Control of news media == ability to set public opinion

In the late 1800s Western Union was able to alter the results of a presidential election (reference: The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires - recommended!)

A similar situation exists today in the USA: all major news sources provide a very slanted pro-corporate agenda that results in a large percentage of the population simply not understanding things like the benefits of a social safety net (a trade of tax money to keep society civil and safer), how we incarcerate a much larger percentage of our population than other countries, that Wikileaks has released a very small percentage of the diplomatic cables and those cables that have been released have been redacted to minimize the chance of putting people in danger, that we spend as much on our military as the rest of the world combined, how military spending enriches only a very small number of powerful people, the level of corruption in Congress (both democrats and republicans), etc.

It is sad that better sources of news come from the Comedy Central channel (for example, The Daily Show), Al Jazeera, foreign services like German Der Spiegel, small companies like Salon.com, etc.

The USA is in rapid decline. Part of the decline is due to failing infrastructure, large scale corruption, massive military costs, and also a much less informed population. All of these means to decline are fueled by a tightly controlled dishonest news media.

Comments

  1. J.F. Zarama5:07 PM

    As a Canadian I read in dismay what is happening to our best customer and worry very much about our future. Instead of educating the citizens, investing in people, R&D, digital and convectional infrastructure, the US is held captive by corporations and possibly other interests in two wars with borrowed money; and all the hope we had in change promised by the new president seems unattainable and forgotten among deal-making and tax-cuts for the rich.

    America is in a sort of auto-pilot mode stalling towards insolvency and worse: seems ungovernable. This reality contrasts with a R&D budget of $35 billion among a population of 5 million in Singapore; factor to it what China, Korea, Barsil, etc. are doing in refernce to education, R&D, strategy and direction for the long run, investing in their people rather than spending for the benefit of few corporations interested in profits for the next quarter, and one certainly becomes concerned with what awaits our future generations.

    As you indicate the media is complicit in this and feeds some kind of sedative to keep the majority uninformed or should I say misinformed and and confused.

    Have a read of John Perkins' book - Hoodwinked; I just finished reading it in eBook format, $13.99 at Amazon. Thanks for your blog and insights;

    jfz. 2010.12.27

    ReplyDelete

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