USA & DEMOCRACY IN DECLINE
Blame it on the Republicans! Blame it on the Democrats! No, neither is smart enough to make any enlightened decisions that would stop the declining slide that is enveloping the United States. It is far more profound than the economic crisis. It is the takeover and killing of democracy that is being embraced by the public, in an ignorant attempt to punish somebody for our current state of affairs. But the problem, dear citizen, is us. We have bought the manipulated propaganda produced by an extremely greedy, selfish, and unprincipled set of corporations who own the U.S., lock, stock, and barrel.
How can we be so gullible? How could we surrender our right-wing and left-wing principles? What ever happened to the democratic sanity that prevailed in the Republican and Democratic Parties? How could we surrender to the greed-induced lies and selfishness of today's corrupted right and left in American politics?
One major answer lies in what we are told. When I listen to the BBC and CBC, it is as though I were listening to news reports from a distant galaxy. Why didn't I get this news from American media?
"In 1989 the total circulation of daily newspapers was 63 million and 14 chains distributed over half these papers. In 2009 five corporations dominated. In 1982 the radio industry was dominated by ten corporations. Fifteen years later, the radio industry is the most consolidated of all media with two companies --Clear Channel and Sirius-- dominating. According to the Pew Research Center, TV is the primary news source for 66 percent of Americans. Three companies took in over half the broadcast TV advertising revenue for 2009 -- CBS, NewsCorp (Fox) and Walt Disney (ABC). With the addition of NBC, four companies receive 70 percent of all broadcast TV ad revenue." -WorldwideWAMM, November 2011, page 4.
What about the freedom of the Internet? Well, the Internet basically gets its news from the above sources.
The chief executives of all 20 news corporations are white males.
This immense concentration of news sources in the hands of a few, selected corporations, by its very definition and composition, is a threat to any democracy. These news behemoths laugh at the general public as we argue about whether the conservatives or liberals, the Republicans or Democrats, the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Streeters are to blame. It is a joke, and our preoccupation and misdirection in this regard only helps the big news corporations to sell advertising of news that never gets to the heart of the problem because the corporations themselves are a big part of the problem. We are agonizing and arguing about small pieces of merchandise while the huge corporations are stealing the whole store.
And it is not limited to domestic issues, though our current elections are about mostly domestic issues. The news coverage of foreign policy is shallow and inadequate. It mostly stays in the party line, that is the party line of both parties because they are both owned by huge corporations and immense special-interest groups. It will not be about Obama and Romney or whomever, it will be about preserving the coveted power that the biggest corporations and wealthiest individuals now hold. No matter who is in the White House, our foreign policies will protect our profit-generating war corporations and the tax benefits for those related to them.
"The corporate-owned media, in general, reflects the corporate viewpoint, which, not incidentally, is the same as the White House viewpoint. Thus U.S. readers in search of any other views on foreign affairs have to work hard to seek out other sources, such as foreign news and websites and independent media. With so many lives and so much money (over half the U.S. yearly budget) in the balance, why isn't there more outrage?" [same source as listed above, Polly Mann author]
