by H. Goldman
If we can't Address the Root of the Problem, then the Pining Populace will Soon Smother this now Persistent Vegetative Planet
This week has been deadly to the consumer: food and oil prices have become the personified price form of a flying super villain trapped in constant motion inertia. And the airlines Delta and Northwest are merging, thus making airfare rise due to less competition, (and making your airplane seats less comfortable.) Then there is everything that happened in months and years past: we have the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the HMOs running away with our money, the rich having cut taxes, a staggeringly high national deficit, defective Chinese toothpaste, wages that are too low to accommodate inflation, no policy to address global warming, and the government pumping money into the fine print-filled public relations stunt of ethanol along with the president's sinking ship that I aptly dub Iraq Occupation III, (the Mongols and English made the same mistake that we did with the same results.)
Aesthetically, everything that I mentioned above seem to be the causes and perpetuators of our societal decline, economic recession, and the looming planetary meltdown of global warming, but they are only the numerous effects and manifestations of a much larger problem, that problem being the corporate control of the country and Americans' antipathetic views of education and the world around us.
The group that transcends all of America's diverse populations is children and teenagers who are affected by the negative stereotypes that are perpetuated in popular culture, thus I will use them as an example of the product of the antipathy epidemic in this country and others. This epidemic is rooted back to the media and lies in the fact that it only cares about ratings. Hence, it preys on impressionable children with comical shows containing "cool" protagonists facing "real" problems with the plot revolving around a media-created stereotype of what children are interested in, and how those interests would coincide with their cognitive abilities. This stereotype can easily be translated to "kids like television and our sponsors' products, thus they have small vocabularies and do not understand things that are in any way above their grade level." For instance, if a prominent children's television show has a protagonist that rides skateboards and hates school, the usual negative cultural and social stereotypes, and a fast-paced plot to keep the sugar-saturated hyperactive children watching, the final result will be that children buy skateboards and dislike school. Thus, if this continues to occur, less children will get into college which will result in less white-collar jobs, more people with wages that cannot accommodate inflation, and less people with the ability to develop alternative fuels to fight the climate crisis. If we are going to address this problem, we need to get more books of intellectual value in the hands of children, increase emphasis on mathematic, literary, historical, and scientific classes in public schools, and increase the prominence of forms of media that are not corporately sponsored.
The media is, of course, not the only cause of antipathy or the long-term effects of the economic recession, it is only the cause that we can most easily change with the changes having a large and potent effect on society.
The immense power and money-hungry nature of corporations is perpetuating all of this, plus the food shortage and current economic recession. If we do not begin to create a non-corporate secular forum and media that will reach people who do not have access to or decide not to use computers, alongside public and political action to combat the lobbyists who are controlling subsidies and government foreign and domestic policy, then a small tax rebate will be all that we get to compensate for all of this country's economic problems.
-H. Goldman
16 comments:
I do agree that American culture is out of whack and needs some fixing, especially as the youth are concerned. However, call be a conservative but wouldn't it be easier to work within the existing system than make massive societal changes?
After all, who's going to make these changes? You mention that we could change it pretty easily. How would you do this? Would you have the government tell cable networks exactly what they can and cannot air? Maybe its just me but I'd take a weak economy over that any day.
Corporations are money hungry - that's what they're there for. Society and government should view corporations as tools, very efficient tools to achieve various societal ends. The problems arise when the tools start taking over the workshop like we have in our country.
For your final point, we do have media for the luddites who refuse to use computers - National Public Radio. Still, I think that we should expand towards the future by increasing access to computers, not away from it. The Internet is perhaps the easiest, most cost-efficient way for a citizen to get a political education (or any education for that matter) without having a specific viewpoint (conservative OR liberal)forced on them, and that's a good thing.
I'm not saying that we need to regulate television, (or the rest of the media for that matter,) that would be oppressive and idiotic. What I meant was that we need to pass laws prohibiting non-media corporations from owning large media outlets, thus protecting freedom of speech, not regulating it. For instance, as much as I like MSNBC, they are just a GE propaganda network that prohibits the best candidate, Dennis Kucinich, from being in their presidential debates, how is that free speech? The government should also provide incentives for independent media outlets that will not adhere to their sponsors. Plus, shouldn't our education system be teaching our youth to think critically of antipathetic media? That alone would help immensely.
Also, I am the only person that I know in my area who even listens to NPR or a radio.
I agree that our education system should teach students to think critically about mainstream media, but I don't think preventing outside companies from acquiring media companies would do much. After all, Fox News is part of a wholly-media conglomerate News Corp.
From the media's point of view, who decides who gets to be in the debates? I believe they excluded Mr. Kucinich because of his low polling numbers, because otherwise they would have to accommodate anyone and everyone who wanted a soapbox. Instead should media company executives choose who they think the "best" candidate is?
As for your last comment, I think it shows perfectly why the widening of alternative non-Internet media is going to be a failure - no one cares anymore. Remember, you can bring a horse to the water but you can't make him drink.
News networks should be held to a higher standard than other media outlets, they shouldn't just be able to pick and choose what candidates are included in debates. The reason why I brought up Kucinich is that he was excluded from the Nevada debate because he knew about the fact that GE was interested in keeping Yukka mountain, (I hope I spelled that correctly,) around as a place to dump nuclear waste, and Kucinich knew that and would have brought it up when the moderators asked about that issue.
As for Murdoch, if we educated the population, he would end up like radio and no one would take him seriously.
The point I was trying to make is that someone has to pick and choose which candidates get included in the debates - otherwise everyone who wanted to would be in them.
However, the main point I'm trying to make here is that because of the high startup costs in "traditional" media there are very few ideological viewpoints on display. With the Internet by contrast startup costs are zero, and so any citizen can educate himself however he chooses.
This shows the most basic of free market economics at work. Because of the high costs in the television industry there isn't that much competition for the major networks so corporations like GE can get away with such antics. However, on the Internet there is much more competition and so this doesn't happen as much.
By the way, you seem to be saying that educated population = liberal population, which is not at all true. In fact, fiscal conservatives are usually highly educated and wealthy, and perhaps they simply like to listen to a media that supports their viewpoint just like liberals read the NY Times and the New Republic
The first thing that I want to establish is that the term "fiscal conservative" is thrown around too often. For instance, I support regulating earmarks and putting an end to the oil and corn subsidies, yet I support a single-payer healthcare system. Does that make me "fiscally conservative?" Also, these wealthy, educated people who you cited fit into that category unless they are CEOs of large corporations.
What is wrong with including every candidate no matter how many people support them? Excluding candidates based on poll numbers contradicts our right to freedom of speech.
I don't seem to understand the point that you are trying to make with the startup costs of television. That still does not give a news network that calls itself a "trusted name in news" to be ideologically biased.
I agree that an educated population does not "equal" a liberal population. An educated population=an intelligent and tolerant population that would not re-elect President George W. Bush.
correction to paragraph three line four: the right to be ideologically biased.
Do you support a flat tax rate? A lower capital gains tax? The abolition of the estate tax? These are all positions we would associate with fiscal conservatives, but supporting them (not that I do) in no way makes you less intelligent or less educated than not supporting them
The problem with including every candidate is that hosting debates is expensive. You can't expect the cable news companies to pay for Joe blogger to get on national tv and speak to his 2 supporters
We don't have a "right" to an ideologically unbiased source of news - that would just be impractical, and news corporations, because they are corporations have a right to do whatever will get them viewers. Tat was my point with relation to television - because of the high startup and operating costs news networks cannot afford to be ideologically neutral - there isn't a market for it.
With the internet by contrast, the practically free startup cost means that you can be exposed to a variety of ideological viewpoints.
What I want is not a populace that conforms to specific political viewpoints, but one that votes because of actual reasoning. If the American people were to vote for Bush because they liked his tax cuts and thought that we should not retreat from Iraq, and not because their pastor told them to I would consider the education policy a success.
I might not agree with them, but I'd still say that education had done its job
Good for you two. Finally I have two editors of the blog holding a civil and intelligent debate over relevant issues. Thank you.
Let me throw in my two cents: Dennis Kucinich, as a tenured representative from Ohio, is not a throwaway gadfly candidate. Although his chances of getting the nomination were always pretty slim, he has more time in federal office than Clinton and Obama combined. That said, there should be a set of criteria which candidates must make to gain positions in the debates.
As Rishubhav said, corporations, especially public corporations, are legally obligated to do whatever will earn the most returns for their stockholders. I don't fault MSNBC for wanting to spend more time on the frontrunners. I do, however, contest their right to completely write off Kucinich because of his comparatively small campaign.
Whatever happened to the Fairness Doctrine??? It used to be that whenever a network had a Republican on the show, they had to grant equal time to a Democrat. This ensured that the viewers saw both sides of every issue. The problems with Fox are threefold:
1. The fairness doctrine is not upheld. Close to 80% of Brit Hume's interviewees are conservative.
2. Things are presented as fact without proper support. In the Hannity and Colmes show, for instance, the smooth-talking and good-looking Republican talks almost twice as much as his rather meek, strange-looking Democratic counterpart. This isn't "fair and balanced".
3. Facts are stretched and presented in a misleading fashion. For example, after the Tom Foley scandal the graphic read "Tom Foley (D-FL". This is just plain misleading.
As for the so-called "fiscal conservatives", I acknowledge their right to believe or support tax breaks for the top 1 percent at the expense of everyone else. What I don't support is their self-labeling as the party of strong economic principles. Clearly the Bush administration has driven the economy into the ground. We have a record deficit, ten trillion dollar debt, massive trade deficit, terrible currency and a tax system through which the rich are getting richer and everyone else is hanging on for dear life. The housing market is melting, people are losing their homes. We're throwing money towards bombing a country that never attacked us and then giving Halliburton no-bid contracts to clean up after us.
Our once-great economy is dying.
All of this is the result of an administration that doesn't recognize that regulation exists to protect the environment, consumers, and workers. By placing absolute and blind faith in the magic of the marketplace, we have allowed corporate America to drive us into the ground.
We should start to do what America is supposed to be about: kick the bums out, brush ourselves off, and start again.
Obama 2008.
-The Young Sentinel
The problem with the fairness doctrine is that whenever you have the government making ideological judgments about what constitutes "fair and balanced" you start to run into problems.
I wouldn't consider Bush a true fiscal conservative - anyone who spends as much as he does (I can't wait for that to become a "did") can't truly be considered such
Of course you wouldn't include people like Stephen Colbert in a debate, I'm talking about the legitimate candidates. The reason that Kucinich had low polling numbers is because a large portion of the population does not even know who he is.
I see no problem with fairness doctrine. It is not the government making ideological judgements per se. Rather, it is the networks that are supposedly fair and balanced making the ideological judgements, hence the reason for fairness doctrine. Also, if you don't support fairness doctrine because it is restraining freedom of speech and the press, why don't you support legitimate candidates with low polling numbers being included in debates? Your opinions on those issues seem to contradict one another.
How would the education policy be a success if the American people voted for Bush because of Iraq? If the population were educated and confronted with that issue, they would see that the 1,376 year-old sectarian conflict has no end in sight.
If a corporation choose not to include a candidate in a private televised debate, I see no violation of freedom of speech. This is after all an event being run by a private news corporation, not the government. Its when the government starts taking ideological sides that I get edgy.
Once again you seem to be saying that educated viewpoint = your viewpoint. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rice, the people who planned and orchestrated this invasion are all enormously educated and I daresay intelligent people, yet they hold a view that is in opposition to your own. This persistence that the liberal view is the educated intellectual view is what killed Gore, and is killing Obama, and the country is the less for it
I do admit, I should have elaborated on the education issue. Many of the members of the Bush Administration are well educated, but they are corrupted by money and corporate America. This is especially evident in that video clip of pre-Bush Admin. Cheney saying that an invasion of Iraq would result in "a quagmire."
Education without insight, compassion, and empathy, is simply an enabler that has allowed corporations to strangle this nation.
Disciple of Science said it right.
Rishab: Education is pointless if it produces someone with no conscience.
The Young Sentinel
(Eyck Freymann)
Obama 2008
This is a different debate than what we were talking about, but the main point I was trying to make is that both liberals and conservatives keep assuming that the other viewpoint is somehow "immoral" or "uneducated", and that's what makes polarization such a bad thing
Rishubhav, you're right. Intolerance is the source of 90% of the problems in the world right now (with greed being the rest).
It is, however, true that well-educated voters (with the exception of the top 1% in income, which tends to vote Republican in its own interests) vote overwhelmingly for Democrats.
Even still, we can't just say "Bush is a moron. Democrats are smart"
I think that Bush's intelligence (or possible lack thereof) is entirely irrelevant. What matters are is moral compass, ability to lead, willingness to serve the country, and judgment.
Obama 2008.
-Eyck Freymann
The Young Sentinel
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