Who cares if he was a socialist? What he said is 100% spot on! Whether he was a socialist, or a fascist, or a staunch capitalist, it doesn't change the facts. If he said that snow is cold, would that statement have less credibility because a socialist said it? Once again you use your typical straw man diversion tactics to skirt around an issue.
The media monopoly thing is kind of old news. If you don't think owners influence things even though they don't specifically have meetings and specifically tell news people what to say, you are probably being influenced too. I remember reading an older edition of this book long ago: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media/MediaMonopoly_Bagdikian.html I think one of the things now that is making it even worse, is that even these conglomerate media producers (which are influenced by conflict of interest) are also cutting their journalist staff and funding them less and less. There are even fewer reporters out there working for these conglomerates. When you look at diverse news now, it seems so obvious that they are all saying similar things just by the terminology they use to describe things. And now, a lot of that terminology is being created by politicians. Journalism really should be the fourth branch of government, investigating and policing the others.
Yes, he said something you agree with. So he was 'spot on' in that sense. But in the sense of proving global control of the media by a conspiracy of pedophile owl worshipping space goblins, it ain't shit.
Its actually quite a simple point. You are resorting to one of your "some guy said so" arguments which apparently can prove anything, not matter how ridiculous. And we are not allowed to question it, because you don't.
The thing is that wealth has far more disposable wealth to play with. As pointed out in the original piece (if you’d bothered to read it) wealthy individuals and corporations had and have the resources to push a viewpoint. They used that influence to attack left wing ideas (from the red scare of the 1920 to today) and in the promotion of ideas that favoured themselves such as the social Darwinist claptrap of the likes of Herbert Spenser and more recently flawed neo-liberal economic ideas. Socialists do try and promote the interests of the less wealthy, but socialism (along with most left-wing ideas) have been harassed and suppressed in the US to a large extend by campaigns organised and conducted by wealth. As I quoted - "By 1963, corporations were spending an estimated $25 million per year on anticommunist literature... Some corporations circulated print and audio-visual materials produced by the John Birch Society; other corporations produced their own in-house literature...By the early 1960s, the Nation magazine reported that there was a minimum of 6,600 corporate-financed anticommunist broadcasts, carried by more than 1,300 radio and television stations at a total annual budget of about $20 million...Leading sponsors included Texas oil billionaire H.L. Hunt and Howard J. Pew of Sun Oil. The corporate sector's massive anticommunist propaganda campaigns created a favorable climate for the mobilization of activist groups like the John Birch Society." Sara Diamond, Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, http://www.amazon.com/Roads-Dominion...6203697&sr=8-1
Except that not all wealthy people have identical politics, and collectively, groups like unions and political parties can wield significant financial and political power. As does the left, and they do push it. The Red Scare was no joke and it wasn't just attacking ideas. Totalitarian communism was on the march and western societies were genuinely under threat. You keep repeating this. Are you under the impression there are no flawed left wing economic theories? They claim to. I think socialism has probably done more harm to the poor than anything else in history. It is a very powerful myth that "the left want to help the poor" and "the right just wants to help the rich", but its mostly a reflection of the arrogant, paternalist attitude of the old left. I don't find people lobbying against communism to be an especially sad story, in fact it seems to be a perfectly good thing to me. It was certainly in the interest of the 'working classes' not to suffer what socialism did to eastern europe. The message here seems to be, based on your comments now and in the past, that 'the left', has been historically hindered by right wing oppression and is thus is not on a level playing field. The way to correct this is for government to intervene and encourage the public to properly appreciate left wing and socialist policies and the good they can bring, by ensuring the media is correctly balanced, that school systems educate people to properly understand these issues, and perhaps altering the electoral system to help left wing parties get elected. Alternatively, we can restrict the freedom of people and organisations to lobby for and promote certain designated 'right wing' views. Is that right?
Interesting conversation, but let's relate it back to the original Topic and explain how this involves the media myth.
The thing is that wealth has far more disposable wealth to play with. Can you name any mass media outlets owned by unions or political parties in the US or Europe? I’m sure there is some but nothing springs instantly to mind. There are a few left leaning newspapers out there but not a great many. The Guardian in the UK or Liberation in France, are two that I know of. Of the UK papers the largest circulation ones are mainly wealth owned. Sun – right – owned by the wealthy Rupert Murdoch Daily Mail – right – owned by the wealthy Lord Rothermere Express – right – owned by the wealthy Richard Desmond Times – right - owned by the wealthy Rupert Murdoch Daily Telegraph – right - owned by the wealthy Barclay brothers Financial Times – right - owned by the Pearson Corporation Metro - owned by the wealthy Lord Rothermere Daily Mirror – New labour (centre left) - Trinity Mirror Guardian – left – owned by the Scott Trust Independent – liberal – owned by the wealthy Sir Anthony O'Reilly How does it breakdown in the US? * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus They used that influence to attack left wing ideas (from the red scare of the 1920 to today) Do you honestly believe that communist would have succeeded in taking over the US in the 1920 or any other time? And most of the people harassed and suppressed in the Red scares were just left wingers not ‘totalitarian communist’ who were painted as such so they could more easily be attacked, in a mass media con trick. * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus and in the promotion of ideas that favoured themselves such as the social Darwinist claptrap of the likes of Herbert Spenser and more recently flawed neo-liberal economic ideas. No of course there are lots of flawed economic theories, however I do thing an economic theory should be able to work in boom and bust (or get rid of it) the neo-liberal idea didn’t have any rational mechanism for dealing with a crash (which was inevitable under its system) and when it happened had to dump the whole of its theories in favour of a bastard form of bail out Keynesianism. * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus Socialists do try and promote the interests of the less wealthy Great begin a thread and we’ll discuss it. * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus "By 1963, corporations were spending an estimated $25 million per year on anticommunist literature... But it wasn’t about ‘communism’ it was about attacking all left wing ideas as communist. But please start a thread on it. * The pieces I’ve linked to are about the US not the world. * OH Hipstatic you and you’re love of spin. You’ve loaded the dice here and you sly old fox, you know it. Let’s begin this as another thread shall we and let people have this thread back.
Then there is the example of Silvio Berlusconi an extremely wealthy individual who owns most of Italy’s mass media and who has used that position to control the government.
Easy to ignore the fact though Silvio was voted out of office and a left wing government took over, but it was so incompetent and full of scandal that it collapsed and Silvio got voted back in And again what's wrong with wealth. Of course the largest newspapers are going to be wealth owned, it's a business adventure to make money and those newspapers are large to begin with because they make money. You act like wealth by itself is it's own political philosophy ignoring the fact that generally like most of the population the wealthy vote is evenely split between left and right parties
The Socialist Worker is published by the Socialist Worker Party and the Daily Star must be owned by some sort of cooperative. These are both left wing newspapers which are widely available across the UK. Doesn't that contradict your point? Do I think the BNP is going to take over the UK? No, but I want them harassed and confronted wherever they go, within the bounds of the law. Don't you? Again, like most old school socialists, you laugh off the idea of soviet spies, because of course you were brought up to think it was all a big joke. But they existed and they didn't mean well. I'm glad the threat was taken seriously. Funny you never mention the other ones then. No, communism was real. You just want to pretend it was all a big misunderstanding and the left was never infected with totalitarian ideology or sympathy with democracy's enemies. But it was. That doesn't answer anything.
Hipstatic Can you name any mass media outlets owned by unions or political parties in the US or Europe? LOL You believe ‘The Socialist Worker’ is a MASS MEDIA newspaper (Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience , wiki). It doesn’t give out circulation figures but they are believed to be around 8000 a day. Compared with the right wing Sun (owned by Murdoch) that sells over 3,000,000 daily and the lowest mass circulation newspaper in the UK sells around 200,000 a day. As to the Daily Star, I wouldn’t even call it a newspaper it’s a only one up from a porno mag and its owned by the wealthy pornographer Richard Desmond, who also owns the Daily Express so if it does have any editorial content its right wing. Do you mean the Moring Star – a communist paper run by the co-operative the People's Press Printing Society? If so then again I’d only laugh at you thinking them as part of the mass media, I think they only sell around 10,000 a day. * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus Guardian – left – owned by the Scott Trust Independent – liberal – owned by the wealthy Sir Anthony O'Reilly Contradict the point that of the 10 mass circulation newspapers in the UK, seven are owned by wealthy individuals, two by corporations, with one (the Guardian) been owned by a trust. Contradict the point that 7 of the papers are right wing editorially, one supports the New Labour project (which people on the left call new Tory), one is considered more liberal than left and only one considered universally as being left wing. In what way is my viewpoint that the mass media in the UK is mostly under the control of wealth, contradicted? * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus Do you honestly believe that communist would have succeeded in taking over the US in the 1920 or any other time? Depends what you mean by harassed and confronted? The US also used a law to suppress left wingers ideas - a sedition law (1918) prohibiting – “any disloyalty…scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the government of the United States” The authorities egged on by the wealth owned mass media of the time rounded up ‘seditious’ individuals and locked them up or deported them. People like Eugene Debs, who was arrested and convicted to ten years in prison for promoting left wing ideas (not communist) like opposing WWI. Incidentally he stood for President from his prison cell in 1920 receiving 913,664 votes. Is that what you’d do to BNP members round them up for ‘sedition’? I wouldn’t. * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus And most of the people harassed and suppressed in the Red scares were just left wingers not ‘totalitarian communist’ who were painted as such so they could more easily be attacked, in a mass media con trick. So your contention is that EVERY left winger in the US until the fall of the Soviet Union was in fact a Soviet spy? So it was a good thing that all left wing views and those that supported them were suppressed? Isn’t this a bit OTT even for you? Oh I know you’ll scream that you didn’t say that – so just what did you mean by it? * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus No of course there are lots of flawed economic theories Your point being? * Quote: Originally Posted by Balbus But it wasn’t about ‘communism’ it was about attacking all left wing ideas as communist. But please start a thread on it. Calm down Hipstatic, I can almost hear your mouth foaming from here. All political groups contain the ideological and the dogmatic, but you talk as if all left wingers are totalitarian communists. It seems to me you views are infected and been influenced by your own brand of ideology and dogma. Now do you want to talk about it somewhere else because this doesn’t seem to have much to do with the media? *
The main media myths out there today are...that there is such a thing as objective journalism and that newspaper even matter in today's world.
Here is a youtube video about some reporters who were fired for trying to report something on Monsanto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1pKlnhvg0
Here is the brealdown in New York The NY Times: Voting stock is held by the Sultzberger family, they also own The Boston Globe, NY paper of record: Liberal, Democratic organ. The NY Daily News: Principal: Mort Zuckerman RE Developer Liberal Mr. Zuckerman has had Fidel Castro to dinner at his home. Wall Street Journal; recently purchased from Dow Jones inc. by Ruperet Murdoch Conservative NY Post, pure fleet street Owned by Murdoch: Conservative. NY: The Village Voice. independent news weekly Liberal NY The Amsterdam News: Published by Louis Farakhan, Nation of Islam. Independent weekly paper. diverse NY Sun closed out of business: Conservative. Long Island Newsday: Liberal New York City features newspapers from Britian, Ireland, Spain, Italy Spanish media is a growing element. I read The Catholic Worker. Left wing, small circulation NY paper
The McCarthy trials of the fifties were the witch hunts of their day. They were power grabs spurred on by irrational fears. Much like old Boston real estate changed hands during the witch hunts, during the red scare much power and money was shifted to those that played the game and named names. The intelligence gained was as good as that gained at gitmo through torture.
