Written by an American expat living in the European Union who holds a M.B.A. degree in marketing, and as a blogger reports on Fox News. The truth about much of the plutocrat owned for profit American media is that their job is not to inform you, their job is to sell commercial advertising space. A recent study from Dickinson Farleigh University showed that Fox news viewers were less informed than people who watched no news at all. They are all about money and marketing and almost nothing about people. They sociopathically tow the corporate line which is to support the citizenship of big money, for which they are quite happy to bankrupt the nation in order to enrich themselves.
As a progressive I have very limited interest in what the GOP does and how the Fox news media dictatorship works. As a blogger and diarist here I see an issue worth sharing from an American expat's view who is living in the European Union, as the German mainstream magazine Der Spiegel did an interesting recent piece on precisely that issue, where they actually called Fox news a type of GOP media dictatorship.
What this shows is that the American media in this case Fox news and the far right Religious organizations do not just cover political events anymore. It creates and manages them, even for those who aspire to the highest office in the nation, and that in a democracy frankly is worrying. It seems that this is but yet one extension of the larger plutocrat owned media's tentacles taking over the American body politic to the point where it becomes unimaginable for any American that anyone could run for any major political office for any party who doesn't have the requisite qualifications, where the main qualification in fact the only qualification is that they are a millionaire. Doesn't matter how they got their millions, be it through inheritance, being a comedian or even a wrestler, actors are now accepted politicians all over America. The country is ruled by millionaires and now ran by millionaires for millionaires. It has become the very definition of the word oligarchy, which is how the Spiegel in other editions have referred to America. But it wasn't always so. It use to be in the early days even of television, that you didn't have to be a millionaire. In fact the American people elected thousands of politicians all over America, none of whom were millionaires, something which is now unimaginable because media outlets are now starting to pick presidential candidates. If you don't think so read on.....
Spiegel quote: Like a Dictator
For instance, Ailes was partly responsible for a sharp increase in the number of televised debates among the Republican candidates. In these debates, Ailes has unleashed up to four Fox hosts on the candidates for the White House, with the hosts usually sitting down while the candidates are forced to stand, like students at a flag ceremony. The current leader in the polls is usually placed in the middle of the lineup, while those closer to the bottom are placed on the sides of the stage, where the camera rarely pans.
Can the GOP's presidential contenders act independent of Fox News?
If not is that good for America?
Spiegel quote:The presidential contenders can hardly afford to challenge the Murdoch powerhouse. Many of the Republican candidates have worked as commentators for Fox in the past, and if they hope to do the same in the future, they have to play Fox's game. But in doing so, they are also disqualifying themselves for the country's highest office.
Is FOX NEWS really a dictatorship?
Spiegel quote: Serious discussions of the issues are not seen as important, because they could put off viewers. What is more important to Fox is choreographed conflict, as Howard Kurtz, a media columnist for Newsweek and the Daily Beast, observed in a rare behind-the-scenes visit at Fox.
So is this why we have elections in America? So that we can provide Fox News with a private media profit vehicle? One wonders what the Founding Fathers might think of that?
The whole story from Der Spiegel click on link below:
http://www.spiegel.de/...
The television and other electronic media have become so pervasive in brainwashing the American people, that the very idea of electing a poor American from the working class becomes unimaginable. People can't even fathom it. It seems completely impossible, even ridiculous, but then if we look at history we see that Americans elected many thousands of politicians all across America before television. So we know it is possible to just ignore their ads and vote for whoever the hell we want to, because we know their million dollar ad buys will come to nothing if we don't watch them. Indeed the only purpose of their political ads is to lie to us and to mislead us, if you will to con us to vote against our own interests. To hear people make campaign promises that they have no intention of ever keeping, because they're not running the country for us. They are running the country for their fellow millionaires. It's government by millionaires, ran for millionaires and the working class have become its professional victims. Doesn't have to be that way. All you have to do is just not watch their ads and political power transfers back to the American people, as if it were one of the seventh wonders of the world. All it requires is that we just en masse stop playing their crooked game by just tuning out and looking away. I ask is it that simple, well simply put yes, but then the truth is always simple it is lies that have to be complex.
Paul Harris
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 November 2010
US Congress aka the millionaires' club
No wonder the DC political class has a bad name – it's filthy rich. Here's a revolutionary idea: why not elect some poor people?
As I wrote in another diary! This reminds me of 2 years ago when The Guardian British Newspaper made what it called a revolutionary suggestion, which was electing poor people to Congress. I took that to mean anyone who was not a millionaire. Of course Americans would think that was impossible, kind of like having an officer's corp in the military staffed by working class people, who want their leaders to be from the upper class, officers and gentlemen and ladies, who are touched by grace. That is who they want to have lead them.
They are from the upper class because they are millionaires and they became millionaires either by inheritance based on an estate which gots its money by exploitation, or they earn their money by exploiting their workforce, and now they're in Congress, they are going to make money for themselves and their big financial backers who helped get them elected by exploiting the taxpayer in endless corporate welfare subsidies and bailouts. So if we are ever going to effectuate any meaningful change at all, just stop allowing the media to pick your millionaire political candidates. As a matter of fact if everyone ever stopped voting for millionaires, the impossible would happen, no millionaires would ever be elected again.
Then Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ales would have to go and get real jobs! (smile)
What would the Fox News Dictatorship be like in America if Murdoch had a American BBC type channel to compete with?
News Corp. opposes U.K. media rules shift: Murdoch-led org focuses on BBC strength News Corp. has opposed calls for the U.K. government to set new limits on media ownership, and is convinced that a greater range of voices across broadcasting, print and online have emerged in recent years.
In its submission to communication's regulator Ofcom's review of media plurality, Rupert Murdoch's org said it would be wrong to "set absolute limits on news market share."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Remember Fox news and the Religious far right think they are a Marriage made in heaven.
But neither one of them will ever talk about homeless American families or hunger in America issues or the fact that America is the only major industrialized country in the world that doesn't have universal medical access to all of its citizens and the only major industrialized nation in the world that doesn't offer paid sick leave, paid maternity leave and paid annual leave to all of its workers (even the low wage workers) by right of law.
To win in America all we have to do is to care about each other & stick together!
If we are looking for change we must look to the Occupy movement to provide that
peaceful nonviolent approach to change in helping to elect better progressive politicians to public office. The Occupy movement and the American unions are the last great hope of the American working class dream!!
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