From the always brilliant Digby, a succinct summation of our modern media:

Indeed, the whole phony construct of the Village is based upon the idea that these people inhabit a small middle class town in 1950s Real America, which is under seige from rapid social changes that threatens their traditional values. What they are, however, is a decadent ruling elite who inhabit the most powerful capital on earth who are under seige from social progress which is allowing members of unrepresented groups to have a seat at the table.

Also from Digby today is a devastating piece about how Alan Greenspan and his acolytes have fucked us over good and hard:

Brooksley Born And The Financial-Political Complex

Greenspan had an unusual take on market fraud, Born recounted: “He explained there wasn’t a need for a law against fraud because if a floor broker was committing fraud, the customer would figure it out and stop doing business with him.”

It just gets worse from there, with bankers screaming bloody armageddon just because someone wanted to look into regulating derivatives.

You know one way to control media messaging and what can be permissible debate (ie, taking some ideas off the table without ever exploring them)? Keep the media from covering what you don’t want people to debate. It’s the same as having a whole segment of society sticking their heads in the sand.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that Thomas Friedman knows what he’s talking about based on “Hot, Flat and Crowded”. A broken clock is right twice a day, but that doesn’t mean it can actually tell time… or reason it’s way out of a paper bag, in Friedman’s case. This is the man that gave us the Friedman Unit, after all.

Mainstream media, including quasi-journalistic institutions like NPR, Faux News, David Brooks, CNN, the Washington Post and Thomas Friedman, are destroying our minds. They, whom many refer to as the Villagers, inundate us with false dichotomies that bear no resemblance to the real world and re-write history as if history books — to say nothing of the internet — didn’t exist. They create a reality tunnel that is completely based on fictions. Nothing they say could pass the most basic logical test for an argument, and yet people hear their opinions 24-7. Not just on said channels, but even on so-called progressive blogs where the high level analysis doesn’t ever seem to go quite far enough and realize that rule by corporations is no way to run a democracy.

One of the commenters on that Firedoglake post above said it best:

Brooks, Broder, Friedman and so many, many others. What does it say about the mainstream media that these are supposed to be their “deep” thinkers? It isn’t that everything they say is wrong that is so irritating. It is that it is so stupidly wrong. And yet year in year out, there they are and remain in their high profile, well paid gigs.

The question is not whether they represent legitimate viewpoints. They don’t. Stupidity does not count as one. Rather it is why do major media organizations find it in their interests to keep them on. I can only think that it is because this is the spin they want the rubes to hear.

Propaganda, pure and simple. Keep the truth… and facts… and rational analysis out of the equation at all costs. That’s American “democracy”. We should really stop listening to the media — in all its forms.

On Obama’s chuckle at C&L:

The Villagers were saying that the honeymoon was over as soon as he took the oath. It’s media hype.

You got this all wrong, though. The Villagers made sure that the honeymoon was over as soon as he took the oath by their own media hype. It’s been amazing to see the major corporate media transformed from sycophantic Bush ass-lickers to a supposed Fifth Column within the matter of 60 days. Truly amazing.

It’s a sad sign about the state of the American nation when people in the journalism “industry” don’t get the fuck out for reasons of conscience. It’s not like they can’t practice their craft — but this time without being corporate whores — with this whole internet thing. There are any number of models for this — ePluribus Media, the St. Louis Beacon (as one local example) — some are non-profit, some are for-profit, but at least they aren’t shilling for some bullshit fake-ass democracy. Where is the American conscience? DOES IT BELIEVE IN ANYTHING ANY MORE??? Do words mean things? Sometimes, in this country, it seems as if they don’t. They mean nothing.

Only action means anything. Real change must be created with real action. What’s funny is that, as a young man, I thought that the only way to create that change was the standard violent revolution or some variation thereof. Now, I’m quite sure that old way won’t ever work against what we’re facing. But finding a way around them… to make the wolf unknowingly kill itself. That is the answer we are looking for.

The headline on Yahoo! reads: Bin Laden: Arab leaders ‘complicit’ with Israel

See this is what you’ve got to love about the US national security/intelligence system. The chances that this is actually a message from Osama bin Laden are slim, at best. But even if it were from him, it basically goes right along with the storyline that the US and the west have used as their rationale in the “War on Terror”. That it’s “US” — the US, Europe and Israel basically — against them, and WE are always right no matter what.

It’s also another part of the anti-intellectualization of America I wrote about recently. Here’s an instance where this message from likely a fake Osama bin Laden lays out a perfectly legitimate criticism of Arab governments. And Israel’s and the US’s — by the transitive property. So, therefore, this line of attacking Arab governments and Israel’s government are painted as illegitimate with one little news article. The headline will be on the crawl of networks all over the US (and the world) and it, therefore, becomes reality (as if by magic [link via Wiley Wiggins of all people]).

And it has added clout because it came from Al-Jazeera and not, say, the Washington Post. You know what… I take it back. This can’t possibly have been the US spooks’ work. It’s much too sophisticated. More likely Mossad, which means they’ve probably got people in Al-Jazeera. Which is fine, it’s still probably better than any newspaper or TV channel/network in the US as far as the actual practice of journalism goes.

Regarding a heartbreaking story on DailyKos which really illustrates how disturbing our “media” has become. We have an out of control media who are basically fomenting a corporate overthrow of the government (in so many words):

Over the past 8 years, Americans have been encouraged, both by the government and by our failures in the educational system to eschew intellectualism and reject tolerance for opposing viewpoints.

Planet B:

You’re right that anti-intellectualism is a HUGE problem with, not only our country, but our culture at large. You’re wrong in thinking this is something that has only been going on during the Bush years. The Bush II era was merely the apotheosis of this ongoing process. This started in earnest under Ray-Gun. Bush I and Clinton both kept the process going. In fact, Clinton, because he was ostensibly a Democrat, furthered this agenda like never before — welfare “reform”, killing of health reform, repeal of Glass-Steagall, NAFTA, expansion of World Bank & IMF power, Antiterrorism bill. Of course this all accelerated with Bush II. Don’t think underfunded public education isn’t intentional either.

As an aside, just think if corporations didn’t rule the world and we had actually listened to Jimmy Carter back in 1977.

What’s scary about the load of crap this noise machine poisons peoples’ heads with is that the nightmare scenario may just happen… the road to fascism has already been paved, but it has a shiny happy corporate media face (excepting, of course, the slimy hate radio purveyors whose job it is to give red meat to “good Americans”).

You know, I don’t like to spread some of this stuff on DK because people there don’t seem to understand that some so-called conspiracy theories are true (and that some, in fact, MUST be true), but I always come back to the Bush family connections to the Nazis. They seem to have learned the lessons of what you can and can not do and still be seen as part of “acceptable” discourse as well as how to hold power from behind the scenes (Bush I & his long-term CIA involvement). They learned you can’t call for policies which send black people to gas chambers. BUT, you CAN implement policies piece by piece that eventually lead to a basic criminalization of the black male in the United States. And that’s why Obama freaks out the racist backbone of America (that probably share alot of the same demographics as the 23% deadenders that were with Bush II to the bitter end).

What he said:

The Corporate-American system continues on, buying every politician in sight. Hence Obama saddling us with the worthless Geithner. And they will keep on keeping on until they are all made to pay for their crimes. I’m sure that will be right after George W. Bush and his cronies pay for their crimes.

Not to travel to close to wingnut land’s bad habit of calling for the President’s head, but I get the feeling the corporate types won’t change until they fear for their lives (or livelihoods, if they hold that more dear). We still live in a feudal system, a corporate feudal system. And we have to kill them. The only thing to do is to strike at corporate power — revoke corporate charters for crimes against humanity (might want to start with Dow for Bhopal, Exxon for Valdez and others, the list goes on and covers the globe many times over), and eventually ween ourselves off of them.

I think within a generation we have to kick the corporate habit. I’m not saying the corporation has to die completely, just that it has to mostly die. It has to return to what it was in the time of Jefferson (ie, not a person whose “rights” are worth more than actual human beings). We could, instead, put our money into micro-financing projects and local monetary systems. How else to rein in corporate power than to cut off its lifeline — money? We’re the ones that allow them to do this to us. We must put an end to it.

If you read primarily mainstream US media, you probably have zero idea what’s going on in Gaza right now. Hell, even if you’re in tune to the actual liberal media as well as other alternative sources, you probably still don’t know what’s going on in Gaza. Such is the sad state of how Americans understand the world (or don’t understand it, as the case may be).

Just to show how much our media refuses to treat the Israel-Palestine situation with intellectual honesty, let me illustrate via a nifty little site I just discovered through a Glenn Greenwald post at Salon.com: NPR Check. I’ve long been very critical of NPR’s biases, especially when I realized how biased they are when it comes to Israel-Palestine. Well, NPR Check didn’t let me down with a total of 64 posts about NPR and Israel, which shows that NPR is actually MORE reactionary on this issue than most American media. What is so depressing about this is that in Israel itself they have a much healthier debate than we do… but I guess since the US bankrolls all the apartheid policies and attempted genocide, that’s our role in this tragedy.

How do we end this tragedy? It’s pretty simple really, start respecting human rights. Quit letting Israel get away with war crimes. And prosecute “terrorists” as criminals — NOT by extrajudicial killings and collective punishment. In fact, the US first needs to lead by example by getting our own house in order in regards to the torture regime ushered in by the Bush junta. Oh, and the other thing that needs to be done — ONE STATE. The only solution that will allow for the protection of all Israeli and Palestinian human rights is to have them all live in one bi-national state which is non-religious.

In regards to the mere possibility that might see Obama move the Supreme Court away from its recent fascistic tendencies, Representative John Kyl is already throwing around the filibuster — the same Kyl who “declared that filibustering a judicial nominee was against congressional rules. That, of course, was when Bush nominees were in jeopardy.”

If it were up to me, we’d impeach half this Supreme Court for not defending the Constitution.

Now that we will have a rational President for the first time in eight years (at least), there’s some work to be done. And President Al Gore (he did win that vote in 2000, you know) has the exactly correct prescription — Green Jobs. And the best place to start is to update the US’s outdated electrical grid. This is a crucial step before we start getting solar and wind and other alternative sources throughout the country. Find out more:

Al Gore Group Urges Obama To Create US Power Grid

The plan advocates immediate investment in energy efficiency, renewable power generation — including public investment in wind, solar and geothermal technology — and the creation of a unified national smart grid.

“Modernize transmission infrastructure so that clean electricity generated anywhere in America can power homes and businesses across the nation,” the alliance said in a statement.

The alliance favors “national electricity ‘interstates’ that move power quickly and cheaply to where it needs to be (and) local smart grids that buy and sell power from households and support clean plug-in cars.”