Media Myth

So, I'm in class today, and we're talking about the age of mass media in which we are currently in.  Political and social scientists argue that today's media is incredibly diverse and chock full of competition.  Their argument behind this belief, a reasonable one, is that at any given moment you can turn on the television or the computer and find news from a multitude of sources out there.  I have though been having a rather hard time with this.  I'm not writing today to tell anyone of the political biases of the mass media, that seems like an argument with no good answer; many people on the right argue that the media has a clear and definite slant to the left, and people on the left argue the same just in the other direction.  What I would argue though is the massive scale in which the modern news media is inefficient, inaccurate, and incompetent.  Furthermore, in no way do I believe that there is a large diversity of voices out there in regards to the mass media; rather a great many voices all spewing the same swill, representing the interests of a few massive corporations.  

There are in fact only ten companies that control almost all of what anyone can see out there.  When looking into the stakes and ownerships of these massive media conglomerates, only three are not owned in part by some of their competition; Sony, General Electric, and Walt Disney.  This fact doesn't tell the whole truth though, after digging a bit deeper to see where ownership of individual networks and news outlets are concerned, not one of the ten major media companies operate independently of any of their competition.  How can anyone argue that there is a diversity in news and opinion out there when there are ten companies, all working together, providing the public with almost all of their news and information?  

I'm not trying to suggest as some conspiracy theorists do that this puts us somehow on a path toward a New World Order or that all of the media is entirely corrupt.  I believe there are individual journalists and reporters that are reporting on news that they believe to be relevant.  The problem that I see is in the gatekeeping.  That is what stories get reported, which ones get left behind and why.  When the World Trade Organization holds a conference, it's no wonder that none of the major networks like ABC, CBS, or NBC spend much if any time on the situation in the streets outside of the conference.  Disney (ABC), General Electric (NBC), and Viacom (CBS) would lose some of the benefits created for them by the ludicrous free trade agreements made by the WTO.  Surely if the American public were to see their fellow citizens being run down by storm troopers in riot gear for showing their opposition to such deals and organizations, they would be outraged and someone would have to do something about it.  So the simple solution is to keep it quiet.  If the most powerful corporations in industry, technology, and services are the same corporations that serve as our window to the world why would they show the public anything that does not serve their best interest.  

You don't have to be a socialist, progressive, or a libertarian to see this, sadly it seems that only those on the fringe... better yet, those who believe there is something better out there than the stale 'best worst' scenario that is spoon fed to the American public so they don't get too far out of line and disrupt the balance of power, are the ones who are quickest to pick up on this.

What can be done then?   This is where I have trouble.  Being one of those fringe elements, considering myself left of left and favoring ideas bordering socialism my response is to regulate the media industry, keep these massive corporations from becoming too big, and thus making them less harmful to the enlightenment of the American public.  I already know what all of my fellow fringe elements in the Libertarian party will say, and that is we can't trust the government, they are the enemy in the first place.  There are I'm sure a slew of opinions and disagreements in between.  So what do we do? Can we let the free market have it and just stop giving these companies our money?  They're the only ones out there.  My internet service fee each month goes to support one of these ten media giants, in fact if I want internet where I live, I have no option but to give one of them money.  Same thing goes for paid television and a phone line.  Anyone, anything?

Happy Earth Day

It's been 39 years since the first Earth day in 1970.  Environmental awareness is the first step in taking action to make our planet a better place.  Where do we stand in light of Earth Day being recognized annually for almost forty years now?  Well, in some aspects things are definitely better, for example the Cuyahoga river hasn't caught on fire due to pollution since 1969.  In other aspects we are not any better.  Global Warming is a real issue that really has yet to be addressed, unfortunately very rich and very powerful entities stand in the way.  Sad to say, but it's hard to get as rich off of renewable energies like wind, solar, and geothermal.  One more piece of misfortune is that it seems the people at the top would prefer a larger profit margin today regardless of the cost to future generations.  On this Earth Day, I will be writing letters to my representatives in Washington and Lansing and asking them to get with the program and do something about the ever-looming problem of pollution in our nation.  If we really are what they say we are, the greatest nation on the planet, we should not back down from this challenge of finding renewable, clean, and safe forms of producing energy.  The world is not a perfect place, but we should never stop trying. Happy Earth Day.

Tax week has now come and past, and I have been seeing things about this teabagging going on this past Wednesday.  I'm not usually plugged into the fifty dollar a month glowing blue box news sources (cable news), but in a fit of boredom just the other night I was curious what the cable networks were saying about this.  In passing NPR and the BBC made mention of these events, but for the times I listened there was not a great deal of time spent on this issue, except for an essay piece by Jack Lessenberry about how though taxes were annoying to him, he was proud to pay them because most of that money went to things he enjoyed and believed people should have.  Like roads and police and books in our public schools and national defense.  But he did not really make a big hubub about the teabaggers themselves, just about what they were out in the streets about.  

The cable news was where this showdown was really intended to take place, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC and CBS don't care what happens in the streets of America. (Trust me, after being part of over 400,000 people marching on Washington, and having FOX tell me we were only about 1,000 strong, and CNN flinch when they reported the truth, change it a minute later to 'thousands' because FOX's story was different)  What they were interested in is whether or not they could effectively produce - in the sense of producing television - produce a movement.  MSNBC's Keith Olberman was all over it, mocking it and calling it a sham, in the mean time FOX was fairly and with balance telling everyone that they needed to be there, and that every one of their shows on tax day would be dedicated to showing how outraged everyone was with their taxes.  I did some looking, maybe not enough, but it looked like CNN took the sideline on this one... 

So the stage was set, the news networks had drawn their lines in the sand, their lead commentators faced off... Would the people turn out, would the "Mainstream Media" cover it?  I thought it was particularly funny, in a couple clips from FOX I was watching, they kept questioning if the "mainstream media" would cover it, like they weren't ranked number one in cable news... doesn't that make YOU mainstream?  Anyway, the numbers are out, the guesses totaled.  Nationwide the highest estimate from city and county officials totals 240,000 (remember thats nationwide)  and the largest was 20,000.  These statistics are from the Christian Science Monitor, the only newspaper i could find that would offer me real numbers.  Though I did find it laughable in my search reading from several conservative newspapers from around the nation that this was the largest movement seen in the nation in decades... Nonetheless they had their little party, sponsored by the industry leader in cable news, and they all cheered and patted themselves on the back.  As one conservative newspaper put it, the protests were "dominated by white conservatives and libertarians". 

Now for a little perspective... In March 2006, led by community organizers, 1.5 million protesters hit the streets around the nation to protest the conservative initiative to clamp down on immigration and build a ridiculous Stalin-esque wall between our nation and theirs.  In February 2003, the highest estimates of anti-war protesters pleading with George W Bush to not invade Iraq was 10 million.  In January 2007 between 100,000 and 400,000 people showed up in Washington DC to protest the announcement of the surge, a plan to send more troops into a war that was, and is failing.  To FOX's point these, and many other events were largely absent in the mass media, there was a Britney Spears bad hair day to cover instead.  

What does this all say?  First of all, FOX should no longer be allowed to use the name "NEWS" in their title, something more fitting like ' FOX current events and opinions' or 'FOX what we think news ought to be'.  I'm not saying there's much better about the other networks out there, any of you that listen to my ravings know that I'm not much a fan of anything corporate... Clearly though, you can't call yourself a news organization and then organize a nationwide series of protests to a government's policy.  That is where you cease to be a news agency and become part of a movement.  A news agency would be present at the rally, but would not have their top anchormen leading the charge...  

Second, it looks to me as though this teabag nonsense has gotten more press coverage in five days that the entire anti-war movement has gotten in the last six years.  There are more important things out there than your money in your billfold people.  I don't think that the majority of the public seems to care that 5000 or so Americans have been killed as well as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's in this needless and illegal war we are engaged in.... By the way for all you tax activists out there, upset because we're spending billions of dollars trying to save the economy at home, just a quick fun fact for you, the US military budget including all costs Iraq and Afghanistan is more than any stimulus type package we've seen so far... Thats okay with you, lets spend 700+ Billion dollars on killing and destroying a foreign land, but when it comes to rebuilding our own after the flawed system of the last thirty years is collapsing, thats when we're wasting money... I get it.

Last, I would like to welcome the white middle class, 'living cozy in my four bedroom, two story, two stall garage house - But I'm getting taxed too much' people into the fold of faithful social dissidents, I hope that someday we'll find an issue to hit the streets together in agreement on.  Until then, go back home, sit back down in front of your 46" LCD HDTV, keep ignoring the fact that your kid is popping prescription pills, and shut the fuck up.  Taxes are the price we pay for living in a civilized society.  It's a hassle yes, but one of those necessary evils.  I would much rather live in a nation with roads, police forces, public schools, fire departments, a national defense, and all the other wonderful things that our taxes buy us.  This is not to say that there is some wasteful spending that comes out of our government.  There is.  I recommend that you take issue with the things that you find wasteful, rather than the means to which both the useful and the wasteful are funded.  Thats like saying 'hey I don't like that my kid stays out too late every once in a while, I'm going to kill him'  rather the response should be to correct the disagreeable behavior.

Today's thoughts

It's been a bit since I've said much here... Not that I haven't had much to say, just haven't done it.  I was listening to one of my favorite radio shows last night in which they were talking about the political dirt being flung from the right, and how militant it has gotten lately.  The question was asked about whether or not it was too much, especially considering some of the things that came from the left over the last eight years.  

As many of you may know, I was not a fan of the Bush administration, I was not a fan of the systematic pulling back of constitutional rights, and the institutional promotion of bigotry and hatred that came down from on high, and I was, and still am not a fan of the two senseless illegal wars we are fighting over seas.  So far, the Obama administration has promoted diplomacy and dialogue between nations, as opposed to the Bush administration's provocation, and heavy handedness on similar issues.  Our current president has given back hope to the promise of science helping to make our world a better one to live in, been actively pursuing ways to better the economic situation, and been making amends to peoples and nations the Bush administration burned bridges with.  Obama has also made an effort to bring an end to the war in Iraq, setting a timetable for withdrawal of combat troops.

These efforts for peace and prosperity have been met by the right with dangerous rhetoric encouraging citizens to arm themselves, prepare for revolution, protest taxes, and one particular talking head even asked for President Obama to light him on fire, rather than do the things he was doing.  This nonsensical raving of lunatics, one would hope, would be limited to a fringe group of far right fanatics that no one in their right mind would pay any attention to.  Unfortunately, most of these inflammatory statements are coming from respected members of the mainstream Republican community, and here's where the problem lies...

During the Bush years, there were many rotten things said about Bush and his cronies, much of it deserved, some of it not.  The bulk, however, of the more militant and ridiculous things coming from the left came from fringe elements, not the mainstream.  Most Democrats and liberals brushed the majority of the nonsense aside, and tried to stay on point with factual and logical issues that deserved to be challenged. (say torture, spying on Americans, refusing rights to prisoners, wasteful government spending, tax cuts for the rich making the burden of the middle class worse, so on...)  

In any case, it comes down to this: During the last eight years, our country has gotten a little off course.  The economy is in shambles, and it seems the only people not struggling are the richest of the rich who George W Bush saw fit to give tax cuts and in the mean time the other 90 percent of us are struggling.  Our unemployment rate is the highest it's been since 1983 (Ronald Reagan, the guy who started this mess was president then by the way) We are involved in two pointless and bloody wars that are showing no signs of a real 'victory' anywhere in sight.  Our public school systems are crumbling.  Something has to be done about it.  President Obama is.  This is not to say that I agree with everything that is being done, but at least it's better than cutting taxes for the rich, investing billions in killing machines, tearing down civil liberties, and putting more emphasis on faith than science.  Hopefully four years from now we'll be better off than we are today, and hopefully we can come together to make this nation and this world a better place to live than what we've been given.

Another day, another rant

Things seem to be al little askew in the world today... It's no secret that we are currently engaged in two foreign wars, that our economy is in crisis, the government is about to spend a staggering $700+ billion, everyday regular Americans are suffering; losing their jobs, their investments, and their homes, and the health of the planet is in an alarming state.  What's with all of this anyway?  The powers to be in our society would like us all to believe that we are fighting our two wars as an act of self defense.  See, there are these small groups of men, hiding in caves, in remote parts of the world.  And these men are hellbent on destroying our way of life.  They can do it too, because they flew airplanes into buildings in New York, and tragic events like that would destroy our way of life you see... It is tragic what happened on September 11, 8 years ago, but in no way shape or form did i feel threatened in my way of life.  In no way shape or form do I believe that small groups of fanatics living in caves on the other side of the globe have a snowballs chance in hell of tearing down the system in which I live.  Hell, it's hard enough for an American to make a small change to the system.   So it's a ridiculous notion to believe that this "War on Terror" is real, why are we fighting?  Two more likely reasons are the oil pipeline now in place that the Taliban nixed in 1998, and the opium production, also something the Taliban cut down on while in power.  Yes, the Taliban were ruthless, ultraconservative, religious fanatics; but they did a great job in cutting down on their nation's opium production, and it seems made the fatal mistake of not doing business with Western oil companies.  In Iraq, the story has been a little less consistent, but no more believable. First, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons.  He was willing and able to use these weapons against us.  Before we get to the part where after we took over everything, we couldn't find anything, lets go back just a little bit... If Saddam had these weapons, which we know he didn't, how would he attack us with them?  He didn't have an airforce, no navy, and what he did have of a military would be of little use in attacking a nation on the opposite end of the globe, unless i guess they intended to dig a hole to the United States, and send their weapons of mass destruction that way... So why war with Iraq?  It's been rumored that after the sanctions were to be lifted, Hussein planned to start trading his oil in Euros not dollars which could cause considerable damage to US economic interests.  Also perhaps the fact that Saddam routinely acted against the interest of the West's economic powers.  Then there's that line about spreading democracy, and bringing freedom to the Iraqi people.  If the United States government gave two shits about freedom and democracy, they wouldn't have destroyed the bill of rights by passing the Patriot Act, and if invading sovereign nations were how we intended to spread freedom and democracy there are plenty of nations enduring greater tyranny and hardships than the Iraqi people before 2003.  Fortunately for the House of Saud, they have chosen to engage the West as business partners, rather than rivals.  The economy is in crisis and we're about to spend $700+ to try to fix it... Okay, well why is the economy in crisis?  Since 1980 our government has been shifting to more conservative methods of regulating the economy.  Ronald Reagan told us that government was the problem, and since then, government has been peeled back from hampering the profits of bankers, speculators, and the energy industry.  Sadly today the system is imploding on itself.  See that government regulation was in place to sustain the system and keep it from collapsing itself like it did in the Great Depression era.  So now everybody is in a panic, and the new government's solution to fix the problem is to spend an inordinate amount of money... The Republicans and I actually agreed for a minute about something though.  Mine and their opposition to spending $700+ billion from the government.  This agreement was shortlived though, the $700 billion I oppose is being spent in death and destruction, yes that is the budget for military spending in the United States this year.  The Republicans have no problem spending that much government money on death and destruction, but when it comes to helping Americans get back to work, NOWAY PAL not on my watch they say... It's clear to me, they are the party of moral standards in our nation today... Hey I don't care if it costs twice what they have written up, if it puts Americans back to work and puts some regulation back into the system I'm for it. As for the state of the planet, a scientific study released this week showed that the effects of global warming were further along than previously believed, and that the situation looked dire.  Something about this whole mess seems a bit fishy... I care about the planet, so I'm definitely on the clean energy bandwagon... I don't think that we should be fighting these two wars we are in, especially since they are being fought for economic interests mostly having to do with the control of fossil fuels... I realize that this economic mess was created by a lack of interest in sustainability, and a great deal of interest in profitability... Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems that the best and easiest way to fix all of these things at once would be to get away from burning coal and oil, invest in solar, wind, and geothermal power, and that in doing so we would put Americans to work, eliminate the need for these two wars, and save the environment for our children and grandchildren... But what do I know?

TV will rot your brain...

I turned on the television today, I was asked to watch one of the "best new" shows out there... something about "Homeland Hero's" or some such nonsense... I in no way want to take away anything from people that serve their country, nor do I want to belittle their jobs and the importance of law enforcement and security.  But something about all of this bothers me.  I thought about it for a while, and I have come to the conclusion that I do not want to ever see this show, I hope that it fails, and I think that in a way this show is an example of what's wrong with America.  Oh yeah, I just said it, there is something wrong with America, and it has to do with this "Homeland Security" stuff.  My problem is this... When I grew up, I was taught that the United States was a 'beacon of hope' the example of freedom, what everyone would want to strive to imitate.  We now have a department in the federal government that answers to the president called Homeland Security.  To me there is some sort of disconnect between being the 'city on the hill' and feeling a need for a department called homeland security.  We have a military force, you would think that this homeland security would be carried out by them. No.  Their job is more law enforcement.  Well we have relatively well funded police forces all throughout the nation, is that good enough? No.  Okay, we have a military force to defend our borders and police forces to maintain the peace, how about their combined efforts, is that enough? No, we need an entire leg of government to basically do what is already being done, and give it a name like homeland security so that no one can dispute what their job really is.  And the name homeland security bothers me too.. America, the bright shiny example of freedom in the world has, whether we like it or not, become an empire.  In order to preserve empire, we need our military forces carrying out invasions and occupations of foreign lands, and an entirely new force to ensure that the Home Land is Secure... Right before our very eyes, we have become the thing we were supposed to not like, the bad example of a dominant society, we have become an expanding empire willing to fight wars and conquer foreign lands to build a sea of wealth and "maintain the American way of living".  We are now one and the same with Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, the same Rome that had Christians fed to lions, the same Persian Empire that threatened the livelihood of Greek society.  We are all of those things and probably more given modern technology and the insane amounts of impact our weaponry could have on the planet and civilization.  So it's less that the show looks to the overtly racist COPS as an inspiration, and it's not so much that the show will be broadcast into millions of homes on network television, it's more the fact that our society today feels the need for a program or department called homeland security.  There was something great about America in that we once believed that we did not need to involve ourselves with the politics and wars of the 'old world' and that our strength and greatness could be achieved through alliances, diplomacy, trade, and sharing ideals.  Now we have two wars raging, both more than 5 years old with no end in sight, and these wars are being fought with the intent of "preserving the American way of life"  and what we really mean by that is the desire to consume more than could ever be confused as necessary.  Topping that off, we now have the department of homeland security to keep us safe here at home while our "defense" forces are aggressively engaging in conquering and occupying foreign lands.  So I do not intend on ever seeing this show, and I hope we can someday stand up to possibly our greatest enemy... Ourselves.

Woah! Diplomacy?!?!

I heard the most astonishing news on the radio this morning... Russia has decided to delay the building of their missile defense sights in western Russia, a response to the irresponsible and practically pointless missile defense shield proposed by the Bush regime several years earlier.  -- A little background for anyone that's not that plugged in, several years ago, the international scene was turned on its head when the Bush administration announced they wanted to build some missile defense sites in Poland, their intent they claimed was to deter, and be able to stop any missile attacks from Iran or other "rogue nations" in the Middle East.  Now, I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with geography, but Poland is not necessarily between Iran and the United States.  Obviously the Russians saw this as reaching a little too far into their back yard, and with justifiable reason went damn near ballistic.  This opened a firestorm of debate on the international scene, brought up the idea of a second Cold War being started by the United States, and very well may have had a large part to do with the actions taken by the Russians in Georgia over the summer.--  Nonetheless, the Obama people have come out saying that there is no big hurry in implementing these "defensive" missile sights in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe.  The response then by the Russians; having felt threatened by American missiles capable of being launched so close to their nation was that they were now in no big rush to build their "defensive" missile sites to our "defensive" missile sites....  It's a sad, sick world we live in when nations are defending themselves from other nation's defenses... I can imagine that this is a result of some behind the scenes talks between the Obama administration and the Medvedev administration.  Holy balls, diplomacy in the twenty-first century!