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I blame the fucking media for every fucking fuck up in this country.

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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:15 PM
Original message
I blame the fucking media for every fucking fuck up in this country.
All of it. They've stupified America beyond belief. They got Bush elected twice, they got us into Iraq, they condone racism by covering hate groups like the teabaggers on the news. They're traitors and assholes. I hate them. There is not one redeeming quality about any news media "personality" with the exception of Rachel.

When I am forced to see that worthless piece of shit, Palin, on my TV every single day and listen to the media pretend to be amused, I figure it's time to turn off my cable. Hell, I'll pay the $200 Comcast wants to fuck me up my ass in order to cancel. It's worth every damn penny to stop hearing about that *^$%#&((*& of a woman, Rush Fucking Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and ever damn republican in office, ALL of whom SUCK, and suck more than the biggest leech on earth.

Go to hell, TV media. I hate you!
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Swamp Rat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:16 PM
Response to Original message
1. I blame duct tape too.
:D :hi:



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Sherman A1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 06:55 AM
Response to Reply #1
115. I must disagree
I am a strong supporter of duct tape....

It's like "The Force"...

It has a light side and a dark side yet it binds the world together.


I also observe the laws of gravity and support the PLANET Pluto!

:toast:
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mix Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:16 PM
Response to Original message
2. what she said ^^^
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SpiralHawk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:17 PM
Response to Original message
3. "Smirk" - Corporate Media (R)
eom
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tiptoe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #3
169. Corporate NEP MSM Suppression of '08 Prelim Exit Polls & Obama's True Win Margin continues:
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Supersedeas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:20 PM
Response to Original message
4. Advertising drives access to information--so 'news' becomes Campaign Advertising
Edited on Tue Mar-09-10 06:21 PM by Supersedeas
Everyday, Advertisers contribute money to mold the news to suit their political needs. Campaign contributions flow into the major networks day after day after day.
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opihimoimoi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:21 PM
Response to Original message
5. Yep...with ya...+666(888)....those media owners/advertisers are also to blame for social engineering
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Echo In Light Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:35 PM
Response to Reply #5
18. The forms of social control are all intertwined - although M$M doesn't write the 'scripts'
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tabasco Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:32 PM
Response to Reply #18
69. Damn good post.
Great graphic.
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:21 PM
Response to Original message
6. so when is there going to be a consequence for lying to the people?
When will these people be openly reviled and challenged?

When will there be protests outside their broadcast studios and offices?

People like Pete Williams (who is cozy with Lynn Cheney) and Mike Allen from Politico and ABC's Daily Note and all of the other liars. Howard Kurtz. Mike Gerson.

When will these people see that they are despised?

It's up to us.
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:08 AM
Response to Reply #6
88. when YOU make it so
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:15 AM
Response to Reply #88
101. yeah? I'm doing my best pal.
Have been since the day Monica Lewinsky's name hit the news and I realized the media was collaborating in a coup attempt. That's a lot of years of activism.

But I don't live near broadcast HQ of anything.
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omega minimo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 02:18 PM
Response to Reply #101
152. Wouldn't an effective protest be, NOT watching them?
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Oregone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:22 PM
Response to Original message
7. But please don't blame the precious pure baby Capitalism, swaddled in a manger
Having media entities owned by private shareholders who want nothing more than profit from their media ownership (and ownership in other sectors like the MIC) is definitely not the root of any problem. And having a system naturally structured to continuously contribute to wealth disparity, shifting a large amount of the capital and power to such owners could not be an issue at all. Nothing to see here. Move along.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:19 PM
Response to Reply #7
26. My first laugh of the day.
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:44 PM
Response to Reply #7
56. +1
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onestepforward Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:22 PM
Response to Original message
8. Our corporate media sucks.
They push their own agenda vs. reporting the facts, along with meaningless entertainment stories to boost their profits.
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sgalindez Donating Member (12 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:26 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. agreed
shut them off and sign on to this petition at Reader Supported News.

http://www.readersupportednews.org/index.php?option=com_petitions&view=petition&id=192
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ThatsMyBarack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #11
13. WElcome to DU, sgalindez!
:hi:
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:39 PM
Response to Reply #11
34. So glad you are here, sgalindez
Welcome!
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MrMickeysMom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:54 PM
Response to Reply #11
86. Damn, agreed... that was a great petition...
... I signed it, and welcome to DU!
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:03 AM
Response to Reply #11
87. Signed it, and thanks. That was such a good read!
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olegramps Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 03:36 PM
Response to Reply #11
156. I can't agree more.
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 03:37 PM by olegramps
Anyone who has read my comments know that this is one of my major problems with the situation in our nation. An unbiased Fourth Establishment that has the duty to keep the citizens informed is essential for maintenance of a Democracy. Our nation is in reality little different than the USSR was under the domination of Pravda in regard to objective news. Objective news commentators are a rare as blue moons and are drowned out by the radical right wing propagandists. I can only suppose that when the nation hits rock bottom perhaps people will begin to awaken to the fact that they have been taken for a ride.
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madokie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:24 PM
Response to Original message
9. I've been saying that for 30 plus years now
its the fucking media that is the problem and until we fix that the chances of anything going our way is slim and none.
I feel safe in saying that a large percent of our citizens are being fed bullshit and eating it up. Only about 25% of the citizens even bother to vote.
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Cetacea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:32 PM
Response to Reply #9
16. +1000
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:23 PM
Response to Reply #9
31. It's awake hypnosis

Drooling, twinkie consuming fucks watching Beck jack off all over the studio.
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madokie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:41 PM
Response to Reply #31
38. I've been surprised by a couple of my acquaintances
who have finally admitted to watching beckerhead and listening to pedobaugh both

We have to get this right or we loose our democracy if we haven't already lost it. Right now we're still going through the motions but I'm not so sure that is going to go on much longer as bushco showed us what was possible and now the dick family is showing us today just how much power they still have. Right wing think tanks are to blame and it started in earnest after the watergate criminality when one of the right wing think tanks, sorry can't remember which one it was but I think they still meet today, (AIE maybe) anyways they decided that in order to get their message out they were going to have to start buying the press, both printed and over the airwaves. I remember it well. I've been trying to tell everyone I've come in contact about this since then too. You can say I seen this one coming but so far have been powerless to do anything about it.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:39 PM
Response to Reply #38
48. Corporate control
We're fucked. Wall Street, insurance companies, weapons manufacturers, they control this country. They're fighting us tooth and nail to kill health reform. I hate them.
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Lorien Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:32 PM
Original message
Lots of complaints, no action. The Fairness Doctrine needs to be reinstated
I know, I know, "let's just break up the media monopolies". Well, then OTHER wealthy corporate interests will own the media; it'll just be Coke instead of Pepsi. Nothing will change without the Fairness Doctrine.
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madokie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:00 AM
Response to Original message
116. You are so right
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blm Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:26 PM
Response to Original message
10. I concur. The fascists didn't buy control of mass newsmedia in the 80s and 90s for anything good
That's for sure.
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Zomby Woof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:28 PM
Response to Original message
12. That's a quality rant
Recommended! :thumbsup:
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northofdenali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:56 PM
Response to Reply #12
51. ZW! Missed you, sweetheart (sorry, off topic)
Looooooove the harp. Here's mine:



:hug:
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Zomby Woof Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:08 PM
Response to Reply #51
78. Wow!
Heya NoD! :loveya: :hug:

Hang around here more often! I miss you dammit. :D
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anonymous171 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:31 PM
Response to Original message
14. We live in a Brave New World where American idol is more important than voting.
:crazy:
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:20 PM
Response to Reply #14
27. Fuck American Idol
Fuck TV.
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live love laugh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:20 AM
Response to Reply #14
102. We live in a Brave New World where American idol *IS* voting. nt
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Donnachaidh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 10:00 AM
Response to Reply #102
132. never so true before.
it's pathetic.
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depakid Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:31 PM
Response to Original message
15. Media deregulation turned America into a nation where people can't even agree on objective facts
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hay rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:32 PM
Response to Reply #15
45. Ouch!
The truth hurts.
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ibegurpard Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:09 PM
Response to Reply #15
79. And for that you can than thank former President Clinton
who could've vetoed it
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Enthusiast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:02 AM
Response to Reply #15
111. And that was the objective of
the deregulation.

From now on we will be presented with a special set of facts, approved facts that cannot be questioned. You know, like the WMD facts leading up to the Iraq War.
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virgogal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:33 PM
Response to Original message
17. Go back to 1/2 hour of daily news and weather and read lots of
novels (trashy ones especially recommended).

It will calm you right down.
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Echo In Light Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:39 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. Oddly enough, when one examines how much more authoritarian/conservative early/mid 20th cent generat
... generations were, I suppose it makes sense that the public mind was easier to control back then with just a few 'news' outlets - and movie 'shorts.'
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:21 PM
Response to Reply #20
29. Law and Order before equality.
Fuck conservatives.
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FrenchieCat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:37 PM
Response to Original message
19. You said it better than I have in a while! Yeah!
:applause:
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trusty elf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:54 PM
Response to Original message
21. kick
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G_j Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 06:58 PM
Response to Original message
22. I hate them too
and I'm not generally a 'hater'.

There is an ocean of blood on their hands.
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Uncle Joe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:05 PM
Response to Original message
23. I first became a news hound while in the Marines.
For the most part, national and global issues concerned me as I considered these issues with the potential to greatly impact my life, I wanted to know who we were pissing off and why.

I was an addicted news-hound by the time of my discharge, reading three newspapers a day while living for the network evening news supplemented later by PBS's Newshour and Washington Week in Review, talk radio was the only source of news information that didn't interest me. CNN was heaven and I was ecstatic when USA Today first came to Nashville. I even looked for my information from late night comedy.

To my way of thinking getting information from a maximum variety of sources every day was imperative in order to discern the truth because I figured every side would put their spin on it.

I felt unease and started coming to the realization in the 90s of how highly choreographed it became with actual truth and facts becoming totally irrelevant to their coverage, reporting and opinions while commercials completely took over, you couldn't flip away with a remote to avoid them.

Critical issues and details of national or global importance were either downplayed, obfuscated or ignored altogether, while sensationalist stories affecting a micro few number of Americans was given the Lion's share of coverage.

The idea of privacy for individuals; average Americans, celebrities or politicians evaporated while corporate oversight was portrayed as encroachment by "Big Government."

The ridiculous slanders and libel against Al Gore promoted by all major news sources "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet" etc. etc. etc. and treated as fact, even after having been debunked, and then compounded by not giving the man credit for his legislative achievements and the enabling of an obvious corrupt/incompetent Bush to power was the straw that broke the camel's back.

By trashing the leading political champion of opening up the Internet to the American People, the corporate media showed their true colors to me. The First Amendment meant nothing to them except in regards to protecting their own view of corporate sponsored business, their mindless cheer-leading during the run-up to the Iraq War and complicity in exposing a covert CIA Agent and her company dedicated to the curtailment of actual WMDs proliferation only serves to add paint to their Sistine Chapel Ceiling of propaganda.

While they do have some variance in spin, the vast majority are essentially the same; vanilla or French Vanilla promoters of corporate supremacy over the best interests of the American People and "We the People's" government.

Thanks for the thread, graywarrior.:thumbsup:
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:24 PM
Response to Reply #23
32. No, thank YOU, Uncle Joe
For your service, for your response and for being here.
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kgnu_fan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:06 PM
Response to Original message
24. Support community radio, independent media outlets like Democracy Now!
I think consumers also have to take positive action by stop watching stupid programming, stop eating junk food and eat some good yammy food!!!

Since I am on this subject, would you please support kgnu (www.kgnu.org)--- for our beloved community radio station's membership drive...KGNU has been on air for the last 32 years with listener members' support. Great music!!!!Intelligent news programming!!!
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:39 PM
Response to Reply #24
35. +1000
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harmonicon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:41 PM
Response to Reply #24
53. exactly - why do people watch that crap?
On a number of occasions I've been completely clueless about what a post on DU is about because it's just assumed by most people around here that EVERYONE watches cable news shows. I've found that those who do are far less informed and far more hysterical than those who don't. I also don't read newspapers or "new" magazines (when I'm at my parents' house I read The Nation, because they have a subscription - so, one exception), yet I think I've managed to be well informed about those things which impact my life and that which is important to me in this world without.
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kgnu_fan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:48 PM
Response to Reply #53
57. I also learn a lot from DU while I have to sort out gold out of other metal
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reflection Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:07 PM
Response to Original message
25. That was one damn fine rant. Hearty k/r. n/t
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deacon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:20 PM
Response to Original message
28. The health care coverage brought them to the bottom of the bottom. I never saw such horrible
coverage of anything more in my life.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:40 PM
Response to Reply #28
37. It's repulsive with huge chunks of vomit spewing all over the air waves
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Enthusiast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:16 AM
Response to Reply #28
113. Yeah, that was bad alright.
The degree of control and amount of misinformation has been on the rise for some time now.

Don't forget commentary on the Stimulus Bill. Someone can refresh my memory but Republicans were disproportionately represented in that discussion to a huge degree.
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Marr Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:22 PM
Response to Original message
30. They're just the PR department.
Our mass media is owned by a few large conglomerates. The message they promote is that of their owners. The world according to GE, so to speak.
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RufusTFirefly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:54 AM
Response to Reply #30
99. Bingo! Marr is right. The MSM is just the propaganda wing of corporate Amurica. n/t
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CrispyQ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 06:37 PM
Response to Reply #30
172. Bumper sticker:
The media is only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them.

Just this afternoon, Rick Sanchez was discussing the media. He said something like, "The media is like a dog chasing it's own tail the way we go on & on about some stories." But then he said that CNN was one of the better networks because "we have standards." Wow! Just wow. Is that what you call standards, Rick? Have you ever watched Bill Moyers, Rick? Cuz that's a standard worth working toward. You hacks at CNN are looking more & more like faux news every day.

A few years ago Anderson Cooper claimed that because the complaints that CNN got were about equal from both the right & the left, it meant that they were doing a good job. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: Hey Coop, did you ever take a fucking logic class? Do you even know what logic is?

The media is a huge part of the problem in this country & they are as complicit as raygun/bushco in the destruction of our country.
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pansypoo53219 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:29 PM
Response to Original message
33. we need an open season on the teevee
gnews.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:43 PM
Response to Reply #33
39. I have visions of a scene in the movie Stone Cold
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L0oniX Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 07:40 PM
Response to Original message
36. FreeSpeech TV is the only public supported news source left. PBS is p0wnd.
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kgnu_fan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:27 PM
Response to Reply #36
43. Let's support and spread independent media network!!!
If we all stop watching stupid tv, stop shopping at Wall Mart, then they will starve. Remember, there are more of us than "them"....
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:32 PM
Response to Reply #43
44. The majority of voters are uninformed and addicted to TV and WalMart
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kgnu_fan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #44
49. catch 22 round and round and round
Stupid media makes stupid people who watch stupid TVs that create stupid people who support Wall Mart that maintains the stupid media....

So how and where to intervene????
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L0oniX Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:58 PM
Response to Reply #49
52. I can sniff out Fux viewers ...but I need someone else to shoot them.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:20 PM
Response to Reply #49
82. Create a mass hypnotism event?
We almost had one with the election of Obama, but the media found out and ramped up the terror, the hate, and American Idol
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NYC_SKP Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:08 PM
Response to Original message
40. You are correct, graywarrior. K and R.
It, the media, is a product, slick and deceptive.

Even our favorites are not without blame in their presentations.

But those shows that have the highest viewership are the worst.

:patriot:
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:34 PM
Response to Reply #40
46. God bless Keith for standing up when we needed him most, but damn,
I can't watch the theatrics another minute.
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NC_Nurse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:15 PM
Response to Original message
41. Agreed. It's all celeb shit and talking points. The Cult of Personality has taken
over everything.
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uponit7771 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:24 PM
Response to Original message
42. I dislike our media save a few worse than I dislike conserative social and fiscal ideals
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hay rick Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:37 PM
Response to Original message
47. K&R
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northofdenali Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 08:52 PM
Response to Original message
50. I have watched very, very little MSM television since 9/11.
Watching the absolute hysteria-invoking CNN, listening to the so-obviously-fake voices of "concern" and "horror", hearing Faux stir up the right wingnuts desire for endless war (which we've got), disgusted me to the point I no longer watch any news on the tube.

I do occasionally watch a television show. About once every 6 weeks or so. If I'm out of books and there's nothing else going on, and I'm tired of the computer.

We went from all-channel cable to basic (and only because it's the only way in my town to stay on line), and if it's turned on, the TV is usually on KUAC, our public-broadcast channel, or a show or sports (ROLL TIDE) that we want to watch.

But the newspapers/radio stations are not any better. Since they are almost all owned by large right wing corporations, it makes no difference.

K&R graywarrior - now I know why you never turned the goose loose! :hi::pals::loveya:
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Hissyspit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:41 PM
Response to Original message
54. January 3, 1996
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:42 PM
Response to Original message
55. The MSM is an arm of the Corporate Elite, blame the root of the problem, not the symptoms.
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Moostache Donating Member (905 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:54 PM
Response to Reply #55
171. Easier said than done...
The true root problem is our entire culture that glorifies endless, exponential profit growth (inside a finite system) above ALL other values and principles.

I do not need to see anything other than the things we spend money on (or just as telling do NOT spend money on) to tell you exactly what this nation has become all about in the last 40 years.

Military Spending?
Education?
Health Care?
Energy?
Job Creation?
Promotion of New Industry?
Bank Profits?
Insurance Profits?
Entertainment?

I defy anyone to envision a long-term successful society and then match the spending habits and priorities of THAT society to our own profoundly sick society, and we do what we do at the behest and exhortation of corporations bent on maximizing profit growth; not just profits, not just running a successful business that fills a need or provides a valuable service, but GROWTH in profits. Without this abhorrent and twisted world view, many, many other problems would be addressed a lot differently.
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CrispyQ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 06:46 PM
Response to Reply #171
173. The following article took a bashing here at DU -
I suspect because many did not bother to read it in it's entirety. It's less about bashing Obama than it is a commentary on our sick, shallow society.



Buying Brand Obama
by Chris Hedges

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/04

snip...

Celebrity culture has leeched into every aspect of our culture, including politics, to bequeath to us what Benjamin DeMott called "junk politics." Junk politics does not demand justice or the reparation of rights. Junk politics personalizes and moralizes issues rather than clarifying them. "It's impatient with articulated conflict, enthusiastic about America's optimism and moral character, and heavily dependent on feel-your-pain language and gesture," DeMott noted. The result of junk politics is that nothing changes - "meaning zero interruption in the processes and practices that strengthen existing, interlocking systems of socioeconomic advantage." It redefines traditional values, tilting "courage toward braggadocio, sympathy toward mawkishness, humility toward self-disrespect, identification with ordinary citizens toward distrust of brains." Junk politics "miniaturizes large, complex problems at home while maximizing threats from abroad. It's also given to abrupt unexplained reversals of its own public stances, often spectacularly bloating problems previously miniaturized." And finally, it "seeks at every turn to obliterate voters' consciousness of socioeconomic and other differences in their midst."

An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks-these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images. A governor who patronizes call girls becomes a huge news story. A politician who proposes serious regulatory reform, universal health care or advocates curbing wasteful spending is boring. Kings, queens and emperors once used their court conspiracies to divert their subjects. Today cinematic, political and journalistic celebrities distract us with their personal foibles and scandals. They create our public mythology. Acting, politics and sports have become, as they were during the reign of Nero, interchangeable.

In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek reality. Reality is complicated. Reality is boring. We are incapable or unwilling to handle its confusion. We ask to be indulged and comforted by clichés, stereotypes and inspirational messages that tell us we can be whoever we seek to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities, and that our future will always be glorious and prosperous, either because of our own attributes, or our national character, or because we are blessed by God. Reality is not accepted as an impediment to our desires. Reality does not make us feel good.

~more at link


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cliffordu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:52 PM
Response to Original message
58. Greywarrior, ya hit it right on the head.
Have you read "Enslaved by Ducks" by Bob Tarte??
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rosesaylavee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:52 PM
Response to Original message
59. Right there with you...
The media sucks and they don't care that they do.
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BlueJac Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:52 PM
Response to Original message
60. I blame the lame believers in total bullshit.......
and oh yes, the fucking assholes in DC, both fucking parties......The phonies are the worst...Bill Clinton and Obama just fucking come to mind!!! I want some more chanting "yes we can" like some Hitler rally in black and white..very eerie!!!
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GreenArrow Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 09:56 PM
Response to Original message
61. The fucking media is actually a tool
that is used by those who are resposible for fucking everything up in this country. Just as a hammer doesn't drive a nail without a hand to guide it, the media doesn't operate on its own power. It's strictly a propaganda organ.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:30 PM
Response to Reply #61
67. Owned by watchdogs and corporate bastards who worship the god of gimme
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SlingBlade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:07 PM
Response to Original message
62. Has that duck been Mirandatized ?
No OK, just mak'in sure :)
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:31 PM
Response to Reply #62
68. Didn't you know? He's a stoner.
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Mopar151 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:17 AM
Response to Reply #68
90. So the tape is voluntary?
Jus tryi'n to stand up for another bong hit:hippie: :smoke: :wow: :nuke: :hippie: :smoke: :wow: :nuke::hippie: :smoke: :wow: :nuke:
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laughingliberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:10 PM
Response to Original message
63. That sums it up nicely! nt
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:18 PM
Response to Original message
64. Well, agree . . but it's a corporate press, with heavy CIA/Pentagon control . . .
Edited on Tue Mar-09-10 10:25 PM by defendandprotect
Really, what people have to begin doing is putting the TV in the closet --

No kidding!!


... but I think Thomas Jefferson would have agreed with you cause he saw a "free press"

as essential to democracy -- !!!


"The myth of a free press died with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy" --
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:32 PM
Response to Reply #64
70. Man, have you got that right.
We should have reliazed it when they went after John Lennon for the Jesus thing and covered the album burnings.
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Lorien Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #64
71. I think that it died with Reagan.
When he repealed the Fairness Doctrine the conservatives took over completely.
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:43 AM
Response to Reply #71
140. Agree . ..
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 11:50 AM by defendandprotect
things were made worse by Reagan who doubled advertising time by the way --

doubling commercial time -- and the Fairness Doctrine --

And, I think a good deal of the fakery of video and manipulation became more professional.

But in the sense that our "free press" was paralyzed at the time of the JFK

coup and not free to truly report -- and all backed the Warren Commission --

it paved the way for the politically violent right wing to completely take over.

The coup on JFK was also a coup on our "people's" government -- and the Democratic

Party, of course. Though the effects weren't immediate, eventually anyone who would

have investigated and reversed this coup was eliminated or silenced.

It did take them a little while to target Democrats who might have done something

about all of this and move them out of Congress. And to begin to dismantle the

Democratic Party. Granted, not all of it is done thru violence. Buying of government

while legal technically is deviant and should be recognized as such.

Carl Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein wrote some interesting articles about CIA coming

into our press -- Rolling Stone article is still around on the internet. If I recall

correctly, his original estimate was something like 400-600 CIA "journalists." A few

years later, he was estimating 1,200 of them. And that's only increased -- PLUS as we

all can clearly see a very high presence on scree of Pentagon commentators. And, they

were active off-screen long before that.



We need to restore the Fairness Doctrine --

and we need to educate the public re propaganda -- including video propaganda and

manipulation by our own broadcasters.

:)
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troubledamerican Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:23 PM
Response to Original message
65. FDR's VP Henry Wallace's media WARNING
"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information...

"With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

-- Henry Wallace, FDR's VP, writing in the New York Times, April 9, 1944.

also found in Henry A. Wallace, Democracy Reborn (New York, 1944), edited by Russell Lord, p. 259.

Full essay here: http://www.newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm





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olegramps Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 03:54 PM
Response to Reply #65
157. Thanks for your post concerning Wallace's concerns:
I found his comments concerning those who supported the Nazi's before the war to apply directly to the rotten Bush family in which he stated:


"Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases:
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troubledamerican Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:31 PM
Response to Reply #157
178. I agree.
Bush family & Dulles brothers too.

Always wondered why they dumped Wallace for Truman in '44. I think FDR was being ravaged by arsenic poisoning at that point, judging from the photos.
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Lorien Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:30 PM
Response to Original message
66. Then let's demand a return of the Fairness Doctrine
though I know that many who don't remember what it was like to have one have swallowed Rush Limbaugh's BS on the topic hook, line and sinker.
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JimWis Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:35 PM
Response to Original message
72. K&R
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JDPriestly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:47 PM
Response to Original message
73. So, cancel you cable subscription.
Put your money where your mouth is. If you don't like what you see on TV, turn it off. That is what I did, and my life is much better for it.

If we stopped subscribing to cable, they would lose a lot of money and change their programming.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:01 PM
Response to Reply #73
76. I am cancelling.
I can't have it in my house any longer. TV is toxic.
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LaPera Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 10:59 PM
Response to Original message
74. Major media is corporate owned, republicans protect & benefit from the corporate media lies
Edited on Tue Mar-09-10 11:05 PM by LaPera
as well as the truths that the media absolutely hides from the American public....the corporate media the same public that over 85% of the Americana get their news, influence, information and voting decisions.

The republicans corporate fascist have known this and practiced this control since Goebbels in Nazi Germany who nearly made it an art form - own & control the media and you control the people.

And the only ones who have the means & capacity to own the mass media organizations (and do) are the corporations.

While republican ideology has always supported corporations over people, (people should receive nothing from government and work & fend for themselves no matter that the republicans instead give our government tax dollars to corporations instead in the form of subsidies, incentives, tax cuts & government bail-outs.

The corporate media is indeed to blame for the lies and disinformation and the republicans reap from the lies and the benefits for supporting corporations deregulation with the usual corporate agenda & lies, smears, hate, distortions, fear, manipulation & intimidation to sway the American voters.
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wiggs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:01 PM
Response to Original message
75. Wouldn't have happened without a complicit media. However
that's why entrenched power spent the last 30 years pouring billions into consolidation of media, into establishment of right wing think tanks, into ensuring that 9 of every 10 hours of talk radio is conservative, into lobbying for deregulation of media and and corporations generally, into coddling the religious right, into derision of academics and science and knowledge, into destroying the quality of public discourse, and into fighting middle class power.

Corporations made it happen, politicians made it happen and, frankly, we let it happen. Americans don't march in streets by the millions or go on strike like some Europeans do. We allow ourselves to be polarized into camps and groups. We allow ourselves to be distracted. We are easily divided and manipulated.

I agree with GreenArrow in above post. Media is one of many tools used by those who wish to concentrate power and money into the hands of fewer and fewer. I agree with you re Rachel and that we are stupified as a nation.
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wiggs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:07 PM
Response to Reply #75
77. What's amazing and unbelievable to me is the fact that over the last 8 years
many RW internal memos have been "leaked" or released or discovered outlining exactly how to frame issues, use tested buzzwords, manipulate opinion, use fear, disrupt public meetings, intimidate officials, etc....and, yet, there's hardly a ripple or backlash or focus on these heinous strategies by EITHER left or right. How clear could it be to RWrs and the media that their own leaders are lying to them and manipulating information?

When will someone make a connection between misinformation and the destruction of democracy? (Lincoln: the BASIS of democracy is a well informed public)

As I inferred above...the RW is willingly allowing themselves to be lied to, against their own best interests.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #77
81. When the majority of the country is in a TV trance, a junk food trance,
an hate-fest trance, a poverty trance, an unemployment trance, a "die without health care" trance, then the corporate media can do anything they want because no one is watching. And the ones who are watching, are being talked over by fucks like Rush and Beck and O'Reilly and Palin and McCain and all the rest of the evil bastards.
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Echo In Light Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:11 AM
Response to Reply #77
118. Too much of the 'professional/establishment' Dem % have been trained to obediently disavow "CTs"
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 07:12 AM by Echo In Light
Conspiracy theories. And yes, for much of that ilk, since they're personally beholden to the exploits of same capitalist system the fascists wield against The Many, the notion of ascribing wrong-doing to the Powerful is OFF LIMITS.

Blame the M$M, sure. But don't forget to likewise assign blame to that apple polisher/ladder climber/"I'm so sensible b/c I disavow the obvious" mentality of inaction that's gotten astonishing mileage in the demise of our rep democracy. I actually find that loathsome, enabling 'moderate' position to be far more dangerous than the outright fascist character of the RW movement here.
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scentopine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:15 PM
Response to Original message
80. Fake hair, fake breasts, fake teeth, fake face, do you expect real news?
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:21 PM
Response to Reply #80
83. I expect what we are getting and they know that which is why I hate them
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orbitalman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:48 PM
Response to Original message
84. This CANNOT be said ENOUGH!!! nt
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bertman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Mar-09-10 11:51 PM
Response to Original message
85. graywarrior, given the way you feel about this topic, I think it would be a good idea if you
just let it all hang out, don't hold back, tell it like it is, give 'um holy hell, instead of keeping it inside all bottled up. That's not good for one's mental health.



:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


I rec this thread heartily.

Also recommend no TeeVee watching unless it's Rachel and Democracy Now and Bill Moyers' Journal. Otherwise, you're just absorbing propaganda. Oh yeah, The Daily Show and Colbert could be exceptions.

Thanks for this post. You really nailed it.

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Mopar151 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:31 AM
Response to Reply #85
93. I like the little dogs
On APL, and whatever crazy shit Lucas Oil sponsors on Speed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En1OmQf9_DY
Other'n that, not much.
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bertman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:37 AM
Response to Reply #93
94. Okay, I'll bite. What's APL, Mopar151?
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Mopar151 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:54 AM
Response to Reply #94
98. Animal Planet
I really like some of the shows on exotic habitats for zoos, too. More my kind of place than "Cribs"
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bertman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:14 PM
Response to Reply #98
179. Damn. I should have figured that out on my own. Yes, they do have some cool stuff on there.
Thanks.
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nyc 4 Biden Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:13 AM
Response to Original message
89. wish i could rec +1000
as i've posted before...

“Information is the currency of democracy.”
-Thomas Jefferson
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colsohlibgal Donating Member (670 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:19 AM
Response to Original message
91. The Other Half Of The Equation
The media couldn't operate like this without a lot of pretty lazy not overly bright people who buy what they're selling no questioning at all.
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pauldp Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:22 AM
Response to Original message
92. Insidious 24/7 Propaganda. Goebbels would have drooled over it. nt
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WCGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:38 AM
Response to Original message
95. Right on Sister....
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LooseWilly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:40 AM
Response to Original message
96. I blame the lazy and idiotic public.
Including you. And me.

Vote stealing is all well and nice... but only seems to really function around the edges of the elections over all.

What it comes down to is simple. This country gets what it votes for. A stupid public gets a half-witted government, and a media that caters to the stupid public.

A lazy population that refuses to take advantage of a free education in order to learn to be at least three-quarter witted... what the hells do you, do we, expect?

It's all the parents' fault. Including me. They, we, need to stop having children until they, we, learn to do better. Tolstoy was right...
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Initech Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:43 AM
Response to Original message
97. Our SAUDI-owned media? Let's not forget that little detail.
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go west young man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:58 AM
Response to Original message
100. I've been without cable for over a year and it is completely liberating!
Your mind becomes free and clear and you feel empowered because your not giving a chunk of change to the assholes that have ruined the USA. We have a 27 Imac with a super fast internet connection and Netflix. Free TV is available on the internet with Hulu and Joost as well. We still use the big TV in the living room for movies and rock videos and we now have more quality family time together instead of just staring at the stupid box like zombies wondering (like a third of america) who sucks on American Idol today. There is no anger from being brainwashed by the corporate "snooze" networks. The only reason we had cable was for the Daily show and the Discovery channel and both of them are available online anyway. We now go out a lot more, have friends over for drinks and take walks around the block with the baby. It's fucking refreshing!

No 27 channels of religious psychos on Sunday! No cop shows repeating the same old bullshit clips. No Music Television with Kurt Loders 80 year old ass talking about a 16 year old spoiled rich bitches birthday party! No sick reverse voyeurism with Chris Hansen and a bunch of pedophiles. No prison repeats over and over glamorizing gangsters and mass murderers. No Judge Judy, Joe Brown, Wapner and no fucking disgusting Nancy Grace exploiting kidnap victims. No reality shows with arrogant self delusional pricks covered in tattoos. No corporate spoon fed (look a water skiing squirrel and a missing blond girl) war and politics. No History channel that feeds you propaganda and religious programming. No TLC (The Learning Channel?) that shows you non stop fucking baby stories! No Jim ( I was wrong about Bear Stearns) Kramer. No C-Span thats been completely skewed to the right. No Faux of course as they are the head of the whole hydra and even a small dose can lead to psychosis. No CNN as they're bobble headed anchors and geriatric wimp Wolf Blitzer make me want to destroy my TV. No MSNBC even as they bother to put 'dead intern" Joe Scarborough on still. Proving that they too are fucking idiots. After all they do make a large chunk of change making weapons and keeping the wars going. No Comedy Central as they continually advertise for young bodies for the war machine. No primordial spoon fed muck for idiots.Fuck em all.

$18 a month for Netflix. $45 a month for internet.=$60 a month for one's sanity which equals fucking priceless. Free your mind and cut off that cable you'll be glad you did.
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xiamiam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 08:48 AM
Response to Reply #100
123. I'm off tv as well..you expressed my experience without it..liberating
and clarity returning after years of being bamboozled into thinking their news flash of the day had anything to do with my life..takes a little getting used to since the tv is like a constant companion...but life is so much better without it
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newtothegame Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:44 AM
Response to Original message
103. So, lesson learned is...it's not our fault?
It's not our fault we spent the summer and fall focused on how good Obama looked in sunglasses instead of organizing to defeat Prop 8?

It's not our fault we've played the race card so much over the last 40 years or so that the NeoCons can say virtually anything they want about the current President and no one blinks?

It's not our fault we don't demand more of a President who insisted he was more than smoke and mirrors, and it's not our fault that we're now actively campaigning for a bill without a public option from a President who promised to only sign a bill with a public option?

Ok then. It's the media's fault. Let's just give up and die.
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ClassWarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:50 AM
Response to Original message
104. I agree. Taking over the media should be priority #2 for all of us, right behind...
...full public financing of campaigns.

Pretty much everything else will fall into place after that.

NGU.

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CrispyQ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 06:57 PM
Response to Reply #104
174. Add electronic voting to that list & you have the three most critical issues, which if addressed,
could turn this country around.

Makes you wonder why even the dems don't address these issues, huh? Our 'two party' system is a facade. The People are being played. How bad does it have to get before the People wake up & will there be anything to salvage once they do?
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Patchuli Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 02:08 AM
Response to Original message
105. That duck's never gettin' free of you, is he? nt
:cry:
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Festivito Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 02:28 AM
Response to Original message
106. Inequality, Unequal democratic campaigns, Unequal corporatism, Unequal media.
We could fix the media or the campaign financing as a decent step to fix everything.
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elocs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:07 AM
Response to Original message
107. It's always good to have an omnipotent power to blame when things go wrong.
Some people shake their fists at God, some at the media, some think it's one and the same. Nobody ever forced me to watch anything on tv that I didn't freely watch though.
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xiamiam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 08:51 AM
Response to Reply #107
124. voluntarily watching does not eliminate its influence...its impossible
the only solution for the moment, until it changes..is to stop..cold turkey
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snot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:13 AM
Response to Original message
108. Chomsky nailed it 30 years ago: the media are owned by the oligarchs, and
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 04:15 AM by snot
the 4th estate, intended by the Founders to be the watchdog of democracy, has become the lapdog of its owners.

PS: Where were you all when I was trying to drum up support for Maurice Hinchey's act for media reform?
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Echo In Light Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:04 AM
Response to Reply #108
117. I know...remember trying to talk to people about M$M 10, 15, 20 yrs ago = silence
Aside from blank stares you'd also get a lot of this shit: :shrug:

If there was any upshot to the brazen criminality of Bush/Cheney, at least how that illegal admin worked so well within the framework of our system of governance (they had A LOT of help from all over) it forced many to reconsider their safe n smug refutation re the supposed non existence of "crazy conspiracy theories."
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Enthusiast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:56 AM
Response to Original message
109. Me too. nt
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DCBob Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:58 AM
Response to Original message
110. Totally agree. That's why Rupert Murdock may be the most powerful man on the planet right now..
And the problem is likely to get even worse in the future.
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upi402 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:04 AM
Response to Original message
112. +1,000 Dingidy DING DING!
But I did hear on MSNBC that Rush will leave the country if HCR passes!!!!
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :evilgrin: :party: :toast:
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spicegal Donating Member (617 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 06:10 AM
Response to Original message
114. I do agree that our news media is pretty worthless, but there are a few other good ones besides
Rachel, although I think she's the best. Generally speaking, Americans are woefully misinformed and ignorant. Republicans exploit that ignorance quite well with their fear mongering.
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Fly by night Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:47 AM
Response to Original message
119. Perhaps your next thread should go into "General Discussion -- Fuck" forum
BTW, it's hard to get mad at television if you don't own one.

Try it, you'll like it.
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HughMoran Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 08:28 AM
Response to Original message
120. They feed us propaganda because they are too lazy to do any real work
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 08:28 AM by HughMoran
It's become sickening. More media outlets didn't foster competition, it simply made them all try to be the most 'popular', which meant following the right-wing propaganda methods of Faux 'news'. :puke:

We should re-take OUR media back from these corporate whores.
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Echo In Light Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:15 AM
Response to Reply #120
127. M$M doesn't lie & disinform the public b/c its "too lazy to do any real work"
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 09:43 AM by Echo In Light
The ones in control of propagandizing the public mind (the editors of the major US 'news' outlets who set the bar for all the smaller affiliates throughout the country) is to, on behalf of empire's intersts, coax as many as possible to the desired position requires quite a bit of strategical re-writing, under-reporting, spinning, omitting, etc.
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xiamiam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 08:33 AM
Response to Original message
121. I stopped watching tv in october for the exact same reason
I tired of the nonsense but here is the amazing thing. I surf the internet for news and as the months pass, the hype and media nonsense are more and more evident. Huffington Post for example has news but a lot of drivel about young celebrities or reality stars. DU has a lot of posts about Palin, Beck, Rush, and Scarborough...None of this is important. The only thing that makes them important is focusing on them and since my life is more meaningful than their nonsense, I can just read the headline and be done..I know all that I need to know about personalities. That is what the media has done to us..made us celebrity personality junkies whether it be political or entertainment or sports personalities. TMZ is the perfect example of all that is wrong with America.
I still watch documentaries online..and occasionally Rachel Keith, frontline etc. But the cable service will NEVER be renewed in my home..ever.
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RedRoses323 Donating Member (175 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 08:47 AM
Response to Original message
122. Totally F**king Agree.......
:headbang: :headbang: :headbang:
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freddie mertz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:04 AM
Response to Original message
125. I blame a corrupt system and pitifully ignorant electorate.
The media play their part, but they are just one arm of the larger system of control.
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1badjedi Donating Member (116 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:15 AM
Response to Original message
126. Though I have no love for our media
the blame for their present day shenanigans lies squarely on the american people. No one is forced to watch tv and since we no longer use outdoor antennas to receive even local stations no one is forced to buy what local cable and dish networks are selling. The only thing forcing you to "see that worthless piece of shit, Palin, on my TV every single day" is your lack of self control. Get rid of the tv if it is such a bane to your existence, cut off the cable or whatever it takes but be responsible for your own actions and stop blaming others.

I don't have cable or dish in my house and maybe if more people did the same in record numbers this media that we're all responsible for creating would get the message that we're tired of their lies. Until that happens if ever the lies will remain and the population will turn into zombies drooling in front of the box if they have not already. Or like some of you they will lash out in the wrong direction instead of looking in the mirror and taking a stand.

So cancel your cable and leave it off don't just talk about doing it. Hate it for real and sentence it to the past. I did 2 years ago and I have yet to waver.

For the record I am not nor do I feel better than any of you but I do know I am more determined to stand for what I believe and my actions reflect that. Tv is for the gullible and unimaginative and I don't run with that crowd any longer.
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SlingBlade Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:20 AM
Response to Original message
128. The Media in Part, Yes. But ....
Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 09:23 AM by SlingBlade
let's not give these spineless corporated Dems a pass.
Remember. One lone Re-Puke,(Bunning),managed to hold up something as vital
as U.I Extensions to millions of Americans who needed it all by his lonesome.

In my mind that just blew the lid off ANY excuses for the Dem's playing dead
for eight years under the Bush Regime. Are ya telling me a Dem could have done
this with the Iraq War, The Patriot Act, The Supremes etc etc etc ?

And that doesn't even address their actions since the elections of 2006 and 2008
which completely removed their little hidy holes.

We need real leadership, Dean, Greyson, Kucinich ,Michael Bennet,Kirsten Gillibrand,Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown amongst others who signed that letter on the public option.

It takes guts to talk truth to power, It takes even more guts to act.
Replace Rahms Blue Dogs, Centrist,and Lieberman Liberals with Real Democrats like these
and we would see a new America a better America, Straight up !

Let's get real, Stop playing partisan games, Stop the Good Cop Bad Cop and concentrate on
holding accountable those WE sent to do OUR bidding. Do that, And trust me, The Re-Pukes will
be no problem, No problem whatsoever.

Public Option Through Reconciliation — Has your senator taken a stand?
http://whipcongress.com/#house


K&R
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John Q. Citizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:26 AM
Response to Original message
129. Simplistic in the sense that they didn't pass the Telecommunications Act. Clinton did.
Did you vote for Clinton? Then you might want to hate your self just a little bit, also.

Spiro Agnew also blamed the media, as I recall.

I find it puzzling that you are forced to watch your TV. Is that your mom's rule?

I mean seriously,

'Blow up your TV, throw away your papers,
move to the country and build you a home.
Plant a little garden, eat a lot of peaches,
and try to find Jesus, Buddha, or Bob, on your own.' - John Prine (with some artistic license on my part)




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Vermontgrown Donating Member (180 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:36 AM
Response to Original message
130. The news
is tainted by the first, that they run 24 hours, so atleast 23.5 hours is bullshit. Then another fact is that 99% of the news people are republicans, so you know how they are going to lean. They are hired not for their skill of reporting, but what they look like on camera. So if you pulled anyone of the many news readers aside and asked them about the news or politics, they wouldn't be able to answer a question any better than Sarah Palin.
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Prof Lester Donating Member (158 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 09:41 AM
Response to Original message
131. Eventually it gets to be an issue of personal morality
They're scum alright.. neo-feudalist scum. I quit reading their "news"papers and watching the tube some time ago. I feel better for it. I say walk away from the lies.. turn 'em off. Forgo the BS. Can the crap. BUT I disagree that they got Bush elected and reelected. On the contrary, Bush was neither elected nor reelected. He was selected. He was selected by means of disenfranchisement of millions of black and hispanic Democratic voters and by corrupted, rigged voting machines. Period. This is the biggest crime in American history. And of course that's why they bumped off that young feller there that was their IT vote rigger guy. The media has to be broken up. It must be reregulated. No one man or corporation can be allowed to control all the information in the country. Simple law: no one man, or corporation can own more than one media outlet. Period. And "libertarian" whiners can go soak their head. I don't give a fat rat's ass what some "Austrian" got to say about it. What did Austrians do anyway? Invented Hitler and leather shorts. BFD. (I agree they had some real fine musicians though.) "Freedom" for the big sharks means slavery for everyone else. So when they yap "freedom" hear the truth: slavery for the majority.
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fatbuckel Donating Member (518 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 10:05 AM
Response to Original message
133. tell us how you really feel....
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 10:34 AM
Response to Original message
134. I'm at the gym this morning and they have MSNBC on with Joe
Jesus, I can't escape from it.
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spanone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 10:38 AM
Response to Original message
135. they have certainly played a central role
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Toasterlad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 10:43 AM
Response to Original message
136. It's Our Fault. Plain and Simple.
The things the politicians do, or don't do...the things the media is allowed to keep from us, and keep us from questioning by feeding us American Idol and Jersey Shore...the ludicrous markup of insanely cheap medication and other methods used by greedy corporations to make the few at the top insanely, pointlessly rich...it's our fault. Because we ALLOW all these things to happen.

They have the power because we LET them have the power.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:20 AM
Response to Reply #136
139. American's are numbed with TV, junk food, alcohol and prescription drugs
Hell, a therapist friend of mine just told me about a 3 year old that was put on psychotropic drugs. WTF? We're losing our ability to be critical thinkers and make decisions about what is killing us!
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Highway61 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:59 AM
Response to Reply #139
144. No truer words spoken
critical thinking? To be an anchor today...all you need is to read People magazine from cover to cover each week. What. The. Fuck.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 03:57 PM
Response to Reply #144
158. And sometimes give that look as if they know more than we do
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Blue Owl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 10:51 AM
Response to Original message
137. ABCNNBCBS
Go sell your shit sandwiches somewhere else, I ain't fucking buying one.
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pgodbold Donating Member (953 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:13 AM
Response to Original message
138. I got rid of my TV about 3 years ago....


Buck up .. you can do it too.... Your computer is enough and you can stream most any movie on the planet.

Life is good with no TV ... join me.
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axollot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:52 AM
Response to Original message
141. You have a contract with Comcast? I've never heard of one, not defending them -
but curious about having a contract and think that would be rubbish....Agree with you on the whole media thing. It's been going on in the US for a long time. I watched from afar for so long that it was easy to see when I moved back during Bush jr's reign of hell.
Cheers mate good luck
Sandy
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:17 PM
Response to Reply #141
159. We got the package: TV, internet, and phone for $99 per month
so they claimed we had to sign a year long contract with them. I hate them as much as I hate republicans.
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axollot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:18 PM
Response to Reply #159
168. That's messed up. I've been with them for 6yrs and they seriously lick my boots here - dunno why?!
Whenever we started to have financial issues they did extensions and set us up on what ever deal was going at the time. Now we have the deal you have, just to keep us from canceling, never a contract tho?!
I'm probably out of touch with their new customer tactics. But, double check through a tech line - usually best service (billing are sometimes outsourced and do not have options), they were advertising that they were different from others because of no contracts, might be worth the trouble :shrug:?!?

Cheers
Sandy
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:59 PM
Response to Reply #168
177. When I lived in Florida, Comcast was a different animal
They did the same, bent over backwards to keep us as customers. Of course. when you cancel with them, it's a different story. We cancelled service because we were moving back to NH and they kept sending us shut off notices for non-payment, even though we had a receipt from giving the cable box back to them.
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axollot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-11-10 12:16 PM
Response to Reply #177
180. Oh man that sucks. So it sounds like they are saying you own the box, you owe us 200 for it?
Or didnt send it back to them? Or just something in the contract that said you canceled to early? Not trying to be thick here, but if you have proof you do not owe them money you have a way to stop them from coming after you for it - the receipt should help get it resolved. Sorry they are treating you poorly. I know we didnt sign a contract with them - ever. We'll be very careful if we ever have to cancel with them tho!!
Cheers
Sandy
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YOY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:57 AM
Response to Original message
142. I blame 3 things really.
Media

The Lobbyist system for derailing democracy.

The capital budget structure of government that allocates money to waste in a use or lose endeavor. Half of it goes to contracting companies and the people working on the jobs (the contractors themselves).
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loudsue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 11:59 AM
Response to Original message
143. So so true. Just got off the phone w/ a rightwing "democrat"
who has obviously fallen for the spin on the teevee. She used to make sense to me, an old friend, but it makes me sick to hear what she has started believing.

The military/industrial/commercial complex has fucking ruined this country.
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phatkatt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:02 PM
Response to Original message
145. I saw an interview with Paul McCartney from the 60's ...
... after he admitted to using drugs. The reporter was saying he was responsible for encouraging all his fans to use drugs because he was a roll model, etc. He said, no, he was just being honest and it was the media that made it an issue and his fans would never know if they didn't make a big deal out of it, so they were the ones encouraging drug use.

The media has always been this way and they always will.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:19 PM
Response to Reply #145
160. I just watched that interview somewhere, can't remember where
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valerief Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:09 PM
Response to Original message
146. Well said!
:applause:
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Doctor_J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:21 PM
Response to Original message
147. You posted this 20 hrs ago. Have you cancelled yet?
DU seems to be longer on talk than action.

IMO this is the first front on which we should begin the reclamation of the US. Hedges, Johnston and others have written that it will soon be time to fight, flee, or succumb. Big Media is a cancer on the country. 20 years ago, in Stage 1, it could have been cured fairly simply by removing a few tumors - Limpballs, Rove, Luntz. It has now progressed to Stage 4, and the treatment will have to be radical, and may not be successful. For instance, Hartmann said yesterday that the newest Big Media meme is that the president is a "suicide bomber" - i. e. terrorist. If a few of the purveyors of this seditious lie were to suffer some really severe consequences, quickly and publicly, we could begin to have a different dialog. It is a travesty that Limpballs is allowed to call the president a terrorist, to our soldiers, on tax payer-funded medium. But there is nothing legally that can be done to stop it.

That said, a quick glance at DU reveals that even people who call themselves Dems are addicted to right-wing lies. Every day we are showered with the lies of King Glenn, the Obese Pedophile, Fox "News", Oliver North, Morning Secretary Killer, and so on. Some have bought the "Obama is going to take all of our guns away" BS. Others hate unions and blame them for all of the job theft we've experienced. Hour after hour they subject themselves to the propaganda, then complain about it on DU. To which I say, :wtf:.

So I guess the point is that if and when we decide to take our country back, Big Media would be an excellent place to start. There just isn't the will power right now though.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:20 PM
Response to Reply #147
161. We're fighting over the cancellation fee.
It's more fun making them call us back several times and then arguing with them. Mr. Gray is so good at that. But cancellation will happen.
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Doctor_J Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:43 PM
Response to Reply #161
176. Bravo
I will keep mine because I like to watch NHL and NFL and a few commercial dramas. I haven't watched any "news" program except Countdown since the "Bush for President" started some time in 1999.
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Uzybone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:30 PM
Response to Reply #147
170. "people who call themselves Dems are addicted to right-wing lies"
How very true.
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truedelphi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Mar-11-10 06:59 PM
Response to Reply #147
181. I would like to point out that it is not correct that twenty years ago,
Edited on Thu Mar-11-10 07:02 PM by truedelphi
there were only a few cancers on the face of the media.

please examine the following - in January 1994, there was the first of the Chiapas uprisings.

The Chiapas uprising involved the poorest of the world's poor rising up against the Mexican government and against the Elite that owns the area that they farm.

Our networks bravely sent forth their up and coming journalists. Young people who were infused with that remarkable enthusiasm that the young so often possess. And that becomes rarer (for most of us) as we age.

They were given carte blanche - not only was it that they went down there at the bequest of ABC, NBC and CBS, but they were doing some remarkable journalism. The young reporters went inside the huts and interviewed the family members. They pointed out to the American TV audience at home that the floors were dirt, the utensils for eating were only several in number and shared among the huge families. It was a type of poverty that we cannot even imagine.

And the networks kept promising more and even better coverage of this rebellion.

By Friday of that week, I was so excited about this development. I was convinced that not only would there soon be surfacing some most important information about the non-democracy our larger agricultural cartels have imposed among the poor of the world, but that perhaps some young Edwina Murrow would come from the situation and be among us for a generation.

but instead that Friday, when I turned on the news to see the latest Chia-as report, there was only the report - bulletin style - that Nancy Kerrigan the skater had her knee shattered by someone perhaps int he pay of Tonya Harding.

And that was the last of the Chiapas reporting.

Only years later did a tiny throw away sentence in Rolling Stone explain what had happened - Citibank had gotten all the networks to pull the story on the Chiapas. They did that, I imagine, simply by letting the network execs know that they could not continue to have Citibank and all related smaller company advertising if they kept it up.

So in regard to this story, the networks folded.



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KansDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 12:56 PM
Response to Original message
148. Gave up cable in 1996...
...haven't looked back. Not even once.

My 18-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son read in the evenings. Really!

Oh, we do have a DVD player and a TV, but we started collecting movies several years ago (bought one every payday, for example). Now we have a rather impressive classic movie collection that my son and I select from for our weekend entertainment.

He does a really good impression of Humphrey Bogart!
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katty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:03 PM
Response to Original message
149. yeah big M and many others that profit from big M exposure...
watching the few isolated clips of Massa on Beck's show (call his show the 'open ward') - both of them made me heave--a 24 hour cycle of murders, racist barbs, perpetual celebutard crap (the latest DUI or drug abuse/domestic violence)sarah palin makes another stupid statement, jihad janes now the latest designer 'scar tactic' and then, crowning insult, is the aggregation of airtime HANDED to Karl Rove so HE can spew his rewrite of history and whine his way into another job.
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Duval Donating Member (377 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:44 PM
Response to Original message
150. The media has been my target for years! Thanks. n/t
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Orsino Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 01:46 PM
Response to Original message
151. And I blame us for letting it happen. n/t
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sheldon Donating Member (197 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 02:33 PM
Response to Reply #151
153. Let's not forget that.
It's like the old question, does art influence society, or does society influence art?
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DirkGently Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 03:14 PM
Response to Original message
154. Meh

You're not wrong as far as the EXISTENCE of bad journalism, info-tainment, and the general infantilization of America, but laying it all at the feet of "the media" is too easy. Blaming the media for all American cultural stupidity is like blaming lawyers for all dishonesty. Somebody's hiring lawyers to be dishonest, and somebody's watching Beck and willingly swallowing these unanalyzed, leaked "stories" that pass for journalism lately.

Someone's demanding idiocy over substance -- the "media" is just delivering it.

Blame them, sure, but blame everyone else, too, and include yourself. The Tube of Boob is not the source of our idiocy, it's a mirror reflecting it back to us.


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unpossibles Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 03:33 PM
Response to Original message
155. I largely do too
although I also think that we need to take responsibility as consumers to get the best news sources we can.

This is what (well, one of the things which...) kills me from the right. They act like they don't need/want government, that they are somehow this amazing miracle of self-sufficiency yet they are generally the first people to be lazy when it comes to information. If they can't do something as simple as that in this day of the information age, then what hope do they really have? Oh wait - it's really that they don't want taxes. My bad.
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Christa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:23 PM
Response to Original message
162. K & R nt
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BigBro72 Donating Member (46 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:26 PM
Response to Original message
163. Crush Your Television
It's a tool of mind-manipulation that gives you a false sense of reality. Nothing on it is real, just someone sewing together different chunks of visual information to create an image they want you to accept as reality. Whether Left or Right, pacifist or militarist, its all the same.
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muffin1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:33 PM
Response to Original message
164. K&R
You're right. They are all shit, except for Rachel and Big Ed. I occasionally watch Keith when I need a pure "fuck the republicans" fix, but not nearly as much as I did during the bush years.
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BigBro72 Donating Member (46 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 04:48 PM
Response to Original message
165. Fighting behind enemy lines
Rachel, Keith and ED. Soldiers doing the best you can with corporate media
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RedCloud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:04 PM
Response to Original message
166. Time to cloak FSTV from this thread!
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Last_Stand Donating Member (247 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 05:18 PM
Response to Original message
167. K&R
Thank you for this righteous rant!
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mckara Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Mar-10-10 07:23 PM
Response to Original message
175. I Tend To Agree...
M$M Sucks
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