Media

People who rely on broadcast media and/or government education to formulate their perceptions often roll their eyes in exasperation and conspiracy-nut-contempt when exposed to reliable information that challenges their beliefs. For the majority, easy prey for predatory propagandists and history revisionists, the possibility that they have been blatantly deceived by their own government is unthinkable, despite the monstrous evidence of pandemic corruption. Denial is the proverbial mental comfort zone; it is an easy refuge. It requires nothing! Schopenhauer said: “All truth goes through three stages, first it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally it is accepted as self-evident.”....

What Americans get from corporate newspapers is spun in favor of the government and corrupt political machines operating in their little fiefdoms. Corporate newspapers make it standard operating procedure to omit pesky legal and constitutional issues, unless it's an issue the powers want exposed. Can people appreciate how powerful a regional newspaper can be in fighting corruption and holding elected public servants accountable? Without a local newspaper blowing the whistle and stirring up the people, the outcomes would have been very different.

With the major newspapers and network news scrambling to salvage their once great empires, and near total control of all public opinion, the day of the media baron is over. So said Baron Von Murdoch, as he diversified his News Corp. holdings into Internet news and social networking sites, proclaiming the death of traditional media. We stand at the dawn of technological media innovation, and the leveling of the playing field. Never before have we the people been so empowered and so motivated to correct the record and enter in to, if not control the public debate.

In a stunning warning to all Americans, the non-partisan English First warned fans of national and local conservative talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Dr. James Dobson, Laurie Roth and other conservative talk shows that a proposed Federal Communications Commission regulation could very well drive their favorite programs off the air.

Freedom of an honest press is a problem for any government, as it should be. Article V states, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury,” Article VI. States, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury…” We, the private citizens of these United States, are the Grand Juries and Trial Juries. We can indict and if warranted, convict any law breakers, including the media’s seditious abuse as the Fourth Estate. The most important political office is that of the private citizen. If we shirk our responsibilities in preserving our freedoms, they will be lost. No one is above the law and there can never be peace without freedom, equality, and justice.

Welcome to Publishing 101 in the United States of America. Far too many mainstream newspapers, cable news networks, TV news stations and newsstand magazines are basically just infomercials. They follow an agenda, and that agenda is handed to them by big business. Where has the honest press gone in this country? I don't see it out there except in a few small independent publications and some gutsy newspapers that manage to uncover real news from time to time. Most newspapers are just running corporate press releases and making just enough modifications to call it news.

Headlines like this splashed across U.S. newspapers in the days leading up to China's first launch of a human being into space. What's fascinating about this has nothing to do with the space program, however. Rather, it has to do with the astoundingly narrow-minded view of the U.S. press who insist on calling China's press blitz "propaganda" while using no such language when describing the U.S. press effort to glorify and justify the War with Iraq.