Well stated, Parker!
(Here-here, for my English friends; It's the coolest communal expression of verbal agreement!)
SovereignAxe: Here-Here. Seen this?
http://www.outfoxed.org/Clips.php Includes great video from folks who worked there blowing the whistle.
Brino: Right on! Here's a couple of starters:
Air America:
http://www.airamericaradio.com/
Free Speech TV:
http://www.fstv.org/ (Available on some cable stations and satellite.)
Democracy Now/
http://www.democracynow.org/ (Includes a lot of radio interviews)
My rant:
IS TODAY'S MEDIA LIBERAL? NOT ACCORDING TO THE FOUNDING FATHERS...
First, American media, by Constitutional design and Founding Father assertion, was designed to be the most liberal of institutions. Checks and balances within government; checks and balances without between the people and their government via the press and it's investigative and editorial powers.
They rightfully saw the need for a perpetual watchful and inquisitive eye, probing to insure that the people were served first, and served well by their elected employees.
The media was to be used as a deterrent to tyranny; to prevent the powerful from exploiting the weak. Taxation without representation. You know, all that Revolutionary War stuff.
Some of the founders went to jail, and countless newpaper men and women were intimidated into silence when it came to arguments that put into question the rule of King George. (Oh, that is beautiful metaphorically: we now have King George II... but I digress.)
My point: The press was supposed to be respectful of all ideas, but especially critical of those presented by people with power and advantage, in favor of the common citizenry. (And no, not communist claptrap. FREEDOM. Without dissent, there is no freedom.)
It was a tv man, Edward R. Murrow, who brought down McCarthy and his House Unamerican Activities boys. It was TV that got us out of Viet Nam. It was newspaper guys who discovered watergate.
It was also William R. Hurst's media machine that got us into the Spanish American War. (Based on a totally fabricated event, repeated enough times and sensationalized enough the folks started believing it. Nazi Goebbles probably studied it.
http://www.freeencyclopedia.com/html/G/Goebbels.asp) Same in the Phillipines. They bought the lies.
So historically the media has done good, and clearly done bad, depending upon who they owed their allegiances to: Big powerful government and monied interests, or their fellow citizens at large.
I would argue that their current allegiances lie with the people who are making them a member of the monied elite: their employers, who virtually all happen to be conservative to downight fascist ideologues and simpathizers. They're bought by the same people who bought the Republican Party. And they dumped the only true revolutionary and inventive thinker of the boy's club -- Ted Turner. (Fun Fact: Ted Turner GAVE AWAY $1 Billion -- that's with a B -- to the UN to promote world peace. Whether you believe in the UN or not, that's still the single largest philanthropic gesture ever. So of course the neocons had to get rid of him.)
Think there's going to be much dissention coming from station whose owner gave up millions of dollars to make sure a Republican is in the white house? (The sad thing, Dems are just about as bad, here, when it comes to taking money. But it just so happens that the bigger of the conglomerates all spend bigger on Republicans, and they've been well rewarded by FCC Head Michael -- would I have ever gotten this job if my dad wasn't Colin -- Powell.)
In all fairness to the reporters, the news business is just nuts, today. They're in a hyper-competetive, voraciuosly hungry environement where if you pause for a second to check anything, you're suddenly 3 stories behind. So your circle of contacts gets smaller and smaller, and you're more likely to spit out whatever the Administration literrally writes for you in press releases, just to hit a deadline. (There's a half a point of pity from me.)
But that still doesn't point away from the bottom line: Their own greed, egos, and fear of losing it all prevents them from asking the hard questions, AND DEMANDING ANSWERS.
Cheney's energy task force notes? Now. How do congressmen justify giving themselves a raise, when American wages are dropping? Why did we go to war with Iraq? Specific responses please, or the question gets asked again.
Exactly who was it that leaked a CIA agent's cover to conservative hack Bob Novak (CNN's Crossfire), who proceeds to commit a federal crime (if you're a member of the government) by revealing her identity to the world? He put her life in real danger and threatened national security by virtually destroying an operation that was in progress. The entire budget for that operation down the drain, and an agent's life put in jeopardy, along with those of her collaborating officers. But the administration can't find the leak?
But they sit back and page through the hand-out...
The founding fathers saw nothing more important than free speech: I'ts the First Amendment guaranatee. And the press is morally bound to use this power to insure that the people -- NOT THE POWERFUL -- are served first, and served well by their governing employees. This means they are to be tireless in their persuit of truth.
And when the truth is that the people are being taken for a ride, by a Republican, a Democrat, or anyone else, they have a responsibility to blow the whistle loud.
Kudos to CBS for breaking the Iraq prison scandal. But the rest is pretty few and far between when it comes to revelations from the press that help it's citizenry make intelligent decisions about their government, and about their lives.
The good news: George Pallast is looking out for us. So is Helen Thomas, god love her.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/21/1353251
I've got a ton of links to media sources that will show you just how conservative the mainstream media is.
Anybody want to see them?
Keep things lively!
:hatsoff:
