Tuesday, August 11, 2009

How Big Media Subverted US Democracy with Lies, Smears and Gross Propaganda

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Rush Limbaugh---as loathsome as he is --is a tool, a media whore! The real power still resides in the media boardrooms and they just don't give a shit if every media outlet in America is run by a muzak machine or a raving lunatic like Limbaugh. They're in it for the big bucks and power.

Limbaugh's lies and misrepresentations would have been seen to be those of just another run-o-the-mill fringe nut job if the right wing had not succeeded in stealing what had been the publicly owned air waves! They did seize the media as the textbook first step preceding the takeover of legitimate government. The GOP and the complicit Rush Limbaugh conspired to benefit the very, very few --the ever shrinking 1 percent --which as a result now owns more than 95 percent of the rest of us combined. For the shrinking number of huge corporate media conglomerates 'public service' is just a quaint sop that over some twenty years, they've done away with completely.

Whenever Rush heard his masters' voices, he served them well. He rationalized and excused the new age of robber barons; he sugar coated 'greed is good'; he elevated Scrooge to sainthood: "Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

Tragically --much of Rush's power comes from cowardly, so-called 'Blue Dog Democrats' easily spooked by liars like Limbaugh and Hannity.
In conservative states, right-wing talk show hosts are spreading lies about reform. No wonder Blue Dog Dems are blocking health care overhaul.

...

The Blue Dog Seven are spooked by pressure from their constituents and recent polls that show American's approval of Obama's health care initiative has dropped below 50 percent for the first time.

Drive across the seven states they represent: Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and Utah, turn on your car radio, and you'll know why public opinion has changed. According to Pew research, 22 percent of Americans get their news from talk radio. And conservative talkers have been lying to their listeners about what's in the health care bill.

Lies from Sean Hannity like, "If you don't have private insurance the year that this bill is passed, you can't get that later on from your employer." Lies from Rush Limbaugh that the bill would "outlaw individual private coverage." Lies provided in talking points from the Republican National Committee like "Democrats are proposing a government controlled health insurance system, which will control care, treatments, medicines and even what doctors a patient may see."

Tell a lie often enough [Rush's motto and modus operandi], and people will believe it.

--Limbaugh's Lies Sabotage the Health Reform Debate
It is bad enough that folk like O'Reilly, Hannity and Limbaugh betrayed the nation with a concerted, orchestrated campaign --a policy of lies! It is worse that Democrats have either rolled over or bent over to take it!

The public is likewise betrayed, stabbed in the back, by the FCC, the Federal agency that had been given the responsibility by law to represent the public interest but instead sides with the huge media moguls.
Despite overwhelming public opposition, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted time after time in favor of relaxing media ownership limits.

housands of Americans have spoken out at public hearings and written to te FCC in opposition to media consolidation. In 2003, when Michael Powell's FCC voted --without any public input-- to allow one company to own up to three television stations, the local newspaper, the cable system and up to eight radio stations in one media market, more than 3 million Americans spoke out and the courts eventually overturned the rules. In December 2007, the Commission overturned a 30-year-old ban prohibiting a single company from owning both the local newspaper and a television station in the same community. The Senate subsequently passed a "Resolution of Disapproval," but further action stalled in the House.

--Common Cause, Media and Democracy
The result of FCC inaction or incompetence has been the de facto theft of the publicly owned 'airwaves', your airwaves, the 'airwaves' that the Communications Act of 1934 said belong to you --the people --as a principle of law. The use of the term 'de-regulation' to characterize the government theft and subsequent transfer of your airwaves is 'Orwellian', a tactic intended to hide the real intent. And we have let them get away with it! If you have checked the price of air time lately, you must surely know that this theft has been worth billions, possibly trillions!

The truth is the government of the US, dominated by the endemically corrupt right wing and the organized crime syndicate called the GOP, literally stole your airwaves and transferred ownership of them to right wing liars and demagogues like the Fox Network, Sinclair et al --big corporations where the likes of Bill O'Reilly and other right-wing shills had merely to wag an accusing finger while shouting "LIBERAL, LIBERAL" to sink a candidacy or --earlier --impeach the most competent President since FDR.
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

--Macbeth (IV, i, 14-15)

Reasonable, rational voices are simply drowned-out by the right wing noise machine consisting of the Religious Right and the K-Street advocates of big corporate financed fascism --a mind-numbing 'hell's broth' if ever there was one.
In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies.

This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

--Media Reform Information Center, Links and Resources on Media Reform
The following just in subsequent to Big Dan's comment [below] having to do with media consolidation.
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission ordered its staff to destroy all copies of a draft study that suggested greater concentration of media ownership would hurt local TV news coverage, a former lawyer at the agency says.

The report, written in 2004, came to light during the Senate confirmation hearing for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. received a copy of the report "indirectly from someone within the FCC who believed the information should be made public," according to Boxer spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

--Media ownership study ordered destroyed, FCC draft suggested fewer owners would hurt local TV coverage
Why should Rush Limbaugh, for example, be paid millions for puking up lies and loathsome opinions on airwaves that by right and by law belong to YOU? So ---what, in fact, happened to the American media?
After Nixon's demise, the right wing of the Republican party decided that they could no longer afford to allow the free dissemination of information to the US public. The simple solution? Have their friends buy up the major networks, newspaper chains and magazines, so they could be controlled from the top on the corporate level. The Left's Media Miscalculation was to stand by and watch them do it.
"The American Fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist, the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

-- Henry A. Wallace, Vice President to FDR, 1944 --The Danger of American Fascism
Having wrested control over the channels of public information, they went on to remove any impediment to their injecting their poisons into the public dialogue. The first step was to get rid of the fairness doctrine.
Under FCC Chairman Mark S. Fowler the FCC began to repeal parts of the Fairness Doctrine, announcing in 1985 that the doctrine hurt the public interest and violated the First Amendment.

In 1986 the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a loose interpretation by the FCC of an aspect of the Fairness Doctrine, ruling that Congress had "never made the doctrine a binding requirement." In August 1987, the Commission abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in its Syracuse Peace Council decision. The FCC insisted that the doctrine had grown to inhibit rather than enhance debate and suggested that, due to the many media voices in the marketplace at the time, the doctrine was perceived to be unconstitutional.

In the spring of 1987 Congress attempted to contest the FCC vote and restore the Doctrine (S. 742, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987)), but the legislation was vetoed by President Reagan. Another attempt to resurrect the doctrine in 1991 ran out of steam when President George H.W. Bush threatened another veto. (Wikipedia)
The next step was to further remove any requirement that a "news" show tell the truth. FOX and a number of other "news" organizations took it to court in an elaborate and complicated case that began in 1996 with an investigative report into the effects of a Monsanto product given to dairy cows called BGH. Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson were reporters at FOX affiliate WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. They produced a story that, while true, was not exactly friendly to Monsanto.
"The station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired."
A wrongful dismissal lawsuit was filed by Akre, which she won.The jury unanimously ruled that she was only doing her job as a journalist by refusing to air “a false, distorted or slanted story.”

FOX appealed, and the result was stunning. "During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves." On February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation." In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a "law, rule, or regulation," it was simply a "policy." Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

Well, not wanting to resort to such an obvious pun, I am unable to avoid it. 'It is up to the station' sounds to me way too much like putting the FOX in charge of the hen house. [insert groan here]

--SadButTrue, The Existentialist Cowboy
The Pew Research Center for People and the Press reports that the public is just as fed up with this evil system as am I. Seventy-seven percent against 17 percent want more coverage of issues and less punditry, bullshit and claptrap. All three epithets describe the swill puked up by the arch-demogogues Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly as well as a legion of lesser ass kissers and wannabes like Ann Coulter. Fifty-seven percent wanted real debates in the recent Presidential primaries and election. Only 42 percent wanted news about which candidate was leading who in the various polls. Some fifty five percent wanted more news about all the candidates --not just those deemed by big media to be "front-runners". Democrats generally got more coverage than Republicans, (49% of stories vs. 31%.) One reason was that major Democratic candidates began announcing their candidacies a month earlier than key Republicans, but that alone does not fully explain the discrepancy.

Overall, Democrats received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%). For both parties, a plurality of stories, 39%, were neutral or balanced. Talk radio was more negative about almost every candidate than any other outlet. Network television was more focused than other media on the personal backgrounds of candidates. For all sectors, however, strategy and horse race were front and center.

It was not so long ago that Democrats couldn't buy a good story. Still, media fixation with every aspect of politics but issues is evidence of insidious media cynicism, an entrenched belief that Americans will not read or understand a story unless is has star quality and celebrity in it.

Americans themselves are largely to blame. Americans have a choice: they can either behave intelligently or they can continue to be stupid, easily duped by the likes of Fox, Limbaugh and less successful liars! Americans have a choice! But if Americans simply will not behave responsibly or as if they had more than two working brain cells among the lot of them, then there is nothing on the Existentialist Cowboy that will help!

15 comments:

konnie said...

well that was quite the opus......
you managed to cover every base imaginable.........that said,

what is your solution? knowing what the problem is, how it started, where it will lead is only the beginning..........

tell us what to do........in what direction do we march........

Unknown said...

Much could be done by govt to include the restoration of the Fairness Doctrine but that won't happen as long as govt is OWNED by the corporate elites and big media.

We're basically fucked short of revolution about which Elizabeth of England might well have said: "...they have uncertain outcomes!"

Even so --I favor a honest to god, REAL revolution for the following reasons:

1) NONE OF US COUNT unless we are among the ONE PERCENT who own more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined.

2) REAL POLICY is decided on K-STREET and in the offices of the Pentagon! Among NUMEROUS reasons this is harmful is the fact that FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS via their own offices on K-STREET have as much influence or more on US policy as do our own DOMESTIC CROOKS. So --it's not bad enough that DOMESTIC CROOKS and ELITES have purchased the US government, now FOREIGN governments have moved in to have carved up the carcass before it rots.

3) BUT --IF THE PEOPLE WILL NOT AWAKEN AND RECLAIM BY ANY MEANS ITS RIGHTFUL OWNERSHIP OF THE GOVERNMENT, then there is really nothing else I can say.

It has already been said by numerous others than a people GET the kind of government they deserve!!!!!

Cirze said...

Thanks for being out there, Len, with your fine reporting and fine-tuned sense of the absurd that it takes to keep commenting on the insane state of affairs we call the USA today.

You rock hard.

S

The real power still resides in the media boardrooms and they just don't give a shit if every media outlet in American is run by a muzak machine or a raving lunatic like Limbaugh. They're in it for the big bucks and power.

Anonymous said...

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected the promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world-government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the National autodetermination practiced in past centuries.-- David Rockefeller in an address to a Trilateral Commission meeting in June of 1991

Unknown said...

Suzan sez...

You rock hard.

Thanks Suzan. As I see it, 'we' no longer have a viable choice! We either TAKE THIS COUNTRY BACK or resign ourselves to slavery.

I am descended of Native American stock, objects of US genocide. And some of my best friends are descended of slaves. Point being --it CAN happen here and has! We have no choice but to take back a government that has become evil, illegitimate, uncaring, incompetent and beholden to just ONE PERCENT. They have done it only because they have money and we don't!

Anonymous...thanks for posting the D. Rockefeller quote:

It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years.

Now --they can get away with absolutely ANYTHING! Who will stop them? Who can?

The US --as we knew it --is DEAD!

Anonymous said...

You lost me at right wing media. It is strange that the right wing would lay a sympatetic spin on illegal immigration, incessantly prattle about institutionalized racism, present as fact the theories of man made global warming, and constantly favor a militant racially exclusive state of Israel. Well the love for Israel does seem to be a neo conservative right thing, even though Israel's agents in America have successfully instituted the policy of having federal law enforcement officials cast a jaundiced eye towards these so called right wingers. The ADL keeps a list of right thinking groups, in spite of the former leftist, marxists crossovers who comprise the conservatives. The neo cons and the commies are brothers in arms and keep many a blogger steeped in the right/left paradigm. One more interesting point, why is a right winger in Europe a staunch nationalist, but in America, the "right wing" is in favor of militaristic globalisation hell bent on a world order where international bankers and a few elites apportion each and every nations resources and human populations to tasks that the monied elite deems their strong point. Resistant populations such as the paleo conservative constitutionalists in America are slated for extermination. Hey, kinda like the commies did to 60 million or so christian Russians determined to live free minus the boot on the neck that the Bolsheviks so wanted to impose on the Soviet Union.

Woody

damien said...

Sara Robinson tries to assess the current US fascist risk. She uses the benchmarks of historian Robert Paxton who identifies 5 stages on the road to fascism. Briefly:

(1) "A rural movement emerges to effect some kind of nationalist renewal... They come together to restore a broken social order, always drawing on themes of unity, order, and purity. Reason is rejected in favor of passionate emotion."

(2) "Fascist movements take root, turn into real political parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farm workers on behalf of the large landowners. Paxton wrote that succeeding at the second stage "depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner." He further noted that Hitler and Mussolini both took power under these same circumstances."

(3) "The conservative elites and the homegrown brownshirt horde", previously in dalliance, now exchange public vows. The elite publicly identify with anti-Abortionists, the tea baggers, the end-timers, the Libertarians(?). This is what we can look forward to: "Minor thuggery turns into beatings, killings, and systematic tagging of certain groups for elimination, all directed by people at the very top of the power structure." (Actually, we have seen signs of this with Guantanamo, Don Siegelman, Paul Minor, Wellstone, anthrax attacks etc -- and, of course, 9/11 itself)

(4) "In stage four, as the duo assumes full control of the country, power struggles emerge between the brownshirt-bred party faithful and the institutions of the conservative elites -- church, military, professions, and business. The character of the regime is determined by who gets the upper hand. If the party members (who gained power through street thuggery) win, an authoritarian police state may well follow. If the conservatives can get them back under control, a more traditional theocracy, corporatocracy, or military regime can re-emerge over time. But in neither case will the results resemble the democracy that this alliance overthrew."

(5) "Paxton characterizes stage five as "radicalization or entropy." Radicalization is likely if the new regime scores a big military victory, which consolidates its power and whets its appetite for expansion and large-scale social engineering. (See: Germany) In the absence of a radicalizing event, entropy may set in, as the state gets lost in its own purposes and degenerates into incoherence. (See: Italy)"

damien said...

cont'd....

Paxton says that stage 3 is the crucial one after which fascism follows fairly inexorably. In identifying its emergence Paxton asks three questions:

Q1. Are [neo- or protofascisms] becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene?

Q2. Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities?

Q3. Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge?


As Sara Robinson says, "that's three for three." I suspect that the trigger for an overt, recognizably fascist US state will be people taking to the streets following the coming economic collapse. And, as Maggie Thatcher found with the Falklands, a foreign war is always a distraction from troubles at home. There will need to be a pretext for military presence in the streets of the US. Look for a staged terrorist bombing followed by an attack upon Iran that (sigh) spirals into WW3. With these assholes it always ends up with dead bodies.

AdamS said...

Thank you for not just saying 'support socialised medicine or you're a racist'. Really.

I think that, while there is an element of big party organising behind these town hall scenes, the uprising is mostly organic. I mean, even if you think a socialised medical system is for the best, surely you don't like the idea of it coming in the form of 1000-page bills that no-one can read, like some kind of new Patriot Act?

Take this caller to C-SPAN:

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/index.php?main_page=product_video_info&products_id=288294-6&showVid=true&clipStart=1526.01&clipStop=1755.65

She's no Reich winger! Just an honest concerned citizen.

As you say, it's up to the people en masse to take back their government. Though, this might be the start of the taking back right now, which would explain why the establishment (not just rightwing) media is desperate to create the perception that it's *just* 'fringe' elements of 'racist', 'uneducated' 'white' 'rural' 'hicks' etc, you know the stereotypes.

As for the racist accusations, what do you make of the story of Kenneth Gladney, a black man who allegedly received racist insults and was beaten up by pro-socialisation people while handing out Gadsden flags?

http://www.infowars.com/union-thugs-beat-patriot-at-obamacare-town-hall-in-st-louis/

Imagine the corporate media 'racist' frenzy if it had been the other way around.

The media wants to stir up violence to discredit the legitimate opposition to an out of control government.

I know that a lot of people opposing the 'socialist' (fascist) Obama era government were the same people that supported Bush. Their dialogue has changed and is changing though - how much is due to 'their' man being out of office and how much is genuine, we shall see, if another (R) puppet is (s)elected in 2012.

At the same time, many people on the left who opposed Bush era liberty snatching are now cheering on authoritarianism in the name of 'their' leader Obama, unfortunately. Did that phone tapping stop? How about CIA black sites and torture? The wars?

The revolution doesn't get televised (objectively), just slandered and misrepresented.

KEY VIDEO: REPUBLICAN booed like there's no tomorrow by Tea Party goers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJQVNXfKujc

Go Home! XD

SadButTrue said...

Nice post Len though I have to disagree with Suzan about your fine-tuned sense of the absurd. Sorry.

The absurdity is already there in abundance, and you can't really discuss any issue these days without it rising to the surface.

Unknown said...

damien sez...

Paxton says that stage 3 is the crucial one after which fascism follows fairly inexorably.

First of all --great stuff is always found in your posts. Thanks.

Having grown up in a hot bed of 'fascism' (West Texas, oil country), I might have actually become so inured to its more recent threat! I always differed with Nixon and later Reagan on substance and specifics. But always believed that if the media would just DO THEIR FRICKIN' JOBS all would be well.

It was not until the GOP National Convention in Houston in 1992 that I became significantly alarmed! About Reagan, a GOPPER won the floor told a network reporter: "He (Reagan) made us feel good about ourselves".

I surppressed the urge to puke and recalled Hitler's appeal: he made 'good' Germans feel good about themselves! They were easy having been handed humiliation reparations following WWI. But worse --the current GOP had no such excuse. The GOP adulation of Reagan was absolutely inexcusable given his sorry record.

I had momentarily forgotten the nature of politics: politics is NOT about doing what is right or beneficial for your country. It is about DIVIDING UP THE BOOTY AMONG CRONIES. By that standard, Reagan was the MOST successful President in American history and we are STILL living with the disastrous transfers of wealth to the upper one percent that were effected during his regime. Basically --unless there is some a cataclysmic sea change in US attitudes, we are all SORELY screwed and the world is in danger.

Unknown said...

AdamS sez ...

As you say, it's up to the people en masse to take back their government. Though, this might be the start of the taking back right now, which would explain why the establishment (not just rightwing) media is desperate to create the perception that it's *just* 'fringe' elements of 'racist', 'uneducated' 'white' 'rural' 'hicks' etc, you know the stereotypes.

I don't trust the tea baggers and of late the more MILITANT armed groups especially. I mean --WHERE are they getting the HEAVY ARMOR, the near WMD ??? Believe me, having grown up in GUN NUT country, I have rarely seen such a display outside a US armory or the streets of Baghdad!!!

Unless the LEFT cuts an 'arms' deal with someone, anyone, they will will simply be mowed down in the streets. There is no hope for a 'velvet revolution' in America, the Lost!

Kit Burns said...

I recommend that everyone buy Two copies of DVD "Bogeyman: The Lee Atwater Story"; view it and then share it, discuss it.

This is a very important documentary about Politics, smear politics, and the methods being used to stop meaningful discourse. This DVD is instructional in the tactics of hypocritical politics and fearless lying. Atwater was Karl Roves instructor in false attacks and disinformation without leaving fingerprints. With media consolidation and Republicans owning the key corporations, the lack of informaion and false images, the distortions can only get worse. We need to be informed - this DVD will give you some of the basics of what is happening in today's "discourse" (and tomorrows).

If you like the DVD, share it with others and get another copy. Len, thanks so much for your blog.

Unknown said...

SadButTrue sez...

The absurdity is already there in abundance, and you can't really discuss any issue these days without it rising to the surface.

We live in absurd times and the 'media' is the most absurd of all! Lies and bullshit!

I recommend that everyone buy Two copies of DVD "Bogeyman: The Lee Atwater Story"; view it and then share it, discuss it.

Indeed! The GOP was always kooky and wrong but with Lee Atwater it all became exponential.

Big Dan said...

Sept . 14, 2006: Media study ordered destroyed - "every last bit of it"!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14836500/