace movement was defunded in November 2008, because of a fraudulent presidential election campaign. 71% of Americans believe Iran has nuclear weapons. 41% of Americans think the quality of the environment is improving. Has the power of the corporate media to overwhelm all before it begun to sink in yet?
ACORN’s funders didn’t have to run and hide because of a bunch of laughably bad lies, but they were afraid. The most common excuse of progressive congress members for anything they do is fear of the media. The peace movement didn’t have to shut down, but its funders had used war as a criticism of Republicans; opposing war for its own sake was secondary, and their televisions told them peace had arrived. Kucinich could have stuck to his No vote on healthcare, but he probably wouldn’t have lasted long in Congress. We don’t have to be suckered by comically manipulative war news, but all the big media outlets want war — and the Democratic-party outlets especially favor war now. Fox News could not have created the Teabaggers on its own, but MSNBC and the Democratic blogosphere spend a majority of their time focused on Teabaggers and Republicans because it unites their viewers/readers against something uglier than elected Democrats, never mind that in Washington the Democrats technically have all the power.
We need independent media. Is that not yet crystal clear? The strongest grassroots community organization in the country, ACORN, has been swatted away like a fly through the endless airing of fraudulent, badly edited, and irrelevant, but salacious video clips. Elected officials or electoral candidates succeed or fail at the whim of the media cartel. And the biggest lies of all are buried so deeply beneath the hot news stories that they’re almost impossible to see. Does or does not Iran possess nuclear weapons? That question hides the insidious assumption that if a nation possesses nuclear weapons, then our nation can and should launch an illegal war of aggression against it. Or at least our nation should have a debate over how best to take action against our "enemy," a debate that will represent us all because it will include two political parties.
This is the biggest lie of them all: the system works. Vote for this corporatist war party or that warmongering corporate party, and you will have played your role well. The system works. The president makes the laws. The Congress gets in the way. The two parties are significantly different from each other and represent our views. News stories that include the views of both parties are complete and admirable journalism. The journalism itself has no viewpoint at all. The role of a citizen is to support politicians and parties.
Imagine if Bush wanted to try alleged terrorists in court (as in fact he did). All the Republicanites would have cheered (as in fact they did). Imagine if Bush had pushed a health insurance bill written by the industry and had cut deals with the insurance and drug companies. Imagine if Republicans had called a private program for 3% of Americans a "public option". All the Democratites in the country would have denounced the whole thing as a scam. The problem with "balanced" reporting is that those who consume it pick one of the two partisan positions presented and follow it as if they’d thought of it themselves. This mindless obedience is going to destroy us all.
We need independent media, meaning sources of news that are independent of either political party. We could easily find the money to create it right now if we chose to make that a priority. We will do so or we, and this republic, and the world as we know it will perish . . . in horrible pain, with a grin on our face.
6 Comments
Is there anyone left who believes what comes out of their TV? It is so obviously lying that I am unwilling to think people really buy it. Even the folks at big time wrastlin’ say they know it is a little bit staged but they still like it.
Are there polls for people saying they believe the slop they call news? What percentage say they rely on the main stream media.
The media allows only a very narrow part of the total spectrum of political opinion to be broadcast. You’ve got your conservative Dem viewpoint vs. your right-wing nutcase viewpoint, with little else represented.
And our corporate overlords have a number of opinions that are totally taboo, and are therefore rarely, if ever, heard:
To whit, roughly half of the US budget is spent on preparing for and engaging in warfare; we have not declared war on any nation for decades — yet it is taboo to mention the defense budget when having a debate about how best to cut the deficit. The universality of this taboo is something I continually marvel at.
Other taboos: criticizing our failed “War on Drugs”, “man on the street” interviews in countries we are currently bombing and/or occupying, criticizing the Israeli government (although this is changing slightly), providing coverage of the events at the International Criminal Court, or coverage of governmental leaders being captured and charged with war crimes, coverage of the threat to our security from the far right militia movement, coverage of peace marches, rallies, even when tens of thousands march, etc.
You really can learn a lot more about what’s happening in this country by examining the information we DON’T get here, compared to the media in many other countries around the world.
What we see and hear in the corporate media reflects American self-preoccupation — there is very little coverage of significant events taking place abroad, or any attempt to educate Americans about other cultures. American exceptionalism and global hegemony — while belied by our plummeting standard of living and increasing global irrelevance — are taken for granted in the U.S.media.
The news media has abandoned journalism as a public service and has embraced infotainment, cutting their newsroom staffs while spending millions to celebrity news readers, like Katie Couric.
Yet most Americans seem content with this processed baby food served by the MSM. That’s the crux of the problem; we don’t demand anything better.
Recall ACORN was targeted by KKKarl Rove and the Bushie Crime Family. I posted about the phony baloney “liberals”, Melanie Sloan and CREW. Sloan slandered ACORN on national tee vee. They are only one of the many bought and paid for Dee Cee puppets of our corporate rulers, who always sell us out. Mark Penn is a co-founder of CREW. They keep their donors secret. Melanie needs to apologize or I may have to write another Diary.
A serious shame.
Just as the loss of Glass-Steagall has now proved dramatically disastrous, changes to regulations allowing consolidation of media ownership has also proven to be a detriment to our society.
It’s not just independent media, but more diversity in both ownership and the the content their outlets carry.
Parts of the Blogosphere are headed in the same directiosn, or so I fear. I hope I am reading the tea leaves all wrong but to me heretofore progressive voices have begun to sound (and smell) like the veal pen.