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| Shepard Smith |
| Pundit Gallery | Andrea Mitchell | Brit Hume | Chris Wallace | Katty Kay | Lizzie Grubman | Maria Quiban | Martine Dennis | Mishal Husain | Shepard Smith | Tavis Smiley | Tim Russert | Tony Snow | Young Republicans | Zeinab Badawi | |
The corporate news media does not believe in the concept "the truth." Believing in "the truth" and the concept of "the truth" are enlightened "Liberal" ideals which the corporate elite and their corporate lackeys woefully disdain. The corporate masters believe in authority and power above all else, facts notwithstanding. The corporate masters do not believe in the concepts of "the real world", "reality" and "facts." They believe their world consists of the people that matter to them, themselves and their friends they socialize with, and everybody else is peasant labor or surplus population. They believe that "the truth" is nothing more than popular opinion which they can control by controlling "the narrative".
First you must differentiate the news medias. There are three kinds of news medias relative to each country. There is independent news media which is independent from corporate ownership. There is foreign news media which is less susceptible to control from domestic politics. And there is corporate news media which is owned by wealthy individuals and large corporations and are used by their owners to push their corporate agendas. The corporate news media defines the issues, frames the debates, and shills the agendas of the wealthy establishment and corporate cartels. The corporate news media is fomenting a society where the only people who are entitled to the benefits of the society's wealth are the owners of corporations. The corporate news media reduces civic discourse to the superficiality of personality politics. The corporate news media wants to "control the narrative", control the "mass culture zeitgeist", control the "political landscape", rewrite history, and control "popular opinion" and they do so by "framing the debate" thereby creating "false dichotomies."
Examine all the links below this commentary and quotes. The real news websites listed below tell you the news that the tabloid corporate-media refuses to report. Bookmark the links to the real news websites below and check them frequently. Tell your friends about the BBC, Air America Radio, PBS NOW show, and these other news websites because they tell you the real news, not the corporate-media think-tank paid-pundit spun-propaganda "faux news" the USA based news networks spew. Even though the BBC News has been neutered somewhat after the former heads of the BBC, Gavyn Davies and Greg Dyke, refused to apologize for telling the truth and were forced to resign, the BBC is still better than USA based corporate news. It is up to you to decide to find the truth about the world for yourself. I don't list the names of these websites so you can find out what they are as you search for the truth. USA based corporate-news-media-networks have been so increasingly deceptive and manipulative that the more educated people in this country and many people in the rest of the world think of USA based news networks as illegitimate and not credible. The amount of unsavory deceit, duplicity, complicity, and manipulation by USA based corporate-news-networks is abominable. As soon as you go on the internet to read how foreign journalists cover the same events, you immediately become aware of the fact that USA based news networks have a "unique" spin on the world (to put it mildly). The majority of Americans get their news from the network news services and they have been making choices based on the USA based news networks' duplicitous propaganda. Americans who live in "the Midwest" don't have access to alternative news sources and have been manipulated by the corporate-media to believe in lies that would shock Americans who live in the big cities. American "mainstream" news media is owned by a small group of wealthy individuals who use the news media to promote their corporate agendas. These wealthy individuals socialize with their peers who have the same backgrounds (same neighborhoods, colleges, fraternities, prep schools, private schools, etc.,) at their elite social institutions (rich white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men only clubs) and set the political agendas for the rest of society. In the business world these businessmen are at each others' throats, but in politics, they form cartels to work for their class' interests. Through their subsidized think-tanks, they funnel huge campaign contributions to the political parties to control the politicians. Through their media outlets, these wealthy individuals frame the national dialogue. The media cartel serves their masters. The TV news medias support only politicians who can raise the most money from the corporate-think-tanks who will in turn use that money to buy TV advertising. The TV news medias only cover politicians who can afford to buy lots of expensive TV advertising. The "mainstream" news medias shun all politicians who cannot buy lots of expensive advertising. The wealthy individuals control the journalists by employing them at their media outlets and by bribing them through their think-tanks; think-tanks bribe journalists with hundreds of thousands of dollars for private speaking engagements (some of these speaking engagements are actually junkets - expensive paid vacations where the journalists don't actually have to speak). Corporate-mainstream-network journalists who don't "play ball" and tow the party line get cut off from the trough, get demoted, or just fired and blackballed. For the corporate-mainstream-network journalists who do "play ball" with the corporate-think-tanks, there is a revolving door of employment between corporate-mainstream-network news outlets, think-tanks, kickback jobs as "image consultants" and "message consultants", and even official political-patronage "advisement" appointments in government. For the politicians that "play ball" with the corporate-think-tanks, there is a revolving door of employment between political offices (won in elections or gained via partisan appointments, political-patronage), think-tanks, and seats on board of directors for front/shell corporations that exist from government contracts. The issues that concern the publics' interests are shut out of the mainstream political dialogue. Some of these wealthy individuals not only have the interests of their corporations ahead of the publics' interests, they have the interests of foreign countries ahead of the publics' interests. This cabalistic society is like a mythical Chimera (mythical creature that had one body and many heads) for those dissenters who speak up against the cabal will be shouted down and smeared by surrogate paid-media-pundits superficially coming from many separate media channels but all saying the same think-tank-prescribed "talking points". The cabal's paid-pundits in the media never substantiate their claims, they just harass dissenters with ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments (see the logical fallacies links below). The political parties work to socialize corporations' costs, risks, and cleanup while privatizing profits. The public subsidizes big business' research and development, pays for big business' liability, and pays for cleaning up the messes caused by big business' byproducts, pollution, and environmental degradation. Coporations use the media and politicians to shift the burden of economic risk from corporations and the government onto the backs of the average citizen. Partisan politics is a means in itself, a business that functions as a clearing house for corporate interests. Political party conventions are farces designed to patronize the ideologues, but the candidates themselves are oblivious to their own parties' "platforms" and are sometimes outright contemptuous of their hard core members. The corporate-mainstream-news-media is the mouthpiece of the corporations. The corporate-news-mainstream-media fools as many people (as necessary to "decide" elections) into believing that their anointed political parties' candidates have the publics' interests. The political parties hire pollsters and political consultants who can measure what the public cares about, and then semantically modify their pitch to manipulate the public into believing that the politicians are going to do what the people want when the politicians are going to do exactly the opposite. The most manipulated and lied to citizens live in the Midwest and "swing states" that "decide" elections; the media gives them different news from the rest of America.
The corporate-news-mainstream-media are liars, professional liars at that who are contemptuous to democracy, democratic ideals, and the publics' interests. The newscasters who've risen to the top got there by being the most backstabbing manipulative players who screwed over everyone else who competed against them. The people in the news business are quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of people. The only reason why they keep their jobs is their ability to lie, manipulate, and appear sincere when they are lying. Corporate-news-mainstream-media newsreaders wear poker faces and lie without any qualms, compunction, and penitence. Corporate-news-mainstream-media newsreaders are pretentious sanctimonious disingenuous people who put on airs of superiority and infallibility and are able to feign indignation, feign sincerity, and pretend to care. Foreign news sources and domestic independent USA news sources frequently use verifiable facts to contradict almost everything shilled by USA based news networks. USA based "mainstream" corporate-news have lost so much credibility that it has become a joke. In American news media, the punditocracy's pack journalism is the standard norm. Instead of giving the public real news, USA based "mainstream" corporate-news shills tabloid news that panders to the media "market bias" of the day. The media cartel tries to turn the public into passive consumers instead of active citizens. The media is full of partisan hacks/pundits, who push corporate mythology, push corporate talking points, frame the debates in terms the corporate politicos want, and shut out all political dissent from the national dialogue. The partisan hacks act as opinion molders by being surrogates for the political parties and lobbyists; the politicians themselves will remain "clean" from making attacks because the surrogate partisan hacks/pundits in the corporate media will do that dirty campaign work for them. Corporate politicos can never convince people to vote against their own economic self-interests, so instead they campaign to trick the people. Since corporate politicos can't offer logical rational arguments to people, they go for irrational illogical arguments. Corporate politicos poll the people to find out what are the most decisive "hot button"/wedge issues and then create vitriolic aggressive campaigns using false information to unfairly smear their opponents. The corporate news media goes along with the corporate politicos by shilling disinformation to the public, not refuting blatantly false disinformation, and shutting out all dissenting voices, all the while disingenuously pretending to be unbiased news. People in foreign countries look at Americans with dismay, like we've been brainwashed by corporate PR. Most Americans are totally oblivious to the geopolitical consequences of their actions because the corporate media doesn't want the public to know what geopolitics is. The American public is sheltered from the truth about the world that foreign people are aware of. Ignorance is bliss and the real news you'll read below is disturbing. I've met people who never read the news and they live perfectly happy, and I've met people who care about humanity and the truth and are frustrated and depressed; but the former are dupes while the latter are the wiser. You can go on believing the disinformation the USA based news networks shill and live in ignorance, or you can read these websites to start finding out the truth. The choice is yours.
Although tens of thousands of working people came to protest George Bush and his suspiciously-named "free trade" economic policies; they were invariably smeared by the corporate media as "Leftists" or "radicals"; eliminating the possibility that they were simply concerned citizens participating in the democratic process. This is the familiar tactic of the media to marginalize ordinary people whose interests don't correspond to those of the ruling elite.
"The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable."
- Arundhati Roy
"Throughout the annals of political science -- or at least the annals of Internet history -- there's been an unwritten law: Elections are won by whomever devises the best way to cheat."
- Lou Cabron
"The press isn't quite as biased and liberal. They're actually conservative sometimes"
- William Kristol, Fox News neocon pundit, CNN's "Reliable Sources", 2000
"I admit it, The whole idea of the 'liberal media' was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
- William Kristol, Fox News neocon pundit, The New Yorker, 5/22/95
"Every great cause evolves into a movement, then into a business, and then it degenerates into a racket."
- Eric Hoffer, (I've seen many different arrangements of this quote)
"A defining attribute of a government is that it has a monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence."
- George Will, right-wing columnist, "Realistic words would be welcome on Iraq", 3/3/06
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
- Maj. General Smedly Butler
"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich."
- Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov
"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of altering their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views... which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."
- Doctor Who, fictional character, "Face of Evil"
"These are globetrotting sorts who are world citizens, and see the USA as merely a state within the world collective. Don't let those ... accents and folksy mannerisms fool you, they do not have an allegiance to this country; they live in the BIG picture, and are not fettered by borders, boundaries or oceanic barriers."
- anonymous web poster
"A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead."
- Leo Rosten, Leo Rosten's Treasury of Jewish Quotations
"The fact is, there is no other way to strip a population of it's liberties than to make them fear living without a certain level of protection. Anyone calling us Truth seekers crack pots, or tin foil hats are either too lazy to research, look and listen to what is plainly presented in front of them, or two, are so caught up in the fake reality we are pushed to believe that anything outside of that is just too uncomfortable for them. Reality is always darker than fiction. You also have to understand, we aren't dealing with groups of people like you or myself. We are dealing with people who think and feel differently than we do. The powerful elite don't look at the rest of us the same way we view eachother. We aren't equals to them. We don't all deserve the same liberties or benefits of life. To them, we are pawns in their game for further growth of their power and wealth. Too many people in this country have their Eyes Wide Shut."
- Jason Appleton
"You got a lotta nerve / To say you are my friend / When I was down / You just stood there grinning /
You got a lotta nerve / To say you got a helping hand to lend / You just want to be on / The side that's winning"
- Bob Dylan: Positively 4th Street
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
- Communist Tyrant Josef Stalin
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
"Mankind cannot take too much reality."
- TS Eliot
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
- Voltaire, French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778)
"Once you accept another person's authority, you become a different person. You are concerned with how well you follow out your orders, rather than whether it is right or wrong."
- Dr. Thomas Blass
"News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress. Everything else is publicity."
- Lord Northcliffe
"There is no good and evil; there is only power and those too weak to seek it."
- JK Rowling, "Harry Potter", character Quirrell
"Man seizes, abandons, but then commits again the errors that flatter him."
- Antoine Lavoisier
"Propaganda, is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."
- Noam Chomsky, Media Control, read everything you can by this author
"People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."
- Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Politics is about getting outside of yourself and your own problems for a little while and fully immersing yourself in the lies and deceit of others."
- Stephen Elliott, "Happy Baby"
"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month."
- CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)
"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
- Bertrand Russell
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
- Sinclair Lewis
"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers"
- Thomas Pynchon said (in Gravity's Rainbow)
Pundit Gallery |
Andrea Mitchell |
Brit Hume |
Chris Wallace |
Katty Kay |
Lizzie Grubman |
Maria Quiban |
Martine Dennis |
Mishal Husain |
Shepard Smith |
Tavis Smiley |
Tim Russert |
Tony Snow |
Young Republicans |
Zeinab Badawi |