May 2008 Archives
"Is Bush a serial liar?"
And
"Will you testify against Bush if there is a war crimes trial?"
Let's chat about the effect this book will have on the media and on the general public.
My friend Jan, who has been out of work for over a year (along with many of her fellow IT colleagues) finally said it yesterday.
Richard and I keep saying it, and have been for months.
Several colleagues at a conference today also said it.
But no one seems to be terribly upset.
"It's OVER. Things are now different."
What is "it"?
"It" is the world that was. It's gone. And what we have now is a new and somewhat more challenging world, one that has less oil, less water, less rice, less PRIVILEGE.
Oh yeah, the lattes are still available, and so are the designer purses. But what is new is the awareness that we pay a price for the lattes and the purses. And the price tag includes more than the price of the contents, materials, and design.
We have knowledge now, and hard won truths. How do I know? Ask yourself this: are you more conscious now about how much gas you are putting in the car? Are you cutting back on eating out? Or on desserts? Are you conscious about what you put in the garbage?
Are you more awake?
I have to say, we are. As we unload more and more stuff every day, placing most of it outside for others to pick up, for free, the sense of lightness is growing. My husband seems positively gleeful, despite the fact that he has not been earning much money lately. I wander around the fresh, clean, open spaces in our house, and I know I am ready to leave them for the next occupants. Clutter is gone and with it, the toxins of the mind are lessened.
Stand back, breathe, spread your arms, and let go. Put down the burden of too much privilege and take up the problem-solving, observing-with-perspective, no-moss-growing stance of letting go, and know that it's gonna be a helluva lot easier to solve our problems from a simpler place.
Wax on. Wax off. Sip tea. Smile.
Diane wrote an incredibly detailed and insightful article about the media and its role in truth telling. With McCain using our inattention over the Memorial Day weekend to do his med-doc-drop as well as to release one of Cindy McCain's tax returns, and with Hillary's slip of the tongue for the media to chew on, I thought it was appropriate to place Diane's media article on this thread.
For we must remember that the complicit media wins as long as we allow them to continue their story lines unanswered. Our efforts has helped break up the meme of the liberal media bias, and we've been able to prove that meme to be a myth.
With articles like Diane's, we can teach our community why we must have a free media and a watch-dog media.
Never again should corporations and political parties be in bed with our media. So be the media and spread the word...
~~
Discussion of US media is germane to many of the concerns expressed at the blog on this site. Media in this country are primarily controlled by large for-profit corporations who derive revenue from advertising, with music programming and entertainment being a huge component along with "news." This is in large part thanks to deregulation and to consolidation of ownership over time. We rank somewhere in the middle for press freedom, and like other nations, our press freedom is heavily affected by economics as interrelated with matters of war and peace.
What We Are Offered
Our FCC-regulated television has three traditional (NBC, ABC, CBS) and four new networks (Fox, CW, MyNetwork, ION), and one noncommercial network (PBS). We have small local stations (most belong to big networks) and public access on local and Hispanic local channels, with subscription cable or satellite services like HBO and CNN. Radio has also consolidated, and most stations are profit-oriented, with the exception of noncommercial ones such as NPR. Young people tend to use comedic news parodies (such as Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert) as actual news providers. Talk radio "exploded" after the FCC Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987 so that "balanced" news programming was no longer standard. Subscription satellite radio is heavily consolidated and are not regulated by the FCC. Cinema is one of our big exports, as manufacturing and agriculture decline, and documentaries have grown in popularity.
Newspapers continue to decline and as the cost of producing them has increased, most now rely on wire services such as AP or Reuters, for their national and world coverage. This explains the "watered down" or sketchy coverage we sometimes get. US newspapers are privately owned by big chains like Gannett or McClatchy, for the most part. Smaller communities tend to have "weeklies" and larger cities often have "alternative weeklies" such as the Village Voice in NYC or The Stranger in Seattle. Many large cities are no longer "two newspaper towns" as their advertising revenue has been squeezed by Web sites like eBay, Craigslist and Monster.com. Magazines serve the specialty markets but most are owned by the same media conglomerates that own the other media. We have three main news magazines: TIME, Newsweek and US News and World Report which are said to strive for objectivity, but in practice have political biases that are fairly easy to see.
Do We Have A Free Press?
This says it all.
Support our troops for real!
Most of you are probably aware of the allegations that Rove was involved in the arrest of Don Siegelman. And you might be aware that Representative Conyers has repeatedly asked Rove to testify. Mukasey has already said that he will not have the Dept. of Justice uphold Congress's contempt charges.
Am I the only one seeing the mafia-like protection of the the boss and the stooges who do his bidding?
At any rate, their protective circle has inspired Representative Conyers to threaten inherent contempt for Rove. Rove has been given one more week to come to testify under oath before Congress.
On MSNBC Crier and Abrams discussed what inherent contempt is and (crooks and liars posted it.
(Transcript follows but C and L has the video link.)
Crier: Well here’s the way this plays out. If the full House issues the contempt citation then it’s supposed to go to the Department of Justice and they’re supposed to take it to a Grand Jury. They’re supposed to enforce it. Well they’ve already, the Bush administration says no, uh, there’s Executive authority, we’re saying privilege. They’re not going to enforce it. You might then try the Federal courts. The Federal courts are liable to say it’s a political question. But the Constitution gives the Congress the inherent power to issue contempt and then to prosecute on this.
Abrams: On their own.
Crier: They can send the Sergeant at Arms out into the countryside, arrest, haul somebody in and in days gone by used to literally hold them in the basement of Congress in an impromptu jail and then they could have a trial. That is still their power today.
(Full transcript below the fold.)
Just what diversionary news will the corporate (fake) media focus on this weekend?
(Hint...)
(Ed note: Today's blog head comes to us from Christy. Christy's article delicately begins a discussion about race and racism. It's a sensitive topic to approach, but is also quite necessary.)
Hello? Hello! Thanks for coming! In the interest of full disclosure, I am also white. Or, I am at least white enough that white people automatically assume I am white, so really, that is all that matters.
Our country was recently invited to open up a dialogue on racial issues. I would like to happily accept that invitation. So, you might ask... Why am I addressing other whites instead of blacks then? Good question. Simple answer, I am not black. Would you like me to explain that? Ok.
In 2000, 2004, and 2008, Republicans continued to fight to take away peoples' right to vote--people like Blacks, Latinos, Democrats, and other minorities.
So it's imperative this year that we do more than remember those who fought so that all of us could vote!
We must continue the fight.
Stop the disenfranchisement of voters and count all votes as they were cast.
Hattip to Christy for this list.
1. Withdraw from Iraq immediately and completely.
2. Apologize to the Iraqi people, and help pay for their reconstruction.
3. Dismantle the Department of Homeland Security. Completely and immediately.
4. Ensure MORE Constitutional Rights upon our Citizens, not less.
5. Create a Universal Health Care System that discriminates against no one and can handle all the wounded US Veterans that are being left behind. Build more hospitals and train massive amounts of 'first responders'. (Police, EMT's. Firemen.)
6. Employ small farmers and become the worlds largest producer of food. What we can not eat, store, or sell, we give away. Yes, I said GIVE IT AWAY. Feed the hungry.
7. Put torturers and war profiteers on trial and in prison to uphold the rule of law.
8. Demand the press quit relaying propaganda.And hold them liable when they do deceive us with anything less than full disclosure.
9. Educate our children better. Build more schools. And then build some more. Make teachers among the highest paid civil servants we have in this nation and you will have no problem finding new teachers. Train all college students to double as substitute teachers.
10. Employ more artists and develop art culture in every city, town or village. When artists work, a lot of other industry is created to support them. It will create sustainable jobs.
11. Love thy neighbor. Encourage and protect their freedoms.
12. Encourage religious unity among all faiths.
13. Uphold the wall between church and state.
14. Ensure free and open elections with a paper trail that can be verified so that we can not be politically manipulated.
15. Invest almost exclusively in development of alternative fuel technologies to control pollution and end our dependence on oil.
16.When a president or high ranking official breaks the law, punish them for it, under the law. If they are found to have violated International La w, send them to the Hague.
17. No longer tolerate the views of warmongers, war profiteers and torture justifiers, nor their advocates. Zero tolerance for those who order killings without rational reason or worse, for profit.
18. Reinstate the Geneva Conventions in the most public way possible, and rejoin the World Court with no exemptions.
19. Close Gitmo, and demand full disclosure of what has been happening there.
20. Re Forrest our lands as soon as possible and invest greatly in renewable resources. Clean up our oceans and combat the real threat of global warming.
If even half of these things are accomplished, peace and freedom will become our legacy. Courage, strength and honor will be ours to claim.
Fear and death will be replaced with life, and hope.
Recent Comments