From The Ramparts

The Corporae Media Is Not Our Friend

The Corporate Media Is Not Our Friend

“Can we trust the news editors at the Washington Post to be fair and objective regarding news stories about Lockheed-Martin defense contract over-runs? Or can we assuredly believe that ABC will conduct critical investigative reporting on Halliburton's sole-source contracts in Iraq? If we believe the corporate media give us the full un-censored truth about key issues inside the special interests of American capitalism, then we might feel that they are meeting the democratic needs of mainstream America. However if we believe - as increasingly more Americans do- that corporate media serves its own self-interests instead of those of the people, than we can no longer call it mainstream or refer to it as plural. Instead we need to say that corporate media is corporate America, and that we the mainstream people need to be looking at alternative independent sources for our news and information.”- Peter Phillips

By now most sane people have figured out the corporate media giants do not have the best interests of the AmeriKKKan people at heart. Just looking at the way the major networks, cable companies and newspapers have given George W. Bush a free pass since the 2000 Presidential campaign, how they regurgitate the White House and Pentagon line about 9-11, how they serve as stenographers and cheerleaders for the totally bogus War on Terror and how they have ignored and suppressed the Downing Street Memorandum, it is clear the corporate media is in cahoots with the NeoConmen to bring about a radical transformation of AmeriKKKan into a fascist police state. The role of the mass media in AmeriKKKa today is to keep the multitudes bamboozled, brain dead and mentally ossified. This is not to say every reporter in a fascist, of course not. Nevertheless it is clear the high priced talking heads on the major networks and cable news channels enjoy their six figure salaries, being members of the Council of Foreign Relations having access to and hobnobbing with the ruling elites. This is not mere happenstance this is by design. Following WWII the CIA which at that time was a fledgling circle of Ivy League (mostly Yale) well connected cronies set out to co-opt the media and use it as a tool for both domestic and international propaganda. Through what they called “Operation Mockingbird” they recruited several media owners and key persons who were put on the CIA payroll, served as assest, covers and spies or willing channles for CIA propaganda. Do some research on Operation Mockingbird on the Internet and then extrapolate just have far they have progressed in the last five decades to make their goal a reality. For example, rarely do you see any seriously opposing views to the NeoCOns on the Sunday morning network “public affairs programs”. When was the last time you saw an unabashed anti-war advocate or a Pan Africanist on PBS, NBC,ABC,CBS or the cable news channels.? At most you will see someone promoting a watered down version of the NeoConmen agenda like calling for a multilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq instead of Bush's go it alone policy. Have you ever asked yourself why this is? Well the answer is because the media is owned and controlled by the same people making the policies the beltway crowd and Wall Street bankers are executing! Someone once said, "there is no freedom of the press in AmeriKKKa unless you own one".
In an Op-Ed piece on the Common Dreams Website www.CommonDreams.com , Peter Phillips the Director of Project Censored a media research organization proved the corporate media is part and parcel to the problem by revealing the interlocking boards of the top ten media giants in AmeriKKKa are also directly linked to the corporate boards of multinational giants. AmeriKKKa by promoting militarism, imperialism, rabid nationalism and unquestioning loyalty to the govenment, is actually promoting fascism, or what Benito Mussolini referred to as “corporatism”. Corporatism is where the state is subservient to corporations! If you think this is not happening think about how the "K Street" lobbyists influence more legislation than we do. The thing is, we are not talking about thousands of people, it is a small handful. According to Phillips, “ A research team at Sonoma State University has recently finished conducting a network analysis of the boards of directors of the ten big media organizations in the US. The team determined that only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director of the ten big media giants. This is a small enough group to fit in a moderate size university classroom. These 118 individuals in turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. In fact, eight out of ten big media giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each other. NBC and the Washington Post both have board members who sit on Coca Cola and J. P. Morgan, while the Tribune Company, The New York Times and Gannett all have members who share a seat on Pepsi. It is kind of like one big happy family of interlocks and shared interests. The following are but a few of the corporate board interlocks for the big ten media giants in the US:* New York Times: Caryle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and Johnson, Hallmark, Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi * Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet, Gillette, G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody's * Knight-Ridder: Adobe Systems, Echelon, H&R Block, Kimberly-Clark, Starwood Hotels * The Tribune (Chicago & LA Times): 3M, Allstate, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Kraft, McDonalds, Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Shering Plough, Wells Fargo * News Corp (Fox): British Airways, Rothschild Investments * GE (NBC): Anheuser-Busch, Avon, Bechtel, Chevron/Texaco, Coca-Cola, Dell, GM, Home Depot, Kellogg, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft, Motorola, Procter & Gamble * Disney (ABC): Boeing, Northwest Airlines, Clorox, Estee Lauder, FedEx, Gillette, Halliburton, Kmart, McKesson, Staples, Yahoo * Viacom (CBS): American Express, Consolidated Edison, Oracle, Lafarge North America * Gannett: AP, Lockheed-Martin, Continental Airlines, Goldman Sachs, Prudential, Target, Pepsi * AOL-Time Warner (CNN): Citigroup, Estee Lauder, Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton” What this means is less then one hundred and twenty people decide the content, tone and tenor of what the AmeriKKKan people see, hear and think. That’s power and that’s powerful. Wade Nobels defined power as the ability to define reality and have other people accept your definition. By that reckoning this handful of people welds awesome power. Power in and of itself is not bad. In fact we as a people should be desirous of more personal and collective power. The problem is we have been brainwashed to believe only white folks should have power and that power in the hands of Africans is a bad thing. A handful of white men controla access to the public airwaves of AmefiKKKa. Phillips futher states, “Mainstream media is the term often used to describe the collective group of big TV, radio and newspapers in the United States. Mainstream implies that the news being produced is for the benefit and enlightenment of the mainstream population-the majority of people living in the US. Mainstream media include a number of communication mediums that carry almost all the news and information on world affairs that most Americans receive. The word media is plural, implying a diversity of news sources.However, mainstream media no longer produce news for the mainstream population-nor should we consider the media as plural. Instead it is more accurate to speak of big media in the US today as the corporate media and to use the term in the singular tense-as it refers to the singular monolithic top-down power structure of self-interested news giants.” These giants tailor the news and entertainment to fit their class agenda and needs, which are basically to keep themselves in power so they continue to own most of the wealth and control most of the human and natural resources on the planet!
No one can oppress you unless you allow them to. No one can ride you unless your back is bent. Strand up and fight for yourself! Stand up and fight for your children, think for yourself, seek alternative means of information then act on the information you get. The best action is when you/we act in your own best interests. The corporate media does not have our best interests at heart. Meditate on this then act accordingly.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 1:26 PM