America Could Do With a Few Feral Beasts

US 'journalism'? What dat? A contradiction in terms! More like a whorehouse. Sad, really.

This article makes a sad a bit. In the country of 300 million, there is only a handful of reporters who have their dignity to stand up against this hysterical madness? The same goes with the British reporters that are much worse than the ones in the US (not as stupid, but much more arrogant).

Her popularity remind me of an old Iranian proverb, "in the country of blinds, one with an eye is the king".

The level of intelligence of Pat's 700 club viewers was on display the one time I watched for a few minutes while eating lunch and waiting for the next program.

They were reporting their successful prayer for rain for a drought stricken area. It didn't happen on the day of the show in most of America. It rained in that town later because their show was (sure enough) on a tape delay.

Amazing that God watches TV in the locale that needs rain and get the prayers on a simulcast.

2. Do you think people living in the 19th century could envision the world we have today?

Do you think people living even in 1972 could envision the world we have today? In 1971, both the NYT and Wash. Post published the contents of the Pentagon Papers in spite of threats of being tried for treason. Can you imagine the MSM doing this today?

The differences are amazing.

I get RSS feed from BBC news, and Al Ajazeera (English version) news.

It's scary when you see MORE REAL NEWS in Al Ajazeera than in US (so called) news.

I don't care whether it was contrived or not: it hit the nail square on the head. Brzezinski's a star! Compare her act with Larry King's devoting his full hour on CNN to an interview with this rich, spoiled, talentless young woman. Ugh! Who in the hell cares?

Colleen: Bill Moyers did a long essay on The End times and current believers. Their numbers are upwards of 50 million according to published sales of the LEFT BEHIND series by Tim Lehaye. There was a VERY important posting on Bush's belief in END TIMES published at: Truthout.org on Friday (29th) I believe. Check it out! You'll find some chilling demographics there!

Kathydot: thank you for your comments, I always look forward to your postings. As per the preponderance of seeming evidence in favor of NO substantial change to the lot of mankind, let me remind you of two things: 1. It IS always darkest before the dawn and 2. Do you think people living in the 19th century could envision the world we have today? I believe a paradigm shift is headed in mankind's direction, and as I have shared in prior forums, rare is the female allotted an easy labor process to give birth to new life. It is the same with Earth, the pangs that are necessary to bring mankind to a new collective level of mutual cooperation will not necessarily be pretty or bloodless; but I believe they are inevitable.

Siouxrose

I'd like to see some demographics on who it is who is watching O'Reilly. Who are these people anyway?

I am very down on the US and I want to be wrong, but I go also to Canada and they are so nice. (They must have faults too.)
Imo the Christian religion has been perverted in many churches in America into a philosophy that supports greed and war. Its happened before where religion has been used to create evil. Real Christians are mild mannered and gentle people imo.

There is the question of the just war, which has come from some christian thinkers. The idea being that the war would lead to peace. How many times do we go to war before it becomes clear this is not working? I am not a pacifist but war should only be used with extreme problems and as an extreme solution when no other solution is available.

Kathyodat wrote:

I'm afraid it would take a space invasion, organic or inorganic, to push the human race to start functioning collectively and stop fighting each other. I've thought that for decades. I wish we could all just grow up and understand that love is the unifying and healing force of the universe.

************

Good analysis of what happens when enough of humanity can be convinced that all of humanity is other than one and needs to work and relate like it.

On an unrelated matter, since you are a health professonal I am interested in asking you some things about the proposal for single payer, univesal health care. When you can, write me at:

tlmac75@yahoo.com --Thanks

"The public loves Mika Brzezinski"???? Most people turning on the tube couldn't distinguish her from any of the other umpteen empty-headed blondes. Nor is there anything intelligent or courageous about her little ploy.

I'm really surprised at how little the author of this story and those offering comments know about the media. May I do you all a favor and suggest a little reading list?

1. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media.
2. Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation.
3. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death.

Do not only yourselves but society a favor and learn something about the mass media. We don't need more media, more "voices and choices"; we need intelligent people who know something about the world before exercising their right (gasp!) to speak.

Just Wait.....believe me, once we have a Democrat in the White House, the Media will suddenly take seriously their investigative responsibilities.

Dems are such easy targets because the don't effectively fight back and haven't quite stooped to the level of sending out daily "talking points." Which, no doubt would be intercepted by the Corporate News Owners anyway.

Siouxrose, I think there is a variety of reasons for the 75% disapproval ratings of Bush. Some former supporters are upset because he's not winning their war for them. I noticed that the flags have disappeared off the SUVs which for a few years ran around looking like ambassador limos. Some true "Goldwater" conservatives are upset by his betrayal of their values (never thought I'd miss him but I do).

I read "The Lottery" as a teenager and was shocked by it, but had no one to talk with about it. It did make me think hard about scapegoating, which I could see happening even in my own family as well as socially, especially with racism.

I'm afraid it would take a space invasion, organic or inorganic, to push the human race to start functioning collectively and stop fighting each other. I've thought that for decades. I wish we could all just grow up and understand that love is the unifying and healing force of the universe.

Colleen: Have you ever heard the rants from Bible belt churchs, especially the Southern Baptist variety? Taunts of "Hell and damnation," along with dramatic portrayals of human sin give rise to beliefs in punishment, a punitive 'God.' Those who listen to O'Reilly have likely been raised on these castigations and identify with his rants against this one or that one. The entire mindset fits the authoritarians who John Dean wrote about in his book, "Conservatives without Conscience." If this was a marginal movement, say like Jim Jones commune, it would be one thing. Once the 700 club and televangelists hit the air waves, and used those to raise mega sums to build mega churches, well, this thing has spread across the land. When an individual is angry, it's powerful to be able to point the finger at some fringe group and render them scapegoats. Collective angst is a dangerous force, and fear drives it, and both are in ready supply in the U.S. today. This morning when I turned on my computer there was the "virus" warning blinking. And I thought we live with threat of AIDS virus (I'm so glad I got to come of age sexually in a time that had no such worries), and computer viruses, identity thefts, the unconscious fear of a terrorist strike, the likelihood of climate-born dangers... the US is in major FEAR mode. A certain unstated superstition which author Shirley Jackson related brilliantly in her scathing short story, "The Lottery," takes shape in the following way: as society construes an enemy upon which to project its collective disowned accountability, to the degree that group is punished seems to satisfy a need that the moral scales of justice have been balanced. It's very twisted, but how many groups across history have managed to muster up a scapegroup against which the HATE of society's memebers was cast? FOX news is the machinery of same, and while a sizable percentage of Americans will not subscribe to this ugly feeding fest, a percentage does. Let's not PRESUME all Americans fall into this camp. Bush has 25% support if the polls are correct, that means 75% see OTHER; and you can bet they're not watching FOX.

peoplefirst

Looking at those tv ratings, I am beginning to think it is the American people who are the problem and not the leaders.

When the US created its "feral beasts" in the news, they were on talk radio and they were on the political right. They attacked the government and supported big business.

Imo something is wrong with the American culture. Maybe its the lack of responsibility for actions and the denial, the lack of ability to be criticized, the rush to punish and the lack of compassion, but I think it is the culture that has created something like the Bush administration. And that is why there is no uprising and no quick removal of Bush and Cheney.

Bush and Cheney accurately reflect American values.

O'Reilly is popular.

I must agree Poet.
I am a firm believer in the 'Kill Your Television' movement. If you wish to get a corporation to change their product, stop buying it. If people start cancelling their cable subscriptions(You can get all of the programming that you get on the TV on the computer), then perhaps the media will change their tunes.
Boycott televised media! No more shows like '24' to frighten the American people into thinking that there is a terrorist with a nuclear(notice that I can say it right) weapon around every corner, and glorifying torture as a means of interogation along with the countless other shows designed to deaden our sensibilities to police violence and government strong-arm tactics. No more sanitized news, which spends ten times the energy telling us to care about Paris Hilton other irrelevant fluff, designed to draw our attention away from any issue of real substance before we even have a chance to be aware of it or, heaven forbid, develop an opinion and perhaps question what is happening, than it does covering any sort of real news.

feral--"of, relating to, or suggestive of a wild beast"

For those of yopu who have not done so, go read Bill Moyers piece on Rupert Murdoch. In the first two paragraphs he thoroughly shreds and accurately reveals Murdoch's character for what it is. But there is nothing wild or beastly about his approach.

I understand Jemima's anger and exasperation at the bland gooey pablum being spoonfed to a gullible public by the MSM. But the way to cure that is to boycott their broadcasts and publications and those who advertise and support them.

Re: Ratings

Somewhat depressing. Good to see Fox going down, but
even down year-to-year, they still have significantly
more viewers absolutely. Wish someone would put one of
those boxes in my house. Can't imagine why anyone would
watch O'Really?s show...

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/original/may07vs06.pdf

The tv ratings for May 2007 comparing Fox with msnbc, cnn etc.

Couple things:

First, I should know his name but it's too late at night,
one of the "senior" anchors - I'm thinking on CBS or NBC
(obviously not FOX, and ABC seems to be the closest to
FOX otherwise) "apologized" at the end of some program
for not getting the Hilton gets out-of-jail story.
He said he didn't feel bad about missing the story, etc.
It was great.

Secondly, is "provoice" correct? Is Murdoch actually
trying to buy the NYT or is he confusing that with the
WSJ?

i am reminded of a political cartoon that came out early in the reagan administration. reagan is lying in a chaise longue with a sign that says "not working." (reagan was known as laid back and relaxed after jimmy carter.) the next frame shows a line of workers in an unemployment line with a sign that says "not working." for you young ones, an unemployment line was a place where you went to get compensated at a fraction of your wages if you had lost your job. that i needed to write this comment shows how much we have lost.

i am reminded of a political cartoon that came out early in the reagan administration. reagan is lying in a chaise longue with a sign that says "not working." (reagan was known as laid back and relaxed after jimmy carter.) the next frame shows a line in an unemployment line with a sign that says "not working." for you young ones, an unemployment line was a place where you went to get compensated at a fraction of your wages if you had lost your job. that i needed to write this comment shows how much we have lost.

Just finished watching -- again -- the DVD *Orwell Rolls in his Grave." It's a bit dramatic but well done nevertheless. The bonus features are excellent in their analysis of how the media really operate. As I've said here before, the present situation is not just a Bush phenomenon. It goes back at least as far as Reagan.

Right on, Jemima Lewis. The important stories seem to come from UK sources.

The Mika Brzezinski incident is a little tempest in the teapot of the tepid American news brew. It will not change the character of the corporate news product.

The Brits seem to take seriously their fourth estate role and guard it jeaulously. Independent. Guardian. Somehow they have prevented the devolution of their profession into the business model.

In this country around 1980, the special tax privilege enjoyed by books was taken away and books began to be treated like any other "product". Unsold inventories of "book product" were to be taxed like unsold inventories of any other consumer product. This changed the basic character of the publishing business. Authors that don't hit the motherload instantly, like Thomas Wolf or William Faulkner, face even more difficulty today.

A government's regulatory powers reflect the values of a nation's people, or ought to. The journalist's activities, like the endeavors of book authors, should be protected and encouraged by the regulatory authorities. Of course, it may be that those authorities do not want a vibrant and aggressive fourth estate or a battalion of feral authors saying unpleasant things about them and their corporate pals.

It is a sad fact that the American people read little. Newspaper circulations are declining across the board. In the ten years between 1992 and 2002, readers of literature decline by 14%. In a population of 300 million, only about 96 million read literature, about one third. (NEA report, 2004)

Don't know any figures, but I'd wager the Brits are more literate. Whether government regulation provides any special support for British journalism or literature, I do not know, but it is clear that the British public supports its investigative journalists and buys the newspapers, not to mention its idiosyncratic authors of many stripes.

The US is dominated by intellectual troglodytes, as the "conservative" attack on liberalism since bonehead Reagan demonstrates. Bush is the quintessential American anti-intellectual. Troglodyte businessmen rule the landscape.

There you are, Jemima. We've got plenty of feral voices in the US media, notably on the radio. In fact, journalism has been overtaken by a hoard of barbarous idiots all sound and fury and no substance.

What this country needs is some smart people in government to provide a little shelter for the smart people who do real journalism and author worthwhile books.

Americans may not like smart people all that much, but they need them. When they have the opportunity to be exposed to them, they KNOW they need them, too!

Provoice: Thank you for the insights. It bears mentioning that my ethnic background is Jewish, however I do not subscribe to the orthodoxy of any patriarchal religion. With that being said, what better camouflage for Nazis as they incarnate into the 21st century than to USE the JEWS as cover? There are profound thinkers in every ethnicity, the Chinese with their understanding of the body's invisible energy meridians, the I ching, the philosophy of Confucius, come to mind. I presume you realize that not every Jew agrees with Israel's policy of aggression. When a child is raised in a violent home they generally grow up to present one of two behavioral adaptations. They may either become like their tormentor, and utilize force; or opt for the other side of the spectrum, recognize the therapeutic potential of forgiveness and become the force of nurture to alleviate others' wounds. Israel has its share of citizens that would opt for the nurture route, but like other Western-oriented nations, the leadership has decided upon a course of force first, of righteous anger, of violence, and the cycle of its dark redundancy becomes a curse to far too many innocent beings. I believe in karma. It's cosmic math: what goes around, comes around. It's a shame more people don't grasp the concept, for if that were so, we'd see a lot less persons willing to deploy covert means to work populations against their own best interests, and currently in so-doing, take down the whole canopy of the natural world, our shared home.

Don't worry. When John Edwards becomes President, they will regain their vicious seriousness.

Siouxrose...

The writings of Orwell, Serling, and even Hitler and Julius Caesar provided plenty of warning for those who were paying attention.

In "Mein Kampf", Hitler wrote:

"The chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind.

Every digression in a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusions. The slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. Then one will be rewarded by the surprising and almost incredible results that such a persistent policy secures.

The success of any advertisement, whether of a business or a political nature, depends on the consistency and perseverance with which it is employed"

The REAL irony of this propaganda attack used by the Bush administration is that it was designed and implemented by members of Bush's "think tank" PNAC and a few members of "The American Enterprise Institute"... most of whom were Jewish!

Bush appointed 32 of these people to the very top of his administration, including Paul Wolfowitz, Abram Shulsky, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams, Michael Ledeen, Eliot Cohen, I. Lewis Libby, Donald Kagan, Fred Kagan,. Robert Kagan and William Kristol among others.

Provoice: Thank you for sharing an insider's revelations. Orwell and even Rod Serling sent out warning bells, quite prescient ones indeed.

Few people are more aghast at the state of the American News Machine than I have been in recent years.

As a retired broadcaster with years in reporting and being a news anchor, followed by many more years in high-end advertising and marketing... it has been pretty easy for me to spot the lies, twists and distortions early on.

For example... when you see 10 people from different parts of the administration being interviewed and they are all using THE EXACT SAME PHRASE over and over... you are being SOLD something.

A good example might be several years ago when all of the people in the administration started saying that the "detainees" were "not prisoners of war" but rather "illegal combatants" or some other wordplay, you can bank on the fact that they were ALREADY planning to treat the detainees with less dignity and fewer human rights than our international treaties required.

Even further back, the Bush Choir was singing the WMD song... for a long time not naming any particular weapon or weapons but just the ominous sounding "weapons of mass destruction"... as though Saddam had some sort of ray gun that would turn armies into pillars of poop.

Eventually, a few started raising the spectre of specific weapons and where they were, like Rumsfeld saying he knew they were inside or outside or maybe somewhere near Baghdad and other places. Not too convincing!

Where the Press fell down was in not pointing out that just a couple of months earlier, some experts had been saying that Saddam was contained and unable to rebuild his stockpile of WMD... and it wasn't just some retired CIA analyst or U.N. Weapons Inspector doing the talking, it was Colin Powell and Condi Rice!

The Press fell down by not asking the tough questions... by not pointing out the lies about the Saddam-al "Qaeda connection", the fact that bin Ladin had sworn to depose Saddam, or that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or any other attack on the U.S.!

A large part of the downfall of the Press can be attributed to the historic fact that Bush and his evil minions had a reputation for cutting off access to those reporters who failed to sing their praises or repeat their phrases... but a large part of it had to do with the lack of journalistic ethics too. These so-called reporters found it much easier to accept a White House news release at face value and print it or broadcast it verbatum than to check the stories before running them.

Finally, back during the Iran-Contra era, Daddy Bush's "Office of Political Diplomacy" got caught spending American tax money to lobby Congress and plant false news stories in the American media that favored the Contras in Nicaragua. Part of that effort went toward eliminating "The Fairness Doctrine", which required broadcast news outlets to tell BOTH sides of a political story. The F.C.C. became a haven for slick political appointees who were all part of the administration's choir.

Now, with the control of media becoming ever-more consolidated under just a few extremely wealthy people, the administration had the ability to practically FORCE the news media to sing their songs. Case in point, Rupert Murdoch now making noises about buying up the New York Times and making it part of his Fox News empire.

I'm sure that will be good for America. NOT!

Isn't this the same Joe Scarborough who got away with really murdering some woman?

For more and more of us, television news is the only way we get news, assuming we get any at all. Sure, some of us find our fill of news by browsing through the ubiquitous internet news and opinion sites. This one, for instance.

But more likely is that if we're logging on, we're only just catching up with our cyber-societies of like-minded folk joined in manic Internet blab accomplishing little more than reinforcing each other's indignation.

With such an awesome responsibility as often the sole harbinger of news good and bad, we should expect much from our television media. Instead, we get the titillation of the trivial. We get breathless blondes reporting on missing blondes. We get entirely uncritical fascination with unreal celebrities. We get insipid "conversations" between shouting talking heads. And worst of all, we get utterly spineless reporting with no edge, no slash and bite, no grabbing on and not letting go.

Television news no longer provides genuine news about the world. Instead it mostly settles for brief and superficial words and images. It serves only to draw in the highest viewership to generate the highest advertising dollar for the most shareholder profit.

And it does so by competing in the business of fear.

Truthfulness and accuracy have little pull at all anymore; only the most fantastical, the most horrible, and the most simplified are served up for public consumption. And we eat it, and eat it greedily, until we've become obese in mind and scared in spirit.

There's so much newsworthy going on in this vast and wonderful world of ours every day. Good news and bad pours forth day after day, much of it trite and dull and boring, but so much more so necessary and fascinating that we require computers and newspapers, radios and televisions to grab at it all for bits and pieces for which to keep in hopes of one day understanding some part of how the larger world works.

So when broadcast media, the only source of news for many of us, is more interested in pursuing audience share and turning a profit, it fails in its basic journalistic responsibilities to serve as witness to injustice and as watchdog over the powerful, and we're all the poorer for it.

When television "journalists" want always to pitch a fight between polarized views rather than convening public discussions to find serious answers, we're all the poorer for it.

When television news substitutes emotion for fact, feel-good human interest stories for hard-nosed reporting, and sound bites for political discourse, we're all the poorer for it.

Thank you, Jemima. We're all the richer for your article.

isn't there something vaguely schizophrenic about polished shiny-toothed news hosts smiling as they read statistics of murder, war and mayhem, the latest rape or environmental catastrophe? Like, "let's all put on our smiley faces, boys and girls." My TV is off and has been. It's liberating.

Oh, Jemima, I want to let you to carry my babies! Great article...

Beedy-eyed Joe, he don't know "DICK" but he'd like to.

That was obviously shtick. And I am offended that those teevee shmucks would make lite of the fact that the news has been canceled.

>>>>the programme's host, Joe Scarborough, berated her with vague, panicky insults - "That's a cop-out"; "Take control of your life"

Mika's dad, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a political realist who worked for Carter, was recently on Canadian tv. He is very critical of the direction Bush has taken us and thinks if we do not make a correction or worse enter into war with Iran it will destroy the US.

So I think Mika is probably sincere in wanting to discuss real political topics even if the Paris thing was a set up for ratings.

They are probably looking at Keith Olberman's ratings and thinking they could get ratings like that for Scarborough.

But do a google on Mika and look at who is writing about the incident? Its being ignored in the US papers.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1117634565

Time to rock the boat baaaaby...