|
Simplicity 3.9 cents/min. Dial 1+ Long Distance - supporting
NewsOnDemand.org |
|
*Special Features & Resources* |
|
* According to
Richard Gayle: "...The purpose of the [U.S. commercial] press is not to get the facts straight or provide useful answers to difficult questions. It is to sell advertising. Its clients are not the readers but the companies that buy ads. Those companies only care about how many people read the ads. So, anything that gets more readers will be selected for and anything that might turn readers off, like facts, gets selected against. Sturgeon's Law would say that 95% of the press corp is awful. Luckily, there are so many of them that the remaining 5% does some very good work. It is just hard to find them. The Internet makes it easier but not quite to the point where they can get enough traction against the malinformed [sic]. Maybe someday." Solidly backing up Mr. Gayle's statement, here's a quote taken directly from a major media player. Lowry Mays, founder and chairman of the board at Clear Channel Communications, the #1 radio station owner in the U.S., told Fortune magazine in 2003, "We're not in the business of providing news and information. We're not in the business of providing well-researched music. We're simply in the business of selling our customers products." (more info from CorpWatch) Furthermore, providing accurate and timely news
and information to the listeners and viewers can and does result in a conflict
of interest for the media outlets. Alexander Lynch, writing for
AlterNet.org, asks, "How can the corporate media be expected to critically cover
the issues its parent companies have a financial stake in?" Please
click here
to read Alexander's excellent analysis of this topic in an article entitled "The
Media Lobby". |
|
* According to
D.H.S. Secretary Tom Ridge: "It is not the role of the press to be
cheerleaders of government. Your role is to provide the public with solid,
honest, objective information to help guide their lives. To inform them and
educate them... |
|
* According to
Bill
Moyers, while reminiscing on his career, which included a stint as White
House Press Secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson: "Few days pass
now that I do not remind myself that the greatest moments in the history of the
press came not when journalists made common cause with the state, but when they
stood fearlessly independent of it." |
|
* According to www.NewsOnDemand.org: Today's mainstream press is exquisitely designed to do one thing especially well, to cater to the interests of the top 20% of American households that control 83 percent of the nation's wealth, whether that be in our government's best interest or not. In some ways, this follows the dichotomy between the ideal and the reality as illustrated by the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which states "We the people of the United States...", but which in today's practice says in effect "We the powerful...” Does it not seem the time to wield our own power as Citizens of these Great United States, to gather all of the information we need to make our own decisions on our own behalf, and to stand up for ourselves? The mainstream press has made that task all the more difficult. The mainstream press seems to be deeply embedded with (i.e. "in bed with") the U.S. Government and its military, as a political megaphone, as it were. It shouldn't have to be pointed out that when a reporter's life is entirely dependent upon the soldiers that immediately surround and protect him or her, only the military's point of view is going to get story, and all other perspectives will by necessity have to be squashed. Have you ever wondered why the military establishment is so happy with this arrangement? Reporters outside of this narrow sphere of protective influence are at a most definite risk of their lives, as demonstrated by the loss of life by non-U.S. reporters (link) that some witnessed recently in Iraq. During the campaign, reporters who covered any other side of the story (and there were many other sides to be told) were a rarity, indeed. For a more detailed explanation, please click here to read more about this complete failure of U.S. journalism. Furthermore, it seems that the mainstream press, instead of acting like the "Fourth Branch" of the government that some consider its mandate, it is acting more like the voice of the government. Is the press really fulfilling its obligations as implied by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? As the so-called military-industrial complex consolidated itself over the last half-decade, so has the mainstream media become a larger and more important part of this "team". (Please click here for more detailed information.) More and more people are sensing this, and that's one reason why more and more people are searching the Internet for the real story. That's where www.NewsOnDemand.org comes in. Almost all media outlets have a particular point of view to get across, and those outside the mainstream media are certainly no exception to this rule. The most difficult task of the consumer of news and information is to filter through the editorial perspectives and the hype to find out what's really happening. The more sources we have at our command, the easier we can separate the facts from the fiction. Corroboration and verification of the facts are essential tools of the critical thinking process. That's where www.NewsOnDemand.org comes in. According to the United States Declaration of Independence, "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,..." Implicit in this statement is the concept that we now know as informed consent, which has as a corollary the idea that if not all the pertinent and relevant information is available, then the people cannot legitimately provide their consent to those in power to govern. If the primary source of information is provided or otherwise manufactured by the government itself or on behalf of the government (such as through press releases, 'leaked' communiqués, or through promotions paid for by the government or its agents), whether through corporate-owned media outlets or otherwise, then the government can only consider itself legitimate by circular (and therefore invalid) reasoning. (Please see Manufacturing Consent (Propaganda Model) and Video News Releases.) (Please click these links to find out how to distinguish between the techniques of legitimate advertising and propaganda.) Therefore, the more you exercise your right to think for yourself, the less likely you'll be sheered and slaughtered like sheep on Election Day. By voting in the greatest possible numbers, with the best information available to back up the decisions, the electorate can be more readily assured that the government is run by the true representatives of the citizens rather than having the their interests severely misrepresented by the rich and powerful special interest groups. No one would ever intentionally cast a vote to establish a law that says that they have to be poor, powerless, or disenfranchised, or that they would have no effective say in the ways that their own government operates. By not voting, however, those who are eligible to do so accomplish the same results, just by letting those in power make the decisions for them. Even as important is elections are, don't wait for election time to get involved - do it now! If you don't like the candidates that the political parties offer, work to present your own. If you don't like the law, work to get it changed. Don't be timid - it's your life, your family, and your conscience about which we're talking. Prepare yourself to vote with your actions, not just with your pocketbooks, and not just at the poles. Voice your opinions, backing them up with the facts. Make yourself a mouthpiece for your own thoughts, not those of the privileged few! Bill Moyers said in a speech on June 3, 2004, "Politics is suffocating from the stranglehold of money." [transcript] [video] If you prefer your government to operate primarily as an extension of the wealthy plutocrats and the powerful oligarchs, then do nothing. Otherwise, if the 80% of the nation's people who control only 17% of the nation's wealth control at the same time 80% of the nation's votes, then that would seem to be enough power to make a real difference! Visit these web sites to find out more about how YOU can exercise this power: Directory of Political Parties in the United States
http://www.inequality.org Don't just vote, put your political conscience to work! The United States government is of a type known as a Federal Republic, which is a form of Democracy. However, does it not in practical application show signs of being a Corporatocracy, an Oligarchy, a Plutocracy, and a Theocracy all wrapped up into one? Is this government one in which a minority (the wealthy, the connected, and the powerful) exercises most of the power - as in Minoritarianism? On the other side of the coin, if the U.S. political system is made to evolve into a more egalitarian form, wouldn't certain citizens of the United States suffer from what has been called a ”Tyranny of the Majority", or excessive Majoritarianism? At which point can we best balance the needs of the many against the rights of the few? That’s for each of us to decide individually. All are encouraged to do their own research, make their own decisions, and then make them known at least at the voting booth. If you don't vote, you simply give others the power to make your choices for you! The increasing gap between the wealthy and the poor in this nation may be analogous to a riptide current. The only practical way to escape from the current is not to swim against it, but to swim across the current - out of it's grip - and then to swim ashore to safety. Similarly, there is a way to reverse the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country, and between those in the know and those who've been for all practical purposes forced to "toe the line." In order to accomplish this, we must step aside from what the mainstream media is telling us, do our own research and then act and vote accordingly. Finally, I invite you to look in between the obvious commercial advertisements that Richard Gayle describes in the above quote. Here, in what's often presented as ordinary news, information, and entertainment, you might just find the mainstream media's political machines working quite diligently to make you think that you're thinking for yourself, when in fact your very thoughts are being cleverly manipulated to fit someone else's agenda instead. This is where the consumer of news and information really needs to pay very close attention, because it isn't obvious at all that what's going on is purely covert propaganda, aimed squarely at you and me in our own homes, not just at those who live in other countries! I invite you to explore this issue with both George Lakoff (Google search) and Frank Luntz (Google search), to see how America's political agenda has been framed and presented to a mostly unwitting public over the years. From these links, you'll see that the fine art of political persuasion has developed extremely well in the United States. I offer to you these words of caution: the use of this method of domestic political propaganda may just shock your socks off! Acting upon independently gathered and verified information, developing knowledge and generating insight in a manner that improves the human condition clearly demonstrates wisdom, which is our ultimate goal at www.NewsOnDemand.org, where we offer a toast to your newly found wisdom! I hope that Richard Gayle's "someday" will come sooner than later. Until we can actually get our mainstream mega-sized corporate-owned controllers of the press to believe in and to act upon what Sec'y Ridge says above, there's www.NewsOnDemand.org. Be your own best advocate! Yours Truly, Rich Sayer |
*****
This web site was created because most often there are more
than just two sides to every story.
*****
This Web page is updated often.
Feel free to visit often for the latest about what's new in the world around us.