The Voice of the People
... or at least my own
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... or at least my own | | ||||
February 14 , 2004
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Today I got into a conversation with a friend who is a John Kerry supporter. Or at least to the extent that he chose to wear a John Kerry button on his hat. The stampede to John Kerry is impressive. Everyone in the primaries seems to rush towards him even though February is very early. The media gives much credit to the battle and Kerry is pictured as the great somber leader . Bill O'Reilly recently apologized for being wrong about weapons of mass destruction. The major networks recently apologized for the overhyperactive promotion of the Dean "scream." The same media who led the stampede are the same media who lend a helping hand for the mea culpa. These media conglomerates consist of 12 companies that own / control 90% of all that Americans see, hear, and read. These companies are as follows. These companies themselves have interlocking directorates with numerous other companies, and even with each other (see theyrule.com and fair.org for more info and statistics). That is to say, the same men who sit on the media company boards are also sitting on other media company boards and oil company boards and large multinational corporate firms and financial firms who also own all of the above companies. Thus the companies that distribute the interpretation of daily events have an inherent autocratic filter. Currently the FCC is suggesting that one company cannot own more than 40% of any media market. Supposing the existence of 2 companies own a combined 80% from 70% of the nation, what would this decision portend for the nation and the various different local communities? Citizens need to be educated and have true evocation of the freedom of speech. Why do we assume that ownership by large multinational companies will not inhibit our democracy when they have to apologize before the nation each time they do? The state of the current corporate environment is one in which big fish buyout competitors and run small business into bankruptcy. Unfortunately how this becomes depicted to the American people has become increasingly through the inherent filtration of the corporate interlocking oligarchy. |