Here's the quick cure for Bill O'Reilly: Put him in a room with 100 ordinary Americans, sitting just like all of them in a circular auditorium, no special platform, no desk, just in the room like anyone. And let him try his tv spiel there.
Within minutes, most everyone would pick up that this guy is off-kilter. Some would point out the lies, and he'd look like a bullying, blustering, hysterical con man to almost everyone. He'd be thought closer to schizophrenia than to helpful. Either pitied or scorned. People would laugh, hoot, and shout him down before long.
Well, Fox isn't going to let "BS Bill" be surrounded with ordinary people trying to have a serious discussion. Same with the whole rancid gang of them, Kristol, Snow, Broder, Limbaugh, Brooks, Yoo, ... Nor will any other corporate media outlet. Radicals like these could not survive as public figures without a completely artificial and falsified setting. Their whole scam depends on no authentic contact with the general public.
Come to think of it, how often do we see 100 ordinary Americans just sitting around and discussing real things? All the Economic shows have Wall Street types, exclusively, on them. You never see Union people, you never see the pushcarters, you never see office workers.
Come to think of it, ... (more)
how often do we see or hear just 1 ordinary American discussing anything in the mass media. Yes, there are those 60-second chances to blurt something into the phone people sometimes get. But when do they ever get to follow-up, to discuss?
Curious, no? Seems ordinary people are almost completely absent from, well, everything except American Idol.
Sherlock Holmes was asked by Dr Watson what clue solved the latest mystery for him.
"The barking dog, Watson."
"But the dog didn't bark!"
"Precisely," said Holmes.
Seems odd and ominous to me, that here in this Democracy that's so fabulous everyone must have it, the American people's bark is seldom heard in our mass media.
So, now on to some surmises about this mystery: How can it be that, on the one hand ordinary Americans are basically absent from all mass-media political presentations, while unhinged wantwits and bald-faced liars are on for hours every day, everywhere?
Surmise 1
The function of the media in American life
Mainly, to keep the people from having any meaningful role in the way we are governed.
How many stations have been on the air, for how many hours every day, for how many days, day after day for decades? Airtime ratio for all of that must be roughly Ordinary People: Zero, Corporate Interests: Near Everything. Do you disagree?
In Corporations, the story goes, Executives make decisions. Things are not left to chance. A statistic of such magnitude can hardly be a coincidence. Surmise 1 is probably correct.
Surmise 2
Media has first, final, and remaining say in America's political issues, candidates, and agendas
If ordinary people are fundamentally banished from having airtime, and pundits (and it is media who gives out this status) are insulated from contact and challenge by ordinary people, then it is probable that even the electoral game is, at the least, tiltable.
Tiltability Support A
Media is the ticket-seller at the door to Public Office. You can't get elected without that Media Exposure. But you need the ticket to get it. To get the price of that, you need mega-millions, and it's mainly Corporationists with that much spare cash. So the media not only sells the ticket, it forces candidates into indebtedness to USAco.
The ticket, unsurprisingly, excludes ordinary people from making a viable run for office. The indebtedness puts the ordinary American behind the benefactor in the line for the Official's ear. Two more points for the Corps. Zip for us.
Tiltability Support B
If you've been lucky enough to afford the price of admission to campaign ads for yourself, you then have the media-appointed pundits who decide whether or not you are viable, a kook, a phony, a hypocrit, or noble, Presidential, positive, or a POS. The American public later gets to call-in soundbytes of their opinion: "So-and-so is kooky" "a hypocrit" "noble".
Moreover, in the process there are what are called "debates" where pundits ask stupid questions, insulting ones to Democrats, non-combative ones to Republicans. Sometimes the public's call-in questions are screened, so that the pundits spin can be heard out of the mouths of ordinary Americans. There are no substantive matters addressed deeply. There are plenty of slogans.
Tiltability Support C
Again, there are no ordinary people with prolonged airtime in discussion about the issues of the day. Again, media decides that Gary Condit's lover's disappearance is worth enough media coverage to force him out of his seat on the Intelligence Cmmte and out of politics, while Scarboroughs lover's death at the same time, by a violent occurrence, in his own office yields him--pundithood and his own show. And who can forget the "Dean Scream"?
Surmise 2, that Media determines our political life, is probably correct.
Surmise 3
Ordinary Americans, and Progressives in particular, have failed to force the opening of Mass Media to ordinary Americans
I first saw MediaWhoresOnline about six years ago. They had stories about BS Bill, Tim Russert, Tom Friedman, Tweety (so-named by The Horse), Anne Coulter, etc etc.
Astonishingly, in this six years since MWO, which translates into 1,200-1,500 shows, 200-300 columns, or more, for a lot of these people--all that we have managed is to suffer the twisted joy of being outraged at liars and fools. They, and media as a whole, has not changed one iota. But there is something exhilarating about righteous anger. I suspect most of us don't really want to give that up. Being content with that, there's been no focus on the central political fact of our day:
The Corporate Mass Media has a virtual monopoly on what the American people hear and see.
That this is still true all these years into knowing that media is an active opponent of truth and the American people is, I dare say, ironclad proof of Surmise #3.
Conclusion
Unless and until ordinary Americans are allowed to appear in contrast to BS Bill O'Reilly and ilk, where demagogues and crackpots can be instantly exposed, and normal people can carry on normal discussions, we're screwed.
As it stands today, when the Democratic candidate is selected, does anyone seriously doubt that s/he will be systematically discredited by the set up we have now. Where's our plan? Write another angry letter to some corporation somewhere? Boycott? How do you boycott Lockheed, or any of their giant sponors?
Where's our plan, People? The crime is currently being committed. We have a certainty that the pattern will continue as long as the media arrangements are as they are now.
PS: No, the internet is not the plan. It's a separate factor, and can be used to leverage a plan. 500,000 people volunteer everyday to come to DailyKos. They don't necessarily ever see each other's faces, or even know each other's real name. Everybody in my building, everyone in my neighborhood, everyone I pass on my travels, can be reached by mass-media in the next ten minutes with whatever they want us to know. The internet is a completely different being than mass-media.
It's mass media that most affects mass voting. We've given it over to the clowns, and we even let the brushfires they set distract us from the realities of power practically every day. We need to brainstorm seizing the media for ordinary Americans.
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I've got to go out now, and might not be able to check in before this diary scrolls away. I hope to see lots of new ideas sprouted and discussed about striking the media at it's root. Let the creativity abound. Let's take back the media.