Why The Corpule- er, Corporate Media Is Your Enemy

[filkertom]

In case you haven't seen it, this morning CNN.com ran a little poll: "Does Barack Obama show the proper patriotism for someone who wants to be president of the United States?"

The basis for this is that he stopped wearing his flag lapel pin. A- an' maybe didn't have his hand over his heart during the national anthem. And his wife said something it took some of them almost a whole minute to parse... incorrectly.

FUCK YOU, CNN. Fuck you up your stupid, shallow, lying, co-conspiratorial asses.

How dare you, and how dare all the rest of the sanctimonious motherfuckers who still support lying our way into an illegal invasion, the elimination of habeus corpus, the violation of treaties including the goddamn Geneva Conventions, illegal and secret prisons, torture, war profiteering, not giving our soldiers the equipment they need or the health care they deserve or the benefits they were promised, wiretapping everybody in the goddamn country and trying to rewrite the laws to protect not only the telecoms but the government that authorized that grotesque violation of privacy, and on and on and on and on... how dare you impugn anybody's patriotism, let alone for something as completely inconsequential as a fucking lapel pin, or where they have their hand during a song.

How fucking dare you.

(One of the more amusing aspects of the whole thing, or at least it would be amusing if it wasn't so ghastly and reprehensible, is William "The Bloody" Kristol weighing in on this momentous issue, only a morning after advising Hillary Clinton to embrace "the politics of fear". Gee, Bill, I thought the people who used fear were our enemies. I guess that makes you... our enemy. Fucking warmongering piece of shit. What a vile, slimy, wretched, evil excuse for a human being. I must not be anywhere near as nonviolent as I thought I was, because every time I see him I want to smash his face in with a brick.)

I say it again: The corporate media, the ones influencing our national discourse, are not merely part of the problem, they are part of the enemy camp. And if anybody ever tries to tell me that we've got some kind of fucking "liberal media", I will smack that person in the head.

ETA, again: Hokay.

By "the enemy camp" I do not necessarily mean the Republican/neocon/BushCo camp, although that actually does work out to be the same thing in most cases. The point is, the mainstream press, the corporate media, are our enemies. You and me. American society.

They don't tell us the truth. They tell us half-truth. They distract us with celebrity scandal and meaningless sports scores and, most of all, the most trivial bullshit imaginable, such as whether somebody is patriotic enough based on their foreign-made lapel pin or lack thereof.

The press, which used to be and which is supposed to be our defense against bullshit from the government, now enables and supports it. And, like the Bush administration, they lie when confronted about it. Even when confronted with overwhelming evidence. They lie and they obfuscate and they distract and they move on to the next lie. They present everything as if it has two equally balanced "sides" -- "We Report, You Decide" -- when in most cases [a] that simply isn't true and [b] they conveniently leave out lots of important information. They have literally redefined their jobs to exclude the truth.

Which is why they are in the enemy camp.

Comments

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

That's a helluva thing.

CNN could redeem themselves, however, by changing the answers as follows:

Yes---->Screw you, CNN! Patriotism is about more than a lapel pin.

No---->Baaaaa.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

As usual, I'm almost grateful my grandfather isn't alive to see this--he's probably spinning in his grave as it is.

Though, looking at Obama's response to this (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/24/obama.patriotism/index.html), I'm even more impressed by the man: 'About not wearing an American flag lapel pin, Obama said Republicans have no lock on patriotism.

"A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans' benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary?

"That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism."'

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Yup.
One of the replies at C&L was "If Bush & his ilk are patriotic we could do with a lot less of it."
I agree.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I don't care to be tarred with the "All Media are Evil" brush. I'm media but not corporate... Hollywood News Calendar is not owned by anybody who doesn't actually work on it directly. Not even a corporation with the same surname.

Susan Fox
Managing Editor

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Jeez, Sue, the subject line says "corporate media". If I have to specifically spell out CNN, Faux, CBS, ABC, NBC, the NY Times, the Washington Post, the big guns, the ones who influence our discourse... well, I just did. I made it more specific in the last paragraph so that you don't think I'm aiming at you. Better?

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Sorry to jump cranky but I do a hard job and I try like blazes to do it fairly.

I do get taken for an employee of Faux News every so often by phone answerers who don't understand the difference between my name and my company. I just want to explain that Mr. Fox sold out of the parent corporation in the 1930's and really, it's NO RELATION. But that might take an entire synapse to understand.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I say it again: The media are not merely part of the problem, they are part of the enemy camp. And if anybody ever tries to tell me that we've got some kind of fucking "liberal media", I will smack that person in the head.

Disagree. SOME are part of the enemy camp, but MOST of the big names seem to be in one very biased camp or another.

Big media stopped being about reporting and journalism a LONG time ago and it's just sad that most people haven't noticed that.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

"Biased" would still be the enemy camp. Our press is supposed to be interested in finding out the truth, the facts. They are not. I add some stuff above.

[darkwolf69.livejournal.com]

Speaking of the enemy camp, I'm watching this right now:

http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Fight-John-McCain/dp/B000FBH3W2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1203958777&sr=8-1

Fascinating stuff. Ire provoking, too.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

Well...you've noticed that the mainstream(ed) media have their own agenda? Congratulations! We libertarians have been screaming this from the tops of the houses for years, but nobody ever listened to us until it was their oxen being gored.

The MSM march in lockstep, and, prior to the invention of the Internet and the alternate media, could kill a story right quick by just refusing to cover it. John Leo, at U.S. News and World Report, had an interesting article about this at one point, about the difference in coverage given the Matthew Shepard and Jesse Dirkhising cases.

The MSM are an intellectual monoculture, sterile and incestuous...and I'd say that even if their party line agreed with mine straight down the line.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ummm....

Actually, we've been bellowing this on the progressive/liberal side for a jesus long time. Like, since at least the Carter years. It's been blatantly obvious since the Newt Gingrich era and the savaging of the Clintons back in, what, 1992? 93? 94, 95, 96, 97, oh man 98....

Of course, mainstream media bias isn't often reported in the, uh, mainstream media. Except with a mordant chuckle and a fond pat on the head.

And in many ways they're worse than a monoculture... they're a party-crowd culture. They're a cool-kids culture. All that matters is access, even if it's access to lying crooks because the lying crooks have the power right now. The notion of disrupting their own little Village simply isn't on their radar.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I was saying this during the Clinton years. And earlier.

And while the media gleefully reported the Clintons' scandals, they did run interference for them in a lot of ways.

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

Well, it was going to be something. Best to see what the idiocy is going to be now, so that there's time to work out the responses, and so that it's tired out by the time the elections start.

And if it gives the man more time to show his eloquence and thoughtfulness, terrific.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

I've been saying for some years now -- the current administration ought to be tried for treason, based on their repeated and willful violations of their oaths of office. ("Support the Constitution"?)

Unpatriotic my bifurcated buttocks.

[hearth-spirit.livejournal.com]

That is an -excellent- epithet. Mind if I steal it for personal use?

Fuzzy Bifurcated Buttocks!

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Please feel free to use with abandon! ;)

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

The press is only free if you own one.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

That may be the way it's always been... while many have looked over the course of their lifetimes, I went digging so far back as the Great Depression, and some of what I found there, leading up to and during WWII, reminded me much of what we see now.

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

As if that wasn't enough, their headline article right now is referring to North Korea not as North Korea, but simply as "Part of the Axis of Evil."

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

...wait what?

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

Just that. It was about the current state of North Korea's nuclear program, only instead of saying North Korea it talked about "part of the Axis of Evil's nuclear program."

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

The point is, the mainstream press, ...they don't tell us the truth. They tell us half-truth. They distract us with celebrity scandal and meaningless sports scores and, most of all, the most trivial bullshit imaginable, such as whether somebody is patriotic enough based on their foreign-made lapel pin or lack thereof.

I remember a pagan/wiccan friend of american indian descent talking with his mother about some of the things he'd seen, and she said, no, that can't be, we would have seen it in the news. He said, yeah, like the stuff that happens on the res gets into the news? She had to concede his point.

Minorities, and all people those in power want to stay powerless (minority or not), do not get good (read, accurate, timely, and pertinent) news coverage. This is not new. This conversation happened decades ago.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

oops, forgot to note that I was quoting you/FilkerTom in the first two sentences of this post. And meant to add my agreement and disgust, too.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I knew. It's all good. :)

[kuremmu.livejournal.com]

The corporate media control may be reaching new heights of overt arrogance, but unfortunately it isn't new. Consider Hearst and the Spanish-American War. Here is a link to a largely suppressed bit of history from the Hoover era. many of the techniques will sound familiar to people who organized Iraq war or G8 summit or Rethuglican convention protests.

http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2008/02/hunger-on-march.html

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

This quote stands out, to me:
"It's become popular lore amongst Republicans these days that FDR's New Deal was largely responsible for the Great Depression."

Which, if true, means that many Republicans have a piss-poor grasp of history. Or at least of cause-and-effect.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Hell, just of sequential time.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Policies enacted in response to a thing actually created that thing?

Somebody get Dr. Brown and his steam-powered chrono-motive, we've got a paradox here.

Now, I suppose it's possible that the "popular lore" is that FDR's programs prolonged or worsened the Depression; that'd certainly be consistent with the Right's mantra of "if you give poor people any help at all, they'll have no motivation to stop being poor".

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Somebody came up with a logical fallacy worse than post hoc ergo propter hoc? I think the word Molly Ivins would have used is "whomperjawed."

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Hey, post hoc is at least plausible. If A happens after B, it's at least conceivable that B caused A.

What we've got here is pre hoc ergo promptor hoc: before this, therefore because of it.

[bosswriter.livejournal.com]

I love a brisk discussion on the MSM but I was surprised no one pointed out one of the major motivations of the MSM - $$$$.

The ratings and the money is what it's all about. Anytime they can create controversy they draw the sheeple into their web and keep them glued to hour after hour of the same BS viewed from every POV but the truth.

This produces the ratings and the sponsorship because the sponsors are almost as bad for supporting this crap as the sources that put it out.

That's why I rarely watch CNN, Fox or even local news for that matter. Yeah it means that if you want the facts you have to work and dig (which is what the media should be doing for us), but the vast majority either do not want to make the effort or care to. They just want to click the remote and be massaged.

Problem is they are they ones that decide the elections. Makes me sad.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Actually, those who own the media decide the elections, proving your point about the $$$$.

[bayushisan.livejournal.com]

I'll be honest here. I don't really watch the news all that much. I'll read the occasional story on Yahoo news or set up a Google alert about certain subjects. Beyond that I just can't bring myself to watch it.

I'll watch Countdown, O'Reilly, and sometimes Dan Abrams show if only to get a spread of views on a given issue or story. Beyond that I don't trust reporters much. Most comment on the news instead of just reporting the facts. (This opinion is not reflective of ALL reporters, just ones working the mainstream)

Maybe we need to work together and come up with our own news service. Base on Joe Friday ala Dragnet. "Just the facts Ma'am"

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Actually, what this has done is open up a huge market gap among the folks who do notice the inconsistencies. Where are your flist getting their news these days?
We're sure not expecting to get it on major broadcast news. That stuff always shocks me when I do happen to see it now and again. Reminds me strongly of early broadcasts of Pravda, with translated text, that I saw on foreign language channels when we first got cable. Fascinating stuff.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

FYI further note: are you seeing any reportage on John McCain breaking the rules on campaign finance?
He's almost through the allowed amount of contributions on his matching funds, and continuing to accept more from donors than the rules allow.
Dems are filing a complaint witht he FEC. Biased source, of course, but please do feel free to find it getting reported anywhere else...
http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/02/democratic_part_8.php
The full document is a downloadable pdf.

[robin-june.livejournal.com]

Between NPR and Air America, I've been getting mucho coverage of this.

(At this point, I'm not remembering which one covered how much of what).

Before Air America was swept from Columbus, OH, a year or so ago, the top of the hour carried CNN's brand of news. Now that someone else has brought it back, the hourly news feed is something different: Free Speech Radio News.

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Hehe... I'll probably just listen to you for the current news (since NPR is one of my favorites, but I'm always doing other things during the day, and often forget to catch up).

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's good to know about!

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

On XM, they used to have 'Air America News' at the top of the hour... now it's AP. And XM took it upon themselves to play Ed Schultz instead of Thom Hartman during the "Franken" slot. Not that I have a problem with Schultz--I actually like him--but damn. XM isn't Air America's owner, they don't get to make broadcast decisions for them. And it furthers the 'ghettoization' of Liberal thought to just XMPR and Air America (while the right wingers have America Right, FAUX News, FAUX Talk, and the bulk of all the other news outlets... for which they run ads on Air America). Schultz used to be on the 'Talk' channel, he didn't need to be moved -- that just means the Talk channel is more right wing now.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

CNN.COM poll #2: "Do you think Mr Obama is now, or has ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"
CNN.COM poll #3: "How much do you think Mr. Obama hates America?"

Since war is peace and freedom is slavery in CNN-Land, they can be proud of having the strongest viewers online.