Ted Koppel Mourns the Death of News Journalism

Ted Koppel writes in the Washington Post a blistering critique of news journalism of today, declaring: “…the death of the real news.”  Indeed he has eloquently placed the blame on what we can all plainly see, alas, those few left with cognitive thinking power.  Our school budgets drastically cut until after 30 years of Reagan, Bush, and the American non-tax-payer; not even 20% of the country can identify Iraq on a world map.  For those of you so bewildered that is a country we were led into a war under false pretenses and our armed forces bravely fall on their soil every week since 2001.  As Ted Koppel points out our country no longer gets world news because the networks cut the budgets of foreign news correspondence to nil.  Most Americans believe our president that our war in Iraq is over yet, there is no news for us coming from Iraq.  According to Ted Koppel our news is catered to every taste and biased to what we want to hear.  But journalism is about bringing us news we need to hear.

Thanks to Ted Koppel pointing out what is very obvious that our news is not telling us what we need to know.  As a viewer I can always tell when news is being sold out.  I have that sixth sense which makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up when my intelligence is being insulted.  I know articles and commentary should point out causes of reports and I receive only omissions and deceit.  A great deal of people, seem too busy to notice or care.  I care and notice what exactly is missing in our news today.

First off what has been the response of countries towards the United States specifically after 9/11.  Our country is being look upon as a third rate democracy in which capitalism oversteps its bounds into common decency.  We are seen as a vengeful bully stomping on the wrong types of people and perhaps should be turning this aggression towards our leaders.  After all, most of the free world at this point in time believes that 9/11 was an inside job, helped along by the corporate-will for profit exploited from other people’s misery.  The world trade centers and pentagon destruction have been more likely caused by assistance from non-Arabs with fanatical headsets.  The headsets of the conspirators are those that profit the most under our corrupt form of “democracy.”  It is these questions that we need news to answer and unlock the source of news discrepancies versus the official government propaganda-lies.  This is what we need to know for certain: who really was behind 9/11 and who is covering for whom?

Secondly, our country needs a new way to present interested parties who wish to run for office.  The two-party system is a failure of American democracy.  What we have left is two biased opposing views which promote deadlock.  Nothing gets done right in our government. What does go through is pushed by the most unethical practices for a true democracy.  One party claims to be conservative yet spends trillions upon trillions of our tax dollars on unjust wars and unethical detentions.  Add this non-conservative nature of tax cuts for the well to do, unleash corporate profiteers on a unarmed citizenry, and bail out corporations when greed gets the best of them all at taxpayer expense.  Our citizens mostly believe in conservative government which is fair for all people, however our conservative party consistently votes on matters of budget extravaganza and issues that are unfair to people in favor of corporate profit.  Our other party when it finally gets control careens so far to the left as to fall into the ditch of socialism.  Our government needs to get all the corporate money out of campaign finance and put that money toward investigating the corruption.

Thirdly and most important, basic services need to be provided and assured by our government.  These services must come from taxpayers.  Without taxpayers a government can not properly function.  To restore our government’s income the rich need to pay a fair amount of their good fortune in taxes.  This trickle down effect has failed.  Profit windfalls are not going back into investing in American production this money is going directly offshore.  Offshore to buying factories overseas where labor laws are non-existent.  The rich have not only bankrupted our government they have reinvested those former tax dollars outside our country.  What is not reinvested is being horded and accumulated.  Tax rates need to go back towards 50-75% before Reagan started the illogical imbalanced notion that nobody needs to pay for government.  These taxes on the very rich who make over 1 million per year annually should never have come down to 30% with as many loopholes they were already provided.  Those that make between 200k and 1 million also need a rate increase to balance our huge annual deficit.  If you think we need to go and destroy the Taliban, Korea, Communism, or what-ever then we need to raise taxes.  You can not spend 1 trillion dollars a year on the military when you do not have the money to do so.  Your country will go broke.  Yes our country has about 1 year left and our dollar will completely collapse.  If you do not act now the greatest nation on the planet will be taken out by the power of compound interest.  We already borrow at least 100 billion per month just to pay our debts.  Fifty four trillion dollars in debt our country pays with our tax dollars.  Our government should not meddle in other countries while we have such chaos in our own democracy.  We need campaign finance reform, better public schools, more college grants, sensible health care, and finally we need to turn Homeland security back to investigating white collar crime.  TSA need to quit touching our junk and look into all that corporate junk.  I am sure they will find Osama Bin-Laden in some fine corporate office eating caviar watching FBI confiscated video of the cruise missile that really hit the Pentagon.

A Bright Icon of Democracy Contrasts the World of Corporate Oppression

A Bright Icon of Democracy Contrasts the World of Corporate Oppression

By Kenneth Howard

The military government of Myanmar recently released their democratically elected opponent this week after 9 years of house arrest.  President Obama hailed Aung San Suu Kyi as an icon of democracy.  Certainly this icon offers the stark reality that you never appreciate democracy until the election you fought hard to win ends in a military coup forcing a different result.  The true winners of this long standoff are not the democratic leader but all those supporters who trusted the government with their votes.  In a world full of oppression, democracy has drowned in a sea of corporate misinformation, omissions, and deceit.

Our own country voted in 2008 for a change in management and demanded that we stop fighting endless wars that corporations mislead the public into starting.  Throwing trillions of dollars away on wars that never end the people voted for change.  The American public voted to end favoritism towards corporate handouts without cutting education and other necessary services of democracy.  After the election it might as well have been a military coup dashing our hopes of change because the following two years amounted to a corporate supported coup.  Banks were given the largest bailout in history with no accountability, no strings attached.  The endless wars continue under the guise of downsizing.  Yet our brave soldiers lose their lives in Afghanistan instead of Iraq. 

Unlike a true democracy, information we receive on these issues are full of misinformation.  Our heads full of omissions and deceit we do not know the full story that is Iraq, Afghanistan, or even 9/11.  Our corporations have lulled us into the trap of a corporate Pravda, killing true journalism necessary for normal checks and balances of a government by the people for the people.  Our news information might as well come from Socialist Era newspaper, Pravda, because rampant capitalism has produced a democracy vacuum in America.

Each time we voice our wishes for campaign finance reform the tinkering causes far more loopholes and advantages for corporations to get the upper hand. Ronald Regan, I remember, ran promising campaign reform.  What we got was less limits on corporations under the guise that the money would go to political candidates to express their voice.   This voice is manipulated by obliged politicians to the sheer amount of campaign donations by corporations and their allies.  The media steps in to misinform the public on any bills that might help them and convince them to vote against their own foot.  The whole corporate game remains an uneven playing field that individuals lose on every day. 

The patriot act remains a sore on free speech and democracy that festers until the next time the government wants to pull the wool over the public eye.  Any exception where individuals based on suspicion remove basic rights in democracy the entire civilization loses.  Another empty promise this administration failed to deploy change.

The only change in health care is no true change at all, but yet another example of a government handout to corporate lobbyists.  The health care bill was written for a public that did not include the legislators themselves.  What place does elitism have in democracy?  Until leaders work to unite this country we will die divided.  Abraham Lincoln demonstrated the will to show a Union divided can not stand. In the aftermath of that struggle asked that people who fell for liberty should not perish in vain. The hope that he wrote in his famous speech at Gettysburg should be the proud words of those who truly stand for democracy. The sacrifice of our fallen soldiers for democracy should not fall in vain; that our country of government by the people for the people should not forever perish from the world.

Our country and its democracy are needlessly dying, being carried away by unchecked capitalism.  Our jobs carried overseas and our politicians to corporate will instead of the will of the people.  In order to regain democracy world wide we need a basic minimum standard for workers everywhere.  For the sake of humanity all should agree to a minimum standard and stand by it unless jobs continue to landslide to the next lowest bidder.  This standard should apply to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Not just in monetary value but in quality of life.  True carriers of democracy will support this.  Corporations and the media that they control will not support this because they are not democratic; they are capitalist.  Democracy and capitalism is not the same thing.  They are as opposing ideals just as Democracy and Socialism. Capitalists are not motivated by human concern but by profits.  The people in this country and the soldiers who fight for democracy need to stand for a minimum quality of life worldwide regardless of race or creed.  Then once a minimum standard can be agreed apply it to political campaign finance reform.  I would imagine the world wage may go up dramatically once corporations are limited to donations to their favorite political campaign to the amount of the lowliest worker on the planet.

My Summary of "A Nation Gone Blind", By Eric Larsen

Eric Larsen wrote a book on why corporate America seemingly dumbfounds a population bent on turning their minds off the biased propaganda on news media networks.  The book called "A Nation Gone Blind: America In An Age of Simplification and Deceit" eloquently describes a country of once proud thinkers fed to the Acme corporate coyote as blind sheep. Eric depicts the majority of American consumers and voters lulled by corporate news, media, commercials, and most especially caused by network television.  According to Mr. Larsen, an age of simplification caused our train wreck of a society in America destroying our proud nation of do-goobers.  The root cause of this lull into complacency remains the very motivation of capitalism.  Slowly killing our individualist ideals of democracy, capitalism has controlled our government to shape its corrupt forms of deadlock masking the corporate agenda.  The failed motivation of corporate profits destroys democracy as surely as Socialism, Nazism, Fascism, Marxism, and a military coup destroys freedom.  Under unlimited influence of corporate profits the American government has morphed the Constitution of the United States into the Edsel of democracy.  We have taken a five decade plunge via the boob tube back into a the 1800s when America was considered the backwater of society lacking any culture - the missing link between man and ape. In those days profiteers took natural landmarks like Niagara Falls and turned them into a circus oddity of capitalism.  It was this criticism that led the Nationalism of the first Federal National Parks of Yellowstone and the declaration of Yosemite in the care of the State of California.

Nothing seems sacred in the eyes of those who are motivated for pure profit.  The rich get richer and the corruption multiplies their means.  Capitalism in this country needs the same checks in balances that our forefathers build into our democracy.  Otherwise our government will continue in its corrupt ways of toward destruction.  Until America wakes up and views the crap they are fed for what its worth the corruption will never end. 

I highly recommend Eric Larsen's book and reading in general.  Stop pecking crypt-o-English on the Blackberry to your buds.  Turn off the boob tube and pick up a good book like "A Nation Gone Blind."  It will increase your intelligence by at least 10 points!

Voter's Day : Please VOTE!

I have not had much time for this blog because I had a dispute with Google’s Adsense division.  As a result, I have spent time and energy on developing my own blog news hosting and advertising company to replace what I see as corporate encroachment against individuals.  So I will be developing an environment that individuals can grow and support each other more efficiently in a world of corruption.  I want to thank everyone who has supported this blog in over 500 page views received so far.  This is an encouraging response to individual rights and thoughts.

Tomorrow’s midterm election is the subject of my thoughts today on our corrupt government.  It is important that we all vote and speak out against the broken two party system of government.  Issues close to all of us need our representation. Without your vote, your thoughts die in a desert of corruption and tumbleweeds.  Neither Democrats nor Republicans represent the democracy that we are governed under. 

Republicans are advocates of big business interest and corporate money.  Any effort to roll back the rights of corporations, campaign finance reform, or any expansion of rights for individuals the Republicans use fear tactics and corporate lobby money to derail such movement.  Their critics call the Republicans the “Party of NO”, because they vote no on any bill that gives rights or services to the individual.  They only want to represent the individuals who run corporations and represent those with yearly incomes of at least $250,000 per year.  If you do not make at least that much or more the Republican Party does not represent your wishes.  In fact, the Republican Party is the NO Party in regard to 98% of the individual voters of the United States, since only 2% make over $250,000.

How do Republicans get more than 2% of the vote if they represent the wishes of so few?  They accomplish this by being the party of no to individual freedom. Acting as police of morality they bring in voters of religious conservatives.  By curbing religious freedoms and morality they use scare tactics of morality to get the religious votes.  So when they get a vote against abortion or gay marriage they use your wishes to regulate other people behavior and at the same time to regulate your right to a fair government.  If people are truly hurting one another there should be laws on the books against this problem.  But when you try to regulate other people’s vices then you are killing democracy and enabling capitalism.  Capitalism is the opposite of democracy in the same direction as Communism, Fascism, and Monarchies.  The class stratification and control of information in each of these systems expands to defeat individual rights.

You can not dictate someone else’s right to their vices without killing democracy.  In a democracy the government is for the people by the people and the people’s right to know.  What their government is doing is far more important.  This very freedom of information keeps our government in check.  The Republican Party does not believe you have this right and shrouds government involvement in private wars, assassinations, and terrorist activities in the name of ‘national security.”  This national security has nothing to do with the security of individuals in this country but everything to do that masks the involvement of our government in wrongdoing against other individuals. Read the full text of the so called Patriot Act if you do not believe Republicans want to keep citizens in the dark in regard to government secrets and individual rights.  If we knew exactly how much our government knew about the events of 9/11 it would seem as if certain members of our government had knowledge or even aided and instigated the event.  So the next time you vote your conscience for the Republican Party by pointing the finger to regulate someone else’s morality remember there are four other fingers pointing back to the Republican Party for all their corruption. Your vote is very important - yet hardly represents your moral wishes by voting Republican - as they are as criminal in allowing corporations to rule our world unjustly against the wishes of individual people.  Voting for Porky Pig is a vote more for democracy than voting Republican.   In cases where only two Republicans were running, I voted for a write-in candidate.

Write-in candidates validate your wishes more than a vote for the two party system.  If you think that voting for either party is bad, rather than choosing one, write in your own vote.  Vote for yourself, your friend, or your political favorite but do not vote for Republicanism which is the scourge of democracy and against freedom of information.  In one case, I did vote for a Republican Sheriff because he was an incumbent doing an adequate job.  If you know of someone doing a great job, you should go with what you know.  If you do not know to whom you should vote then vote for a write in candidate.  If everyone would vote even for a third party and write in this would show just how disillusioned the public sees the two party system.  If you do not vote then this dissatisfaction goes undocumented for the entire term.  By voting, even voting a write-in-candidate,  you document your dissatisfaction with the system.   It would be a very powerful message against the two party system if neither party, supported by powerful corporate monies, received less than 50% of the popular vote.  And that is why everyone needs to vote.

Please get out and vote tomorrow.  I would love to hear your voice and comments.