Results tagged “corporation” from Subversive Soapbox

Hi, my name is Bob, and I’m a gratefully-recovering CNN-addict.

Hi, Bob.

I really wanted to name this post: wtf is wrong with the US media, part III, but I thought it was getting stale.  I just really can’t think of anything else to say.

First of all, two of the top stories on cnn.com are about sick/dead celebrities’ children.  Yes, it’s sad that your son has just been diagnosed with some rare disease/has died .  Thousands of people die every day, but we don’t hear about them. Thousands die because of American and foreign corporations that are raping the earth, but we don’t hear about them.  Thousands of Iraqi civilians have died in the war, but we don’t hear about them.  I still do not understand why celebrities are considered news.  Perhaps the only time a celebrity should be in the news would be a headline reading: “Madonna Receives Nobel Prize for Physics Due to Discovery of Quantuum Worm Holes in Deep Space”.  You know, something significant.   

Second of all, I was reading this article that was waxing poetic about the possibilities of politics in 2009.  Part of it discussed the deflation of the Republican party, which is of importance since it is now the opposition party.  And then, then the article states: If the Republican Party is not effective, does the national media become the opposition voice?

The nation media has COMPLETELY CEASED to have the ability to become the opposition voice!  When the current administration was banging the war drums, the media rolled over and served as a megaphone for the Beltway.  During the entire primary and election season, the media parroted and sound-clipped the trail, but didn’t do any significant vetting or provide citizens with coverage of any third party candidates.  The media has ceased to be the ‘fourth estate’, and no longer can be used as a tool to keep other branches of government in check.  “Does the national media become the opposition voice?” Dream on, CNN.  If you think you are capable of becoming a true voice of opposition, I’m capable of growing a second head.  Seriously.  How can they even delude themselves?  The nation media is stuck in the entertainment business, when they should be in the journalism business.

And, me, like Bob, can’t stop going to these sites and watching/listening these shows. Does it make me a more educated soapboxer, or is it the worst thing I could possibly be doing?  

I was watching this interview of Utah Phillips, late folk singer/activist.  He was interviewed by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! If you get a chance, do check out that interview; Utah Phillips is fun to listen to.  Here’s what he said in response to a question about the media.

UTAH PHILLIPS: “Let’s see, you started out with what media has done to people. You know that better than I do. That’s why you do what you do. See, you’re doing an alternative media. And if we play our cards right and have enough time, then pretty soon it won’t be alternative media anymore. But then, we have a thorough understanding—don’t we, Amy—that they fight with money and we fight with time, and they’re going to run out of money before we run out of time. So we’ll just be patient, and you do your work, and I’ll do mine, and we’ll catch up and overtake them.

It’s a damn shame, though, that we have to be alternative. But then, we’re in a capitalist environment, we’re in a capitalist system that’s built on—that’s built on the least commendable features of the human psyche, greed and envy, rather than the best. We in community radio, in pirate radio, in alternative music distribution, we reach for the best in people, you know, we don’t—not lowest common denominators. And we are building a new world within the shell of the old.

I don’t feel pessimistic about that at all. There’s simply too many good people right here in this room, too many good people on the street, close to the street, doing too many good things for me to afford the luxury of being pessimistic. I’m going to—I’ll tell people that tonight, damn it. I’m glad it came up. If I look at the world from the top down, from FOX, God help me, or CNN or—there ought to be a CNN-Anon to wean people from that idiocy. If I look at it from the top down, I get seriously depressed. The world’s going to hell in a wheelbarrow. But if I walk out the door, turn all that off, and go with the people, whatever town I’m in, who are doing the real work down at the street level, like I say, there’s too many good people doing too many good things for me to let myself be pessimistic about that. I’m hopeful, can’t live without hope. Can you?”

The bail outs of Fannie May and Freddie Mac are the largest corporate buy-outs of the US Government in history.  It is the government, once again, telling corporations that they have a friend in the US Government.  The reasons for the buy-out were cited as a rescue of a free-falling economy, but it sends the message that if you're a drowning corporation, the government will help you.  What if you're a drowning individual?  I guess they don't really care. 

Stop corporate handouts!

I sat there, really thinking about why we are wanting to fight yet another losing war.  The US hasn't really emerged "victorious" in a war in, oh, say, 60 years. 

So I think about oil and money and blah blah blah blah.  But I just don't understand. Why would anyone want that much money? On an individual level, what are you going to do as CEO of, say, Halliburton? Smoke Cuban cigars with the Bushes and drink really expensive brandy in the boardroom?

Sure.  Money = power. At what point does it become just not necessary?  When you already have a gabazillion dollars, why do you possibly need anymore?  Pull a Scrooge McDuck and swim in gold coins? Buy another Hummer?

My point is, at some juncture, when does money stop being a motivating factor to be corrupt?  Let's take the example of a bird bath. Let's say it fulfills it's purpose: it fills up with water.  Completely.  You are happy that the birds have that bird bath.  Why would you possibly need it to rain more?  It's full of water, is serving it's purpose, that's that.  The bird bath may become cleaner with each pouring of rain, but that's just a bonus. Men become dirtier with each exchange of money, but that's just a fact.

Does corruption and greed and all of that garbage become internalized somewhere? Or is that an institutionalized value that is not personally held?  Somewhere, the collective is corrupt and greedy, but in the end perhaps each individual just wants his/her own.  Don't cultures (even corrupt ones) build upon shared individual values and goals? What's going on here?

We're supposed to be democraticized and advanced and civil and we just go over into someone else's country and start shooting things.

How can I be proud to be an American?

I saved the first of the Party slogans of 1984 for last.  Not because it is particularly powerful, but because it is the most profusely contradictory.  Further, it is probably the closest to our own reality, as governments and politicians try to tell us that

WAR IS PEACE.

I am unabashedly anti-war.  In this day and age, there is no need to declare war on another nation.  Rather, there has been no reason for us declare war on a nation since perhaps the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II (and perhaps not even then).  In my lifetime, I remember Operation Desert Storm, the bombs dropped in Kosovo, the war in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  The two most recent wars were waged in the name of America's freedom from terrorists.  We are told that these military operations will make the world a more peaceful place.

Tactically, I don't think we can solve the problem of terrorism (if it even truly exists at the scale we are told) with traditional warfare.  America's defenses are entrenched in a Cold War mentality, and trying to place age-old warfare strategies on something that's quite new.  Stopping terrorism won't be accomplished by dropping bombs on civilians that aren't involved.  The exaggerated terrorist threat is, in this writer's opinion, virtually non-existent to Americans.  The analogy I often use for the inappropriateness of the war launched on Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and Al-Queda is this: if your neighbor comes into my house and shoots my mother, do I have the right to bomb your entire neighborhood in retaliation to "smoke him out" of his hole?  Doesn't seem quite logical. And seems pretty unfair to all of his neighbors. 

Being a cradle Catholic, I was very upset at George W. Bush's catering to Pope John Paul II's to gain approval of the war in Iraq.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Just War doctrine is as follows:

"The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition."

These seem like pretty good guidelines, if you are going to be for war.  None of these conditions were met for the wars that have been waged in the past half-century. 

Noam Chomsky points out in several of his works that the Vietnam protest efforts actually took an extremely long time to become mobilized.  They were due in large part to men and women who returned from Vietnam and wanted to speak against the injustice of the 'conflict' [not war] that was being waged in the jungles of southern Vietnam.  In contrast with today's military, many of those people were involuntary combatants, as they were drafted.  In today's all-volunteer armed forces, we are dependent upon those few courageous souls who risk their reputation and careers to speak against the various lies being told about major combat operations in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan.  

There are grave consequences, however, to ending this mismanaged war.  Politicians and policy makers can make fabulous promises about "bringing home our troops", while neglecting to mention that our government will undoubtedly continue to employ private contractors like Blackwater to maintain the region.  Your tax dollars fund these contractors just as well, if not moreso, than our boys and girls in green.  In fact, more money is given to these contractors, and they are unregulated entities that will never be arrested, face a court martial, or apologize for the civilian atrocities we know they are committing.

I could go on forever, but I think I'll stop here.  I'll leave you with the paraphrased words of a college friend of mine, Aidan Delgado (who gained Conscientious Objector status while stationed at Abu Ghraib).  He reminded an audience that the torture, abuse, and atrocities that are done by our compatriots (contracted or enlisted) are ultimately a reflection of all Americans.  The decision to support a war in which crimes against humanity are being incurred is your responsibility with dire consequences.  You cannot support a war in hopes of peace, most especially when the acts of that war are far more destructive than any hypothetical alternative. 

In 1984, there are two groups of people.  The members of the Party, and the Proles (i.e. the proletariat).  The members of the Party did all that was patriotic in the name of Big Brother.  The Proles stayed drunk on bad whiskey and beer.  The members of the party were afforded a ration of cheap gin.  The Proles were distracted by Party-created pornography and cheap periodicals.  Members of the Party, on the other hand, were force to be distracted by the slogans of the party.

The Proles fell in love and fucked and drank and danced and lived with joy. Party members are told that sex is for procreation only.  The Proles got to feel the pleasures of life, though they were disavowed by the party, to be created as second-class citizens.  That was their punishment for their hedonistic, compassionate ways.

Members of the Party were told that they were privileged among the Proles. That the reward of their service to the Party was their freedom. Yet they received no rewards from their government.  Only the fear that one day they may be charged guilty of Thoughtcrime, maintaining ideas that went against the party line.  Indentured servants to a party that created the illusion of prosperity, while ensuring that their citizens never were allowed the true pursuit of happiness.

The members of the Party were enslaved in every way to their totalitarian government. 

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

We have very easily and quickly become subservient to a government and to corporations that don't have our best interest in mind. In fact, they don't have a single interest of ours in mind.  Yet we are told that if we do what we are told, if we work hard, pray to God, and salute the flag, we will be granted the most wonderful freedom and democracy this world has to offer.  

Unfortunately, that sentiment is no longer true (if it ever was).  That sentiment is used to excuse those who refuse to offer assistance to the poor, with the idea that one can simply use the proverbial bootstraps to lift themselves out of the gutter.  Unfortunately, the corporate slave state has made the gap between the rich and the poor larger than ever, and diminished the possibility of a middle-class majority.

Every time we buy something we don't need or spend an hour at work we're not getting paid for (or are!), we are oiling the corporate machine.  There are little things you can do to avoid homage to the slave state.  This is one reason I'm glad for the "green" movement.  People are not buying certain things, trying to reduce their carbon footprint.  Skipping the trip to Wal-Mart or Target.  Taking public transportation. Not consuming unnecessary goods and products.

It will take a grass-roots effort.  A truly viral effort to remind people to not be enslaved to a cause that is not theirs.  To stop lining the pockets of 1% of the population who hold most of the economic resources in this country.  We don't need their money.  We don't need their "freedom". We don't need their products.  We don't need their garbage.  We don't need their destruction.

We need to be like the Proles, in a way.  We need to love and be passionate about the things that really matter.  We deserve real human connections, true compassion, and love.  Those are things that can't be purchased or given to us by the government.  We need the government to fulfill its social contract and grant everyone their basic human rights (shelter, food, clothing, and healthcare) and leave us the true freedom to engage in life and our surroundings the way we are intended as creatures of the Earth.  We will not be enslaved.

FREEDOM IS LOVE.

I hate the way people throw around the phrase "Big Brother is Watching You" like it's the only thing to come out of George Orwell's 1984.  While certainly significant, it's a bit like relying on the Cliff's Notes version of what's important.  Although I might repeat the phase myself in front of the security camera in the elevator, I understand that Orwell intended to warn people through his dystopic novel that Big Brother does a little bit more than voyeurism.  I intend to write a multiple-part series on themes from the novel.

 

There are three slogans of the totalitarian party outlined  in the book.  

WAR IS PEACE.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

I'll start with the last one.

Big Brother and his party did more than watch.  They controlled people.  Manipulated every aspect of their waking life, and monitored their dreaming ones. The very thought of revolt or dissent was a crime punishable by death.  Although we're not quite to that point in the United States, it is increasingly difficult for citizens to contemplate civil disobedience.

The appendix of 1984 is a document outlining the principles of Newspeak.  Essentially, the goal of Newspeak is to eliminate all 'unnecessary' words from the English language, redacting volume by volume until the dictionary is whittled down to a a volume with barely 100 pages.  The ability to categorize things as "bad" will be eliminated by replacing it with "ungood".  The people wouldn't even be able to talk about something in a pejorative manner (and by the way, the word 'pejorative' would be gone, too).  

To borrow an idea from psychology, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that the ability of our mind to think about things is dictated by our knowledge of the language we use to conceptualize our thinking.  All abstract ideas rest in our mind due to the ability to use language to define them.  So the ideas of justice, freedom, and liberty, are dependent on our ability to explain them through language.  They are intangibles that require a more in-depth vocabulary in order to understand, communicate, and advance our ideas. 

In Newspeak, these complex words are stripped from language, so the very idea of a revolution, or injustice, or oppression are struck from the collective dialoge.  People wouldn't be able to even think about being revolutionaries. 

Luckily for the powers that be, they don't have to spend hours of labor and generations of patience to force language out of style.  There are other methods of controlling people that render them equally incapable of thinking about a revolution.  

Filling people's days with slavery to a corporate state, to consumerism, and a meaningless media machine that does little more than act as a megaphone for the oppressors.  That is how they have stripped people's abilities to think about true democracy.  To revolt against the slavery.  To rise above the squalor of everyday drivel to engage in the things that truly count.

When they try to flood the world with truncated words and meaningless garbage, fill your mind with your own lexicon.  Don't let them dictate your thoughts.

LANGUAGE IS STRENGTH.

For the powers that be, our ignorance is their bliss.  It is easier to hoodwink American citizens if they have no idea what is going on, and if they don't know how to engage in democracy.  I'm not sure who the "powers that be" are, but I'm pretty certain that we can say that it is a group of politicians, corporate interests, and the media.

 
Consider a statement that Hillary Clinton made earlier on the campaign trail.  She essentially said that citizens should hold her accountable to promises that she is making during her campaign.  If they don't see her doing what she has promised, that they are to hold her accountable.

[The crowd cheers.]

Wait a second.  Does anyone actually know how to hold a president accountable for promises made on the campaign trail?  Does anyone actually know how executive accountability works in this country? For that matter, does anyone actually know how the national budget is created? How a bill is passed? How legislation is vetoed? Overturned?

Not really.

The average American citizen doesn't know much about how the government was created, how it functions, and how to engage in the democratic process.  For most people, this ignorance is cultivated early on.  Consider this: in the county that I live in, high school students only need 1/2 of a credit in American Government.  When I was in high school, I was only required to take one nine-week course in American government. (I was fourteen, and my only memory of that class was writing an essay on "The Missing Piece" by Shel Silverstein.) By my own volition, I took advanced classes in American History, Political Science, and American Government. I'm so glad that I did.

The only way to ensure a democracy as intended by the founding fathers is to make sure that people understand the procedures of the government.  When left to the discretion of the individual voter, most citizens will not learn the rights and responsibilities guaranteed by their citizenship.  The less we engage in our democracy, the less control we will have over the processes that dictate our lives.  We must start educating our children, and ourselves.  Knowledge is power, and we must not grow up in institutionalized ignorance.  To combat the brainwashing media, the lying politicians, and the powerful corporations, we must give ourselves and future generations the tools necessary to truly hold the government accountable.    

"People should not fear their government.  The government should fear its people." - V for Vendetta

I really can't stop listening to Fox News Radio.  Yes, it leaves me feeling a little ill, but I think it's important to figure out how the 'right' is doing such a fabulous job of brainwashing citizens.

People who listen to talk radio are, on average, more politically involved than most citizens.  They like to be informed, and are rather knowledgeable of current events.  Unfortunately, they don't actually report on current events on Fox News.  They typically take a single talking point and repeat it over...and over...and over...and over.  For the past three months, they have been talking about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I'm done listening to that.  Apparently they have been talking about this for a while.

I really recommend watching the documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. In the documentary, they show how a memo is sent out each day to everyone in the Fox world as a topic for the day.  Then, the "journalists" and "reporters" repeat this idea over...and over...and over...and over.  This is not reporting.  This is repetition. What is worse, other media stations, papers, and broadcasts will eventually pick up this "talking point" and do the same thing, to a lesser extent.  A prime example of this was the Jeremiah Wright story.  Eventually, other networks picked this up and it became mainstream news.  In theory, this isn't completely bad.  I believe that it's important that anyone aspiring president should be vetted for the company that he/she keeps.  In the end, we were left with a nice speech on racism in America, and some people have reopened dialogue on this topic. 

Other media networks do this sometimes, too.  They will latch on to a topic until they finally convince people through repetition, rather than persuasion. However, other news outlets don't have the type of clout that the Fox spin machine does.  Here is the list of assets owned by News Corporation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation. The sun never sets on the Fox empire.

This is not journalism.  This is a noise machine.  This is not holding politicians accountable.  This is finding something negative about a candidate or a candidate's affiliations and spinning until you're blue in the face.  If our current president's pastor had made any inflammatory remarks like the Rev. Wright did, Fox would not be repeating it months on end.  If this election cycle wasn't already infused with racial tensions, Fox would not be capitalizing on these events. This is not journalism.