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All totalitarian governments use the media to promote their policies, the media becomes an arm of the government. The Nazi’s understood the use of mass media to convince the public and as the bombs rained down on Germany cities the media would lament how the war had been forced on Germany. How that warmonger Churchill had forced Germany into war.
In Russia everyone loved Chairman Stalin, the parades and demonstrations with school children dancing were proof enough to the casual observer. The more skeptical eye however learned to read through the media not by what they said but what they didn’t say or how they said it. The Russian author Solzhenitsyn explained, if the headline was Collective Farmers Vow to Increase Yields it meant they didn’t meet their quota this year. Or Government to Crack Down on Drunkenness it meant there had been a crop failure and beer or Vodka was going to be in short supply.
During the Stalingrade campaign a German headline read Russian attackers fought to a stand still, but it was the Germans who had been attacking. Our own compliant corporate media spins the same fantasies, the surge is working! The number of “Al Queda” our brave troops have killed this month over last demonstrates this, never mind the number of our helicopters shot down. But in Vietnam week after week friendly forces killed seven, eight or even ten times the number of our own casualties never mind the number of helicopters shot down, yet we lost the war.
During The battle of the Somme German forces killed a quarter of a million French and Brit's yet Germany lost the war. The Allied nation’s compliant media’s proclaimed that they died for the noble cause, perhaps the cause was noble but they died because of stupid leadership and planning. General Westmoreland with over half a million troops in Vietnam proclaimed, he would bring North Vietnamese infiltration to a stand still.
During the Hoover administration the media down played bad economic news and accentuated the positive. The media barons of the day like today were Republican and bad economic news meant Republican policies weren’t working. Hoover in his 1931 Thanksgiving radio address spoke about how good we have it in America. Ignoring drought famine and the suffering of millions, but it was no matter. His goose was cooked, when the time comes and events outstrip the media’s ability to spin them.
Despite the media’s best efforts, the Iraq war, Afghanistan, Bush’s war on terror and the Bush administration itself are sinking into ignominy. The President’s approval ratings rose from 31% to 36% but a closer inspection saw that the rise was in those who identified themselves as Republicans. The true believers, the Hitler youth and the Young Communist league can still be trusted to defend the bunker or march in the May Day parade. George Herbert Hoover Bush can give his happy faced pronouncements but his media’s lost control.
I’ve watched and listened attentively to news about the sub prime meltdown and take it all in with a grain of salt. The media coverage doesn’t match my personal experience, as a President of a homeowners association I have seen 6% of our homes in foreclosure in the past 12 months. Homes empty and on the market for 2 years and homes on the market for a year without and offer or even a visitor. The homes that did sell were bailouts the seller losing their equity just to get out from under it and busy intersections are full of hand made signs, Owner financing! No qualifying! The gasp of the drowning.
I watched Cramer’s meltdown his anger and frustration and thought, hyperbole? Making a name for himself perhaps? But Cramer’s anger touched me because he talked about people, people losing their homes and being put out into the street instead of in the clinical sense, which is so prevalent. The corporate media ignored Cramer but it has now been replayed around the world. Even Donald Trump is ignored when he said on MSNBC that Cramer was absolutely right. MSNBC’s daily stock market coverage is repetitive like CNN’s headline news but Trump’s interview wasn’t replayed.
Trump made his fortune in Real Estate so you would think his comments were relevant? But when the network's sponsors are brokerage houses bad news about the economy and pronouncements that it’s going to get worse are unwelcome. A network with a Republican stance doesn’t like pronouncements that Republican policies aren’t working. What is needed is more news of how good we have it in America! So I switched to Fox, their panel of experts were in complete agreement that this indeed was a great time to buy! Guppies eating their young.
Talk of sub prime was brushed aside like the talk of one million fresh Russian troops or corruption in the South Vietnamese government. After all the Fed was injecting 19 billion to stabilize the credit market which would turn into 39 billion before days end. Proof positive that the Fed would fight this to a standstill while ignoring that the Japanese injected 75 billion and the Europeans over 200 billion.
The stock markets opened Friday morning down 200 points and them miraculously recovered then plunged again then again miraculously recovered by four o’clock. I am no expert on the market but supposedly it goes up on good news and down on bad.So if it goes down 200 points on bad news, how does it then recover 200 points without good news? Central banks intervention? Life support is good news? Is that enough to prompt investors to buy on Friday what they might buy much lower on Monday?
You don’t have to be and expert to see this markets is in trouble lurching like a drowning man. Central banks throwing life jackets but what happens when they run out of life jackets? Like all stock market panic’s when the bubble bursts some one gets left holding an empty bag. So far the global bankers have been hanging together but eventually the law of self preservation will kick in.
Are Cramer and Trump right? Maybe? Or are the smiling jackals at Fox right? From my knowledge of the stock market I’m not qualified to say. But from my knowledge of the compliant corporate media and the full good news court press I’d say we’re in deep. George Herbert Hoover Bush can give his happy faced pronouncements but his media’s lost control. His goose is cooked when the time comes when events outstrip the media’s ability to spin them.
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