The Existentialist Cowboy: media

Showing posts with label media. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Why Space Aliens Never Came Back to Earth

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

IF you think the politicians, the beauracrats, the asshole pundits in DC or NY et al, et al care about you --just REMEMBER VIET NAM!

Kent State, the Woodstock generation was a generation not afraid to take it to the streets, the campuses, the media! Alas --neither Democrat nor GOP administrations gave a shit! Viet Nam was in no way "improved" by U.S. presence; nor was it liberated by the sacrifice of thousands of young lives in a dank, fucking swamp.

I see little chance of improvement today, tomorrow nor several years down the road. The U.S. has squandered the seemingly endless resources for which they murdered entire Native American tribes. Even now --at this moment --the United States is on the very bottom of the list with the World's Largest NEGATIVE Current Account Balance (formerly called the Balance of Trade Deficit). China Owns US!

Or --as Charles Fort put it: "We are property!" He was right but got the "owners" wrong. He thought our owners were space aliens. Reality was and remains much simpler. We may have been better off if "space aliens" had been benign, all powerful and landed! Hello Klaato! Loved your movie. You should have won the Oscar and --to wow the crowd on Oscar night --beamed up to the "big mother" ship.

Interestingly --UFO sightings seem to have diminished to near nothingness over the last 60 years or so. I have a "theory": Aliens came, they saw, they were disgusted! They returned to whence they came and vowed never, ever to come back!

Friday, March 04, 2011

It's Time for Rush Limbaugh to Go!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Free speech is not free! It is paid for with responsibility! Rush Limbaugh, however, has made a career of "...yelling fire in a crowded theater" when, in fact, there is NO fire! Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s decision re: Eugene Debs means that Rush has routinely exceeded the limits of free speech. But the Holmes decision was fallaciously applied to Debs; Rush, by contrast, is defined by shrill cries of 'fire' when --in fact --there is no fire!

We might tolerate Rush if the Fairness Doctrine were restored. His opponents would at least be heard. They are sure to be more intelligent, articulate and even entertaining; the nation would be better for it!

How long would Rush last if he had to compete in truly free market, if he were compelled by law to be responsible as I was compelled as a working broadcast journalist in major U.S. markets? I was expected to be responsible and professional; but Rush lives down to lower expectations, lower standards. He is expected, even encouraged to be irresponsible, outrageous, dishonest and boorish!

We might tolerate Rush had he ever made a good faith effort to inform his audiences with respect to real issues as opposed to his constant demoguoguery, his fussilade of lies and ad hominem attacks, propaganda, strawmen, distortions, outright lies and --most egregiously --bigotry and/or racial slurs most notably those about black athletes and, specifically, the great quarterback Warren Moon et al.

If an intelligent man like Eugene Debs --whose only crime was that of exercising his conscience i.e, opposing the U.S. entry into WWI --could be imprisoned, then Rush, who has exhorted treason and bigotry in response to phony threats and strawmen, should be held responsible for having abused 'privileges' that the rest of us had --at one time --enjoyed responsibly as 'rights'. Why is Rush given 'license' when, in fct, the rest of us are DENIED the benefits of 'free speech' by having been denied access to what had publically owned airwaves. Rush is prescisely what the GOP had in minded when, under Ronald Reagan, the Fairness Doctrine and the Communications Act of 1934 were rescinded, media 'de-regulated', a GOP code-word for consoidating the ownership of media into very few and very corporate hands.

Debs was courageous and smart --a man of integrity! Rush is slimy and stupid --a charlatan! Debs spoke truth to power! Rush misleads the poor and gullible for profit! He is a corporate kiss-up, a coward, a stooge who peddles propaganda for profit! Debs accepted responsibility for what he had made of himself and was prepared to accept the consequences. Rush is a coward who blames all on 'niggers', poor people and 'liberals, LIBERALS, LIBERALS!!!

“When we are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. we will be comrades, we will be brothers, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known.”
--Eugene Debs, American Activist

It is time for Rush Limbaugh to GO!

Monday, January 31, 2011

How the Right Wing Stole the People's Media for the Big Corporations

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Those who defend the GOP/right wing assault on media and free speech defend media consolidation with an irrelevant 'factoid'. Before 'deregulation', they say, there were only three huge networks --CBS, NBC, ABC. This may be true on the surface but misses the point that throughout the nation there were several thousand locally owned television and radio stations; all of them were required by the FCC to 'serve local interests'. As a result, many radio stations in small and large 'market's maintained viable 'News' and/or 'Public Affairs Departments'. These stations had a finger on the pulse of the listening community like few if any have today.

The record refutes right wing spin. In 1983, 50 corporations controlled most or all news media operating in the U.S. Nevertheless, Ben Bagdikian was labeled "alarmist" when he pointed out that fact in his book -- The Media Monopoly. He was no alarmist! His 4th edition [1992] stated: "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures' own and operate 90% of the mass media"! He was right. These 'extraordinary creatures' dominate and/or control almost all of America's media to include newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies.

Before the GOP attacked the media, a 'network' was precisely that -- a network of locally owned radio or TV stations. A CBS or ABC affiliate station, for example, was 'affiliated' with ABC --not owned by it! For such an outlet, ABC was just a source of news. Many of these stations maintained very large and impressive news organizations. Early in my career, as I worked in a small radio station in Odessa, TX., I was given a tour of KRLD AM-TV, the CBS affiliate in Dallas, TX. KRLD was made famous world wide for its local coverage of the assassination of JFK. As large and as impressive were KRLD's facilities --both radio and TV --it was local!

It was not until the late sixties that many 'stations' began to automate; it was not until Ronald Reagan attacked the Fairness Doctrine that locally-owned outlets were no longer required to provide 'public affairs' airtime to local groups. In other words, they were no longer required to be responsible to a 'service' area. Interestingly, the term 'service' area is no longer used, replaced recently with the the term: 'coverage'. Ergo: you --as a person --are no longer 'served'. You are 'covered'!

The Supreme Court proved willing to uphold the doctrine, eking out space for it alongside the First Amendment. In 1969's Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, journalist Fred Cook sued a Pennsylvania Christian Crusade radio program after a radio host attacked him on air. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld Cook's right to an on-air response under the Fairness Doctrine, arguing that nothing in the First Amendment gives a broadcast license holder the exclusive right to the airwaves they operate on. But when Florida tried to hold newspapers to a similar standard in 1974's Miami Herald Publishing Co. V. Tornillo, the Supreme Court was less receptive. Justices agreed that newspapers — which don't require licenses or airwaves to operate — face theoretically unlimited competition, making the protection of the Fairness Doctrine unneeded.
The doctrine stayed in effect, and was enforced until FCC chairman Mark Fowler began rolling it back during Reagan's second term — despite complaints from some in the Administration that it was all that kept broadcast journalists from thoroughly lambasting Reagan's policies on air. In 1987, the FCC panel repealed the Fairness Doctrine altogether with a 4-0 vote.
Time: A Brief History of the Fairness Doctrine

It was not until Ronald Reagan waged war on a 'liberal media' (in fact, a 'local' media) that smaller stations were routinely bought out and or merged with increasingly larger media conglomerates, in other words, huge corporations. By the early 90s, some six or seven huge corporations were reported to have acquired some 90 percent or more of all broadcast and/or cable programming in the United States.

It was not until Ronald Reagan and the GOP gave 'license' to big corporations, that the corporate owners began to 'clone' their programming among their properties. It was not until the Fairness Doctrine was trashed that ilk like Rush Limbaugh were given license to flout responsibility, public service, the pursuit of truth or, if not truth, accuracy in reporting. Ilk like Limbaugh were given a license to lie, propagandize, proselytize on behalf of the increasingly rabid, ideological and utterly absurd GOP and the rabid right wing in general.

It is interesting to note that the rising costs of electronic 'advertising' was concurrent with the rise of Ronald Reagan and the GOP. It was hard to tell which is the dog and which is the tale. In any case, one hand washed the other. Less politely --it was a right-wing circle-jerk!

A candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from a district in metropolitan Chicago would find the economics of TV advertising impossible without heavy financial backing. The typical House district has 150,000 households. A Chicago-based television station that reaches a typical district also reaches three million households in thirty-five counties in four states. The candidate either pays for the 2,850,000 unwanted households or loses the television access to his or her district that a richer candidate can buy. (A prime-time, thirty-second commercial for a major sponsor can cost more than $250,000 to produce. Few political commercials cost as much, but the cost even for less elaborate political ads on television is so high that it has created an ominous barrier to entry into American politics.) Thirty-second commercials must be repeated to be effective. The thirty-second political ad on a Chicago station, repeated ten times, would cost more than $50,000 just for air time. The ad would then be broadcast over a station that reaches so large an audience that 95 percent do not vote in the candidate's district.
--Ben H. Bagdikian, Democracy and the Media: The Media Monopoly

'Reagan Revolution' is a misnomer. It was, rather, a reactionary counter-revolution which succeeded in undoing FDR's 'New Deal'. The broadcast industry in which I cut my teeth may be traced to the Federal Radio Act of 1927, an act which nationalized the airwaves, establishing the fact that the 'airwaves' are owned by the people collectively. A Federal Communications Act created the Federal Communications Commission [FCC] to whom fell the task of allocating broadcast frequencies to those wishing to own and operate a radio or television facility.

The Communications Act of 1934 'refined' and 'expanded' this authority and empowered the FCC to administer the issuing of broadcast licenses to persons or entities wishing to broadcast on the 'airwaves' that the law had said belonged to the people collectively. The measure required that the FCC act responsibly in the 'public convenience, interest or necessity'. There are no such requirements today, thus the horror stories about small towns hit by tornadoes or worse because the so-called 'local' radio station had not issued warnings. In fact, most of those so-called radio stations are automated and/or owned by absentee owners or, worse, a huge corporation based hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles away. Such an owner feels no obligation to serve his/her/its 'coverage' area. They are in it for the bucks! They have no interest in tornadoes but for the loss of ad revenues they represent.

Most repugnant to the huge corporations which are now placed above the law was a 'fairness doctrine' which required broadcast licensees to provide equal time to citizens believing that their positions or groups had been neglected. Not surprisingly, the largest broadcast companies --ABC, NBC for example --had lobbied Congress to establish very high fees for broadcast licenses. Interestingly, Congress deemed this a violation of the First Amendment guarantee of Free Speech.

Media democracy is founded on two important notions: one, that public forums such as radio and television airwaves are public property, and two, that everyone has a right both to have their voice heard and to access a variety of viewpoints and information . Currently there is much debate over the benefits and downsides to media regulation. The FCC's proposed deregulations of media ownership laws are inciting this fiery debate between proponents and opponents of deregulation.

Proponents argue that deregulating current media ownership laws would increase media outlets by promoting more competition, while opponents argue that similar deregulations in the past which were supposed to increase competition (such as the 1996 Telecommunications Act) in fact had the opposite effect. These previous deregulations caused a surge of mergers that discouraged competition. Without competition, the two founding notions of media democracy have been significantly marginalized in recent years as the diversity of media sources shrink at an alarming rate.

The loss of diversity in media ownership is a concern for democracy in the U.S., as citizens need a variety of information on all sides of the spectrum in order to make educated, informed decisions that will affect both their lives and the future of democracy. It is essential to provide media forums in which people can speak for themselves and communicate with one another. This paper will explore the impending FCC decision, the history of communication regulations and the ramifications of potential deregulation.
--Kristin Lee, The FCC and Media Democcracy, WIFP Associate

I don't believe that 'consolidated media' are serving or can serve 'public interests'. Nor can they be 'fully accountable and dependable'. If, for example, only one or two media conglomerates dominate in a single market it is doubtful that a diversity of opinions will ever see the light of day. In fact, as research reveals increasing levels of consolidation, it likewise reveals that fewer issues are covered from increasingly narrow points of view.

The most notable effects are local. Reporters say their stories are often edited and worse --refused! 'Exposes' in which advertisers are threatened by 'potentially damaging information', are routinely re-written to ameliorate potential damage to advertisers' reputations. At the very worst the 'offending' material is re-written, edited or censored outright.

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S.
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 Consolidation -- a Historical Perspective

The term "media consolidation" is clearly detrimental and problematic. There are numerous reports of networks refusing to air 'anti-war' ads though they were 'paid'. Routinely, news stories may be revised or dumped should they offend a sponsor. Money itself is allowed to slant the news --wealth as propaganda!

Over the past several years, NOW has consistently reported on the topic of media ownership. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was created in 1934 with jurisdiction over radio, interstate telephone communication, and later television. But the FCC has always struggled with a fundamental lack of clarity about its proper functions. In its mission to serve the public interest, should the FCC crack down on indecency on the airwaves? Should it use its power to rescind the licenses of wayward stations? The FCC continues to face such questions. Get background information on some of the FCC's more recent decisions below:

The Fairness Doctrine
Media Regulation Timeline
Details of FCC Rule Changes
Local and National Media
Ownership
UPDATES: Since the FCC voted on the rule changes there have been developments in the courts and in Congress.
October 8, 2003: NBC said it would purchase the entertainment arm of Vivendi Universal for $3.8 billion.
September 3, 2003:
a federal appeals court in Philadelphia issued an order blocking the rule changes from taking effect. (Read the ruling.)
September
4, 2003: The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a spending bill that contained a provision that would effectively block the ownership rule changes.
July 23, 2003: The House voted 400-21 to approve a spending bill that included a provision to block the FCC decision to allow major television networks to own up to 45% of the country's viewers. The Bush administration has voiced opposition to the attempt to rescind the FCC ruling.

--Bill Moyers, NOW

'Wires and Lights in a Box':
Complete Murrow Speech From Good Night, and Good Luck

Monday, September 27, 2010

Take Back the Media, Restore the Fairness Doctrine

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The 'Fairness Doctrine' was trashed! The right wing GOP sold 'de-regulation' with a lie. The 'Fairness Doctrine', they said, violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. In retrospect, the attack on a free media was based upon a panoply of right wing lies. What is free, who is free when real people have been silenced and corporations --legal abstractions --are said to have 'First Amendment' rights.

Who has free speech when a 'voice' is available only to five or six huge media conglomerates? How is freedom served when advertising revenues trickle up --not down?

To pretend that real people have the same right of "free speech" that is now enjoyed by mere legal abstractions is a cruel charade! How is freedom served only legal abstractions can be heard? How is freedom served when local communities are drained of advertising revenues that might have been spent locally, helping to support local economies?

The U.S. media had become a one legged, one armed bandit. The media gets huge amounts of monies from advertisers even as ownership is concentrated among six huge corporations. The 'mainstream media' disseminates, propagates and, most egregiously, endorses official, corporate, right wing lies.

The remedy: we must restore the Fairness Doctrine and put strict limits on media ownership as had been the case prior to the rise of Ronald Reagan for whom 'de-regulation' was a pay off to his base.

The 1980s produced a new trend: media consolidation. Time Inc. and Warner Communications merged to form the world's largest media organization, worth $18 billion. Gulf & Western, owners of Simon & Schuster books and Paramount Pictures, divested itself of its no media industries and changed its name to Paramount Communications Inc. Until recently, the world's largest ad agency was Saatchi and Saatchi of London, which bought 20 percent of the world's broadcast ads for clients such as Procter & Gamble. Saatchi and Saatchi had offices in eighty Cheap MBT Shoes countries. Analyst Ben Bagdikian observed in 1990, "A handful of mammoth private organizations have begun to dominate the world's mass media. Most of them confidently announce that by the mid-1990s they—five to ten corporate giants—will control most of the world's important newspapers, magazines, books, broadcast stations, movies, recordings, and video-cassettes."

The trend continued in 1995, when the Westinghouse Electric Corporation offered $5.4 billion to purchase CBS Inc., and the Walt Disney Company agreed to purchase Capital Cities/ABC Inc. for $ 19 million. The ABC/Disney alliance created the world's largest entertainment company. At the time of the acquisition, Capital Cities/ABC owned the ABC Television Network with its top-rated prime-time comedy Home Improvement and its number-one newscast World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, as well as ten television stations; twenty-one radio stations; a controlling interest in the cable channels ESPN and ESPN2; Fairchild Publications, the publisher of Women's Wear Daily; newspapers, including the Kansas City Star; and partial interests in cable programming in Japan, Germany, and Scandinavia. Disney owned the Disney Channel, Walt Disney Pictures, Hollywood Records, Buena Vista Distribution, Touchstone Tele-vision, and Disney Interactive.

--Jordon James, Information About Media Consolidation

The 'Fairness Doctrine' came under attack during the Reagan years. By 1990, the FCC had abandoned many rules and procedures that might have prevented broadcasters from using and abusing their publicly licensed stations in service to propaganda and/or ideology. This Reagan-era mania for 'de-regulation' made it possible for Murdoch to build an entire network around outright lies! The objective of the 'Fairness Doctrine' was, rather, the preservation of all points of view, a requirement enforced by an FCC mandate. .

The cause of 'Freedom of Speech' is not served when only one percent --the top one percent --have access to media! This is precisely the outcome that the Fairness Doctrine had sought to prevent! It was because the Fairness Doctrine succeeded that ruling elites and big corporations conspired to subvert it. Even as Murrow spoke, media ownership was dispersed. I speak from experience --most small, medium, and major market outlets were, in those days, owned locally. Limits were placed upon would-be and existent monopolies. Outlets were expect to 'serve' the localities in which they were licensed. Today --because the Fairness Doctrine is trashed by the right wing --just six or fewer huge corporations own it all. Local news and/or public service is very nearly non-existent; PBS et al must beg for money.

De-regulation, however, eliminated guidelines for non-entertainment programming guidelines. The FCC justified it all with bureaucrat-speak. Fox was thus 'set free' to propagandize and brainwash! The era of the 'media whore' was ushered in. The biggest whore of them all? FOX! Without a 'Fairness Doctrine', media whores are free to prostitute themselves and what had been the profession of 'journalism'.

In the wake of de-regulation, limits on ownership and the Fairness Doctrine, the integrity of media is suspect. For example, it is fair to ask what Fox was paid to orchestrate billions of dollars in 'free' publicity in support of Bush's war crimes in Iraq? To what 'quid pro quo' did Fox agree for its support of an oil war known to be extremely profitable for the Military/Industrial complex? Armaments manufacturers 'get paid' for supporting wars of aggression and other war crimes! I want to know how much the blood suckers in the media get paid for their share of the kill! Did Rupert Murdoch puke up a memorable quote to equal Hearsts' "...You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war!"

Following, another instance in which the rationale behind so-called 'de-regulation', the consolidation of media into very few hands, has had the effect of disseminating lies about the Iraq war, reducing the media to the status of propaganda 'ministry' while covering up the truth for the benefit of ruling elites, the Military/Industrial Complex and the many shills and special interests on K-Street.

A former CNN Iraq correspondent suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder says his employers wouldn't run footage he filmed of what he describes as a war crime by US troops, an Australian news source reports.

Michael Ware, who covered Iraq for CNN from 2006 until last year, describes the incident as "a small war crime, if there is such a thing."

In 2007, Ware was with a group of US soldiers in a remote village in Iraq that was under the control of al Qaeda militants. Ware says there was a teenage boy in the street carrying a weapon for protection.

‘‘(The boy) approached the house we were in and the (US) soldiers who were watching our backs, one of them put a bullet right in the back of his head. Unfortunately it didn't kill him,’’ Ware told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as quoted at the Brisbane Times.

Ware said his footage of the incident was deemed "too graphic" by CNN bosses to be placed on the air.

--Daniel Tencerm, CNN reporter: Network censored footage of Iraq ‘war crime’

Friday, June 04, 2010

Where Corporations Learn How to 'Manipulate' the Media

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The word 'manipulate' was used by Edward Bernays to describe how big corporations, like BP and Exxon, should harness the 'organized habits and opinions of the masses'. Bernays considered such 'manipulation' to be essential in a democratic society. BP's recent oil spill --now threatening the U.S. Gulf Coast, indeed, the entire Gulf of Mexico --is an occasion in which corporations will apply the principle of 'manipulation' referred to by Bernays.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation [emphasis mine, LH] of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
--Edward Bernays

Over a period of some thirty years or more, the 'manipulation' of the media has become a growth industry. As one might expect, a pioneer 'consulting firm' is located in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, TX. Ammerman Enterprises 'trains' executives from huge firms like Exxon, Shell, DuPont, HCA, Humana et al. The 'executives' and other corporate kiss-ups are taught what we would call 'spin' and 'propaganda' techniques most of which are especially applicable in 'crisis' situations of which the BP 'spill' is a corporatist's [fascist's] worst nightmare come true.

It was Ammerman Enterprises which 'trained' Exxon executives with respect to the Exxon Valdez. What we call 'spin' and PR, consultants call 'bridging' --a fancy, 'corporate' word for 'let's talk about something else' or 'I don't wanna talk about that; let's talk about this!' Another technique goes beyond mere bridging; it is a complete 'paradigm shift'! Done well, a hapless or cub reporter may not even notice.

Thousands of business and other professionals have chosen The Ammerman Experience's Effective Media Communications workshop in order to learn the skills needed to deal successfully with the media. In this small-group session you will learn:
How to be interviewed.
What is required before, during and after an interview.
How to get your points into an interview.
The most common (and damaging) media traps.
What reporters want to know and why.
How important perceptions are to your reputation.
How to handle the communications aspects of a crisis situation.
Who Should Attend
This workshop is appropriate for anyone who may have to deal with the media.

Practical Learning

This is a skills-development workshop, not a lecture on concepts. As our firm's name suggests, the training we provide is experiential. We use simulated environments, including tough, experienced journalists. Some features of this workshop are:
Instructors and role players with extensive media experience.
Three television interviews.
Two crisis news conferences with multiple reporters.
Each exercise is videotaped and critiqued in an open forum by the instructor.
--The Ammerman Experience

The First Amendment, I believe, granted the right of free speech to real people --not mere legal abstractions, non-persons, artificial entities! The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by five corporate-biased ideologues, think otherwise though it is anyone's guess how idiots like Scalia or Roberts managed to conclude so fallaciously, with such overt bias toward what St. Thomas More in fact called a 'conspiracy of rich men'. More's description remains the best description of the modern corporation.

It is 'real' people --not 'legal abstractions', mere words on paper --that are most harmed by 'corporate personhood' and the crimes against both nature and humanity that have resulted! In the Elizabethan era, 'companies' operated via a 'charter' granted by the sovereign. Doing business was not a 'right' but 'privilege' and a displeased Queen could revoke the privilege at will. I wonder if Elizabeth would have, by this time, revoked the right of BP to do business.

I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.
They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth's sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws. But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!
Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

I am among those who believe that it is time to restore the 'corporate death penalty' by seizing the assets of BP and prosecuting whatever management is guilty of criminal negligence and/or malfeasance of any type. Seizing BP effectively ends that company's existence as a corporation. Any assets remaining after damages are paid must be controllable by the public and in the public interest. The current management is put out of a job and where crimes are found --prosecuted.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

What Happened to the American Media?

by Sadbuttrue

Earlier today I was reading THIS POST at Ice Station Tango and it brought to mind a documentary I saw a couple of years ago on CBC's excellent news magazine The Fifth Estate. I couldn't remember what it was called, but it wasn't hard to find. It's called Sticks and Stones. In short, it's an examination of the 'left-wing bias' exhibited by the US media, focusing on FOX "news", Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter. I didn't know that it was available for viewing on line or I would have posted it long ago. Now that questions are being asked about the role of FAUX, CNN, and others in manipulating the American public into supporting policies that have damn near destroyed the country, it is not only still relevant, it is MORE relevant than ever. YOU MUST WATCH THIS!!

What 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]

Having got the media under their control, and the law out of the way, the right wing media bandits were and are well equipped to launch whatever attack on the truth they pleased. Looks like they've done pretty well so far. This recent Glenn Greenwald piece is a case in point. Calls to Investigate Media's Pre-War Behavior - yeah, getting the country to agree to an unjustified, unnecessary, and extremely expensive war is, I would say, a pretty good shakedown of the system's effectiveness. Now they're probably trying to change the rules so that calling a tail a leg really makes it a leg. Then we'll really be in trouble.

Related Links:

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
-- Abraham Lincoln
"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
-- Abraham Lincoln

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Monday, July 07, 2008

Bush: Three Generations of Betrayal and High Treason

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

When every other remedy is repressed, quashed or made illegal, guerrilla tactics are all we have left! Thomas Jefferson said that guerrilla tactics are justified in cases of tyranny. We have a 'right', Jefferson said, to 'abolish' a government that has become, like that of Bush, tyrannical. The revolutionary spirit of Jefferson was with those who protested Bush at Monticello! The spirit of Jefferson is 'anti-Bush'.

A defender of Bush's shameful and smirk-filled presence at Monticello said that 'fighting words' are not protected speech. Yet --our Declaration of Independence itself was made of 'fighting words'. King George III thought so. Bush himself resorted to 'fighting words' to rally a stunned populace into supporting his wars of aggression and other war crimes. 'Bring it on', he said! A fat lot of good his fighting words have done us!

"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."
--H. L. Mencken

Bush has been more successful at suppressing dissent at home and than he has been at fighting real 'terrorists' abroad. Armed with an Orwellian 'Patriot Act', Bush need only 'deem' you a 'terrorist' and you can be incarcerated in a hell-hole in violation of every principle put forward by real statesmen like Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. Bluntly -- you are living under the absolute rule of a tyrant! Thomas Jefferson would have supported efforts to remove Bush and would most certainly be called 'radical' or 'liberal' or even 'conspiracy theorist' if he were alive today.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"
--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Che Guevara said essentially the same thing in his classic treatise on guerrilla warfare.

"When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken."
--Che Guevara, Chapter I: General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare

Che might have been prescient. Certainly --the 'forces of oppression' maintain themselves in power 'against established law'. In fact, Bush has personally ordered the illegal and treasonous dismantling of 'established' Constitutional law, which he dismissed with a smirk: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper"! Bush broke the law, subverted the law, ordered the law changed to suit him, and re-written the law --on the fly --with signing statements. He has ordered his attorneys to render opinions that tell him what he wants to hear, i.e, that the crimes he's already committed are made legal after he had already committed them. Many of those broken laws are found in the supreme law of the land --the Constitution.

Altering or abolishing this government is precisely what 'we' have in mind. It is precisely what had been foreseen by the founders and by the man who occupied Monticello.

David Hume wrote:

"When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular."
--David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government

Bush has taken to new heights nefarious efforts to shut up his opposition. Due to right wing policies and media consolidation throughout the regimes of Reagan and Bush Sr, the media is but a right wing echo chamber. No one can, therefore, reasonably deny a voice to folk for whom Thomas Jefferson's Monticello is symbolic of free speech and a revolution in support of it!

Bush may have been within the letter of the law to quash 'free speech' at Monticello, but to do so on Jefferson's soil, is a poke in the eye! The downside for Bush is that it tips his hand. It betrays his anti-Jefferson mindset, his anti-Democratic, dictatorial, fascist bent.

It was Mr. Bumble in Dicken's David Copperfield who said "If that is the law, sir, then the law is a ass!" I'm with Jefferson, Che, Hume, and Mr. Bumble. I say RIGHT ON to the protesters! What passes for law under Bush is --indeed --'a ass'! I denounce the war criminal Bush for having soiled the ground Jefferson walked on. I accuse Bush of war crimes, high treason, graft, and other capital crimes as stated succinctly in US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 --significantly the very portion that Bush has worked so assiduously to rewrite but only after he had already earned himself a death penalty upon conviction.

If the US is to survive, the people must restore the rule of law. Clearly --the rule of law will never be restored as long as Bush occupies the White House. Clearly --the rule of law will forever be subverted if exceptions are made for Bush! The rule of law will never be restored as long as Bush is allowed to make it all up as he goes along, ruling by decrees called 'signing statement', an unconstitutional procedure, perhaps a crime in context. There is absolutely no authorization for this Bush 'invention' to be found anywhere in the US Constitution, just as there is absolutely no Constitutional basis whatsoever for 'executive privilege'.

Over the years, I met and interviewed numerous famous folk --politicians, some world leaders, including Ehud Olmert, Bush Sr, Ronald Reagan, Deng Xio Peng, Nelson Rockefeller, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, et al. My interviews with Ford, Bush and Reagan always left me quietly alarmed. I can best describe these personalities with words Ada Louise Huxtable used to describe Los Angeles: 'there is no there, there!' I often left an interview feeling like the character so memorably portrayed by Kevin McCarthy in the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Bush Sr in particular left me fighting the urge to run into the streets shouting: "Look, you fools. You're in danger. Can't you see? They're after you. They're after all of us. Our wives, our children, everyone. They're here already. YOU'RE NEXT!!

Bush's Grandfather --Prescott Bush --commits treason

It has become clear that Bush family efforts to create a fascist dictatorship in America did not end with Prescott Bush. Nor did it merely resume with Bush Jr, the lesser Shrub. The Senior Bush's efforts in China must be re-examined! I have always suspected that the Chinese outsmarted the idiots of the Bush clan. At the time of Nixon's visit, the US still had a car industry, still had steel industry, still had an electronics industry! People had real jobs. And there were no Wal-Marts!

Bush Sr went to China in advance of Nixon's famous visit. Back in the USA, the Senior Bush, in a meeting room of the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston, TX, told me that he ate 'aromatic meats' ['Lip of the dog'] at a diplomatic dinner in the Forbidden City in Beijing. [It was much later --1992 -- that Bush actually vomitted at an official dinner, perhaps on the Prime Minister of Japan] What Bush would not tell me were the details of the Faustian bargain that he set up in China, the 'deal' that was later agreed to by Nixon and his criminal counterparts inside the Chinese regime. Bush Sr's flat, slightly nasal monotone was enough to give you chills --especially when he talked of the New World Order!

Bush Sr's 'New World Order'

The decline and fall of the US economy can be traced to Bush Sr's trip to China where the Senior Bush laid the groundwork for Nixon's 'operatic' visit there. It was a sell-out, a Faustian bargain, a betrayal of American labor. Later, Carter was reviled but he had but four years to plug the hole in the dike! Ronald Reagan's regime must be remembered as years of 'decline and fall', specifically the decline of US manufacturing and the fall of the American labor movement.

In his 'Decline and Fall of the American Empire, Gore Vidal dates America's demise to that date in the 1980s when the US became a net debtor nation. It is no coincidence that US currency has declined vis a vis the Yuan ever since. As the years pass, as the American sun has set and that of China rises, I am increasingly curious about what Bush Sr discussed (other than eating dog meat) with his Chinese hosts over dinner in the Forbidden City.

I've always wanted to know what deals were cut! What were the specific clauses with which the Bush crime family --in service to Richard Nixon --betrayed the people of America!

Bush Pukes and Dana Carvey (?) Does an Impressive Impression

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

How Much Was Fox Paid to Shill Bush's War Crime in Iraq?

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The many lies told by Fox and Bill O'Reilly are probable cause to suspect Fox of criminal complicity with the Bush regime. It is reasonable to suspect that Fox is called Bush's "propaganda ministry" because it is Bush's propaganda ministry. Bush may yet stand trial for war crimes and mass murder. But what of his enablers inside his 'propaganda ministry'? It is reasonable to ask how many members of the Fox board, how many executives, how many on-camera shills share Bush's guilt for having perpetrated a murderous lie upon the American people and the world.

It boils down to a legal term: quid pro quo --the word given a 'transaction', an agreement that an item or a service is returned for something of value. Certainly, throughout Bush's war of aggression against Iraq, a war crime in which some 4000 US service personnel were sacrificed upon a bald faced lie, the relationship between Fox and Bush has been symbiotic and conspiratorial. Fox is thus motivated to convince you that 'conspiracies' do not exist though most US case law and SCOTUS decisions have to do with conspiracies of one sort or another.

There is probable cause to suspect, that Bush and Fox achieved agreement upon a quid pro quo! Fox is Bush's propaganda ministry and, if so, the members of the board of directors and key executives may be considered war criminals just as Goebbels was so considered during the Third Reich.

To be fair, FOX has not confined its venal reporting to a decade that will be recalled as the era of Bush atrocities and war crimes! Fox was under investigation by the ITC (Independent Television Commission) back in the 90s, specifically nine complaints by viewers of Sky Digital satellite, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, the evil godfather of Fox! Fox's jingoistic support of Bush's war crime in Iraq, however, cries out to be investigated by a federal panel with powers to subpoena.

Fox does not merely slant the news; it makes it up! Keith Olbermann and Robert Greenwald expose the truth about Fox lies. Fair and balanced? I have a better slogan for FOX. BUNKUM AND BULLSHIT!

Countdown: Fox News Caught Creating False News 11-15-06

If I were on a Federal Grand Jury investigating Bush's capital war crimes, I would insist that 'we' issue subpoenas to Fox execs, perhaps Murdoch himself! In support, I would argue that no investigation of Bush's war crimes could possibly be complete unless the propaganda matrix that made it all possible is likewise investigated thoroughly. We would want to ask them --while they are under oath --just what is in it for Fox to make up news favorable to Bush?

What, for example, was Fox paid to orchestrate billions of dollars in 'free' publicity in support of Bush's war crimes in Iraq? To what 'quid pro quo' did Fox agree for its support of an oil war known to be obscenely profitable for the Military/Industrial complex? We know how the armaments manufacturers 'get paid' for supporting wars of aggression and other war crimes! I want to know how media whores and parasites get their share of the kill!

I want to ask Rupert Murdoch --while he is under oath --how he benefits personally by presiding over a news organization that makes up the news.

A timely subpoena might cough up thousands of emails revealing how Fox conspired with Bush to defraud Americans and the world. There is a bigger story here than a single memo. What is Murdoch's specific connection to the Bush crime syndicate? Who got paid? When? And how much? How? What was the quid pro quo?

Murdoch-owned Fox wants you to think its cover 'patriotic' --but it's not. Lies told to enable a traitor are treasonous. There is nothing patriotic about lying to the American people and the world in support of and on behalf of war criminals! There is nothing patriotic about conspiring to grease the wheels for Bushco's theft of Iraqi oil! There is nothing patriotic about sending US troops to die for Bush's vainglorious visions of conquest and oil theft. There is nothing patriotic about Fox's support of Bush's disdain for the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, documents that Bush was sworn to uphold and did not! Bush, in fact, put his hand on the black book and lied through his teeth.

At market rates for network air time, Fox has most certainly supported Bush to the tune of $billions$. FOX's foray into NFL football came at a price --almost 2 billion dollars. The move made upstart Fox a major player with CBS, ABC and NBC. Are we to believe now that Murdoch has simply given away valuable network air time to the likes of war criminals? Murdoch is not suspected of having compunctions. The point is --Murdoch is in it for the bucks.

Media is now 'unfair' because the 'Fairness Doctrine' came under attack during the Reagan years. By 1990, the FCC had abandoned many rules and procedures that might have prevented broadcasters from using their stations in service to blatant propaganda or ideology. This Reagam-era mania for 'de-regulation' made it possible for Murdoch to build an entire network around outright lies!

The objective of the 'Fairness Doctrine' was, rather, the preservation of all points of view, a requirement enforced by an FCC mandate. De-regulation, however, eliminated guidelines for non-entertainment programming. The FCC justified it all with bureaucrat-speak. Fox was thus 'set free' to propagandize and brainwash! The era of the 'media whore' was ushered in.

Bill O'Reilly stated: 'Flat out lies should be confronted.' 'Confronted' is surely O'Reilly-speak for 'embraced'. 'O brave new world, that hath such people in it'!

Since the Iraq conflict began on March 20, Fox News has been on a mission to legitimize it. One problem for Fox's protracted apologia is that despite promises of evidence of current weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by the Bush Administration, the evidence has been ambiguous at best. Unfortunately for the network, I’ve been keeping a scratch diary of their reports since the war began.
Keep in mind that in the first three weeks of March, before the bombs started officially dropping, Fox was spreading all sorts of Pentagon propaganda. Iraq had "drones" that it could quickly dispatch to major U.S. metropolitan areas to spread biological agents. Saddam was handing out chemical weapons to the Republican guard to use against coalition troops in a last-ditch red-zone ring around Baghdad. Given what we now know about Iraq, these reports seem to be laughable fantasies, but they were effective in securing public backing for the war. The following is a short chronicle of lies, propagation of lies, exaggerations, distortions, spin, and conjecture presented as fact. My comments are in brackets [ ]s.

March 14: On The Fox Report anchor Shepard Smith reports that Saddam is planning to use flood water as a weapon by blowing up dams and causing severe flood damage.

March 19: Fox anchor Shepard Smith reports that Iraqis are planning to detonate large stores of napalm buried deep below the earth to scorch coalition forces. Fox Military Analyst Major Bob Bevelacqua states that coalition forces will drop a MOAB on Saddam's bunker [!!] and give him the "Mother of All Sunburns."

[After my last article, one sniveling neocon after another wrote me to tell me I was unqualified to assess defense matters because I wasn't a "defense analyst" (never mind that the article wasn't on the war, and the "real" defense experts made one wrong prediction after another on this war). It's interesting how these sniveling Frumsters cheer on the college-uneducated Hannity and Limbaugh when they make defense analyses supporting the neocon view. I do know enough to say that the informed Bevelacqua's suggestion that a MOAB would be used on a bunker was puzzling to say the least (given the reports of less-than-dazzling performance of daisy cutters outside caves in Tora Bora). Anyway, later reports confirmed that GBU-28 bunker busters were used during The Decapitation That Apparently Failed.]

March 23: The network begins 2 days of unequivocal assertions that a 100-acre facility discovered by coalition forces at An Najaf is a chemical weapons plant. Much is made about the fact that it was booby trapped. A former UN weapons inspector interviewed on camera over the phone downplays the WMD allegations and says that booby-trapping is common. His points are ignored as unequivocal charges of a chemical weapons facility are made on Fox for yet another day (March 24). Only weeks later is it briefly conceded that the chemicals definitively detected at the facility were pesticides.

[Jennifer Eccleston has to be the worst reporter employed by any network. She began one segment with a "Hi there!" – in no response to any segue from the relaying anchor at Fox headquarters in New York. Her bangs are long and constantly blowing in her face in the wind. Her head wobbles from side to side with her nose tracing out a figure 8 all the while arbitrarily syncopating a monotone voice with overemphasis on the last syllables of different words (e.g., Bagh-DAD’). The old, white-haired flag-waving yahoos like her not for her professionalism – she has none – but because of her innocent Britney Spearsesque beauty; i.e., she's a typical young piece of meat which dirty old men with too much time on their hands fantasize about.]
...
"... stating that "marketplace solutions can be consistent with public interest concerns," [FN100] that "significant amounts of nonentertainment programming of a variety of types will continue on radio," [FN101] and that "stations will continue to present such programming as a response to market forces." [FN102] In the same proceeding, the Commission eliminated the requirement that stations conduct ascertainment studies to determine the problems and needs of their communities. [FN103] It dismissed concerns that free market competition would tend to limit broadcasters in their assessment of community problems to those of the economically significant segments of the community, [FN104] and left the methods of assessing community problems and needs to broadcasters' "good faith discretion." [FN105] In this proceeding, the Commission also eliminated its commercial guidelines, [FN106] stating that marketplace forces would more effectively curb excessive advertising [FN107] and that "[n]o government regulation should continue unless it achieves some public interest objective that cannot be achieved without the regulation." [FN108] [Pace University School of Law, Summer, 1990. Marc Sophos] Also [Deregulation] [Fairness Doctrine] [Fox Bias]
The independent television commission is investigating nine complaints by viewers of the channel, broadcast on Sky Digital satellite, also controlled by Rupert Murdoch.
Dale Steinreich, Fibbing It Up at Fox

Admittedly, I did not follow the following 'non' story. But, as I am writing about Fox, it may be appropriate here.

NEW YORK - Fox News dropped its lawsuit against Al Franken on Monday, three days after a federal judge refused to block the liberal humorist from using the Fox slogan "Fair and Balanced" on the cover of his latest book. ...
"It's time to return Al Franken to the obscurity that he's normally accustomed to," Fox News spokeswoman Irena Steffen said.
-- Fox News Drops Lawsuit Against Al Franken

Hey, Fox! I am using two perfectly good English words that you 'claim' belong to you. Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced! Fair and Balanced!

So ---sue me!

Fox has a 'blog' (wink, wink) called 'Embed producers'. It proves that Psychopaths Rule the World. I wonder -- How Much Was Fox Paid to Shill Bush's War Crime in Iraq?. Embed Producers is not a blog! It's idiots paid by Fox to write bullshit! What a career!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The State of American Media: 'Wires and Lights in a Box'

Edward R. Murrow became famous throughout America during World War II. His rooftop radio broadcasts from London painted a vivid picture of the Blitz in a pre-television era. Most certainly, his words made a longer lasting impression than even video from Viet Nam.

Murrow was hardly unbiased. He was, rather, a champion of America's lost ideals: individual liberties and rights, truth, free speech, citizen participation. No one doubts that Murrow felt those ideals threatened by the menace of the Third Reich. Amidst war and, later, the un-easy peace, his clear headed idealism, his refusal to compromise facts and history made naive notions about mere objectivity sound like empty platitudes. Indeed, most such notions remain poor substitutes for courageous reporting and informed challenges to power.

Later, Murrow would feel similarly threatened when our own right wing attacked freedom of speech and free inquiry. It was the McCarthy era, an era not unlike our own —seemingly dominated by those who fear dissent, free speech, open debate --the institutions of a free and Democratic society. Murrow reacted to McCarthy's threats of surreptitious investigations and attacks on free speech as if they were themselves Nazi bombs that he had described so vividly from the flaming rooftops of London.

How Murrow Brought Down a Right Wing Demagogue

Ed Murrow is still with us. His legacy embodies the very finest that might be found in Western democracies. Unlike our present "leaders" who have exploited and debased the term, Murrow made of Democracy an ideal! By contrast, the enemies of Democracy today exploit the phantom menace of terrorism, just as McCarthy had exploited the specter of communism.

Keith Olbermann: A Short History of Phony Terror and Bush Admin "Fear Mongering"

Bush learned much from McCarthy. The "war on terror" is simply McCarthyism on steroids. A real war on terrorism has yet to be fought. As far as anyone knows, Bush has never captured or brought to justice a single terrorist. Name one! Nevertheless, Bush has managed to terrorize the American people with color codes, phony tapes, and staged terror plots --none of which were proven to have been substantial. Bush's war on terrorism is a deliberate, calculated fraud, a hoax perpetrated by liars and war criminals.

With a few notable exceptions --Bill Moyers, Keith Olbermann come to mind --the American media has failed its public. We expected no better from Fox. It is CBS, the network of Ed Murrow, that has been most disappointing. As the fraudulent nature of Bush's administration crumbles, it had been hoped that the American media would take a cue from one of its pioneers. The standard Murrow set is yet to be lived up to.

It is my hope that one day, and soon, the American media will awaken to a simple fact that without the public they serve, they would not exist. In that spirit, I post Murrow's very words, excerpts from his prophetic speech to a meeting of the Radio and Television News Director's Association Convention in Chicago. It's as true today as it was on October 15, 1958.

Edward R. Murrow's address to the RTNDA Convention in Chicago, October 15, 1958
This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.

I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard that produces words and pictures. You will forgive me for not telling you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.

You should also know at the outset that, in the manner of witnesses before congressional committees, I appear here voluntarily-by invitation-that I am an employee of the Columbia Broadcasting System, that I am neither an officer nor a director of that corporation and that these remarks are of a "do-it-yourself" nature. If what I have to say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for the saying of it. Seeking neither approbation from my employers, nor new sponsors, nor acclaim from the critics of radio and television, I cannot well be disappointed. Believing that potentially the commercial system of broadcasting as practiced in this country is the best and freest yet devised, I have decided to express my concern about what I believe to be happening to radio and television. These instruments have been good to me beyond my due. There exists in mind no reasonable grounds for personal complaint. I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 PM, Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. ... I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate....

Our experience was similar with two half-hour programs dealing with cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Both the medical profession and the tobacco industry cooperated in a rather wary fashion. But in the end of the day they were both reasonably content. The subject of radioactive fall-out and the banning of nuclear tests was, and is, highly controversial. But according to what little evidence there is, viewers were prepared to listen to both sides with reason and restraint. This is not said to claim any special or unusual competence in the presentation of controversial subjects, but rather to indicate that timidity in these areas is not warranted by the evidence. ...

Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fact that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission publicly prods broadcasters to engage in their legal right to editorialize. Of course, to undertake an editorial policy, overt and clearly labeled, and obviously unsponsored, requires a station or a network to be responsible. Most stations today probably do not have the manpower to assume this responsibility, but the manpower could be recruited. Editorials would not be profitable; if they had a cutting edge, they might even offend. It is much easier, much less troublesome, to use the money-making machine of television and radio merely as a conduit through which to channel anything that is not libelous, obscene or defamatory. In that way one has the illusion of power without responsibility.

... when John Foster Dulles, by personal decree, banned American journalists from going to Communist China, and subsequently offered contradictory explanations, for his fiat the networks entered only a mild protest. Then they apparently forgot the unpleasantness. Can it be that this national industry is content to serve the public interest only with the trickle of news that comes out of Hong Kong, to leave its viewers in ignorance of the cataclysmic changes that are occurring in a nation of six hundred million people? ...

I have no illusions about the difficulties reporting from a dictatorship, but our British and French allies have been better served--in their public interest--with some very useful information from their reporters in Communist China. One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the corporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs.

Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this. It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card, buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time-- frequently on the same long day--to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public affairs.

Sometimes there is a clash between the public interest and the corporate interest. A telephone call or a letter from the proper quarter in Washington is treated rather more seriously than a communication from an irate but not politically potent viewer. It is tempting enough to give away a little air time for frequently irresponsible and unwarranted utterances in an effort to temper the wind of criticism .Upon occasion, economics and editorial judgment are in conflict. And there is no law which says that dollars will be defeated by duty. ...

There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse. I do not suggest that news and information should be subsidized by foundations or private subscriptions. I am aware that the networks have expended, and are expending, very considerable sums of money on public affairs programs from which they cannot hope to receive any financial reward. I have had the privilege at CBS of presiding over a considerable number of such programs. I testify, and am able to stand here and say, that I have never had a program turned down by my superiors because of the money it would cost. But we all know that you cannot reach the potential maximum audience in marginal time with a sustaining program.

This is so because so many stations on the network--any network--will decline to carry it. Every licensee who applies for a grant to operate in the public interest, convenience and necessity makes certain promises as to what he will do in terms of program content. Many recipients of licenses have, in blunt language, welshed on those promises. The money-making machine somehow blunts their memories. The only remedy for this is closer inspection and punitive action by the FCC ...

What, then, is the answer? Do we merely stay in our comfortable nests, concluding that the obligation of these instruments has been discharged when we work at the job of informing the public for a minimum of time? Or do we believe that the preservation of the Republic is a seven-day-a-week job, demanding more awareness, better skills and more perseverance than we have yet contemplated. ...

So the question is this: Are the big corporations who pay the freight for radio and television programs wise to use that time exclusively for the sale of goods and services? Is it in their own interest and that of the stockholders so to do? The sponsor of an hour's television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or "letting the public decide." ...

To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late .I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. ...

I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us. We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation. To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.