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Read the article. There are some things I take exception to, most of those having to do with what "maintstream people" think... But it's not germaine to my point. There's enough accuracy in it.
I hear this point a lot, that corporate control of media is bad for democracy. That's true. In fact, after all the reading of Chomsky I did, and later discarded, the one thing that holds completely true to me is his assertion that the "news" isn't interested in informing people.
The MSM isn't. It's interested in making money. That's it's job. That's a corporation's job. My favorite Henry Ford quote is "We're in the business of making money, not cars" (somewhat paraphrased).
You know I'm a capitalist. I don't begrudge any corporate interest (or private interest) it's right to make a living, so long as it doesn't knowingly harm other interests unnecessarily.
That being said, this gets to a subordinate issue on democracy, which is that it's not a great form of government (for the record, I propose fascism so long as I get to be the dictator. I promise you everything will be GREAT! At least throughout my lifetime... the problem with autocracy is succession.. well, and assassination...)
Democracy relies on an informed electorate, and since corporate news's first interest (dare I say responsibility) is to make money, all we can guarantee is that they won't be primarily focused on informing the electorate. If it happens, the MSM will be pleased, but it's not their first goal. The proliferation of hyper-entertainment news shows this. What it also shows is what our electorate wants to be informed about. And guess what - it ain't our democracy.
So ultimately, the finger of blame for our terrible government falls onto the people, not the corporations, nor the MSM, nor the politicians. The lack of outrage by the voting public (less than half those eligible TO vote) is tacit approval for the way our government does "work".
I would assert that today, real information about the way our Republic operates is out there like never before in the history of our nation, or even the world. The internets makes knowledge so accessible, it makes first-person and varied & divergent points of view incredibly easy to access. It makes cross-referencing easier. You get my point. Marko and I are both informed bodies of the electorate. And for the most part, we've gotten very little of our guiding principles from things we observed in the MSM... We're smart enough to seek real knowledge everywhere.
Ultimately, the electorate doesn't want to be bothered with being informed. Even on basic, no cable television, most people can pick up PBS and watch McNeil-Lehrer newshour. Most people can watch 60 minutes. If people spent that 6 hours a week taping and watching those two programs, I assert our country and the world would work a whole lot better.
But people don't.
Why they don't is another subject entirely. And its explanation defines why I am a Federalist conservative, and not a Liberal.
To me, the nature of a human being is to be greedy, which is why capitalism works. And the vast majority of people are greedy about what they want to know about - which is in essence the use of their time. It appears, after about 50 years of television, most people want to be entertained, not informed.
If it were any other way, the rankings of television shows would be different, particularly news programs. I accept that more people are going to watch the latest news on Anna Nicole Smith than are going to watch a highlight reel of a Clinton/Obama debate. I acknowledge that more people are going to watch American Idol than are going to watch the Planet Earth series.
Does it disappoint me? Yes.
But it's human nature to be myopic in what we care about. And you can't make people care about anything.
Ultimately, that's why I feel it's better to restrict the right to vote to people who are going to be committed to being informed about it. giving the right to vote willy nilly to people has created more problems than it solved. Our government isn't so much corrupt to financial interests because of the financial interests, it's because people don't care as much about the course of our government as corporations do.
To me, it's the people who are to blame because they don't care enough to get and stay informed, not the government or the corporations. And the cool thing about democracy is that people get the government they deserve.
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Remember the dollar value to human life. Mine is priceless. Yours is negotiable. - unknown
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