Lies, Damn Lies, and the Media

[davidswanson]

ACORN is shutting down because of a fraudulent video pimped by the corporate media. U.S. forces in Afghanistan have heroically laid seige to and conquered a fictional city, helping build the case for further escalation. A cable news channel has created a right-wing mass movement by pretending it already existed. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a health insurance bill he believed would deprive more people of healthcare (and wealth and homes), because fraudulent reports had convinced his constituents of the opposite. The peace movement was defunded in November 2008, because of a fraudulent presidential election campaign. 71% of Americans believe Iran has nuclear weapons. 41% of Americans think the quality of the environment is improving. Has the power of the corporate media to overwhelm all before it begun to sink in yet?

ACORN's funders didn't have to run and hide because of a bunch of laughably bad lies, but they were afraid. The most common excuse of progressive congress members for anything they do is fear of the media. The peace movement didn't have to shut down, but its funders had used war as a criticism of Republicans; opposing war for its own sake was secondary, and their televisions told them peace had arrived. Kucinich could have stuck to his No vote on healthcare, but he probably wouldn't have lasted long in Congress. We don't have to be suckered by comically manipulative war news, but all the big media outlets want war -- and the Democratic-party outlets especially favor war now. Fox News could not have created the Teabaggers on its own, but MSNBC and the Democratic blogosphere spend a majority of their time focused on Teabaggers and Republicans because it unites their viewers/readers against something uglier than elected Democrats, never mind that in Washington the Democrats technically have all the power.

We need independent media. Is that not yet crystal clear? The strongest grassroots community organization in the country, ACORN, has been swatted away like a fly through the endless airing of fraudulent, badly edited, and irrelevant, but salacious video clips. Elected officials or electoral candidates succeed or fail at the whim of the media cartel. And the biggest lies of all are buried so deeply beneath the hot news stories that they're almost impossible to see. Does or does not Iran possess nuclear weapons? That question hides the insidious assumption that if a nation possesses nuclear weapons, then our nation can and should launch an illegal war of aggression against it. Or at least our nation should have a debate over how best to take action against our "enemy," a debate that will represent us all because it will include two political parties.

This is the biggest lie of them all: the system works. Vote for this corporatist war party or that warmongering corporate party, and you will have played your role well. The system works. The president makes the laws. The Congress gets in the way. The two parties are significantly different from each other and represent our views. News stories that include the views of both parties are complete and admirable journalism. The journalism itself has no viewpoint at all. The role of a citizen is to support politicians and parties.

Imagine if Bush wanted to try alleged terrorists in court (as in fact he did). All the Republicanites would have cheered (as in fact they did). Imagine if Bush had pushed a health insurance bill written by the industry and had cut deals with the insurance and drug companies. Imagine if Republicans had called a private program for 3% of Americans a "public option". All the Democratites in the country would have denounced the whole thing as a scam. The problem with "balanced" reporting is that those who consume it pick one of the two partisan positions presented and follow it as if they'd thought of it themselves. This mindless obedience is going to destroy us all.

We need independent media, meaning sources of news that are independent of either political party. We could easily find the money to create it right now if we chose to make that a priority. We will do so or we, and this republic, and the world as we know it will perish . . . in horrible pain, with a grin on our face.

[pleah]

1. K&R

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. Sadly this could have been prevented

if ANYONE would have explained that ACORN does not register voters.
ACORN promotes having voters apply to register.
It is election officials who register the voters.

BoEs have checks and balances used to weed out inelligible or fraudulent applications.

I did a write up on this once after interviewing an official in my state but it seemed
to be ignored. I am sorry I didn't push it harder.

ACORN is annoying in that their policies did encourage some dolts to create a pile of
fake voter reg apps.

A similar thing happened during the 2008 Pres Primary with Womens Voices Womens Vote. WVWV deluged women children and dogs and dead people with prefilled voter registration apps. Some of these people, those that were alive, were already registered. Some voters sent in the forms thinking that they came from the elections dept, and unfortunately WVWV put incorrect info in the forms and the voters ended up disenfranchising themselves!

[davidswanson]

5. even more sadly

getting the sound byte right doesn't change anything

owning the media outlets and repeating your sound byte a trillion times does

[Richard Steele]

3. Very well stated. K&R

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. Here's my blog on ACORN> NC and the ACORN Voter Reg Drive

If you want all the links live you can go to my blog here
http://ncvoters.blogspot.com/2008/10/north-carolina-and-acorn-voter.html

REMEMBER, ACORN DOES NOT REGISTER VOTERS, ELECTION OFFICIALS DO.

North Carolina and the ACORN Voter Registration Drive
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
I wanted to get the straight facts about the North Carolina Acorn voter registration story, so I interviewed one of the North Carolina County Election Directors who reported some of the bad ACORN forms.

Acorn submitted about 28,000 registration forms in North Carolina. Contrast that with nearly 700,000 new registrations in the state. Readers, please remember, we have bi-partisan members on every County backing up our Election Directors as watchdogs. They are looking out for you. In the news article NC election officials investigate voter forms , few forms were considered suspect; there were about 120 for Durham County and about 30 from Wake County. These are the only counties that complaints have been reported in. "Durham elections director Mike Ashe said ACORN helped the county develop a system to trace problems."

Yesterday, I called up Mike Ashe, Director of Elections in Durham County, who reported some of the fraudulent registration forms that were submitted by ACORN. I felt that Mr. Ashe would be the best source of information on this issue, given that he had first hand experience.

I have paraphrased the first part of Mike's answers to my questions, (hence no quote marks) in order to make the answers less conversational and clearer to those who aren't versed on voter registration issues. The last half are direct quotes.


Question to Mike Ashe: What happens when you get ACORN forms?

Answer: (paraphrased)
We have several processes to screen them. Forms must be complete in order to process them. Voters must supply their birth date, a drivers license number or the last 4 digits of their social security number. Voters must sign the forms.

We run matches of the applicant's last 4 digits of their social security number or their drivers license number against corresponding govt databases. Any form that doesn't get a match, is coded must show ID the first time they vote. If the form does not provide these numbers, then the registration is flagged and the voter must provide ID the first time they vote.

Answer: (Direct Quote) "The ACORN issue was not ever voter fraud, but voter registration fraud trying to steal money from ACORN. Trying to get their quota. Lots of bogus to defraud their employer.

Durham got several applications for the same guy. The county doesn't turn in dozens of apps for the same guy. ACORN is required by law to turn in all apps. They (ACORN) flag the ones that they think are suspicious, they provide a cover sheet.

(We election officials) Have ability to reject , we are required to process all the forms, some go directly into the reject queue because of missing info, alot of them are very obvious. Many took pages out of the phone book. Alot don't have the date of birth, missing alot of required information."


Commentary: I hope that knowledge of the screening process provides some reassurance to you. I feel that we would hear more about this from election officials or their Board of Elections members, the members being appointed by the political parties themselves, if we didn't have the needed controls to prevent actual voter fraud.

Remember, your County's Director of Elections is a non partisan employee of the County. In addition, both political parties have a representative on each County's Board of Elections. These Board of Elections members are appointed by the county's political party Chairmen. These members sit in on canvassing meetings and policy meetings on a regular basis. They would see and hear about any questionable voter registration forms.

[pundaint]

6. We need it as much as Congress needs not to have it. Who will win that fight?

[Bluenorthwest]

7. We need honest and courageous people

Acorn was a big part of the victory our Party had in 08. Yet somehow, not one of the alleged honest men whom they helped stood up to say a word in their favor. No media will change anything if those who are your allies fall silent and allow slanders about you to spread. Acorn was not without friends in high places the day before this story broke.
Like Van Jones, they were tossed aside like empty water bottles. And no word of defense was spoken in their behalf, not even by those who benefited greatly from their work. This is why better minds avoid Democratic politics. No backup, no support. Good people used for the sake of mediocre agendas. Sure, the media sucks, but that is not really the issue here. The issue is those who know Acorn stood and held the coats of those who wanted ACORN destroyed. A bipartisan action.

[Demeter]

8. Corporate Media Is Dissolving Itself In Its Own Waste Products

The newspaper is dead, a victim of corporate demands for ever increasing profits and biased reporting to support the GOP propaganda efforts. By selling out to the highest bidder, the press has written off the reading public.

Broadcast TV died from lack of talent and ideas, too many commercials, and the gutting of serious news.

Cable is rapidly following the same path of destruction. Even the Weather Channel has deteriorated to crap. Who is going to wait through 20 minutes of commercials to find out if it's going to rain tonight?

Magazines long ago took the low road to mass marketing, or tried to go cold turkey on advertising revenues, with mixed results. But now with the Internet, most of their best stories are old news by the time they hit the stands.

A good news product tells the truth, regardless of whose ox gets gored, and follow up on items until there is some resolution. Instead of "telling both sides" of a story, a good news source identifies all sides, and investigates each one, so the consumer can choose.

A good news product is timely and accurate and trustworthy. We have no such thing in America today. Even the Gray Lady, the WaPost and the WSJ are mere shadows of their former greatness.

[feslen]

10. oh come now...everyone knows that the media is

ultra liberal! (except the only REAL "news" station in Fox)

*sarcasm*

[Dystopian]

9. KandR.

peace~

[Echo In Light]

11. .

[Dystopian]

12. Lies

peace~

[spanone]

13. the media is seriously broken. perhaps beyond repair.

media has gone from reporting politics, to influencing politics, to being part of the political process ala faux holding rallies...