I work in alternative media, so I may sound crazed on this topic. Please forgive.

We used to count on the National Public media to give us some amount of independent truth, but they have become corporatized right along with MSM. It's all about the money.

My suggestion: (and I apologize if I have said this here before - don't mean to repeat myself) Try public access tv and community radio . Many stations run Democracy Now from Pacifica with Amy Goodman - not the total answer to all our media news woes, but you definitely get the independent and progressive point of view. Free Speech Radio News is another.. There are more...

One other thing: I am reading a lot of comments here about the issues with national media and national news. But have we even mentioned the lack of local news coverage. How many towns have anything but the same pablum-flavored spoon-fed coverage of local issues as we suffer on the national level? Your local cable access tv and community radio afford an opportunity for anyone to research and report -- to comment and be heard -- usually anyone is welcome.

Ever hopeful, I think there may be a way for us to take back the airwaves, at least in small measure. The last wave of new LP(low power)FM frequencies are in application/approval process now and are starting to be awarded, now and through the next year or two. Many applications are from cash-healthy religious broadcasters, but many are grass-roots citizens groups and educational institutions. There might be a new community radio station popping up in your town. Look for it! Support your local independent media if you have it. Get involved on air or behind the scenes.

Again, I hope the fact that I work in local, volunteer-produced, independent media does not make my message self-serving. It's not meant to be -- this is mission-driven work for me... the "mission" is free speech and quality of information and a place for the people to be heard.

Absolooootly. Back to you Glenn.

"And John McCain ... dumped his first wife ... so that he could marry his much younger, much prettier, and extremely wealthy heiress-mistress..."

And, so John McCain is a "kept" man?

"Well folks, it ain't the media that's the problem; it's you and me. The Media produces what the public buys."

NO! I REPEAT, THE PUBLIC IS NOT "BUYING" ANYTHING FORM THE MEDIA - CORPORATE ADVERTISERS ARE, OK???

Any commercial media outlet that did try to provide the information needed for genuine Democracy to thrive would quickly change or GO OUT OF BUSINESS due to advertizers going elsewhere - remember this was the fate of Air America Radio.

I repeat, the "public" has nothing to do with it.

Please read the Apr 6 5:21 post. Then read "Manufacturng Consent" by Herman and Chomsky

Greenwald needs to follow up by researching the resumes of all the top newscasters, including what curricula and professional ethics were studied. Clearly, the news is all about money, viewership, ambition and job security. If not, check out the careers of Edward R. Murrow and Roger Mudd.

It is extraordinary how effective the U.S. corporate propaganda system is at trivializing discourse and lobotomizing the viewer. Somewhere Dr. Goebbels must be squirming with envy.

I have yet to read a Greenwald article that was not substantive and incisive. The thesis is not necessarily original but his ability to analyze, frame key points, and illuminate the vapid idiocy of Beltway pseudo-journalism is always impressive.

I think I now email more of his articles to friends and colleagues than any other journalist.

It confounds me that intelligent people I know are still taken in my the MSM, believing
they are getting straight stories from MacNeil and NPR. Cesar Chavez has become "evil personified" for some of these MSM viewers. Their belief appears to be unshakable. I'm at a total loss when I consider attempts to modify their convictions. I don't think it can be done.

Perhaps I need to help inform those who have some doubt about the veracity of the MSM .

"Truth will win out in the end."
I wonder...

The Fed blantly breaks the law in the baleout of Bear Stearns, backed by U.S. taxpayer money, and the media provides cover.What a deal for JP!
Just as they did during the Great Depression when JP extorted wealth by making the very same type of acquisitions as they just did with Bear Stearns.
It is disgusting to see this type of Capitalism being backed by the phony Federal Reserve which is a Private (For Profit) Banking Institution of Pirate Profiteers.
Mainstream media provides the cover and the elites again snub thier nose at the kept ignorant public.

Join
The Localization Movement!
Shut Down
The
BU__! SH__!
Greedia Media!

Power to the People.
Start in your own back yard.

The Corpirate Empire is crumbling.
Get out of the way.
An Economic Katrina is at Hand.
Sink or Swim?
Survive and prosper.
If you shut it off?
Who will be listening?

Destroy your television and encourage others to do the same with you.

And, (paradoxically) invite the media to report it.

Dear Mr. Greenwald,

Thank you for your article which was a rare none check-book example of an honest journalist whom happened to have the courage and dare to speak out.

However all of these and more are only the symptoms of far more insidious and destructive aims and objectives in the work.

Over a long period of time with highly accurate planned course of action, in conjunction with patience and perseverance, gradually all the small, medium or large independent publications, right across the land has been swallowed-in by a handful of few individuals or organizations.

A Quick and simple search will provide a list of the owners and proprietors whom directly or through the employments of committed-agents that they know and easily under control.

As a basic and fundamental rule, any kind of media, be it a news paper or T.V. will reflect and implement the stated policy and agenda of its controllers and in today's America any dissention will be dealt with utmost punishment available,it takes one to know one!

So why is that John Edward's hair cut, Obama's eating or Britiny's affairs is the staple diet of the main stream media here?

So why the Iraq and Palestine "Things" are no where in sight?

So why the murders of 1.200.000 Iraqis, a country that now only exist as geographical connotations plus over 4.000 American service personnel deaths with more than 35.000 mentally and physically incapacitated are nowhere to be seen?

So why a ruined economy and a nation mortgaged for generations to come is a taboo?

However what is still in progress, also without being mentioned is the "Finishing the job" at the expense of Americans and Others' blood and money .

Finishing the job" means to destroy the ability of Iraq, Iran, and Syria to provide support for the Palestinians and for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon against Israeli aggression. With Iraq and Iran in turmoil, Syria might simply give up and become another American client state. With Iraq and Iran in turmoil, Israel can carry on the geocide in Palestine, steal the rest of the West Bank along with the water resources in southern Lebanon. That is what "the war on terror" is really about and that is why we do not see or hear about it.

America has Zionists problem.
And until this problem can be rectified, we are all heading for abyss and demise.

Maybe we ought to enact an impeachment process for journalists who can't get anything right ever. Or, better yet, force them to disclose their bias. Or, better yet, force them to post their track record.

Well folks, it ain't the media that's the problem; it's you and me. The Media produces what the public buys. The American People are politically and intelectually inert. We get the Media that we deserve.
keith in denver

PUCK TWAIN: Seems the central tenet of sexism (with respect to why women would not make fit leaders) is the tendency of "the weaker sex" to actually identify with and EXPRESS feelings. Recall the book, "Real Boys Don't Cry," whose author said if they don't cry tears they express (rage/pain/anger/sorrow) through bullets.

DEMON STORM: You raise good points all indicative of the inevitability of karma returning to "the land of the free, home of the brave." The timing, as per the Logos, looks like some big hits from 2010-2016, but then again given the power of the number 7... it probably would be a 7 year tribulation phase. I know when I had no money in the early years of being a single Mom, I saw grace every time a little money managed to find me and the rent got paid, or someone gave me the very thing I needed (without my ever asking). I saw this MANY times and truly gained a sense of gratitude which is missing from so many Americans. When I walk past restaurants with glass windows and spy the amount of food being throw away, or watch the way so many just let the water run, or sit in their bloated vehicles parked as the CO 2 around us burns up because they don't want to turn off the engine and risk sweating and ON AND ON... GRACE has been lost in America, and MUST return, no doubt the hard way by earning back what was too easily taken for granted.

Real diversity in the comment section of this thread, and I appreciate it.

DOOM & GLOOM: Love the comment about what's good for ratings!

MIKE PETERS: This idea of creating an analogy between the US lifestyle and militarism abroad MUST be altered. I would like to see the word ENEMY expunged from every language and replaced with the ideal of friendship. Do we demand our friends think, look and act as we do?

CV: Great posting.

GOEBBELS: Good insight.

...

Few quotes from above:

"in a free market economy, one assumes they are like this cause this is what the majority of people who buy want...."

"What gathers audiences in America? Pablum. Something easy to swallow."

"The American mind (with the exception of the oddball few) is a closed mind, an incurious mind, a deadened mind, a mind primarily interested in entertainment"

"I wonder who the people are behind all this manipulation of the news in America and what their motives are."

Reply:

Many people are making the very serious mistake of assuming the listener/viewer/reader is the media's customer. They are not! The advertisers and particularly the broad corporate interests behind the advertisers and owners are.

One more time for emphasis:

1. _YOU_ ARE NOT THE MEDIA'S CUSTOMER, AND NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT IS NOT WHAT THE MEDIA IS SELLING.

2. THE BIG CORPORATIONS WHO BUY ADVERTISING OR OWN THE MEDIA ARE, AND "CORRECT" PUBLIC ATTITUDES ARE THE MEDIA'S PRODUCT.

So, if you keep these thing in mind, all the medias inexplicable behavior makes perfect sense. No "dumb American" theories are needed - although dumb Americans are certainly a by product of a private corporate media.

Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him? But, then again if Walter was reporting today he would probably be under the same restrictions as everyone else in order to keep his job, 'Just read the script, don't think, don't investigate, and whatever you do don't question the script.'

Torture your T.V.! "News is what they don't want you to know,everything else is just publicy" Bill Moyers peas in

flimsysanity - thanks for the laugh.
I watch CSpan, the book channel, cable movies, and Countdown, so my 5-10 hours per week of TV is ok. Otherwise I am all internet, radio, The New Yorker (Eric Alterman has a great piece on newspapers/blogs 2 weeks ago), and books. Rachel Maddow got a gig to host Countdown last Friday, and she is too good for that format. I was stunned to see her have to talk to Dana Millbank and Jonathan Alter (who said, in Rachel's presence, that McCain gets a press pass because he has made himself accessible). I am guessing that she had no time to do her rant on McCain and the press, so Alter got a pass on McCain getting a pass. I wonder if she had any control of who would be on (she could have picked Savage from the Boston Globe, or Glen Greenwald himself, or any of her radio show guests). I hope she gives her radio audience the innards of her experience. She even did a 'bear' story on the TV. I don't want her to do this again.
In my state public schools are bankrupt even before the upcoming 10% budget slash. I wonder how much more stupid our species will get before we're gone. What a great tool TV could have been. Content control is a huge genie now out of its bottle.

Maybe off topic, but remember the line in the movie, Arthur when the butler says, "One must go to a bowling alley to meet a woman of your stature."

I for one, am very glad Obama can't bowl.

willo sez: "Perhaps many of us citizen's could pool our resources and hire full time detectives to sort out exactly what is being done to us and by whom."

With all due respect, it would be a waste of money. The problem is not discloser/discovery of criminal acts. The Reich is happy to admit to all manner of extra-constitutional behavior (see Greenwald, above).

The problem is that the Reich controls the Department of Justice (sic), the Supreme Court and the message through its ministry of truth.

Crimes discovered by your theoretical investigators' findings would never be publicized, prosecuted or punished. Any more than those crimes already discovered.

"You can turn off your TV if you like: myself, I want to know what those fuckers are saying to each other. It is not unimortant, because it's the pond we swim in."

Point taken, Vince. However, that pond that we were once swimming in is oozing in slime, to paraphrase Frank Zappa. It's hard to swim in slime. Plus, the MSM will not tell you what those fuckers are really saying, only what they want you to hear. What they are really saying is: Gotcha!

I basically agree with the approach puck twain describes. Basing an analysis on a snapshot in time has limited value. The relationship between the corporate media must be understood as a process with feedback loops, one that evolves and grows over time based on existing and developing conditions.

It seems obvious that the corporate media's overlords would prefer to create feedback loops that lead to greater public ignorance and childish and myopic models of reality. If the process resulted in a more sophisticated public, that public would seek out more developed forms of communication with more sophisticated arguments, such as those one would more likely find in books and scholarly articles, not on the television set. And there is the added benefit that "dumbing down" the public makes them more amenable to political manipulation by the politicians of the right whose interests coincide with those of the corporate media's overlords.

Cultural development in general and cultural trends to a great degree depend on technological developments and the economic forces at play, which themselves are in large part determined by technological developments. And the technological development of the past few years that offers the greatest promise of breaking these oppressive feedback loops is the open Internet. So it becomes imperative to preserve it by preserving Net Neutrality, and that is the message I take from the article.

I don't have the extreme degree of post-modernist angst that many seem to feel. Like the ability to go to any place on this planet, I wouldn't give up the age of human communication we live in right now. These accomplishments are important and desirable. Of course when they ascended, we didn't see some of the environmental and social consequences that have developed. Because these accomplishments are desirable progress, we have to improve the means, not the ends.

Will the means of human transportation always be a threat to the air and the water? Can we sieze the new communications realities for our own protection, or are we doomed to live an Orwellian nightmare?

You can turn off your TV if you like: myself, I want to know what those fuckers are saying to each other. It is not unimortant, because it's the pond we swim in.

I tended to agree with the author until I looked up the story about Obama's bowling for myself. 37? He rolled twenty balls and knocked over thirty-seven pins?

Look, a score of 37 indicates a serious mental problem. Physically, a toddler can nose up to the ball and push it hard enough to reach in pins in a minute or so and knock down most of them. A score of 37 indicates a disconnect not from ordinary people but from physical awareness, consciousness.

He could be a robot for all we know. Some kind of a Manchurian Candidate or a Mandingo or somethin. We really know very little about his past, and there's something fishy, something not quite human here. This bowling story really is an eye opener.

If 3,000 stories on Obama and his America-damning parson seem too many to count, then what about the 18 million Yahoo references to Obama's drug addiction? Is there a connection here to his pathetic bowling? Who cares, anyway! It's easier to just vote for McCain.

Here's a little research. See the number of links for each Yahoo search:

Obama cocaine OR marijuana.............18.0 million
McCain cocaine OR marijuana.............9.5 million

Obama homosexual.......................7.8 million
McCain homosexual.......................5.4 million
Hillary lesbian........................16.9 million

QED.

Think, people, think before you vote!

"I don't know why people keep referring to comentators as "the media." The United States has no media."

Actually, the US has very good media. Remember, media is plural for medium. The medium to disseminate information or dis-information is the media.

The problem is that the US has very few real news media. The vast majority of the media is devoted to "entertainment", propaganda, and dis-information which it disseminates very successfully. The result of this "success" is painfully obvious. Boobus Americanus has arrived.

Ruling Class Media--RCM--don't waste your time looking at it, reading it or listening to it.

I don't know why people keep referring to comentators as "the media." The United States has no media.

It was October and the Indians on a remote reservation asked their new Chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Chief in a modern society he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold," the meteorologist at the weather service responded.
So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again. "Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."
The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy."

I'll second "johnycanuck April 5th, 2008 3:50 pm"
The Cons don't have to bribe the media to promote their trash, they OWN the media. They've sat on the real journalists and featured the puff artists. This isn't accidental or coincidental, this is a strategic move by the Cons to control America by controling the media.
And it isn't "giving the people what they want", it's limiting what information is available to people,'til all they have to make their decision on is personality and bullsh!t. Have you ever seen a point by point comparison of the platforms of the three candidates? We keep hearing people say that there's little policy difference between Obama and Clinton but no facts to back it up.
If the media fulfilled it's constitutional responsibility of keeping the citizens informed, a great many of US would defend it to the death, but we get the Britney/Paris show interleaved with Car Wrecks/Murder 24/7. Worthless garbage designed to distract and terrify the public.
And it works.

The late Joseph Campbell, Hero With A Thousand Faces, stated that the cortex is a secondary organ - interesting that the most numerous characterization of people here are as "numb minds" and "dead brains" - with little if any reference to feelings.

In his book Breaking The Code, Thom Hartmann states "feelings come first" in regard to effective communication. And, Moshe Feldenkrais, a preeminent human being of "social/mind/body" function of the twentieth century (Body and Mature Behavior [a study of anxiety, sex, learning and gravitation], Potent Self) states the separation of mind and body is purely for literary convenience which has no functional basis in organic reality.

Moshe's definition of maturity is the ability to break up the momentum of historical experiences and reconfigure them into a new whole along with the input of the present circumstance, as opposed to trying to get a new outcome with the same process. By neglecting to include feelings in the process of conceptualizing how the media functions, and what actions to take in regard to this conceptualizing, the immature genocidal/suicidal (see uranium toxicity and climate change) behavior loop is maintained - i.e. catastrophic war amplified by technological multipliers.

The maintenance of a conceptual split between mind and body maintains the behaviors of schizophrenia and hypocrisy - behaviors that grip especially the American population as a whole, but also individuals as accomplished as the progressive pundits mentioned above. Perhaps the best example is of Common Dreams in total itself:

Evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors by Bush/Cheney are available and clear, yet Common Dreams chose as the mantra to it's first orchestrated political action: My America Does Not Torture. Going with feelings first, this statement accomplishes the expression of feelings first developed in pre-adolescence - the excitement of self-righteousness - but it denies the truth of one America that indeed tortures, and does nothing functional except raise criticisms in regard to developing the required response needed for culturing the pleasure of overcoming our behavior with catastrophic war outcomes.

The present circumstance provides clear, even admitted, evidence of high crimes by Bush/Cheney, and historical momentum does include Article II of the US Constitution with a clear remedy - impeachment - yet, because feelings come first, Common Dreams chose to re-engage and re-enforce America's sado-masochistic behavior loop, instead of directly confronting the agents of this behavior, both within "themselves" and without.

Thus, COMarc had the most functional comment so far: unplug...reconfigure the communication loop; and of course I'll add the following: with Hartmann's observation - feelings come first, and Feldenkrais' maturity - break up the feeling pattern and reconfigure a new response; then plug back in...and enjoy the pleasure of the process.

MSM, total trash usually, but Killer Editorial by Frank Rich in the NYT's this a.m.

Takes apart mccain, Iraq and side-swipes the dem.'s gracefully too....

I know they hired that scum kristol, but this article is good.

best to cd threaders and cd too

It's very simple: it can't go on. The stupid, sheep-like Americans and their I-can't-bring-myself-to-think-for-myself-let-alone-care-about-the-real-issues attitudes (which, let's face it, comprises the vast majority of the populace of this country) can, in fact, be blamed partially on the MSM - and on the propoganda churned out by the White House - and on the corporate-controlled society in which we live - etc, etc, etc. But this is an unsustainable existence. No society can last for long with such a selfish, materialistically-obsessed, stupid, and vapid population. It's just a fact.

Eventually, the combination of exporting all our decent-paying blue- and white-collar jobs to foreign countries, racking up trillions of dollars in debt to foreign countries, refusing to become energy-independent, continuing to torture, disappear, and indefinitely-hold-without-trial anyone we feel like anywhere in the world, is going to come back and bite us in the ass. Eventually the illegal eavesdropping, the endless invasions and attacks on other countries, the spiralling value of the dollar, the starving of public programs for an ever-growing poor segment of our population, the suspense of Habeas Corpus, the shredding of basic freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, the thumbing-of-our-noses at every other country on earth, the breaking of domestic and international laws and treaties, and the endless stream of war crimes being committed by our leaders, will - eventually - come home to roost.

This is not a theory. It is a fact. The American people will - WILL - get every single horrible thing they deserve for decades of decadence, not caring about the real things that matter in the world, ignoring the destruction of their ideals and freedoms and values and laws by their own leaders, and for thier self-imposed ignorance. It will happen. It is happening. America, the giant, has been falling for quite awhile, but most people in America are too stupid and blind to notice. It just takes longer for a giant to hit the ground when he falls than it does a smaller entity.

And when it does: good.

When the network nazis force me to buy Shit In Hi Definition, my TVs are gone. Just can't take it anymore---a constant and unbearable deluge of worse-than-worthless "news professionals" who'd rather die than do a real day's work (and tell me with commercials for themselves during their own shows what a great job they do). Sucking blood from every community tragedy, ignoring the loss of everything that made America worth a damn, and bantering with their little ego's on parade...I pay $10.75 per month for basic cable and it's $10.50 too much. In the words of Theresa Heinz Kerry, SHOVE IT

DISASTER "LA RIOT" (a recipe)

One Bush presidency
12 years of Reaganomics
One recession
One liberal portion of police brutality
Plenty of MSM sensationalizing

Mix all together. Heat. Regular Folk will rise to a peak, and boil over. Police to take cover. Add National Guard, 7th Infantry Division, and 1st Marine Division to taste. Serves 30 million.

I wonder if Blackwater will be brought in this time as a special guest.

Its own Republican reality.

The M$M is so big and powerful that it makes its own reality.

Greg Bacon; Radical Post! F* the Kagan cabal; thanks for shining a light on them.

Clearly the 'govt.' has used 'think tanks' or their equivalent to formulate specific actions w/ the media to pervert and subjugate true critical thinking.

But worst, the selfish average American equates our murderous foreign policy with the 'good life' he/she has, ie SUV's, prodigious consumerism and that "entitled' sense that 'it's mine,' like selfish children...

Shoot the TV. W/ ceremony.

The only way MSM is going to hear anyone is to stop watching it. Anything of importance is on the web. Tell the sponsors and the MSM that you do watch or read why your are tuning out. Might even ask your cable company how to delte CNN and Fox, not that thye will but if they get enough calls thye might report it, and when they negotiate pricing thye may use it as leverage.

This won't work. Why. Because they are owned by companies who have a vested interest in keeping you in the dark.

Congress is owned by the corporations, and so will not bring back the Fairness Doctrine.

The one good thing about MSM, is when both CNN and Fox both agree, this is a sure thing that it is a lie or deception. Their disagreements are on divide and rule issues that are not important.

starofthesea 10:06

Right on. No news is better---stop tv!

Is it completely pointless for people who are bothered by this to start up a writing campaign against it? Why not have the combined forces of Move-on and several other groups start bombarding the MSM with daily complaints about the content of their coverage. Better yet, why not try to enlist more people not currently involved in doing so. This cuts across the political spectrum. Both the right and the left, and a lot of the center have people who dislike the MSM for these lapses.

Even changing the MSM a little could have big benefits for democracy and would also create impetus for further change. They are especially sensitive to losing viewers and advertising dollars.

Blaming the people for not knowing what's going on seems like blaming the rape victims for allowing themselves to be brutalized, or wondering why sick people don't know how to cure themselves of cancer. We depend on each other to do the best at what they do. There are many good sources of real news still available. Get a satellite dish and watch Free Speech TV, or Link TV, which broadcast many good programs, including Democracy Now with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales. Sundance Channel, HDNet, Discovery Channel, and much more programming is available. Just blow off the MSM and go surfing, dudes. There are better waves out there.
You can fool all the people some of the time
You can fool some of the people all of the time
But you really can't fool all the people all the time

"F-f-f-fool me once....shame on you, f-f-f-fool me twice.....won't get fooled again!"

Repug's are not just nuts anymore. Now they are megalomaniacal
paranoics capable of unleashing armageddon. The corporate MSM believes this will be good for ratings.

Greenwald just bitches, but this problem could be solved.

The media conglomerates can be broken up, without infringing on the First Amendment. There are still hundreds of laws on the books regulating ownership of multiple media outlets in the same market, and there's no difference in principle involved in prohibiting multiple media ownership of any kind, or prohibiting ownership of any media outlet by a larger corporate entity.

If there are 10,000 different owners, it's obviously much harder to keep them all on the same right-wing message.

Glenn Greenwald bitches endlessly about the corporate media, but pretending nothing can be done about it makes Greenwald and many other piss-and-moan bloggers part of the problem instead of part of the solution.

Greenwald should stop whining and get his message together with kos and Digby and Eschaton and put some pressure on the Democrats to break up the right-wing garbage conglomerates!

"If our media delivered TRUTH there WOULD be a revolution."

Siouxrose, that about sums it up. If all the truth came out concerning 9-11, illegal wiretapping, oil, etc, I believe America couldn't handle that truth. They feel safer with their heads buried in the sand (of Iraq and Iran, or even FOX News).

No excuses, no explanations necessary--Corporate-controlled Media is the deseminator of elite propaganda as well as mind-numbing/mind dumbing entertainment. You need know nothing more than that.

If Americans can face that sad ugly reality, they will all turn of their TV's. Seriously folks, we would have a more informed electorate with NO NEWS AT ALL!!!! People would have a better grasp of the state of their neighborhoods, cities and states, maybe even their nation by talking with each other.And they might just recover a growing sense of community as a result.One of the terrible side effects of TV watching is that it isolates and numbs humans. TV, for the most part, feeds the mind and spirit poisonous garbage. I haven't watched TV News for 12 years and I have never been better informed. Of course the Internet helps, too.

"And, as always, they take their personality-based fixations from the Right, who have been promoting that Obama is an Arrogant, Exotic, Elitist Freak narrative for some time."

This is newspeak for "uppity nigger."

I get my TV from Dish Network. If I don't pay the extra five bucks a month, I don't get the commercial networks. Now that's a good deal!

GREG BACON: Terrifying posting!

BAKUNIN: Is the American mind closed? I believe 10% of the population is probably incapable of learning, and at least 10% are brilliantly awake. The rest reside in the nebulous middle zone and they can be manipulated by an array of behavior mod techniques and tactics. Many ph.D psychologists go into entertainment or PR and learn which buzz words and stimuli merit specific responses. Add that to the points raised by WERNER S and CO MARC about why media consolidation PURPOSELY delivers pablum, and open minds realize the public COULD be educated if given the right "food for thought." Clearly the elites do not want consciousness to grow or evolve, as these persons profit from war, oil and the big pharma chemical combos that keep the laboring force viable and quiescent.

If our media delivered TRUTH there WOULD be a revolution. The problem today after a steady diet of dis-information and religion promulgating "faith based" deadly falsehoods is that many can no longer RECOGNIZE the truth, and that presents a complex problem to those of us, as awakened souls and light workers, who sense the obligation to create a cognitive critical mass in order to right the course of the US which indirectly impacts the course of the entire planet.

British fear US commander is beating the drum for Iran strikes

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:53am BST 05/04/2008

British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.

A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment. In closely watched testimony in Washington next week, Gen Petraeus will state that the Iranian threat has risen as Tehran has supplied and directed attacks by militia fighters against the Iraqi state and its US allies.

The outbreak of Iraq's worst violence in 18 months last week with fighting in Basra and the daily bombardment of the Green Zone diplomatic enclave, demonstrated that although the Sunni Muslim insurgency is dramatically diminished, Shia forces remain in a strong position to destabilise the country.

"Petraeus is going to go very hard on Iran as the source of attacks on the American effort in Iraq," a British official said. "Iran is waging a war in Iraq. The idea that America can't fight a war on two fronts is wrong, there can be airstrikes and other moves," he said.

"Petraeus has put emphasis on America having to fight the battle on behalf of Iraq. In his report he can frame it in terms of our soldiers killed and diplomats dead in attacks on the Green Zone."

Tension between Washington and Tehran is already high over Iran's covert nuclear programme. The Bush administration has not ruled out military strikes.

In remarks interpreted as signalling a change in his approach to Iran, Gen Petraeus last week hit out at the Iranian leadership. "The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said. "All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts."

The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week triggered top-level warnings over Iran's strength in Iraq.

Gen Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Baghdad, will answer questions from American political leaders at the US Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday before travelling to London to brief Gordon Brown.

The Wall Street Journal said last week that the US war effort in Iraq must have a double goal.

"The US must recognise that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq," wrote the military analyst Kimberly Kagan.

There are signs that targeting Iran would unite American politicians across the bitter divide on Iraq. "Iran is the bull in the china shop," said Ike Skelton, the Democrat chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military."

Source:Telegraph.UK

The Wall Street Journal said... more like it's what the war mongering owner of the WSJ said, Rupert Murdoch.

As for Kimberly Kagan, she''s married to Frederick Kagan, Klingon War Lord at the American Enterprise Institute who helped lie the U.S. into invading Iraq. Here's some background info on the warlike Kagan family, who are trying desperately to get the U.S. involved in fighting another of Israel's "existential" enemies, Iran.

From: Source Watch

Kagan "authored the so-called 'real Iraq Study Group' report as the AEI's 'hawkish' rival to the ISG report of James Baker and Lee H. Hamilton in December 2006. The AEI report, titled Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, was released on January 5, 2007, and Kagan was said to have won-over the ear of President George W. Bush." [2][3]

Kagan was a signatory to the January 28, 2005, Project for the New American Century letter to Congress calling for "Increasing U.S. Ground Forces" in Iraq. He was also a signatory to a September 20, 2001, "open letter" in which the PNAC urged President Bush "that the war on terrorism include the removal of Iraqi president Saddam Hussain [sic] 'even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [ 9/11 ] attack.'" [4]

Kagan is the brother to foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan, "also a scholar," who was a "founding member of the Project for the New American Century. With fellow PNAC founder Bill Kristol, Robert wrote the [January 30,] 1998 New York Times article 'Bombing Iraq isn't Enough' that asserted: [5]

"If Mr. Clinton is serious about protecting us and our allies from Iraqi biological and chemical weapons, he will order ground forces to the gulf. Four heavy divisions and two airborne divisions are available for deployment. The President should act, and Congress should support him in the only policy that can succeed."

Kagan is the son of Donald Kagan, who is a professor at Yale and a fellow at the Hudson Institute. Frederick, Robert, who is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, and their father Donald are "all signatories to

The oft-stated American news cliche, "If it bleeds, it leads," is only more trenchant than ever. Add in corporate agendas from other parts of the empires and it is no surprise that US-based news programs are amongst the worst in the First World. An under-educated audience does not help matters either.

whatfools, a big difference between the US and USSR is that the Soviet citizens knew they were being lied to. And facing draconian censorship there was an active underground disseminating information, called Samizdat. Here it feels like Brave New World where everyone is on Soma. But Obama is showing us the young are restless.

kathyodat

COMarc April 5th, 2008 1:39 pm

Yep, it is up to all of us to try to spread the word. As I have mentioned before, our printers could be used to produce pamphlets that we could hand to people and, for those with the requisite skills, a few hundred dollars will buy a transmitter that can be heard over a few tens of square miles.

Well let us have a look...hmmm

about 8 people own ALL the newspaper/tv stations /radio etc.

most of these 8 people are republican

the "reporters" are now stenographers, dutifully repeating the slop they are told. No ONE or very very few actually do investigative reporting, and of those who do investigative reporting, they give us tripe like "will Britany loose her kids?".. and we wonder why there IS NO NEWS?

turn off the TV / radios
do not buy but the necessities of life
Drive only when NO alternative is available
get to know and trust your neighbors, you and they, are going to need each other, just to get by.. sooner than most realize
[lant a garden buy, locally and trade with your friends..

simplify..simplify simplify.. do it now and you will have a gentler time of it when the crunch comes.. and it IS coming..

Americans vote for personality, so they need this information more than info on issues. Live with it, that's America. Don't blame the press, they serve the people, and are like the people. Blame the people.

Obama is reputed to be a hot-shot basketball player.

So last week, a liberal website had a video clip of Obama, on a visit to a youth center, tanking a three-pointer on the first try. Quite a feat!

Yet the MSM drones on about his misadventure at a bowling alley. Not a word about his prowess on the court.

Typical.

Formernadervoter: "Randi should be cancelled. She's a blowhard. The foolish mistake someone once made by giving her a microphone has now blown up in their face. Good."

You and people like you are part of the problem. Randi is one of the few people out there who speaks truth to power. Perhaps you'd rather listen to the lies of Rush and his ilk.

"...wouldn't you also conclude that you could do anything you want, without limits, and know there will be no consequences? What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?"

Speaking of which, there's the non-bailout $30 billion bailout of the Bear Sterns thieves, from which BS Chairman John Cayne skimmed $50 million, which was followed by awesomely honest testimony by current BS CEO Schwartz, who could think of no missteps regarding the rapid collapse of the 83 year old firm - not even his decision to remain at a conference at the Breakers in Palm Beach while his firm was imploding. "I just simply have not been able to come up with anything, even with the benefit of hindsight."

Notice not a single Wall Street lying thief has been indicted, in spite of all but destroying "our" economy.

As GG said, who wouldn't steal, without limits, knowing there will be not only be no consequences, but said stealing would be rewarded with huge bonuses courtesy of We The People? What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?

The American mind (with the exception of the oddball few) is a closed mind, an incurious mind, a deadened mind, a mind primarily interested in entertainment and averse to information which takes some effort to acquire and then analyze. This distinguishes Americans from most others except denizens of other totalitarian states. Oh, you aren't sure we are totalitarian? We're capitalist totalitarian ie fascist, while the other countries with controlled mass thinking--Korea and China are communist.

formernadervoter, i, too, am a former nader voter. While I agree with the thrust of the rest of your post, there are many for whom the radio (sometimes, due to the busyness of their lives) is a more convenient, and therefore dominant means of obtaining vital info.

I admit, there are times when I have been turned off by Randi's style. She grew into her profession by battling Limbaugh, and winning ratings wars against him in Florida. She is intelligent, witty, courageous, and way out ahead of the vast majority of the radio/TV crowd. She is a unique personality that performs an invaluable service for the causes that we share.

McCain has a great great grandfather or some such bs who worked with George Washington, has an airfield named after his grandfather, aside from his rich wife, he's supposed to be a regular guy? I'd like to know how much his family fortune is (along with the Bush's, most of which they got from working with the Nazis)

There is obviously a great deal of manipulation of the news by the MSM. The coverage of Maliki's Iraq Army trying to get complete control over Basra and its oil, shows it all up. For the first couple of days, when Bush was enthusing it as a "defining point" the news was flooded with the great successes of Maliki's "Iraqis standing up", and even the US and British bombings and support were briefly mentioned. But as soon as the reports and videos of Iraq Army and police deserting and the Mahdi Army's military ability, the reportage was suddenly stopped (as in CNN in Spanish) or greatly reduced (the BBC). Only later when the Bush crowd got their story together that they "didn't know what Maliki was up to" did it start to get a very distorted coverage. Like the Bush crowd, the MSM just explain how the Mahdi victory could be the defining point of the occupation.

What to do ...
1) turn it off. They only have power when you look at them.
2) communicate amongst ourselves. make sure there are alternative ways of getting information circulated. This can be as simple as an email list or a blog.
3) Get more people to do the same. A lot of people here get pts 1 and 2. So we just need more people doing it. Doesn't have to be big numbers, but go convince one other person to do 1 and 2.

The facts at the beginning were interesting, then the story lost the point. It seems because establishment democrats like Greenwald can't grasp the truth.

First, just the terminology is interesting. 'establishment media' instead of a term you'd hear on CD like 'corporate media'. They both describe the same group, but the spin is very different. Greenwald with 'establishment media' misses the truth that the term 'corporate media' exposes.

You see this in the second half of the piece. Its written like this is all just an accident or a mistake. Just incompetent reporters. Since he's already declared in the use of the phrase 'establishment media' that he's not going to even dare to look at the real cause of this, that's not a surprise.

So, he misses completely the notion that this isn't a mistake. He misses completely the notion that powerful people don't want the nation paying close attention to Mr. Yoo's memo and what it said about authorizing illegal domestic military operations. They'd much rather have their media talking about Obama and bowling. The key is to realize that this is no accident.

The piece has some nice facts that reveal the truth. Too bad Mr. Greenwald isn't willing to face the truth.

MSM TELEVISION "infotainment" relys on psychologically proven mind-stultifying techniques that focus our brains on trivia,immediate infantile gratification and oversimplifications, while reinforcing deep suspicion of "others".This sugar-coated addictive poison repetitively thrusts misinformation as unquestionable truth all the while subtly-- and not so subtly-- demonizing any economic system that dares to deem itself kinder and more humane than the ruthless holy writ of laisse-faire CAPITALISM.The MSM mostly today reflects irrelevancies,overbearing materialism, moral bankruptcy,and a chilling disdain for basic decency. It will end up sounding even more strident before a new New Deal will make it more representative of WE, THE PEOPLE.

I read the other day that McCains rich wife made him sign a preup before she married him...If she doesn't trust him with HER money, why should you trust him with YOURS?

I hate American tv "news"...it has devolved into some socially insulated talking heads endlessly interviewing other socially insulated talking heads.

Reminds me of Emperor Caligula, having his legions attack a swamp, then declaring they conquored Britian. Or Nero fiddling while Rome burned to the ground. Or the French Aristocracy sitting around eating cake, convincing each other that the peasants where really quite contented.

rumiluv,
Randi should be cancelled. She's a blowhard. The foolish mistake someone once made by giving her a microphone has now blown up in their face. Good.

Moving on to more important issues, as long as the public is socially in public schools not to care about civic engagement and does not learn how to be critically informed, the dumbing down of America will continue.

Big business runs this country will astonishing power, promoting ignorance and triviality and about the only countervailing force is the public school which holds the promise of promoting critical thinking and a civic minded populace. But how are they going to do that when its underfunded, oriented around thought control, focusing on boring fact dumping and almost meaningless standardized fill in the bubble assessments? The result is a population oriented around apathy, spectator activities, entertainment culture, trivial pursuits and passivity.

This is still a free country and anyone who wants to can find out what is going and do something about it. All you have to do is log on line and go to commondreams.org, inform yourself and then join your local, state or national group, get involved and make change. Instead most folks are on myspace, ebay, or youtube. Why? They LEARN those behaviors in the corporate/consumer culture.

It doesn't have to be that way.

In America the media makes its profit from gathering audiences and selling them to advertisers. What gathers audiences in America? Pablum. Something easy to swallow. Anything that will keep them away from the real issues of the times. Distractions - it's how a magician fools his audience.
Hoa binh

Or google "winter soldier" and "paris hilton."
You'll get the same results as Greenwald's example. It's the media that is killing democracy. And the media focus on entertainment is a drug as dangerous as heroin.

Mental weakness is IN and corruption is rampant because the American people are weak and corrupt. Serious news is harmful to one's image. Eyes glaze and attentions drift at the speed of light at the mention of torture or the constitution. People are riding the system down in a near state of rapture. Yee Haa is in fact a domestic and foreign policy. Will somebody please yodel.

Good article, I agree with almost everything.
With our current system, we [the citizens] are overwhelmed by an onslaught of outrages and abuses of power. Trying to address them is like that wack a mole game. More time should be spent on trying to identify exactly who is running this place. And then instead of trying to address each new issue, go after the head of the beast that oppresses us.
Perhaps many of us citizen's could pool our resources and hire full time detectives to sort out exactly what is being done to us and by whom. Use the same game they've been using on us. Their system of domestic spy's and agent provocateur's should be identified and neutrlized. Any other idea's?

If I could read only one writer it would be Glenn Greenwald. Nobody, NOBODY cuts through the bullshit, is totaly unafraid to take on his own peers and lays it out exactly the way it is like Glenn Greenwald. Thankyou Glenn. Nobody adds to my frustrion and angst like you but the truth must be told.

Glenn Greenwald: Great Article! My absolute favorite in years of reading CD.

Because through this MSM-Lobotomizing, America has become an unthinking unchecked global murderer-marauder. An eater of it's own flesh.

A killer of it's own children. A parasite feeding on itself while mouthing 'Patriotic' cliches learned on 't.v' (Trashed Values?)

My Thanks again to Glenn Greenwald!

Just remember what the Jam said in "News of the world":

Every morning our key to the world comes through our door,
more than often it's just a comic, not much more.
Don't take it too serious, not many do,
read between the lines and you'll find the truth.

Yawn Yawn Yawn
This same story comes along every six months or so.
Much more interesting would be why the media are like this - in a free market economy, one assumes they are like this cause this is what the majority of people who buy want.
Much more interestng would be a study of money paid by corp interests directly to journalists - "fact finding" tours, speaking fees, and the salary earned by mainstream journalists; I suspect most of the name journalists are quite well off, and, as part of hte $$ elite, naturally identify with the GOP, that is their natural instinct.

This is like the old Soviet News - I unpluged my T.V. - last year.

The whore MSM makes unimportant things important and important things unimportant and is a subtle way of brainwashing the politically, ignorant masses.We need to call it nightly entertainment and not nightly news and then people can watch all the murders,rapes and gossip they want.How about The Police Gazette News.Kill your T.V.news;especially FOXXXY News.

"The news has been cancelled"--Randi Rhodes. Now Randi Rhodes has been cancelled.

kittyladyoregon April 5th, 2008 5:30 pm:

We do not have journalists in the MSM. ...
The only true journalists work overseas for other countries

Seymour Hersh is a good journalist. He writes regularly for The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters. The New Yorker is not an alternative media platform, but true, it is not a TV network or newspaper empire.

Keith Olbermann on MSNBC is pretty good. I would consider that MSM.

Robert Scheer used to be a good journalist at The Los Angeles Times (arguably MSM). Now, he is a good journalist and editor at Truthdig. I saw him speak once at a Barnes & Noble store, I liked his presentation and knowledge.

Greg Palast is a good American journalist, but he has to work for BBC and The Observer, since American MSM won't touch his work.

We do not have journalists in the MSM. We, the folks,(We are no longer people) want to hear 30 days about bowling, Wright, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, American Idol, Obama is rich, Clintons are rich; McCain is a hero and a regular guy, as infinitum. The only true journalists work overseas for other countries and on the net at Common Dreams and Alternet and such sites.

They vote for personality alright. With Bush they really got someone with a personality they hadn't counted on. Same with Cheney.

It's interesting that the MSM instead of simply reporting the news has become a player in world affairs along with the politicians, corporations and the Religious Institutions.

Talk about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!

P.S. For those interested, checkout Saving America on my humble blog.

I wonder if the MSM has ever covered Directive 51? They would cover britney or even mikey jackson before touching that one. When bush/cheney invoke the directive this fall, no one will even know what it is, probably not even congress.

Where is this "liberal media? that I hear the conservative media talk about so much? I would love to hear a reporter ask at a news conference - "Mr. President, do you foresee any situation where you would invoke Directive 51 and declare marshall law? And to follow up, what is the purpose of this directive and isn't the Executive Branch a co-equal branch of government along with the Legislative and Judicial?"

A reader of CD once made the simple but entirely prescient comment that the political system we are saddled with today exists because that is what Americans want. Hear hear. Most Americans don't want effective government that works for them. They want this monstrous and totally corrupt Rube Goldberg contraption cobbled together by the ganefs and liars who call themselves Republicans and Democrats, aided by the smirking gossips of the MSM. These Americans, a majority for the last generation, are like fat, lazy dogs sleeping in the sun, rousing themselves now and then from their torpor to scratch at fleas and blow gas. That stink you smell is the American Empire. Get used to it, especially since Rin Tin Tin McCain is going to be the next Alpha Dog. MCMLXXXIV.

I wonder who the people are behind all this manipulation of the news in America and what their motives are.

How is it possible for people like Tim Russert to continue, knowing that there is manipulation going on...What is going on in the heads of reporters? Do they hold such a low opinion of the American public? Maybe they are right. Americans are ..well...brain dead. Most can't even see through this lack of real reporting during a time of great upheaval in the US government.

Is it all about money and power? and the economic competition with China and holding power? and keeping oil as a cheap source of power?

This is more than just an issue with the MSM (aka, Big Media). It's really a situation where the majority of newspeople have given up on their responsibility to ferret out the truth and then report it in an unbiased manner.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, the news media was just agog over anything the Bush administration fed them. They were truly stenographers to power (whores, actually). That was the problem then, and that was borne out in just how ignorant the American people were. Well, maybe ignorant is a misnomer. More like brain-washed.

Here we are, 5 years down the road, and it's still happening. Even though many in the MSM flogged themselves and said a heartfelt "mea culpa," they have not changed one whit.

Which should lead us to question how a democracy can survive under such circumstances (it can't) and who is responsible for its demise when the people have been so badly duped.

It's bad enough to call these people whores, but the real term for them is far worse. They are traitors.

Step 1:

Stop refering to it as MAINstream !

COMarc's "corporate media" is preferable, though I myself like "TeleKnowledge".

The battle is already lost when we concede "Main-ness" to these people.

Mainstream means more generally acceptable.

Corporate means big greedy jerks.

Hell, even Greenwald's "Establishment" has good resonances for the boomers!

Remember, in a war of written and spoken information --WORDS MATTER.

(This rule does not apply to my spelling)

-matti.

Part of the problem is the media's (mainstream or not) role as brainwasher. Most of us are ready to believe that if no one in the news is presenting a certain idea, it must therefore be an invalid idea. Heck, all they have to do is ignore Kucinich (et al.) and people we take it from there, "The media ignores him, so he must be unelectable, even in the primary."

But a large part of the problem is the power we give them. Why do we read the news (or more importantly, the op-ed?)

For ego-validation.

We scour the net trawling for a Greenwald or whoever who shares our opinion and thus validates us. That's it. The neocons don't need to defeat net-neutrality. The net is our opiate, our security blanket.

We're more concerned about shooting down other people's opinions than actually doing something to improve the communal quality of life.

So when we read the news, let's ask:

1. Can I do anything about this piece of information?
2. WILL I do anything about it?
3. If not, why am I reading/watching? Chances are it's just ego-validation.

How about reading less op-ed (including these) and more of what will lead to action.

The media of all types leads to social catatonia. My wake-up call was watching Moore's 9/11 movie and hearing someone in the audience say: "I really feel like we've accomplished something by watching this movie."

Burn your newspaper . . . down.