Two days ago, a boat with BP contractors and coast guard members threatened to arrest reporters...

[Bonobo]

I have one question that I would like everyone reading to ask themselves.

One. Simple. Question.

Is this fact less important today than it was 2 days ago?

You see, in a nutshell, this represents the single most insidious danger with what we call "News".

We are trained to respond to each little morsel that is thrown in front of our eyes as if it being "new" makes it "news-worthy".

Things disappear down the memory hole and are disregarded as "old news" (in other words, not important).

If you were worried about this 48 or 72 hours ago, why has it become less important?

Do we continue to let ourselves be manipulated by this artificial news schedule, or do we begin to decide for ourselves what is important?

THIS is the essence of what it means to become an informed citizen, armed with facts. THIS is what it means to be responsible and to hold other responsible.

We must begin to change ourselves and the way that we consume the crap they feed us.

Please kick and rec if you agree.

Otherwise, I just do not see any way for us to retake control over this country. It must start with us.

Or, as some say, am I just inciting with empty rhetoric?

If it was fascism 2 days ago, surely it is still fascism. Arguably even more troubling BECAUSE it has received no further attention from the "real media".

AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH, a book by Neil Postman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

[boston bean]

1. I called my Senators and Rep yesterday and asked them since when does British Petroleum

order our Coast Guard around?

It was crickets on the other end of the phone.

I suggest everyone call their senators and reps and ask that one simple question.

[Bonobo]

2. I am not surprised you heard crickets.

No one outside of DU and the "loony left wing blogosphere" heard about this.

[zeemike]

3. Big business bought our military long ago

That is what privatization is all about and the all volunteer military was the first step.
Hopefully some day we will realize it and make the change necessary to put an end to it.

[w4rma]

4. Obama is screwing this up. (nt)

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. Definitely. nt

[glinda]

23. Obama is close to the fire and that is a dangerous position to be in.

[90-percent]

5. This is the main vid on the DU front page

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=466784&mesg_id=466784

I have not studied this any further than this video, but it is amazing that Katie, after the reporter talks about threats of arrest from the Coast Guard people on the BP boat, goes on to talk about the devastation to wildlife in the gulf.

The corporate tyranny that their on location crew experienced did not even register on her radar! Yes, of course it's perfectly acceptable to threaten people with arrest IF YOUR A CORPORATION!

Katie is utterly oblivious to the corporate tyranny her own news crew just experienced! A fucking mazing!

Mark my words; we are in the middle of a situation that we will never get to the bottom of. The corporate dithering while the gulf burns will be a subject of contention FOR YEARS TO COME. Just like the assassinations of the 60's and the 9-11 investigation, the 2000 and 2004 stolen elections, and going to the Iraq war on the basis of complete bullshit. We will never learn the real facts of this spill and the corporate malfeasance that both caused it and needlessly prolonged and exacerbated the effects.

-90% Jimmy

[truedelphi]

21. Very salient point. And damn the journalists like Couric to Hell -

I think Sawyers would have gotten it though. Mainly because of the horrid situations she witnessed first hand when covering the New Orleans devastation.

[reggie the dog]

6. the real media is blogs, and discussions on the streets

nothing coming from the main stream media is news, unless what acress is blowing what actor and what actor is going down on what actress is actually news..... only in america are the sex lives of stars considered news....

[lostnfound]

7. Two other books by Postman that I've recently read

Building a Bridge to the 18th Century -- an excellent, interesting book. The ability to retain complex ideas in the public discourse and mull it over by large parts of society for more than a day was an enviable aspect to civilization in that era, in comparison to the way that large parts of society are being fed their big helpings of distractions and a daily avalanche of disconnected tidbits of data.
The Disappearance of Childhood -- not so much.. His idea that childhood was generated as a consequence of the printing press is never tested by comparing it to non-Western cultures. Numerous cultures had 'manhood' rites that created a distinction between children and male adults, that included for example 'the walkabout', vision quests, and a lion hunt -- and without a written record, it is purely guesswork to conclude that non-print cultures had no conception of childhood as a separate stage of life.

I've read most of The End of Education and started on Amusing Ourselves to Death -- which I'll pick up again soon.

Your point -- "Do we continue to let ourselves be manipulated by this artificial news schedule, or do we begin to decide for ourselves what is important? -- is why I like to read DU and listen to DemocracyNow. Both are still heavily tied to the events of the day, but there are certain common themes of justice which run through them, and what's an important underlying issue one week is likely to be an important underlying issue six months later on a different story. The good side of linking DU and DN! to current events is that it enables the audience to present the underrepresented background stories to their colleagues who hopefully get the dawning awareness that mainstream "news" is distorted and shallow. Even so, we still end up erasing yesterday like it was an Etch-A-Sketch. Making progress requires some forward movement in a consistent direction, not distracted and reactive to the events of the day.
Most of us probably feel pretty distracted in our 'real lives' anyway, where we are kept very busy. Maybe it is hard for movements to build a critical mass when there's no time to hang out on the commons with our neighbors? Or maybe the problem is that the 'news' we are inundated with is too global, too dispersed to be actionable. It's not as if any of us are focused solely on what is happening in our own town. In The Disappearance of Childhood he does have a section that talks about the telegraph as the beginning of the end for childhood, because it was the beginning of ubiquitous streams of news from all over the country (now world) which is not FROM an individual (but particularly in its TV news evolution, gives us illusions of being responsible citizens simply by staying "informed"?)

Informed, but impotent.

[Bonobo]

9. Thanks.

It sounds like you really get what I am talking about.
It is frustrating though, isn't it?
Your etch-a-sketch analogy is particularly apt.

[Odin2005]

8. K&R

[Vinnie From Indy]

10. Those reporters were pussies

I would have first laughed at the dumbasses on the coast guard boat telling me to leave the beach and then told them that they could, with my deepest, heartfelt sincerity to "go fuck themsleves or arrest me!" Then I would tell them that I was going to go back to filming this biblical scale disaster brought on by the assholes from BP.

[blindpig]

11. k&r

[laughingliberal]

12. K & R nt

[lonestarnot]

13. No less fascism today than two days ago.

What is one to do? Thank God for DU or I would have only known, just because I knew. Confirmation of knowing what you already know is not gratifying when one can't figure out what to do about it but watch and feel fucking helpless.

[Bonobo]

14. I guess I am just about dying from feeling helpless. You too, I know.

Like watching someone die of cancer and there is nothing to do. Meanwhile kids are outside playing ball and all you can do is watch. I guess it feels something like that.

[lonestarnot]

17. Exactly like that. Loosing function. Actually can't remember where I put my keys.

[NNN0LHI]

15. Remember when our military in Afghanistan told a WaPo reporter to leave or be shot?

And there was no real outcry over it?

Well now those chickens are coming home to roost.

Don

[rudy23]

18. Great point! I think they're overloading the population so we can't ever fixate on one thing

Most Americans who work 50 hour weeks and have families, simply don't have the time to follow politics. Just as our leaders like it.

[Downtown Hound]

19. One of these days, I'm going to sit down and blockade the entrace to CNN or Faux

with whomever else I can find, and hope that that will be the first true shot we fire against the propaganda machine known as the media. We need to understand that they are the enemy, and we should hold them in the same category that we hold politicians and corporations. They will not change without a concerted and coordinated effort to make them change.

Wait, did i just say that out loud? I'm just kiddin' Faux and CNN.

;)

[suffragette]

20. Direct links to Coast guard's response and "Unified Command"

Media access guidelines = "embedded and allowed"

http://www.d8externalaffairs.com/go/doc/2931/554515/


About us page - The names and websites for agencies and organizations involved in the "Unified Command" with BP and Transocean at the top of the list

http://www.d8externalaffairs.com/go/doc/2931/541571


And a big K&R for you, Bonobo

[amborin]

22. K&R

[leveymg]

24. In the "good old days" the head of CBS News would be on the phone with the President, or his Chief

of Staff, within 15 minutes of having a camera crew turned away by company rent-a-goons and low-ranking Coast Guard boffins. Goes to the generalized deterioration of the news media in America, and ultimately to the loss of legitimacy of political institutions in the United States.

This might as well be Nigeria, for the way BP and Halliburton are allowed to get away with shit.

[Lerkfish]

25. agreed, but what is more disturbing

is that even while the media is being kicked to the curb, they still lick the boots of their masters.

[Eric_323]

26. Some good tweets from Mac McClelland.

A lot of them had me laughing, even though the whole situation is incredibility sad.


<http://twitter.com/MacMcclelland>