OT: Driving a car -> Voting Machines

[Jim Herrmann]

Here is a media watchdog group that monitors fairness & accuracy in 
reporting (FAIR) http://www.fair.org/  They are trying to keep up with 
all the lies of the right-wing nuts that dominate the major media 
outlets.  They expose left wing lies when they encounter them also, it's 
just much less frequent in the media today.  Maybe thirty years ago the 
media was liberal.  Then the people with all the money figured out that 
they need to control the airwaves to control people opinions.  Keep them 
in line so that they can continue to screw the little people.  Viet Nam, 
and yes, Walter Kronkite, taught them that.  When Walter went to the 
front and saw what was really going on in Viet Nam, he reported it, then 
actually spoke out against it, and that's when Johnson knew he'd lost 
the American people.  The conservatives have learned this lesson well.

Microsoft knows this lesson as well.  Controlling the message, through 
advertising, media ownership, and other means,  is the way to control 
mind share.  MS uses their media power to spread their brand of FUD, and 
people believe that crap.  Just like the crap that Limbaugh, O'Reily, 
and Hannity are always spreading.  Fox, fair and balanced, my ass.  
Believe that shit if you want, but perhaps someday you can see through 
the smokescreen.  Just because Rush Limbaugh "accuses" the media of 
being liberal doesn't make it so.  If it's the truth, it's labeled 
liberal, which has been turned into a dirty word.  A liberal is someone 
who cares about workers, the environment, free speech (real free speech, 
not the "free speech zones" that are used at Bush rallies), civil 
liberties, and equality over the interests of large corporations and 
their lackies who only care about greed and the bottom line.  More, 
more, more, is the mantra of the corporate pigs, and anyone who thinks 
that they've had enough is labeled unpatriotic.  Hogwash.  The Bush 
white house is the corporation, and all they care about is more for them 
and their other rich buddies.  The war in Iraq was not about WMD, or 
liberation or any of the lies they have been spouting.  It's about more 
money for Bechtel, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group.  It's about 
making the absolutely filthy rich, more rich.  They disgust me.  They 
anger me.  They frustrate me.  And average people, whom I consider to be 
otherwise intelligent people, who go along with this sham make me even 
more exasperated!  WAKE UP PEOPLE!

</rant>

Peace,
Jim
Brian Kelsay wrote:

> Leo J Mauler wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 22:04:19 -0600 Brian Kelsay <bkelsay at comcast.net>
>> writes:
>>  
>>
>>> That stuff about controlling the media swings both ways.  I've heard 
>>> more accusations of the left controlling the media than the right.     
>>
>>
>> Yes, *accusations*.  And when you include ALL the news media in the
>> U.S.A., there is a liberal bias. 
>> But if you take out all the independent, tiny circulation papers and all
>> the independent TV and radio stations, and look only at the newspapers,
>> TV stations and radio stations which reach the most people (examples
>> include USA Today, chain radio stations, nationwide broadcast networks)
>> you see that the news media which reach the most people are in fact
>> controlled by conservatives, not liberals.
>>
>> There are more liberals with newspapers than conservatives, but the
>> conservatives with newspapers distribute their papers over a wider
>> audience than the liberals can with their independent weeklies.  Same
>> goes for television, radio, and even to some extent the Internet.
>>
> I would just like to see some accurate reporting of the FACTS.  I 
> don't need a slant on the news, I can make up my own mind.  I yearn 
> for the days of Walter Cronkite.   This is what happened today and 
> that's it.   You look at the daily stories on the TV News about the 
> one or two guys that got hurt or killed in Iraq and NO good news, like 
> how many Iraqis showed up to praise the American military or how many 
> people can finally get clean water, etc. and that sort of slant starts 
> to look like a conspiracy.   It's the old NIH (not invented here) 
> thing.  Since it wasn't the Democrats idea to go to war, they want to 
> slam it at every turn, doesn't matter if it was the right thing to do  
> and way overdue.
>