Poor Bill Moyers Thought the Mainstream Press had Grown a Backbone

The great Bill Moyers wrote an article in Salon today lamenting the fact that he had initially praised CNN for announcing it was going to ban pathological liar Kellyanne Conway from appearances on the network, but then reversed itself within a day. I feel Bill’s pain, but like the Cowardly Lion, the sycophantic mainstream press still hasn’t found the wizard to give it the courage it needs.

The American mainstream press has been a propaganda arm of the government for a very long time (recall the virtually unanimous support for the disastrous Iraq war) the problem today is that the Trump team isn't playing by the old rules, and it's disrupting a once cozy relationship. Past administrations and presidents lied all the time, but it was done with civility and decorum that was acceptable to the networks, so it was okay. With Trump and his administration, there isn't that thin veneer of reasonableness to slide lies by unquestioning interviewers. The Trump buffoons are up in your face with lie after lie after, forcing the networks out of their comfort zones. As Moyers clearly points out, CNN and the others want badly to play along, to let the game continue has it has for decades, but Trump and his minions are far too dull-witted and ideologically zombified to understand the rules of the game. The mainstream media is being forced to fight back, not because it really wants to call out the administration's lies or it has some new-found zeal for exposing the truth. Panicked, CNN almost called a time out, but then decided it wasn't ready to call off the game.

The Corporate Media And Their Biased Coverage of Bernie Sanders

Fingers can point in many directions to explain the relatively rapid descent of America into a political morass where an egomaniacal fascist like Donald Trump can be considered a serious candidate for the Presidency — income inequality, the death of the Middle Class, Wall Street greed, the rise of the surveillance state, constant war — but at the top of my list is the corporate media.

President Eisenhower’s warning about the rise of the “military/industrial complex” is heavily cited as a forecast that unfortunately came true, but there arose a third force that Ike did not see at the time that now forms a triumvirate of nightmarish influence over this country, the corporate media.

Owned by a handful of extremely wealthy elitists, the corporate media is the one percent’s propaganda tool used to keep Americans distracted, uninformed and good little consumers. A most recent example of this is the skewed coverage of the candidates running for President by the major news outlets.

According to the Tyndall Report, which tracks stories on the network news programs, between January 1, 2015 and the end of November, ABC “World News Tonight” devoted 81 minutes of coverage to Donald Trump and less than one minute to Bernie Sanders. The report found that all of the major news programs were guilty of Trump overkill with a total of 234 total network minutes for the Donald compared to just 10 minutes of reporting on Sanders. That’s over almost a year period.

There are two reasons for this obvious bias on the part of the mainstream corporate media. First there’s entertainment value. Trump is outrageous, monstrous and a born entertainer. He shocks every time he opens his mouth and that makes for great entertainment (under the guise of news) that viewers eat up, whether their Republicans or Democrats. Sanders, on the other hand, is seen as a crotchety old man and too much of a scold. Boooring.

But there’s a stealthier effort going on here as well. Of all the candidates running for President, none of them represent as big a threat to the elites as Sanders. For all of his insane statements, Trump is one of them, and Sanders is definitely not. Sanders and his Democratic Socialist agenda represent a threat to the status quo, the deep state the ruling elite, and because of this, they want him on television, and exposed to the public, as little as possible.

Just like Time magazine’s failure to make Sanders “Person of the Year” despite his win in the popularity poll, the corporate press will do everything in its power to keep the progressive Democrat in the wings, while giving the howling fascist demagogue Trump center stage.

Why the Mainstream Media is Failing Us

I think Paul Kurgman is brilliant and agree with his positions most of the time, but his latest commentary, published in the New York Times today, comes off being a bit on the naïve side. In this piece, Krugman wonders why the media keeps allowing Republicans to say the most ridiculous things without any push back. The Benghazi hearings are a perfect example. It’s been clear from the start to anyone paying attention that the Congressional hearings were nothing more than an effort to score political points against Hillary Clinton, yet the mainstream media has treated this blatantly political circus as if it were a serious inquiry.

In his essay, Krugman writes:

"Sometimes I have the impression that many people in the media consider it uncouth to acknowledge, even to themselves, the fraudulence of much political posturing. The done thing, it seems, is to pretend that we’re having real debates about national security or economics even when it’s both obvious and easy to show that nothing of the kind is actually taking place."

He’s clearly right about the failings of the mainstream press, but neglects to mention the true motive behind the networks’ approach to politics in America: Money. In a capitalist society such as ours, profits are all that matter, and everything else needs to take a seat at the back of the bus. This includes morality and even truth. The reason why the media pretends “we’re having real debates about nation security and economics” is purely financial. The truth would alienate viewers, and no network wants to do anything that will cause their viewers to switch channels or cancel a subscription.

So we live in a fantasy world were the most outrageous lies can be said with a straight face and reported as fact. Instead of a government-controlled media we have a corporate controlled media that serves the interests of the one percent, which basically amounts to the same thing. It’s all propaganda dressed up as objective news.

Living in the painless concentration camp

Forget Nostradamus, Huxley’s prediction for the near future of America (and other democracies) is as spot on as it gets. While he lived during a period of brutal totalitarian regimes (Germany, U.S.S.R, China) he was able to envision the very different path that the U.S. would take to devolve into an oligarchy, and perhaps one day, a dictatorship.

He understood that there wouldn’t need to be a violent revolution to overthrow democracy. He saw the seeds of our demise beginning to sprout in the 40s and 50s as we grew wealthy and complacent and cowed in fear of communist infiltrations. “What’s good for GM is good for America” was the capitalist’s philosophy of the day as we exploited poor countries around the world for their raw goods. Eisenhower warned us about letting the military/industrial complex grow too powerful, but we were busy watching Leave it to Beaver and the Beverly Hillbillies and didn’t take his words to heart.

The 60s were a hiccup, a brief, unique moment in time when the people (young people) spoke up and demanded an end to war and discrimination, and the elites finally had to capitulate, although the victories were short-lived. The war in Vietnam ended, but then Reagan had to prove Americans weren’t wussies and the military grew and we found excuses around the world to use it. Reagan’s other contribution to society was cutting the tax rates for the wealthy, allowing them to grow in power and influence.

And here we are today, fighting a war on terror we can never win, bombing innocent civilians in foreign countries, allowing billionaires to buy political candidates, yawning as the government spies on us in every conceivable way, sedating ourselves and our children with “pharmacological methods,” distracted by Lady Gaga and the Walking Dead and a corporate news media as the surveillance state tears the Constitution to shreds. Without firing a shot, without mass arrests, the American deep government has succeeded in brainwashing a majority of citizens into believing they still live in a democracy, when if fact they are living in the “painless concentration camp” that Huxley predicted.

This is, I have to agree, the final revolution.

Addendum:

I rarely do this, but I came across this article in Talking Points Memo this morning and had to attach it to this blog

A new study from Princeton spells bad news for American democracy—namely, that it no longer exists.

Asking "[w]ho really rules?" researchers Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page argue that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters.

60 Minutes (of government propaganda)

CBS is getting a lot of flack about its recent 60 Minutes homage to the NSA. There was a time when the venerable news magazine would have torn the secret agency a new one, but those days are long gone. Who needs government-controlled propaganda when you have the elite owners of the media to do your bidding for you?

We’ve lost control of our government and our media. The only news and opinion outlets with enough guts to tell the truth are a handful of progressive blogs that have zero influence in the corridors of power. Oh yeah, and a couple of comedy shows on TV. There is no “check” or “balance” to keep the government even somewhat honest anymore, and, as secrets dribble out of Washington now and then, we know they are taking full advantage of the situation.

What we are witnessing today is the devastation of unrestrained capitalism. Money is running, and ruining, every aspect of society, from elections to wars to climate denial. Those at the top of the food chain have more money than they know what to do with, but they continue to make life miserable for the 99 percent. Their greed seems to know no bounds as they gleefully bleed the American middle class dry, which seems self-destructive to me because there will come a time when no one will be able to afford the cars or appliances or electronics their companies make. They don’t seem to care about that.

The 60 Minutes celebration of the NSA is simply one more symptom of our terminally ill empire.

Of mermaids and manipulation

I watched the Animal Planet show Mermaids: The Body Found last night. I didn’t have any background on it and assumed it was a documentary for the first few minutes (yes, despite the title), however it didn’t take long to realize that this wasn’t an actual documentary, but a pretty well-done faux documentary peppered here and there with genuine scientific facts.

It originally aired on Animal Planet in 2012 and was then re-aired by the Discovery Channel. According to press reports, on both occasions it caused a huge stir on social media sites with pro and con mermaid camps battling it out. What has piqued my interest is not the subject matter as much as the concept of the piece itself. It was originally shown not on the Comedy Channel or Sci Fi, but on Animal Planet, which generally airs content based in fact. I don’t know how much effort either Animal Planet or Discovery put into letting people know that this was a work of fiction, but there is none in the piece itself, and it was not enough to keep thousands of viewers from assuming it was genuine.

The technical quality of Mermaids: The Body Found was actually quite good. The biggest giveaway for me was that the “scientists” were all attractive and articulate, which is, of course, totally unrealistic. But it’s made me contemplate the potential misuse of this technology. Think Wag the Dog. Perhaps we’ve already been victims of it, but with sophisticated CGI and more realistic actors, this type of faux documentary could be a very powerful propaganda tool. Mermaids fooled a lot of people, as have a lot of CGI UFO vids.

As CGI technology becomes more and more seamless with real action, it is going to be tougher to identify fraudulent video from the real thing. Hopefully the ability to detect CGI in videos will keep up. For now, my advice is this: Stay skeptical, my friend.

News or Propaganda? Who Cares?

If you missed the story late last week, Breitbart.com editor at large Ben Shapiro broke a story indicating Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel took money from a group called "Friends of Hamas.”  The “scoop” was picked up by FOX News and reported as fact. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there is no group called Friends of Hamas and the story was blown up from a joke made by someone to a GOP source. What’s interesting in the aftermath is that a) Shapiro and Breitbart.com reject the idea that they did anything wrong by publishing the story as an allegation, and b) FOX News had the sketchy editor Shapiro on a show acting as a knowledgeable Washington pundit.

What the Media Matters article fails to point out is that in the conservative media bubble, news and propaganda are the same thing. What we consider news; reasonably objective stories based on verifiable facts, is not what the conservatives consider news. For them, it’s only news if it embarrasses Obama, makes liberals look bad or makes America look good. Facts are not part of that equation. Studies have clearly shown that FOX News viewers are the least well-informed consumers of television news. So it should come as little surprise that Shapiro sees nothing wrong with his unfounded smear of Hagel. 

Congress must make media concentration a priority

In a totalitarian regime, the government decides what is news—what is true and what is false. They disseminate their “news” through the government-controlled media. In a democracy, there is a middleman known as the free press. The role of the press is to stand between those in power and the people to discern the truth, as best as possible. They have the training, resources, and networks to separate the egg yolk from the white, truth from propaganda, which is what separates us from totalitarian governments around the world.

What we have today is a different model. For a variety of reasons, the balance has shifted and the press no longer serves as the honest broker. Media concentration has resulted in the very large pie being shared by a mere handful of owners. This small group of generally conservative capitalists decides what is news—what is true and what is false—for most Americans. They decide which viewpoints will be heard, which experts to choose, which angle to pursue. As a result, voices that do not mesh with the owners’ capitalist agenda—socialists, gays, feminists, minorities, progressives and liberals—are ignored or attacked.

The “liberal press” is a myth. There may be liberal reporters, but those who own and run the media are anything but liberal. They are businesspeople first, citizens second, and greedy above all. They give the government what it wants through propaganda and friendly press, and the government returns the favor with deregulation and policies that allow owners to enlarge their monopolies. The American people—those whose sole source of news is the mainstream media—get the pleasure of being brainwashed. It’s a win/win/lose situation.

Breaking up the media monopoly needs to be a top agenda item of Congress, and they should start working on this soon. It may be too late for the 2008 elections, which is frightening. Another Republican in the White House for four years will surely mark the end of the American experiment. Unfortunately, the MSM must be forced to incorporate alternative voices and points of view by government. It will not move in this direction on its own.

Murdoch admits the obvious: We peddle propaganda

It’s come to this. In a recent interview at an economic forum in Switzerland, media mogul Darth Sidious, otherwise known as Rupert Murdoch, was asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. His answer?

“No, I don’t think so. We tried.” Asked to elaborate, he said: “We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East…but we have been very critical of his execution.”

Okay, can we now relegate the term “liberal media” to the dustbin of history? We’ve known all along that FOX News was neither fair nor balanced, but now it is revealed that it is part of what can only be described as a worldwide propaganda machine for the conservative agenda.

Is there an outcry from “legitimate” news organizations about this? I haven’t heard it. Maybe that’s because there are no legitimate news organizations left. The deafening silence surrounding Murdock’s remarks among the major media outlets suggest complicity. It’s now generally accepted that the old school of journalism—the search for truth—has been closed, and the new school—infotainment and government cheerleading—has taken its place.

The run-up to the Iraq war is one of the most egregious examples of the new journalism, and it wasn’t just FOX stoking the war engines. All of the network news organizations eagerly hoped on the Bush/Cheney Baghdad express. They all supported the Bush policy in the Middle East, ignoring anyone who dared to criticize the inevitable.

Murdoch spoke the truth for once, but nobody cared. Who needs Pravda when the capitalist propaganda machine operates so smoothly and efficiently?