By Mestizo Warrior, April 21 at 12:51 pm

““True professional journalism in so far as TV, radio and
newspapers is concerned NO longer exists. We can thank the
corporate bosses for this. They do not want the masses
informed, nor do they wish for the evils of unbridled capitalism
exposed. Very simple.”“
************************

Very true and true as far back into history when is was found
that using ‘religious belief’ was the easiest way to keep certain
parts of societies, states and nations ‘believing’ in what was
pressed upon them as the ostensible truth when all the while it
set up the division from those who created the lie to process
mysterious connections of the esoteric truth not for the regular
people’s consumption, as they were allowed the ‘leftovers’ of the
exoteric side of mostly meaningless and of ‘no real worth of
beliefs’ that would placate them and keep real truth from being
overall and generally known.

And now, from down through the ages, with modern
government and financial wranglers in the fray, they use the
same tactic of suppressing truth by feeding lies to those peoples
who are gullible enough to take the word of a subverted msm
system paid very well to play the role of the Ministry of Truth
that Orwell described quite well in his ‘1984’.

There is nothing new under the sun that has not already been
done. But it is surprising how well the samosamo BS still works
on a well trained and comfortably dumb consumer in the latest
version of the samo play.

True professional journalism in so far as TV, radio and newspapers is concerned NO longer exists. We can thank the corporate bosses for this. They do not want the masses informed, nor do they wish for the evils of unbridled capitalism exposed. Very simple.

What we must come to ask ourselves is; “What are we willing to do about it?” Gerard is right, voting certainly will not make a change as far as meaningful journalism goes.

When corporations can control our government, the judicial system, the media, is that TRUE democracy?
I think not!

hello. i’m late ‘cause i was interviewing the Prez,
yea, that’s the ticket. he laughs at everything. what
a cute guy. i was so intimidated being in his
supremeness i nearly peed myself four times. he so
powerful i ask could i shine his shoes. he let me.
then i shit myself and he leave. he went to go smoke
a cigarette. i stink so bad i have to excuse myself.
i feel better now. this is all the same old, not a
new smell, yes i am an ignorant line of the species
believing in God- but not an intervening God, my God
whom i pray to for forgiveness all the time i also
hope He stays away, corporate journalism, end of
society as we know it: journalism is not dead. there
is so much more active journalism in the environment:
you can no longer tell whom intentionally works for
the CIA, and whom delivers unknowingly. Take the
Factor as an example. working with them, or just
working and letting them feed off them? the
government puts the spin out, and collects all the
feedback to formulate a course of reaction. then
there are paid combatants of journalistic assault:
paid to promote an agenda. how many agendas are we
being bombarded with? last week health care, this
week GoldenSacks, next week global warming; paid
journalist promoters. and the embedded military
journalists telling us how progressive the opium
dealers are now in Afghanistan, and how much we are
establishing a terrific society there- that’s why we
went: right? who was this Bin Laden rich kid? it must
be upsetting so many, that they are not writing what
you want to read. do you want a full expose’ on our
leader? do you want back room machinations of
Congress? do you want docudramas of the super rich?
what are your brains starving for? we all know what
is happening, and there is no super journalist that
will connect all the neurons in your brain. you have
to do that for yourself. just do not kill anybody.
for some it IS a bad dream, and it will take some
time, but you will one day awaken to an anxious free
day with no turmoil in your life. the deep secret
revealing journalist is not necessary here- it is all
unfolding before your conscious eyes. time will move
power peacefully back into balance. do not keep
reaching for an immediate source of relief. we put
ourselves here, and we all know we will make
ourselves well, in time. all the negativity about
America: is wishful propaganda, and is mocked in my
neighborhood. we view the WH Press Spokesman as the
man on the radio: denying American troops are
anywhere near Baghdad, while we were already running
through his neighborhood; right outside his window-
and we laugh at everything he says. the journalism of
lies. it is a huge business, and it will be some time
before lies are again of very unwelcome character. an
article i want to read is, what ever happened to a
man’s word? i do not want mainstream journalism.
everything in mainstream is a joke. he laughed at
every question, and i peed myself. i’ll give you my
word, he said, and he laughed. then i asked to shine
his shoes. you might want to get out a cigarette.

Journalism, like so many things in our society, are being reduced to scions of corporate entities. News rooms all over the country are being gutted and turned into hucksters for corporations who own them. News stories are dictated by who advertises at each news outlet. The remainder of the reporters are more likely to be willing lackeys of the PTB who own them and can operate without regulation. That is our future today and for many tomorrows.

It’s not journalism that’s the problem: it’s the Corporate State. Journalism hasn’t existed in America since the seventies because the Corporate State doesn’t like (investigative) journalism and the masses have moved on to other means of informing themselves. A man called Charles A. Reich wrote a book called ‘The Greening of America’ in 1970 and everything he described then is much worse today.

“The point is this: there can be no rule of law in an administrative state. The idea of the rule of law can be realized only in a political conflict state which places limits upon official power and permits diversity to exist” (p. 109, GA).

“In any society there is some medium that intervenes between individual values, choices and needs of people and the social structure that results. In a primitive society this mediator is the cultural-social tradition; it provides a society that is encrusted with many uses of the past, but that in a long range sense reflects the beliefs and values of the people in it. Beginning with the market system and the industrial revolution a new mediator appeared: money.” (p. 140 GA)

The American Corporate State is “entirely indifferent to human needs and values, can be wholly irrational,(and) can indeed make destructive war on its own people” (p. 110, GA).

“We are taught that it is our moral civic duty to substitute the law’s standards for our own…That doctrine serves a community well as long as law is formed in a human image. But what if the law becomes the betrayer of the people? It’s use then is diabolical” (p.111, GA).

“What we fail to realize is that there is a basic pattern in this kind of lawless law. When police lawlessness is revealed, such as the ‘police riot’ in Chicago or unnecessary brutality at a university, everyone is shocked, as if this were an aberration in our society. But the police have always been brutal and lawless to the powerless: we know this from how blacks were and are treated in the South, and from the way young people, the poor, blacks and outcasts are treated in the North…totalitarianism is simply enough power of whatever sort, to exercise full control over those within the system” (p.109,GA).

The demise of journalism is the symptom not the disease and you have much bigger problems to worry about than the future of newspapers but journalists haven’t done their job since Watergate so the message is smothered at birth.

David,

>>In a word: No.

Wrong answer. You twisted every poll you could find to
accuse Hillary supporters of being racists.

Not my idea of good journalism.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

@ gerard:

I appreciate the suggestion. Getting the book is no problem; a few clicks on my computer and voilà.

I’m probably not going to read it though and I’ll tell you why. Look at the last part of your comment: ” and some suggestions about what to do.” That’s the great delusion. You’re not going to fix journalism or the government or corporations. The super-wealthy and their henchmen class are all in Marie Antoinette mode. They’re all thinking: ”Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!”

Those people—the super-wealthy and their henchmen class—are living in a luxury beyond most of our wildest dreams. Kings of antiquity didn’t live such luxurious lives as these people do. Do you really believe that they’re just going to give all that up without a fight? If you do, you’re as delusional as a republican.

The American people aren’t going to fix this government and they’re not going to “take their country back” —especially not by voting. The America of yesteryear no longer exists; it’s long ago been usurped and there exists only the façade of what the U.S. of A. once was. What we have is AmeriCorp, a wholly owned subsidiary of very large corporate interests and super-wealthy private interests. They see themselves as the owners of the world and the common people as just another commodity to be used and discarded when they can no longer produce a cost effective profit. AmeriCorp is a giant parasite that is sucking the blood out of its host –the American people. Nothing is going to change without a horrific blood-letting. History tells us that. It’s not a question of “if” but rather “how long before” the blood-letting starts.

There isn’t a single agency or institution that isn’t gangrenous with corruption. Gerard, some of the dumbest, most unenlightened people in the world, evangelical pastors, have multimillion dollar estates and multimillion dollar private jets to ferry them around the world fleecing flocks for Jeebus and preaching a “greed is good” corporate message to dupes all too willing to believe it. Why would you want to “fix” AmeriCorp? Fixing AmeriCorp is akin to cutting off the moldy part of dry and moldy bread to eat it; what’s left is still unhealthy, fungi invested stale bread. It’s better to throw the stale bread in the garbage and buy a new loaf.

If Americans truly want change they can bring this government and the corporations to their knees within a few weeks. The question is: Are Americans willing to pay the price? I say: no, they aren’t, at least not yet.

nemesis2010:  I recommend you beg, borrow or steal Robert McChesney and John Nichols “Death and Life of American Journalism.”  Some eye-openers as to wisdom of Madison and Jefferson regarding a free and honest media, how the press used to be, how it has been commandeered, and some suggestions about what to do.

All of humankind’s problems, be they political, economical, social, journalistic, etc., have a common denominator. That common denominator is the big brained ape, Homo sapiens. It is in our evolved nature to seek security. The best security in this current social environment is finance and power which work like a perpetual motion machine; money = power = money = power.

The founders of the nation understood the tendencies of humanity and for that reason set up a system of checks and balances. They understood the importance of a level playing field. Today, institutions that once stood in the breaches against men’s tendency toward avarice, greed, covetousness, etc. have all either been eviscerated or converted to loony ideologies like Ayn Rand’s objectivism; the perfect ideology to feed men’s avariciousness and covetousness.

Then there’s the sexual element. If you’re a journalist student or journalist your odds of getting laid are nil and none. How best to level the playing field and have at least an opportunity to have sex with someone other than yourself before you’re like 35 or so? Money! So you sell your soul to the devil and help perpetuate the lie that corporativism, predator capitalism, corporate socialism, publicly financed war for private profit, conservatism, and autocracy are really what the founding of America was all about. For accumulation of wealth and increased odds of having sex you sell your and your fellow citizens’ children’s future to a system that ensures their indenture to corporate rulers. 

A quote by Aesop shows just how little we have advanced socially:

” We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”

We 21st century Homo sapiens have reached a critical juncture in our evolution. We must face the truth about who we are and how there are evolutionary traits—like greed—that can work against our longevity as a species if we do not voluntarily submit to systems of checks to limit those negative tendencies. Religion used to do something like that with its fear of an afterlife that included divine retribution for “sins” committed in this life. Only the most ignorant of our species still believe in the concept of a personal and intervening god so religion lost what little positive effect it “may” have had in societal behavior.

Isn’t Sarah Palin a journalism major; that’s speaks volumes, doesn’t it? It’s like Dubya being a business major. Jeebus on a grilled cheese sandwich!

I’m now off to read Mr. Sirota’s book, “The Uprising”, which I have just purchased because of the hilarious subtitle: “An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Movement Scaring Wall Street and Washington.”

I could use some of that which Mr. Sirota must be smoking because I don’t see a “scared” Wall Street or Washington. Perhaps a few of the players sweating because they realize that a sacrificial lamb may have to be offered up to the gods of public ire in order to appease the feigned public outrage. And they’re sweating because as is the case with all sacrificial lambs; they are offered in stead of the guilty. And what populist movement is he speaking of? All I see are mostly obese, Cheetos dusted XXX t-shirted, ignorant as the day is long, middle-aged crackers with grossly misspelled placards that proudly display their ignorance of different ideologies.

I hope I didn’t waste $15.00 dollars.

Dear Archie,
I said that what msm collumnists write, amounts to gossip. And sirota’s pieces i red are also of that type.

In this piece he merely laments one malady: people double dipping. But, does this ill have no actors-factors for it?

And that had been or shld have been the entire point:‘All msm scribes ?always omit the causes for ills.

Yes, some of them beat Bush. They beat around bushes, but god forgive them if they even adumbrate let alone explictly state as single cause for even a single ill in US!

Had not invasions of iraq and afgh’n been caused? Let’s entirely forget the reasons for killing innocent people; let’s, instead, study the causes! tnx

As far as just plain journalism is concerned and as surprising as
the actions against goldmansachs and others today, and for me
it is very telling, there is nothing to indicate that the
dumbstream media is even close to giving up its strangle hold
on the information source for so many that can’t make an
important decision because those people just don’t get any
information to do so.

It would not or does not surprise me that the msm has not been
given up by its handlers and that in itself is indicative of the
importance placed on it. Throw a couple bones to get people
fired up but what will the long term affects be? Don’t look for
anything to change here any time soon.

It’s not bad writing. That’s the way they think.

George Pettibone
Whitman College circa 1958-9

And that would not include you, David?

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Just one more human “enterprise” that has lost, or is losing, its ethical bearings.  Add it to the discouraging long list—politics, war, science, medicine, education, religion, ecology—and now journalism.
  Those “enterprises” that have not lost their bearings—wherever they are—are those which money has not been able to dominate.
  Human society, and to a precarious extent American society, faces enormous ethical challenges, and how we will even be brought to realize that fact is still unknown.  Most people are still trying to look the other way, in spite of increasingly overpowering evidence of the necessity for some kind of “awakening” to the fact that the present money-based system is not working—in fact is breaking under the strain of its own concentration and mismanagement.  Super-power has led to super-failure.
  Will recovery come through gradual widespread realization or through a sudden unique outburst of enlightenment—or not at all?
  Discussion?  Suggestion?  Organization? Action?

That is the point of the exercised, to change and coop all news reporting firms and make them into commercial products with propaganda capacities. With the products being corporate and gov’t actions.

mrfreeze that is why I add the “C” in CMSM for Corporate Main Stream Media. Pacifica news is trustworthy—-no corporate funding.

The media, like gov’t or business or church is as good, or bad, as the people who own and run them.

msm wielded immense power in the past by filtering what information should be given to the public or not.

msm shapes the news rather than report it.

msm is large populated by liberal arts educated BS artists who favor interpretation over facts.

Our attempt to recover $22,036 stolen from our Sandia Laboratory Federal Credit Union retirement-protected savings accounts would fail if we left it up to msm report the crime. Google ‘nojeh nsa lawsuit’ for details.

Internet, computers, google, and my personal knowledge of how the liberal arts educated ‘think’ - learned at Whitman College are being put to use to try to get our money back.

Invisibility is fatal in legal matters.

So we came up with a number of visibility ploys including fingering ambassador Ryan Crocker, Whitman College class of 1971 English major, as likely having been involved in inciting Saddam Hussein to attack Iran in 1980.

Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.

Mark Twain

Sirota does not elucidate the situation in US; he, just like ?all MSM scribes, zero in on one malady or malfeasance [and legal to boot] out of thosusands.

Leaves out the fact, that pols boast that US is nation of laws and go on with their litanies of complaints ab all of these legal and constitutional acts, but assiduously eschew to discuss the laws that permit or even demand the practices ab which a collumnist is unhappy.

Once a msm collumnist adopts this type of gossipy reporting, s/hes assured of a job for a lifetime.
I have to date read only few of sirota’s pieces. All were ab the type i just posited. tnx

Subliminal TV advertising has been around as long as TV’s themselves.

Now with HD it is taken to the next level.

http://proliberty.com/observer/20090118.htm

One thing to maybe look at is that this new HD or digital tv is
supposedly now allowing excellent antenna broadcasting
capabilities and just may be a point that will allow individuals or
groups to start a station of their own, I am sure with some deal
of financing however that would be, but it may just be a way to
get to those who are stuck on the dumbstream media to catch
differing views, though the one hard part to accomplish this
would be to break their addiction to the crap they watch and
believe.

The MSM is utterly untrustworthy. Even NPR which still displays a smidgeon of journalistic integrity has forgotten what it means to cut through the crap and give its audience the truth.

Of course, the news is all about access, ratings and revenue. It has little or nothing to do with the truth. If it did, we would need 3 or 4 networks that did nothing but broadcast the retractions, corrections and apologies for the other networks that currently pump out nothing but rubbish.

Today, no network retracts or apologizes for the lies spewed over the airways and on TV. Why should they? There’s no penalty for lying, distorting, steering or propagandising. Hey, it’s all free speech baby!

In the end, almost all the news today is bubble-yum for the brainless.