Big money controlling news in USA

[Ross Scott]

This is sort of an offshoot of another thread that got derailed, but in general, I think big money controls most of America nowadays. Not everyone may agree with me, but I recently saw a video that I feel like REALLY illustrates it in the news, check this out:

 

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The first thing I want to point out is that this is from a variety of stations, NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, etc., so this transcends "liberal" or "conservative" media and extends to basically any mainstream televised news. For me, it's refreshing to see proof of this. I feel like when big money controls the mainstream news, it influences the entire country. This also means that stories that are critical of big money's influenced are largely repressed, with the only sources of getting them being on more "fringe" sources or some international news. Anyway, I recommend sharing this video with anyone who believes we have "balanced" news in the USA, to me this video says it all.

[BTGBullseye]

I like that. I will be sharing that video with anybody who still believes the media is independent.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Guest (see edit history)

[Ross Scott]

Absolutely, I sent it to my family also. It has almost a million views, it needs more like 100 million.

[Tsar Alexander]

Wow, maybe I need to get my news from Conan from now on

 

In all seriousness, the mainstream media does not cover stories of value anymore. Luckily the number of people watching TV news has declined a lot in recent years, so we may possibly see the end of TV news coming soon. I think it's stupid that CNN covers cat videos, when they could be using the 24 hours news cycle to cover things like economics, or Mideast policy.

 

The only real program I watch on CNN with any consistency is Fareed Zakaria GPS (I also used to watch Ali Velshi, but oh well...), I honestly think I would watch more CNN (for instance) if they had more Fareed's, and less cat videos.

 

Add on top of their often worthless stories, you also have the mainstream media sprinkling their own brand of political bias on top of certain stories, so that is another point against them. But in general, I agree, there is a trend to try and distract Americans in general from our problems.

[ThePest179]

there is a trend to try and distract Americans in general from our problems.

 

I believe it may either be a bread and circus type deal, or simply a profit scheme.

[Tsar Alexander]

there is a trend to try and distract Americans in general from our problems.

 

I believe it may either be a bread and circus type deal, or simply a profit scheme.

 

I would say a bit of both. Our media often hypes up divisions over often symbolic issues. I imagine it serves to distract from the issues at the heart of our problems, and maybe get some of those party/special interest group contributions up as well.

[Seattleite]

Oh goodie, I'm not the only one noticing. But it's not just the news. The media belongs to the corporations, sure, but the politicians also belong to the corporations, the jails belong to the corporations, the judges belong to the corporations, the police belong to the corporations, and just try to deny the workers belong to the corporations, I dare you. Why are we even surprised anymore? Everything belongs to the corporations now. They control enough of our government and media to control us.

 

The more... Optimistic minds of Wolf-PAC talk of getting to the governers, as most of them have been ignored due to there low strategic value, and getting the state governments to pass an amendment without bringing in the federal government (yes, they can do that if they have a 2/3rds majority), but I think it is unlikely this will actually work. I'm pretty sure the US is going down in flames. I say, run while you can.

[BTGBullseye]

I'm just waiting for the next civil war...

[Seattleite]

Hopefully it won't come to that... But yeah it probably will.

[BTGBullseye]

I'm actually hoping it will come to that, since I have plenty of history to back me up on my reasons... The corrupted will never give up unless they are killed, and they will never be killed in anything short of a full scale civil war.

[Seattleite]

I personally find (real life) violence abhorrent, warfare inparticular, and would like to at least try to handle it through proper legal channels.

[BTGBullseye]

The problem is that all the legal channels are either mostly or totally corrupted right now... When they're all too corrupt for a fix to go through legal channels, then there isn't any choice.

[Seattleite]

We only have one shot left, really. State governments are too weak for the most part to be worth buying, since the federal government technically has control over them. State governments have repeatedly managed to spit in the federal government's face, doing things like legalizing marijuana (a schedule-1 narcotic, which is ridiculous because it's harmless) for medicinal purposes in most and recreational use in two, including mine. These things were done despite corporate interest being against the legalization of marijuana. Our best chance for a peaceful resolution is a constitutional amendment, which can be passed if a 2/3rds majority of the state governments can agree on it. One state pushes for the amendment, they vote, and if they succeed they can remove corporate personhood, and put a limit on individual campaign donations (say, $100) so that the wealthy can't keep buying our politicians. We should also prevent congressmen from working outside of government after they've been in office so they can't be bribed with a lucrative job, and ban private political advertising. That way, congressmen don't have to sell out to be elected like they do now.

 

The odds of this working? Slim. The corporations will likely just start bribing the state politicians when they realise this is going to come to a vote. But it's worth a shot.

[BTGBullseye]

I've seen a few different states try this... It didn't work.

 

If it could work, I'd be all for it, (though a slightly different value on donations) but as far as I've seen, it won't.

[Seattleite]

I've seen a few different states try this... It didn't work.

 

If it could work, I'd be all for it, (though a slightly different value on donations) but as far as I've seen, it won't.

 

Well, we've never had this many people pushing for it at once. It's the #1 progressive priority in the US. (And the $100 was just off the cuff.) And as I said, I don't expect it to work, but I want us to try.

[BTGBullseye]

There are several different attempts that have already been shot down. (and a few more in the works right now) Unless it has almost no effect, it won't pass.

[ThePest179]

Sounds like the situation in Jennifer government

[BTGBullseye]

Not quite...

[DoNotRemoveBeforeFlight]

I see a bigger problem with a civil war erupting in the US. Look at the Syrian civil war or any other recent ones out there, the arms or so-called "defense" industries easily profit from any armed conflicts. The States already has plenty of such companies and if a war actually breaks out to "kill the corrupt", instead the fighting gets nowhere to solving the problem, even if a new government is installed. It all ends up being a facade.

[BTGBullseye]

Yeah, there's no real way to remove the corrupt because there are just too many of them, so we should just give up, right?

 

So far, history has proved that peaceful methods cannot remove corruption, and that violence can if done right.