Change you can't forget to QUESTION

My views on inauguration day were mixed. I was excited, and there is no question about that, but I was pretty scared too. I voted for Obama, as most of you know, and I am nervous for him and all that he will have to face in his presidency. More than experiencing nerves for him, I am nervous for the well being of the citizens of this country. What on earth could I mean by that? I mean that blind faith is a very dangerous thing to play around with.

I watched the swearing in and the inauguration speech by Obama while sitting at work, and the obvious bias of the newscasters on MSNBC unnerved me even more than the clouded and slightly shadowed bias that was apparent during election time. I watched as the nearly two million were brought nearly to tears (some did cry) by the swearing in of “America’s first African American President”. I found myself go from anger to joy as Obama said all of the things I needed him too, and as he filled me up with the hope he has preached for the last two years.

As I sat in my office I kept hoping no one would walk in because I was so entranced by the proceedings. I was merely 18 during the last presidential election and didn’t pay much attention when Bush continued his term. This was, for me, the first inauguration I will remember into my adult life, and so I paid attention. It was while I paid attention over the last two days that I began to get a little panicked.

I know that Obama just had his first full day in office today and that not much is expected to happen, but I am panicked because I feel like the American public is brainwashed. For those of you who know me, or even read this blog, I am sure you know I don’t think much of the average American voter to begin with, but this is different. I have watched as my insanely intelligent and critical friends cease to question, cease to push, when it comes to Obama. They tear up and smile, and that is all.

If Obama is to be successful we cannot hand him a get out of jail free card before he even unpacks! America, we have to be sure that our President understands that we will not follow him no matter what. He is elected because of what he promised to do, and if he isn’t going to follow through on his word (or at least most of it) then he has to know we will be outraged.

The media all but slaughtered our previous president over the last four years he was in office, yet they label Michelle Obama as “the next Jackie O”. The media talks about the handsome youth of our new president and fails to mention how he stumbled over his words when he was sworn in. I understand he was nervous and that stumbling over words doesn’t mean much when it comes down to it, but I haven’t seen ONE mention of it since I saw it happen live.

When will the media stop gloating over their young handsome president and start treating him as what he is, the leader of a nation in trouble. A leader that will, undoubtedly, make mistakes. The media is responsible for sharing the news, telling the truth, and (hopefully) showing many sides to a story. I have not seen anything negative about Obama on mainstream media since Hillary dropped out of the race, and that worries me.

To my friends and fellow educated people out there—don’t forget to pay attention and to question, because when a media is openly biased and doesn’t even hide their favoritism anymore is when we are most called upon to look closely.

Hope is a very powerful thing—but without pressure many, namely politicians, tend to accomplish much.

Media Censorship Exposed…Again

I have known for a long time that the popular media in America and around the world is biased to a fault. The journalists of universities are often shocked to be controlled in what they write when they get into the real world. Lately I have been reading the book You Are Being Lied To*, which touches on the Media, who controls it, and how unreliable it is. The deeply embedded truth of this has been sinking in for a couple of days, and then I got this link in an email:

http://www.wecansolveit.org/page/s/ABC

We Can Solve It is not some ho-dunk agency trying to campaign for change, they were founded by Al Gore!

In order to figure out why this ad can’t be run by ABC, I think it is important to look into who owns ABC. Take a wild guess…I bet you won’t come up with it. WALT DISNEY owns ABC. For those of you who don’t keep up on who owns what (and not many people do) this is an important fact to know.

I am now going to quote directly from You Are Being Lied To because I feel the experts in the book know far more than I do about this subject. I think Norman Solomon is pretty reliable…

Here’s what he has to say:

“Published in spring 2000, the sixth edition of The Media Monopoly
documents that just a half-dozen corporations are now supplying
most of the nation’s media fare. And Bagdikian, a long-time journal -
ist, continues to sound the alarm. “It is the overwhelming collective
power of these firms, with their corporate interlocks and unified cultural
and political values, that raises troubling questions about the
individual’s role in the American democracy.”

I wonder what the chances are that Bagdikian—or anyone else—will
be invited onto major TV broadcast networks to discuss the need for
vigorous antitrust enforcement against the biggest media conglomerates.
Let’s see:

CBS. Not a good bet, especially since its merger with Viacom (one
of the Big Six) was announced in the fall of 1999.

NBC. Quite unlikely. General Electric, a Big Six firm, has
owned NBC since 1986.

ABC. Forget it. This network became the property of the
Disney Company five years ago. Disney is now the country’s
second-largest media outfit.

Fox. The Fox network is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News
Corp., currently number four in the media oligarchy.

And then there’s always cable television, with several networks
devoted to news:

CNN. The world’s biggest media conglomerate, Time Warner, owns
CNN—where antitrust talk about undue concentration of media
power is about as welcome as the Internationale sung at a baseball
game in Miami.

CNBC. Sixth-ranked General Electric owns this cable channel.

MSNBC. Spawned as a joint venture of GE and Microsoft, the
MSNBC network would see activism against media monopoly as
double trouble.

Fox News Channel. The Fox cable programming rarely wanders far
from the self-interest of News Corp. tycoon Murdoch.


Since all of those major TV news sources are owned by one of the
Big Six, the chances are mighty slim that you’ll be able to catch a
discussion of media antitrust issues on national television.”


As you can see, judging by the fact that all major news outlets are owned by what he refers to as the “Big Six” chances are that none of them will run anything that is degrading to big oil, or how the economy in America is run.

Although I think everyone should email ABC about this, it is important to remember that the people that make the decisions about what to air on television are not the people that read the emails. Those employed at ABC are either trying to ensure their jobs by not letting this ad air, or are so brainwashed by the system and the people they work for (not questioning crooked tactics becomes engrained eventually) that they think the ad is wrong in its very essence.

Let us again return to Solomon:

‘“It is not necessary to construct a theory of intentional cultural control,”
media critic Herbert Schiller commented in 1989. “In truth, the
strength of the control process rests in its apparent absence. The
desired systemic result is achieved ordinarily by a loose though
effective institutional process.” In his book Culture, Inc.: The
Corporate Takeover of Public Expression, Schiller went on to cite
“the education of journalists and other media professionals, built-in
penalties and rewards for doing what is expected, norms presented
as objective rules, and the occasional but telling direct intrusion from
above. The main lever is the internalization of values.”

Self-censorship has long been one of journalism’s most ineffable
hazards. The current wave of mergers rocking the media industry is
likely to heighten the dangers. To an unprecedented extent, large
numbers of American reporters and editors now work for just a few
huge corporate employers, a situation that hardly encourages
unconstrained scrutiny of media conglomerates as they assume
unparalleled importance in public life.”


So, long story short—Good luck Al Gore.

*If you'd like to read more from the book You Are Being Lied To, go to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/5991212/You-Are-Being-Lied-to-Full-Book