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- The Networks are our Biggest Enemy;
Trans-nationally owned Mainstream
Networks with loyalties to international shareholders are the
Number One Enemy and Threat to USA Democracy: — Some Ideas
for Fighting Back
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- By ROB KALL
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www.OpEdNews.com
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- I've almost totally shut off the TV news, which I used to have
on most of my waking hours. I am so disgusted by the mainstream
media. With the exorcism of Dan Rather and his team, and the
scheduled elimination of Crossfire, there is a systematic purging
of progressive perspectives and voices in the mainstream media.
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- The biggest effect of this continued intentional obliteration
of the full vocal range of democracy will be upon the undecideds
and the less-interested-in-politics moderates. These people do not
seek out the truth, the full picture, the perspectives that the
right wing controlled media don't want them to hear. These people
complacently, even lazily lay back in their couches and depend
upon the news they get from the mainstream and cable networks.
They're turning the USA into a Titanic-- the biggest and best of
its kind in the world blindly approaching an iceberg of hidden or,
more accurately, ignored dangers that will take this nation down.
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- If you are reading this, then you know about the dangers and
threats this nation faces. If you are reading this op-ed then you
probably realize that the Bush administration's surrogates are out
in force now, helping him shill for the investment firms and banks
that stand to make trillions if Social Security is privatized. As
I write this, Tim Russert, on Meet The Press, plays Chicken
Little, echoing the "sky is falling" talking points about the
"imminent demise" of Social Security that we'll be hearing from
the right wing controlled media for the weeks and months to come.
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- It is very clear that control and ownership of the media by
the right wing enabled them to strongly influence who was chosen
as the democratic candidate and then to massively slander and
destroy the image and reputation of Kerry. Bush didn’t get a
mandate. He got billions of dollars of free help with his attack
on Kerry, with the “news” media running, repeatedly, the attack
ads of Bush’s surrogates. And when they weren’t running the ads
for free, they were bringing the primary messages of the attack
ads up in smarmy remarks by anchors and commentators.
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- When you turn on the TV news, you should be aware that you are
taking a risk that you and anyone who watches the TV with you will
be affected by the most powerful, most well financed, most
penetrating, systematic, sophisticated and organized propaganda
machine ever created. If you watch these news propaganda shows
with the expectation and realization that the spin on the news is
worst than ever, that the news presented intentionally leaves out
major, extremely important facts, then you may be adequately
“immunized” to protect you from the hypnotic, ubiquitous,
continuous barrage of half truths, misrepresentations, lies and
distortions that have become the predominant pattern of
communication which the corrupt Bush administration uses to sell
itself to those couch potatoes who don’t bother to open their
“media eyes” to actually see what’s really going on.
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- Since you’re reading this, you have an idea of the
endangered dangerous state of our nation’s media. You know
some of the strategies used by this corrupted and broken media
that is becoming a purer and purer propaganda vehicle for the
right wing and the corporate bankers that pull their strings.
These include the conversion of the news into
entertainment—focusing on celebrity gossip, the magnification and
hypertrophied “media-ization” of celebrity trials, the celebrity-ization
of kidnapped children and Siamese twins. They use all of these
faux news techniques as distractions to fill up the shrinking news
time slots, so the real news—about the war, about poverty, about
health care and the economy, about corrupt politicians and crooked
megacorporations—is either ignored or relegated to 15 second spots
skimmed over or sandwiched between ads for purple pills and male
erectile dysfunction drugs.
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- The mainstream media have become what is perhaps the biggest
threat to American democracy. These corporate owned and controlled
weapons of mass democratic destruction (double entendre intended)
ARE the problem. They ARE the biggest impediment the progressives
and the real democrats (not centrist republican-lite DLC shills)
must face in rescuing the nation from the crooked extremists who
are running the country and who have now corrupted and stolen two
elections. The mainstream media are the foils, the PR protectors
and “tricksters” that enable the frauds, lies, distortions,
crooked deals and failed, incompetent decisions the right wing has
built their empire upon.
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- The only way the progressives and real democrats will be able
to take back the white house, the congress and reinstate the laws
and regulations that the right wing have dismantled for the sake
of the transnational corporations they are beholding to is for us
to take down or take over the mainstream media.
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- One way to do it might be to chose one network and buy it—for
millions of us to buy a hundred or ten or 2 shares each so we
can literally fire the management in install managers who will
create honest news.
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- Another way is to start a campaign aimed at letting Mr. And
Mrs Couch Potato know that they are getting bad information from
the networks. Forget about Bush stinks bumper-stickers. But
consider bumper stickers that call the media liars and
propagandists. I don’t have the right words yet. But we should
start using whatever means we can to get people at least
suspicious of the nightly news and the anchors who are whores for
the right wing, potentially even on their payrolls.
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- Another way is to go after the advertisers. This could be the
most effective way, since we’ve already seen some positive results
with the Sinclair media episode. One first step would be to insist
that advertisers spend a serious portion of their budget on
progressive media. Of course there are only a few radio programs
where this applies. But those shows should be flush with
advertising and we should be targeting specific corporations that
are most vulnerable to our pressure. These advertisers should also
support specifically identified programming on existing networks.
Oh, you say they don’t exist? Then we need to create the
programming and license it to the networks, with advertising
attached. IT works for soap operas, sitcoms and game shows, why
not progressive media. If John Stewart’s the Daily Show can make
it, why not build some new shows that the mainstream networks can
run?
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- These are positive approaches that build towards a strong
future. But we know that the right wing thrives on negative
attacks and campaigns. We should be letting advertisers know that
if they support the most biased media, particularly FOX and the
toxic right wing talk shows—then we will stop buying form them
unless they balance their ad budgets with progressive media too.
The last thing we want to do is to start an actual boycott.
Short, very targeting mini-boycotts that show our resolution and
power DO make sense. But long-term boycotts should not be our
goal. We want to get to those companies that contributed to the
Bush administration or that run ads on FOX and Limbaugh and Clear
Channel and force them to support us, to spend money on our media,
on our campaigns. We want them to hold their noses as they make
the correct BUSINESS decisions and run ads on our media, our
syndicated shows.
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- As I wrap up this article, with the TV on the SciFi channel,
there’s a DELL computer ad. Michael Dell was the Texas Republican
chair in the 2000 presidential election and Dell was a major
contributor to Bush. I won’t buy Dell products until I see they
are running ads on Air America Radio, the Thom Hartmann Show, Ed
Schultz, the Daily Show, and let’s throw in contributions to the
Center for American Progress. These SOB’s must pay penance.
Frankly, they also need to have some way to prove that they ARE
paying penance and they need a way to let us know it. I have some
ideas for that, but it will take another article to cover it.
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- Bottom line on this article—the mainstream media are our
number one enemy. They are the primary weapons and infantry that
have fought and won the wars that handed the nation over to the
crooked, lying right wingers who are dismantling the USA. We need
serious, massive efforts to bring balance to the media, doing
whatever it takes. Boycotts are not enough, but can be used to
enable other balance-initiating and maintaining strategies.
Rob
Kall rob@opednews.com is
editor of www.OpEdNews.com Read over
150 of his articles at Rob
Kall's article archive Read his blog at www.opednews.com/robsblog.htm
Rob lives in
Bucks
County
PA, which, with almost 30% more registered republicans than democrats, went for John Kerry in the 2004 election. Some of Rob's other
websites include www.futurehealth.org
www.storycon.org,
www.brainmeeting.com www.positivepsychology.net
www.quotationscentral.com
and www.sphincterpolice.com
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