And how about that Trifecta Trade Deal that President Obama just signed into law? Although it will ultimately destroy an estimated quarter of a million American jobs through offshoring, it received miniscule attention from the national newshounds, and hardly any people expressed interest in it. So what came first, the chicken or the egg? I think it was the egg, meaning the people. They didn't know about it, because the teevee didn't talk about it. Too hard. Most people don't read Ezra Klein's Wonkbook.
If you think last week was bad, wait till this week. The killing of K-Daffy today has wiped Occupy Wall Street right off the news map. It will be days and days of "Obama Adds Another Trophy to His Kill List", and endless video loops of his bloody murder.
The politicians and the oligarchs must be so relieved. The ruling class wants our attention to be diverted from its chicanery, while the stenographic journalists would rather take the path of least resistance and pander to the lowest common denominator. It saves them the trouble of insightful thought and does the public a gross disservice.
The daily program from Democracynow.org is the perfect place to get your news during the week. Even if you only have time to catch the headlines (the first 10 minutes or so of the show), you'll never go back to the boring, sanitized pablum the corporate media try to pass off as news.
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't watched Amy Goodman deliver the daily headlines before, you're in for a treat. She hits you with one important story after another, and if you're not mentally ready, your head will spin! Don't worry, though; you get used to it and you'll never settle for anything less again.
I hear a lot of regret about the fact that newspapers are dying in America because of the Internet and TV news - Yet maybe the real reason is they don't offer much of an alternative. I remember dumping my NY Times subscription during the Clinton administration when day after day the front page was covered with titillating news about private matters that had nothing to do with what was really important to the country. I don't know for sure but I would wager this was the time a lot of the bad banking legislation was slipped through Congress. Maybe if the newspapers offered real news, people (at least those who have half a brain) would abandon TV news in favour of print. So I guess my point is the newspapers only have themselves to blame for their demise.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder, Will. I tune into Democracy Now – now and then - but not as a habit. That needs to change! The ABC (Australian PBS) is still pretty good and quite global in perspective so I watch that on TV if I watch TV news. But I rely heavily on the blogosphere for real news coverage. I get so many great links from other readers and writers like Karen turn me on to the big issues not covered by the MSM.
Will, I wholeheartedly agree with you--I am lucky to start my day watching _Democracy Now!_ live streaming on their website at 8 am everyday. I started watching after I happened to hear (on the radio) the harrowing screams and brutal arrests of the whole DN crew during the Republican National Convention in 2008--and learned they were 3 of 50 journalists arrested!
ReplyDeletehttp://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2011/10/03/settlement-reached-in-arrests-of-rnc-journalists/
Journalists arrested in the U.S.?? I wrote letters immediately to the Minnesota police department and my congresspeople. My Rep, Jim Moran, wrote back that he, too, was worried about our Democracy, when journalists start to be jailed.
And that is what scared me. I suddenly saw how quickly a peaceable Democracy could be taken over by brutal thugs who wield violence instead of principles (who indeed are opposed to any rule of law). If you are committed to Democracy, non-violence is your only recourse. As long as we are a majority, we are strong, and a minority cannot tyrannize us with anti-Democratic thuggary.
So it is imperative that each and every one of us urgently use our freedom of speech to insist on the fair treatment of everyone, lest threats, violence, and supression spread. Yet there is no way to estimate how events like the 2008 arrests do intimidate the press, to the point that we deride them as mere "stenographers." The subconscious core that rules us can only be translated imperfectly by words, and fear and love both lead us to actions that we cannot logically explain. So to the extent the press becomes weaker and cowed, the people themselves have to step up, with stellar journalism in blogs like Sardonicky, which I find fortitude in, as much as I do from Democracy Now!
Oh, and the firing Lisa Simeone of NPR is yet another example of what I believe is part of the culture of fear that business interests propagate to hold back the press. Yet, the more widespread intimidation is, the more likely it is to roll off your shoulders. After a while, you come to expect it, and it doesn't bother you. I think this is why Democracy Now is such fearless journalism, because once you realize you are an outcast, and you have no need to court the elites in the hopes of crumbs, you are liberated to really tell the truth. And truth by itself is more wonderful and liberating than all the money in the world. You start to pity the elites who honestly believe they are orchestrating world events with their money. You can starve, jail, beat, or consign to poverty a person, but if they have timeless truths and love in their hearts (like Troy Davis did, blessing his executioners, insisting on his innocence, and begging for the release of all innocent prisoners and finding the real truth in his case), you cannot really bring them down, not even in death.
ReplyDelete@Valerie
ReplyDeleteAs I remember, that was when the Gramm(R) Leach(R), Bliley(R) Act. was signed by Clinton and approved by 168 Dems. It was the end of Glass-Steagall Act.
Write in Bernie Sanders for president.
It looks like an induced COMA to me!
ReplyDeleteFirst let me say that yesterday I went to another Occupy event and the number of young people there was still very low. I asked one young guy about that, and he said most of his friends didn't even know about Occupy Wall Street, never mind the local Occupy, and they are community college students.
The media blackout, from local to national, is a big reason, but also, as Valerie says, corporate media's selection of our news/infotainment for the past several years is also a cause, and a deliberate one in my opinion.
The numbing and dumbing down of America has been successful, especially among our youth, which is the state the corporate media and the PTB have deliberately induced and want us to stay in so we will buy, literally and figuratively, all their crap.
A dark cloud of corporate-political induced illusions and delusions constitute the consensus reality/insanity that is now America. Only the light of truth will penetrate the darkness and pull people out of their COMA.
*COMA: Corporate-Occupied Mind of America*
Occupy's #1 goal right now should be about liberating minds from corporate influence and control - the COMA - to bring about the American Awakening.
Occupy Mind! (OMmmmm)
News flash from Occupy Tampa: 6 arrests this morning. One of the officers stated that "This is coming to an end".
ReplyDelete@Karen
"The killing of K-Daffy today has wiped Occupy Wall Street right off the news map."
Yes, the killing of K-Daffy will dominate the news for awhile. But will the news cover who gets Libya’s oil? Perhaps a little. What about who gets Libya’s 144 tons of gold? Not so much. What about the formation of a Libyan central bank? That was done earlier this year. Libya was one of a handful of prosperous countries that was not part of the Rothschild-style international banking cartel.
K-Daffy was a dictator who denied rights to his people. We know this because our president Barack Obama told us March 28, 2011 during a televised ‘Address to the Nation on Libya’. This was about the same time that the Libyan rebels formed a central bank. Obama used this event to explain why NATO bombing in support of the Libyan rebels was necessary. And since Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner, we can trust his judgment on who ought to be bombed and killed.
One happy commenter wrote on the New York Times "Another win for my President. O '12." (Nathan, nyc, October 20th, 2011, 8:58 am, comment number 5, "Violent End to an Era as Qaddafi Dies in Libya").
But due to a conflict of interest with America’s corporate dictator, Obama does not have the balls to confront Wall Street, or even an individual like Lloyd Blankfein, a regular guest at the White House. Obama needs Wall Street’s campaign cash, love, and support.
So we are left with Occupy Wall Street to protect us from America’s corporate dictator, the creator of derivatives, credit default swaps, securitized subprime mortgages, and other weapons of economic mass destruction. These weapons are killing Americans, making them jobless, homeless, and pensionless. These weapons are now killing American cities. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, declared bankruptcy this week. Jefferson County, Alabama, home of Birmingham, may follow, after a Wall Street bond swap fiasco on a sewer construction project.
If Occupy Wall Street has been wiped off the news map, it is our duty to refocus the coverage.
Neil Gillespie
http://yousue.org/arab-freedom-movement/
Karen, thanks for coining a practical spelling for the late Mr. K-Daffy. The variations of his name used in the press are unprecedented.
Yay, Neil! Excellent!
ReplyDeleteOn CBS news last night, Barbara Walters mentioned that hedge fund managers invited K-Daffy's son Saif to Wall Street last year and wined and dined him. Scott Pelley then immediately changed the subject. (Nothing to see here. Move along. Do NOT connect any dots!)
Re: Corporate Destruction - Let's not forget the ECOTERRORISM of corporations as they poison our water, air, ground, food, etc. as collateral damage in their profit-making schemes. They are poisoning and destroying our Mother Earth. They frackin' terrorize me!
Thanks Anne.
ReplyDeleteRight about K-Daffy's son Saif and Wall Street. Saif also visited Harvard with the Monitor Group, a Boston firm, to try and improve Libya’s image. Saif is also welcome at Buckingham Palace, and friendly with Nathaniel Rothschild, according to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saif_al-Islam_Gaddafi
As for the ECOTERRORISM of corporations, I highly recommend a link Valerie sent me about an ecological disaster in the Amazon rain forest left behind by Texaco’s oil drilling operations. Chevron bought Texaco and now its their problem. The story is "Bad oil: The Amazon's toxic mess", by Mike Munro. http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/article/-/10403960/bad-oil-the-amazons-toxic-mess/ The story features the work of activist Zoe Tryon http://zoetryon.com/about/
Neil Gillespie
http://yousue.org/arab-freedom-movement/
I have posted this to every whining pitch for $10 I get from Pelosi, Dean, dccc, etc...
ReplyDeleteI WANT Obama to lose----assassin-in-chief----extraordinary renditioner---military tribunaler---undeclared war-maker, 1,2,3,4----drone killer of civilians and denier thereof---indefinite preventive detentioner---wall-streeter's little mascot (Cornell West ought to know) ---giver-awayer to HMO's and Big Pharma---domestic spyer---whistle-blower persecutor, e.g. Private Manning--- political speech prosecutor--airport feeler-upper---tax break giver to billionaires---deporter of 1,000,000 immigrants --SS and Medicare cutter /soon, eliminator ---mountain top remover--BP cover upper---Gulf deep water drilling expander--Arctic drilling permitter, -our-nuclear-plants-are-safe-liar--EPA’s ozone regulation destroyer, ---imminent tar-sands pipeline approver---Elizabeth Warren and Van Jones cast-offer----- But such a pretty perpetually arched head, and such nice manners, and such a sweet family and best of all, looks great primping himself on a putting green, the vile little suck-up flimflam Chicago pol poseur. In short, Odious the PhotoOpus Potus.