The ONLY Reason Bush Is and Remains in Power

is due to the selfishness, apathy, and prudishness of the vaunted, holy "American People". Placing blame anywhere else is, in my opinion, mental masturbation.

We have become a nation of selfish pigs. We are supremely lucky to have what we have - we ourselves haven't earned it, especially in a political sense. We are living on the backs of those courageous souls who came before us. Now we only care about ourselves, and in some isolated cases, our immediate families. As a collective citizenry, we have become truely conservative and, by definition, utterly and fully evil and depraved.

My hatred for what this country has become and is STILL becoming grows each day. If Bush wins again in 2004, even if he steals the election yet again, it will be the fault of our collective society. Blaming the media, the DLC, etc., etc., only diffuses the blame. The People of the USA are to blame. The People of the USA have caused this mess and only the People of the USA can stop the madness. My gut says they don't give a shit. My gut says the madess will continue until in consumes the entire planet.

We are truely evil. We have become Satan himself.

I have a profoundly different view of the American people. I believe, for the most part, that people are essentially good. I've had the chance to travel around, and my perception has been reinforced. I think they've also been well-trained to be self-interested and narrow in view. Computer programmers have a saying: Garbage in, garbage out.

I think, and I mean this in all respect, that you need to take a breather from all this. You sound angry, which is understandable. You're in a country that gives way too much of a shit about itself, individually and collectively, and so your anger has some merit. But you also sound hateful, and that will solve nothing.

Gore has shared their frustration. In an interview last December with the New York Observer, he described the conservative outlets as a "fifth column" within the media ranks that injects "daily Republican talking points into the definition of what's objective."

"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party," Gore said. "Fox News Network, The Washington Times , Rush Limbaugh — there’s a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,459345,00.html
http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6665

The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996. Michael Powell and the Bush FCC are continuing that assault today (see the June 2nd ruling).

The danger of relaxing media ownership rules became clear to me when I saw what happened with the Dixie Chicks. But there’s an even bigger danger in the future, on the Internet. The FCC recently ruled that cable and phone based broadband providers be classified as information rather than telecommunications services. This is the first step in a process that could allow Internet providers to arbitrarily limit the content that users can access. The phone and cable industries could have the power to discriminate against content that they don’t control or-- even worse-- simply don’t like.

The media conglomerates now dominate almost half of the markets around the country, meaning Americans get less independent and frequently less dependable news, views and information. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spoke of the fear that economic power would one day try to seize political power. No consolidated economic power has more opportunity to do this than the consolidated power of media

Posted by Howard Dean at 06:31 PM
http://blog.deanforamerica.com/archives/000683.html

Why Isn't Randi Rhodes Syndicated? The Dilemma of a Liberal Talk Show Host.

RHODES: Oh, I am so glad you asked. I am a ratings and revenue queen. Number 1 or 2 in the ratings usually. So what are the "mainstream" talking about? Well, they say Liberals don't make money because no one wants to hear them. Okay, let's think.

First, remember that more Americans are registered or identify themselves as Democrats than Republicans. So here's the dirty little secret of news talk. There are advertisers making huge "buys" on really low rated shows that air nationally. If advertisers only go where the listeners are why do they buy cable news, Oliver North, or Rush Limbaugh who has horrible ratings?

They are buying CONTROL of CONTENT. It's leverage, whether it's radio, cable or network. They control millions of dollars of any company's revenue source. So that if something is said or done to disrupt their global business, they take their advertising elsewhere, or threaten to and then shut down the message.

And, think about this . . . how many products are on TV that you can't even buy? Plastics, computer chips, prescription drugs, soybeans. I mean honestly. This is the story that NEVER gets told. People just think, "Well, if your good enough, you'll have a big audience and that's what advertisers want." "Whose being naïve now Kaye?" I am always number one or two in the market. Rush is somewhere around 21st. I replaced G. Gordon Liddy!

I hope this gets told over and over because it is how they control our news, our Information Awareness. Get it?

BUZZFLASH: Explain the allegations that Rush Limbaugh has stated, that if Clear Channel syndicated your show, he would take his program to another company. Could there be a Democratic or Progressive Rush Limbaugh type personality on the airwaves?

RHODES: Not at Clear Channel.

First, let me tell you where the story came from. I had two meetings with middle managers who both liked me and what I had done for our 'pod'. (At Clear Channel the territories are split up into 'pods'.) In two separate meetings I was told "The Rush story." Additionally, I should never expect to be syndicated by Clear Channel because Rush had said he'd just do what advertisers do. He'd go somewhere else. I was an unknown, he was a known.

I begged for and got (6 months later) a meeting with a senior manager. He told me the "Rush story." So that's where it comes from. Now, when Oliver North was on the air, he stated that Rush was syndicated because Rush was a better talent and got better ratings. (This is insulting because of the fatness of the lie) . . . I then told him that Rush had threatened to take his show elsewhere if I were to be syndicated by Clear Channel. He said "I've heard that but I can't comment." So everyone does seem to know "The Rush Story." (North and Rush are friends).

Control the Content . . . we have business that cannot be disturbed by a questioning public.
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/01/03_Rhodes.html

Meanwhile, the Web site www.allyourtv.com posted a commentary on Wednesday by Rick Ellis saying that he had been leaked an internal NBC study that described Donahue as "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace."

The report allegedly said Donahue presented a difficult face for NBC at a time of war, saying a nightmare scenario would be one in which his show becomes "a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/5263274.htm

While "Donahue" does badly trail both O'Reilly and CNN's Connie Chung in the ratings, those numbers have improved in recent weeks. So much so that the program is the top-rated show on MSNBC, beating even the highly promoted "Hardball With Chris Matthews."

Although Donahue didn't know it at the time, his fate was sealed a number of weeks ago after NBC News executives received the results of a study commissioned to provide guidance on the future of the news channel.

That report--shared with me by an NBC news insider--gives an excruciatingly painful assessment of the channel and its programming. Some of recommendations, such as dropping the "America's News Channel," have already been implemented. But the harshest criticism was leveled at Donahue, whom the authors of the study described as "a tired, left-wing liberal out of touch with the current marketplace."
http://www.allyourtv.com/0203season/news/02252003donahue.html

NOW In Depth - Massive Media PBS
Solid Ratings Don't Protect Progressive Radio Voices
What's Wrong With This Picture?
Podvin on the Media 1-31-02
Harper's editor laments rise of corporate news purveyors
Commentary: The Surrender Of MSNBC
The Wayward Media

HUSTLER: What has happened to the the news media in this country?

PALAST: I vomit every time I see Tom Brokaw.

HUSTLER: And Dan Rather-

PALAST: I feel sick at heart when I see Rather, because he's actually a journalist. He came on my program, Newsnight and said, "I can't report the news. I'm not allowed to ask questions. We're gonna send our children and our husbands into the desert now, and I can't ask a question, because I will be lynched." This is what Rather said in London. He looked defeated and awful, and I was thinking, Why am I feeling sorry for this guy who is worth millions? He should turn to the camera and say, "Well, now for the truth. Over to you, Greg, in London." The problem is that he can't report the story of the intelligence agents who are told not to look at the Bin Laden family, not to look at Saudi funding of terror.

HUSTLER: What makes Rather afraid to do his job?

PALAST: It's not just that there are brutal shepherds like Rupert Murdoch out there to beat the dickens out of any reporter that asks the wrong questions; it's all about making news on the cheap. You know, for some of these editors, cheap and easy is a philosophy of life. To do a heavy-duty story on Bush, and his oil and Bush and his gold-mining company is beyond them. A little bit of the Harken stock scandal came out, but that story was already seven years old. To some extent they know that there are certain things you cannot say. Rather says he would be necklaced for telling the truth.

HUSTLER: He said that? What did he mean?

PALAST: In South Africa, under apartheid, if someone didn't like you, they put a burning tire around your neck. That was called "necklacing." On my show, Rather said, "If I ask any questions, I'll be necklaced." And I'm thinking, Oh, that's a good image. It's sad, but if Dan Rather doesn't have the cajones to ask a question, then you name a reporter who's gonna step out and ask about what's going on. It's not that the corporate guys say, "Don't run that story," although that has happened to me many times in North American media, but also the shepherds pick the lambs who won't ask the questions. For example, there was a reporter, some poor producer, who wanted to run a story about how Jack Welch had lied about polluting the Hudson River. The story didn't run. Shockeroo. That was for Dateline NBC, owned by General Electric, of which Jack Welch was the chairman of the board. Or as in the case of Venezuela, I was stunned to come back from Caracas to find a picture on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle of 100,000 people marching against the president of Venezuela. Sounds like he's a terrible guy and people hate him. What they didn't say was that half a million people were marching for him. At least the Soviet Russians knew that the stuff in Pravda was coming out the wrong end of a toilet, whereas, we live under the pretense that The New York Times prints all the news that's fit to print.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=181&row=1

…
Robins was talking serious politics on a morning chat show - and clearly hackles went up. By 8:24 Robins was explaining "We're fighting for freedom for the Iraqi people right now so that they can have freedom of speech, yet we're telling our own citizens they have to be quiet"

Lauer could have called it quits there -but he went on "When you see pictures of Iraqi's dancing and celebrating -does it change your mind?" "No" Said Robbins - "I'm ecstatic that they feel this freedom, I hope we have the resolve to get in there and make it work."

It was at this point that something happened that has perhaps never happened before in the history of morning television.

The music swelled under Robbins... Mid-sentence answering a question that had been asked just 10 seconds earlier... "We have a terrible track record" said Robbins, clearly not able to hear that music was coming up to literally 'play him off the stage'.

The camera cut to a wide shot. Lauer was leaning in and very much in conversation. Either Lauer was ignoring what must have been the deluge of invectives in his earpiece, or he just determined that he wasn't finished with this line of questioning.

But the music ended. The bumper music ended and the studio was in the two shot as Robbins said..."It's for some reason not in our best interest to keep it going and pursue it to the next level." Lauer nodded, and the camera faded to black as Robbins - mid sentence - had his microphone turned down.

A conversation about free speech. An anchor asking reasonable questions. A guest responding in equally reasonable tones. No attempt to close out the discussion - to say "Well thank you Tim". This was not a filibuster. Robbins was not hogging the spotlight.

Someone in the control room simply decided that it was time to pull the plug. And without grace or ceremony, or even the face saving of letting Lauer say "We're out of time" as morning shows do on so many occasions.

A conversation about free speech and free expression was cut off mid sentence as the network went to black.

Television history was made, as million of Americans got to watch in real time just how powerful and inescapable censorship can be. Robbins wasn't revealing troop locations, or giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Remember the war has been won - by all accounts. He was discussing freedom, free speech, and why his appearance has been canceled at the Baseball Hall of Fame. NBC should invite him back and let him finish his thought - or admit at least who was on the phone to master control demanding that they pull the plug.
http://www.rense.com/general37/dark.htm

Tampa cable won't air ad criticizing Bush tax cut

TAMPA - (AP) -- A TV commercial critical of President Bush's tax plan won't air in Tampa after the city's major cable provider expressed concerns about the script.

The commercial was produced for MoveOn.org, an online political activist group, and was slated to air about 10 times a day this week on cable systems in 23 cities, said Lanicia Shaw, executive assistant for Zimmerman and Markman, a Santa Monica, Calif., advertising agency handling the commercial.

The ad is a reenactment of an event in Eugene, Ore., a month ago in which 50 parents lined up outside a clinic to sell their blood plasma to help pay a teacher's salary.

''George Bush's tax cuts for the rich have meant less money for education,'' the commercial contends.
…
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/5862591.htm

3. How important is "truth" in mass media reporting compared to ratings?
The media doesn't care about outing the real stories - nor about ratings. The truth GETS ratings - but it doesn't win friends in high places. We got more information about the war in Vietnam through "MASH" and "Star Trek" allegories than on CBS news.
The corporate owners of the networks will make a killing on their stealing the digital spectrum, given away for nothing by the Telecommunications Act. (For details, see my website www.GregPalast.com) They are willing to give up ratings points by serving up snooze-news with Tom Brokaw rather than gain audience share but lose their tickets to White House dinners.
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=145&row=1

Wall Street Journal:
War Produces Rift in Media Between U.S., Other Nations
...British television reporter Geoff Meade asked the officer what he would say to Iraqis and other Muslims who might welcome such images. Some U.S. reporters looked stunned at the aggressiveness of the question. A hush fell on the room. The general eyed him coldly and parried the query. Afterward, says Mr. Meade, a veteran correspondent with Sky News, a service of British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC, "Somebody joked to me that I'd find myself at the back of the room along with the French and the Germans."
…
"We believe people need to see the truth, and there's no need to make the truth cosmetic because it's not pretty," says Nawal Assad, a producer at al-Jazeera's London office.

...callers on Italian talk shows criticized as censorship the U.S. government's request to U.S. networks to refrain from showing the images. In Germany, the press has engaged in lengthy dissections of U.S. news organizations, often concluding that the U.S. media has gone through "Gleichschaltung," an ominous word used to describe how the Nazis took over key public institutions, including the media (rough translation: "bringing into line").
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB104854123024458400-email,00.html

That is exactly what it is. Corporatist/Fascist takeover of the media.

On the contrary, I think that expressing ones' hate in an open forum such as this is one of the most functional things a conscious and self aware person can do at this time.
To face ones own true feelings no matter how contemptible they may appear to us is to me an act of courage.
To be able to look into the abbyss and to unflinchingly acknowledge ones love as well as hatred for humanity takes an exceptional human being.
The value of this world exists not only the flowers and the green of our world but also in its entirety ththat which lives beneath the rock and rotted log.
Pious leaders exist on the left and the right and the wrong. Owning rightiousness, even promoting it all the while hiding away our baser humanity.
Perhaps we all need to learn how to get in touch with our baser selves and instincts, if you will.
To acknowledge them is one of the surest ways of avoiding acting on them, if that is our true desire.
Oh, how I wish that our own George Dubya had even a smitten of this awareness.
We could all learn a bit more about learning not to fear that which we truly are.

however the wholesale embrace of Reaganism, Rush, religious fundamentalism, and on and on and on changed my mind. Individual people can indeed be basically good. Collectively, however, I feel we've embraced selfishness, and greed. Collectively our soul is black at its core.

One question, Will (I hope you see this and respond) ...

IF Bush wins convincingly in 2004, i.e., majority of popular vote and the electoral vote, what will you say? Will you say that it's OK the people have spoken? Will you say that collectively the people are wise? How will it sit with you? What will your view of "the people" be then?

The media et al exacerbate the problem, but the American people who prefer to avoid politics or blindly swallow what the media says...

Then you have the people who still support NAFTA even though it's been a dismal failure for American workers.

I'm praying America implodes in on itself. It deserves no less, especially if the sheeple just merrily things continue the way they are. I already know my fate, but that's going to be a joyful relief by comparison as to when the home and credit bubbles burst...

I LOL in your general direction. Believe me, Toad, you will shit twice and scream for your mommy if America implodes. Be very, very careful what you pray for. You sound a bit like the 'anarchists' I have met. If any of them ever saw real anarchy - Rwanda, Somalia anarchy - they'd cry like babies and beg for mercy.

Oh, it is a catastrophe all right!
Maybe, it will implode like an angel food cake in a bundt pan.
Or the way a souffle implodes.
Ruins the whole darned evening.
I once saw a birthday girl implode.
It was god ugly.
Didn't get the right Barbie Girl.
Butt ugly.

well lets try this..the failure of the democrats to take either the house or senate in the last election. if they would have taken just one of these they could open up investigations into the bush whitehouse such as the brits are doing. that is making the assumption the democrats would have had the balls to do it,personally, i think they wouldn`t have...

the ONLY reason Bush is and remains in power is because the american people (the the complicity of a significant segment of the media) have been consistently LIED to by a tiny cabal of the wealthiest conservatives who benefit from a corporate presidency.

they are in power and remain in power because they cynically cower the people with a relentless diet of HATE, FEAR and IGNORANCE.

if more people understood that their hatreds are based on unfounded fears maintained by keeping people ignorant of the facts they need to to make judgements... they would storm the white house.

the conservative jerks in the whitehouse.

I just got off the phone with a very close friend of mine (a Republican, but this did not bother me as much before when I had the illusion that politics were not controlled by puppet masters).

I love her dearly, and I was trying to talk about strictly personal items (family, jobs, etc.) but suddenly we started talking about IT jobs--both of us work at educational institutions in that field. She is TOTALLY, TOTALLY, TOTALLY ignorant about IT and technical jobs leaving America to go to India and other places. When I told her, she sounded disbelieving so I am sending her some links that discuss this. I mentioned that the phone billing for communication companies in the states is being done by Israeli companies and she said "the government will put a stop to that because of national security." I could not believe how disinformed she is, so I said "Bush promised the Indian government that he will not allow the export of jobs to India to stop because he needs the Indian troops for Iraq." She was speechless and I decided my friendship with her is more valuable that this discussion so I stopped.

things differently? Take 12/2000 as an example. There was no DU then. Most of us on this board learned about the recount/selection debacle the same way that the glorious "American People" did - via the traditional media. Why were we outraged and they weren't? Many of us continue to keep up with events via the "media". Why haven't we lapsed into Me, Myself, and I-ism?

I really think that "We the People" have collectively chosen selfishness, greed, and xenophobia because they percieve it somehow gets them more stuff (i.e, beer, pickups, SUV's WWF, sports, other shiny things). The pipe-dream of "if they only knew what was really going on they'd throw the bums out" is misdirected. They either consciously choose to ignore what's going on or, more likely, actually LIKE what's going on. Until they're deprived of "shiny things" the conservatives will continue to goose-step down the boulevards. Even more ominous is that once they're deprived and elect the Dems they will expect an immediate return of the ability to re-acquire "shiny things".

I have no idea how a massive attitude change can come about - execept by horrific suffering and the breakdown of our society. I certainly don't wish for that but I think that that's exactly what it will take to remove the scourge of conservatism.

Did not watch TV for 21 years (got basic cable--just the regular junk and no extras...puke anyway... when I got my cable connection for my computer a year ago) and am a thinking person who was not educated in the USA (from my children's education in the USA schools I can see that critical thinking, writing, etc. are not emphasized.)

But you are right: the shiny things is a big problem. That and complete ignorance about the rest of the country and the rest of the world (especially in the midwest).

Way too many people have given themselves over to materialism.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm no loincloth-wearing berry-eater -- but to wisely and moderately use the fruits of civilization to better your situation and society's situation is different from mindlessy howling after every dumbass piece of junk the marketing bastards can tease you with. People today do not perceive this difference. They will, finally, when they lose it ALL. But not until then.

After reading the Dean interview that showed him and his family without the usual immaculate, 6,000 SQ FT house, thousand-dollar suits, and twin 2003 SUV's, I find their attitude refreshing. I don't know enough about Dean to say whether this is a marketing ploy or not.

Does anyone have interviews, pics of their house and cars, etc., from way before this campaign? It would be instructive to see if they always have had a relative indifference to keeping up with the Joneses. This is the attitude that should be encouraged among all of us, not the grasping greed for every shiny bauble we see now.

...if not the exact substance: "America has 10 percent of the world's population but controls 50 percent of the world's resources. It's our job to keep it that way."

Someone during the McKinley administration, I think, which is particularly telling because it demonstrates that the fundamental selfishness of our foreign policy hasn't changed during the last century.

I'm afraid I agree with both bobd and Will Pitt in some respects. Most American people, like most people everywhere, are good people as individuals, but our national consciousness is selfish, narrow minded, and exploitative in the extreme. Much of our culture is based upon greed, and the exercise of violent force in defense of that greed.

Why did we become the base people that we are right now? Why is that people have become so greedy and conservative?

White supremacy. http://democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=255237