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Friday, September 12, 2008

Corporate Media Are Doing Their Job. That's the Problem.

My partner Eric posted a good anti-corporatist jeremiad over on dKos. I'm posting an excerpt rather than the whole thing here, but it's filled with good points, some of which seem to me to be quite important and absurdly neglected ones. Diaries get buried quick there, but you can still read the whole thing. The discussion in Comments is pretty good, but too scanty so far. Jump right in.
Often I hear Democrats, liberals and others complain about how the GOP is 'playing' the so-called mainstream media.... The big problem with all this is that the media is actually doing their job all too well.

[C]orporate interests… are the force behind blood for oil. Not just the oil companies. War is good business for many other industries. You think GE just makes light bulbs and toasters?

They are the force behind income disparity, the shrinking middle class and wage stagnation. None of this was an accident or the result of poor planning, they wanted your wages held down. Meanwhile, they demand ever more compensation and freedom from oversight, no matter what they do or how badly they perform. They like to say they get the big bucks because they take the big risks but when the big risks turn out bad, who pays? Not them...they get bailed out, by you.

They are the force exploiting and manipulating the fears of right-wing 'social conservatives'. They don't really give a crap about abortion or gay marriage or immigration. They are rich enough to buy abortions, legal or not. They are rich enough to protect and insulate themselves from anti-gay sentiment if they happen to be gay. They are rich enough to get cheap, near-slave labor here or abroad no matter what the laws might technically say about it. However, by exploiting those issues, they whip up a fervent base of voters for their real agenda. Heck, they don't even have to deliver anything real to their pawns to keep them in line as we've all seen recently.

They have shifted the allowable public debate so far that what is considered 'liberal' in the mainstream media is what we used to call centrist.

They have made their most effective foe in their fight to downsize us all into their wage-slaves, the labor unions, into something even liberals are sometimes afraid to be seen supporting (and yes I know unions have their own problems but let's not let the perfect become the enemy of the good here).

They have made the voices that have warned about and been correct about corporate misdeeds and predations into pariahs that are mocked and ignored even on some liberal blogs at times, this one included, let alone the mainstream media.
So, please, the next time you get mad at CNN for seeming to cave to some Republican talking point or demand, remember: they aren't caving at all, they are doing exactly what their corporate owners want to do. They thrive on this illusion that they are being browbeaten, getting us to waste our energy trying to make one tentacle of the beast fight another.

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