>the Supreme Court has held that corporations have the same right to first
>amendment free speech rights as any person. [...] Combine this with the
>control of the media by few corporations, that also have interests in many
>other sectors, and it is clear that the corporate effort to get both
>government and media off their backs has been a huge
>success. That is why there is little else than the "company line" in the
>mass media.
Where did the Bill Moyers tape come from, Fred? I don't mean this as
criticism, but your comment seems a bit unfair. Perhaps the corporate
forces have managed to tar and feather the mass media as thoroughly as they
have Congress and the federal government.
Caveat: This opinion comes from an erstwhile ink-stained wretch, with 20
years in daily newspapering. Disregard as you deem fit. I'd just like to
point out that reputable newspapers, journals, and magazines have always
covered and routinely continue to cover pork-barrelling, lobbying,
agenda-setting, rogues, rascals, sleazeballs, votes-for-sale (and its
corollary, science-for-sale), and more. How much the public responds to it
is something else.
<snip> It is only when a tremendous pressure
is brought to bear (as with labor strikes during the depression or the early
post war period, the civil rights and anti-war movements of the '60s, or the
more recent environmental movement) that the political folks will respond to
"populist" desires. </snip>
A good deal of that "tremendous pressure" was a result of journalism, which
in turn was a result of committed people out there making news and making
the rest of the world sit up and take notice. As long as people are
relatively fat and happy, fully employed, enjoying the benefits of the
stock market, and don't feel their personal rights are being stomped on
overmuch, the mass media's harping on how corporate interests are taking
over the world goes pretty much unnoticed. Have you read the coverage or
sampled editorial columns on the Microsoft trial? Anybody giving up Windows
for Linux?
>{Infrequently, sanity actually prevails over economic-political corporate
>power. In a recent example from the military-industrial complex, that
>Eisenhower warned us about so many years ago, both industry and the Defense
>Department are astounded that congress is considering cutting off funding for
>an airplane just because it is vastly over budget and doesn't work (what
>could those
>congressfolks be thinking about?).
I could name a bunch of examples where sanity prevailed. Billion-dollar
projects to divert rivers, drain the Great Lakes, blast out dam sites with
leftover nuclear weapons, and much more that never happened because the
scheme couldn't stand the light of press attention and public notice. The
press is still paying attention. The public is too busy reading the comics
and the sports page to notice.
End of rant.
Cass Peterson
cpete@nb.net
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