By Rory Hall
Journalism and a free, open media is another “check and balance on the three branches of Government and we don’t have that check and balance anymore.” – Shadow of Truth
One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian political regime is control of the media. In 1996 president Bill Clinton signed into law the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This law, which was bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies, allowed big corporations to acquire and consolidate media outlets nationwide.
The 1996 law lifted the limit on the number of television and radio stations any one corporation could own. In 2003, the FCC voted to lift the ban on cross-ownership of newspapers and full-power broadcast stations that serviced the same community. This was the final nail in the coffin of free and competitive media and news reporting in the U.S.
The 1996 Clinton law followed by the lifting of the cross-ownership ban enabled Corporate America to increase their monopoly on the flow of information in the U.S. and around the world. Now six corporations control well over 90% of all media in the U.S.: NewsCorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS and Comcast.
“Wall Street slips on and geopolitical worries” (Reuters headline). What does the Trump/Obama wiretapping squabble have to do with whether the stock market goes up or down? It has nothing to do with whether or not corporations can produce goods and services profitably. To be sure the accusation of wiretapping and the possibility that the accusation is accurate is troublesome in and of itself. But it has nothing to do with the fact that the stock market is currently the most overvalued in U.S. history.
The headlines, however, reflect the degree to which all media reporting in the U.S. is now under the control of Corporate America – a Corporate America that has assumed control of the political process and has become Orwell’s Big Brother.
Most people associate the term “fascism” with an authoritarian and nationalistic political system. But it’s much more than that. Mussolini described “fascism” as the merger between corporations and government. The political system in the U.S. can easily be considered “fascist,” as Corporate America and Wall Street have used billions of dollars to take over the entire political process including all of the mainstream outlets of communication and news reporting.
The result is directly reflected in the nature of the 2016 presidential and congressional elections. The content of any news reporting is now a product of the material fed through the broadcast and print communication outlets controlled by six corporate monoliths and the Too Big To Fail banks that finance the system.
A good friend and colleague of the Shadow of Truth, John Titus, once quipped with regard to the public’s consumption and acceptance of anything reported as news, “put it on CNN and it’s true.” This statement succinctly summarizes the propaganda which supports the process by which the government seeks to control the views and perceptions of the public at large. In today’s Shadow of Truth podcast, we toss around that fact that the United States has become a Goebellsian “playground” and George Orwell’s nightmare:
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You can read more from Rory Hall at his site The Daily Coin, where this article first appeared.
While it is true that Clinton was dirtbag-in-chief in 1996, it should be stated in the article that the Republican Party (just as fascist as the Democratic party & vice versa) helped in crafting this takeover of free speech.
The federal government of the USA is clearly fascist as is the banking/economic system it helped to create, and is now owned by.
Thanks to Rory for pointing out the fascist system lurking among us.
Ronnie Regan – rip – broke up the telephone companies, in the 80’s, but they all merged back together. Go figure.
Monopolies do not work for the intended but fit nicely to scam as much as possible whilst charging excessive amounts for their services and emf to boot.
If they are too big to fail they are too big.
Ronnie would rollover in his grave if he knew how big and fat they have become, not a CEO in any country is worth what hey get paid.
“…People who idolize the media are, at the best, naïve:
‘The simple [naïve] believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.’ (Proverbs 14:15)….
“Howard Beal of Network described the media: ‘If you want truth, don’t come to us. We will tell you anything but the truth. Go to God.… Go to your gurus, go to yourselves. But, don’t come to us.… Your lives are real, we are an illusion.’36
“That is what an idol is: an illusion…. The impression of an independent press in America is part of the illusion. In 1898, at an annual dinner of the American Press Association, John Swinton, the one-time editor-in-chief of the New York Times, was called upon to toast journalism and America’s free press. He responded in a surprising way:
‘There is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless it is in the country towns.’38
‘You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150.00 a week for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with—others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things—and any of you who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job. The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to revile, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread. You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an “Independent Press.” We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.’39….”
For more, see “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images,” the second in a series of 10 free online booklets on each of the Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments.” Click on my name, then our website. Go to our Online Books page and scroll down to title.