Wednesday, July 29, 2009

THE RACE EDITION: ISSUE 85, VOLUME 112
WHITE HOT MADNESS: ADDENDUM
by Malik Isasis



The shit stew keeps getting stinkier, as Republicans and their white supremacist operatives keep pushing the boundaries of decency.

Talk show host and Fox News personality, Glenn Beck is making a name for himself as he keeps rapid-cycling through his bipolar; he and his psychic mentor drug-abuser Rush Limbaugh are using a strategy that is transparent. They are calling President Obama and Professor Gates, racists, two black men who are at the pinnacle of success.

By calling President Obama a racist, they are trying to undercut any claim of actual racism. They seem to portend that just being called a racist is worst than actually being a racist.

The plan is simple: stoke the hatred of the 33% of the population who are stupid enough to vote against their own interests because they are stupid enough to believe these clown, corporate multi-millionaires care about them, but these multi-millionaires already have excellent healthcare.

No matter how horrible the Republicans are for the country and the world, their support in the polls will never go below 30%- 33% because President Nixon laid down the foundation. The poorest of the poor of Republicans are the most dogmatic about wedge issues such as race, gay marriage, abortion, and Mexicans. The so-called wedge issues keeps the Republicans’ poor wrapped up in their xenophobia. These folks have been convinced that they are the moral center of the country. They have also been convinced that being educated is elitism, staying in and living in squalor is noble, and working two or three jobs to make ends meet is American pie. So now when you hear these dumb asses shouting, "USA! USA! USA!" to their own demise, you know why.

There is a movement afoot to have President Obama formally apologize to the white arresting officer, Officer Crowley (an Obama supporter). In the words of Uncle Tom sellout Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, this ain't nothing but "a high-tech lynching", to humiliate, emasculate and to decimate President Obama's sphere of influence, and the corporate media are playing along by providing the airwaves.

Monday, July 27, 2009

THE RACE EDITION: ISSUE 85, VOLUME 112
WHITE HOT MADNESS
by Malik Isasis



During the Civil Rights Era, the media tried discrediting Martin Luther King, Jr. when he spoke truth to power by inflating white fear of black nationalism. Here we go again, with a very unimaginative, but very effective media psy-ops, to discredit not only a national scholar, but also the President of the United States just as they did a long list of black social activists.

When President Obama is perceived as being too black, or siding with blacks, the corporate media rushes in like a nun, smacking his hand with the proverbial ruler. Black folks’ anger about racial profiling has to be pre-approved by the white corporate infrastructure. Since President Obama disagreed with the arrest of Professor Gates, the corporate media has rushed to do polls to show that a majority of whites disagreed with the president, and that a large majority of black folks agreed with the president, and wouldn’t you know, black folks’ opinions weren’t even considered, plainly obvious in the booking of white punditry and blackface likeminded commentators to discuss racial profiling in America.

The Forensics of Jeremiah Wright: How Playing the game Lead to President’s Obama predictable Response to Professor Henry Louis Gates’, Jr. Arrest



President Obama set precedence for the corporate media when during the campaign last summer, a video of his then pastor, Jeremiah Wright, preaching black liberation theology and politics, surfaced. The corporate media worked themselves into lather after Obama initially came out in support of Pastor Wright. The punditry class from their ivory towers raised their fists and demanded that Obama disown his pastor for weeks, spending hours upon hours dissecting Wright’s words and penning the tail on the donkey of the Obama campaign. The corporate media has sanctioned Obama for NOT throwing his former pastor under the bus the first time, and embracing him as family. The price: nearly two months of a non-stop thirty second excerpt, looping over and over, and over of Reverend Wright’s fiery delivery of “…God damn America…” and an over appraisal of then candidate Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the nomination. Then candidate Obama gave a speech on race in Philadelphia to which, Knuckle-dragger, Charles Krauthammer responded,“he blamed everybody for racism -- black, white and grandmother, except himself,” he nonetheless “was hailed by a supine press as the second coming of Lincoln at Cooper Union. So after, that you think you can say anything on race and be hailed as a genius.”

It wasn’t until Pastor Jeremiah Wright came out again and spoke of governmental AIDS conspiracies and racism that Obama decided to denounce him and leave the church. After candidate Obama’s denouncement of Wright, the punditry and corporate media put forth the supposition that Obama did it only because it was causing his poll numbers to go down.

The media reported on Reverend Jeremiah Wright with their foot on the scale, and then pretended that it is Obama’s problem. He quickly got the message and promptly disowned Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Black politicians are always asked to repudiate or distance themselves from black activists, however when it comes to white, right wing radical hate mongers such as Pat Robertson, or the late Jerry Farwell, white politicians aren't held to the same standard.

Obama has played the game. Now they’ve defined the narrative. So when it came to case of Professor Henry Louis, Gates Jr., the outcome was predictable.

President Obama came out strong for Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. during a press conference on health care. Stating that he didn’t have all the facts, but knowing that Gates was arrested after showing his identification was racial profiling. The corporate media predictably went ape shit, hour after hour, stating that the president shouldn’t have come down on the side of the professor.

One writer for a paper went as far as to report: Fellow officers, black and white, say Crowley is well-liked and respected on the force. Crowley was a campus police officer at Brandeis University in July 1993 when he administered CPR trying to save the life of former Boston Celtics player Reggie Lewis. Lewis, who was black, collapsed and died during an off-season workout. That’s equivalent of saying, “Some of my best friends are black.”



The corporate media is one of the most destructive forces in American culture. Remember the Roman gladiatorial combats? Man versus man—man versus beast? Thousands would pack the coliseum just to watch the bloody carnage; what about some of the theocratic governments in the Middle East where there are government sponsored stonings or beheadings in a soccer stadium? Or how about in the early 20th century America, where people would get dressed in their Sunday’s best to see a lynching?

This is what the corporate media tries to tap into, humanity’s morbid fascination with violence, destruction and death. The corporate media sickness lies in its collective ideology: white supremacy. White supremacy is the idea that white people are more superior to other ethnic groups, and anything that veers outside of the white knowledge base is seen as a threat; the corporate media and higher education would have you believe that exclusively skinheads or other white separatist groups hold this ideology, but in fact, it is the founding ideology of the United States. It is why this country was founded on twin genocides of Native Americans and African slaves. It is why there was a hundred years of American apartheid against African Americans in the United States after the abolishment of slavery. It is also why, this country feels it can occupy and subjugate two Muslim countries. And it is why when other ethnic groups speak out about the injustices and destructiveness of the white supremacy ideology, they are quickly discredited.

Black folks are supposed to be quiet about their genocide. We are told that it is history, and to stop whining. Those who do not shut up are labeled race baiters, or race pimps, or even black separatist. Never mind that collectively, African Americans hold absolutely no power in this country.

The continuing legacy of white supremacy is what Dr. Martin Luther King referred to as the false sense of white superiority and a false sense of black inferiority. This Eurocentric view drives those who have bought into white supremacy to believe that white people consequently have an obligation to breakdown other cultures making them completely docile, thus, easier to rule over.

Corporate media likes to pretend and spread folklore that racism and white bigotry starts with someone like reverend Al Sharpton, but it is a ploy, if you discredit Al Sharpton or Jessie Jackson, you discredited black thought. The cognitive dissonance is astounding, which allows the perversity of Fox News and people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to call Judge Sonia Sotomayor for wanting more people of color in law, and President Obama for nominating her, reverse racists.


One of the biggest issues of white supremacy is the perception of experience. White folks tend to think that their life experience is more important than others. During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a poll indicated that most white folks didn’t think race was involved in the government’s response, where as black folks overwhelmingly thought race was involved with the slow-to-no-response. The corporate media used the polling of white folks’ feelings on the matter as a base for discrediting black peoples’ emotions and life experiences.

The corporate media with its omnipresence, like a magician, is able to make black people disappear, our pain, our life experience, our thoughts, and our intelligence, means absolutely nothing when it contradicts a white belief system.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

THE RACE EDITION: ISSUE 84, VOLUME 112
POST RACIAL AMERICA…
MY ASS
by Malik Isasis















IS it racial profiling? The corporate media keeps asking after the arrest of African American, Harvard Professor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in his own home, when it was assumed he was breaking and entering. After a few heated exchanges between Professor Gates and the arresting officer, Gates brandished his identification proving that he was indeed the owner of his home. The arresting officer asked him outside where he was arrested. Is it racial profiling? The corporate media keeps asking. The fact that they keep asking reveals the depth of their sickness, the white bigotry that blinds all common sense. Yes, it was racial profiling you jackasses.

If this would have been the media darling former Republican Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin being arrested in her own home, the rightwingers would have raised hell.

During the Judicial Hearing of Supreme Court Nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a Yale graduate (cum laude) with a seventeen-year career as a prosecutor and judge, still had to prove to a panel of old white men who hold a false sense of superiority, and entitlement, question whether or not she was qualified for the job, in spite of having proved so. Take a look at what the corporate media put out during the run up to the hearing:



There is nothing post racial about America due to the fact America doesn’t really want to deal with psychic wounds of chattel slavery, African and Native American genocide and American apartheid, and long as the corporate media keeps playing the three wise monkeys, they will continue to ask dumb ass questions such as Why do they hate us? Or, Is it racial profiling?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

THE MEDIA EDITION: ISSUE 83, VOLUME 111
SHITASTIC!
by Malik Isasis



Shit’tas’tik, adjective, the exact opposite of fantastic, an observation typically delivered in an acerbic manner: President George W. Bush is shitastic.

CORPORATE HEADLINES: Poll: Public losing trust in Obama, Six months in, President Obama's poll numbers slipping, Obama popularity lower than Bush's at six-month mark: poll, Obama's poll numbers drop--you get the picture, right?



With FOX News leading the goose step, corporate media continues to be a bastion of misinformation on health care reform, and then report President Obama’s poll numbers as if their misleading biased reporting had absolutely nothing to do with Americans being ill informed. Where do you suppose the corporate media are going with this poll number theme?

It is clear they are torpedoing health care reform by constantly giving Republicans a disproportionate voice. The corporate media has been resuscitating the corpse of the Republican Party since Obama’s inauguration, six months into his presidency and they are seriously discussing Republican candidates for the 2012 election.

Fresh out of ideas for a generation, Republicans have come to represent a party that has become exceptional at the perpetual campaign, stoking the hatred in the lowest common denominator of the population (about a 33%) through the extensive web of its echo chamber, talk radio, and Fox News, and planted political operatives in the mainstream media who proudly carry their message. Since the Great Depression, Republicans have shown that they’re utterly incompetent in governance, which is known as the Peter Principle, being advance or promoted to a job for which they are unable to accomplish due to incompetence. Six months into their congressional and presidential loss, the Republicans have loss their fucking minds.

The people who brought us the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, no-bid military contracts, and the disappearance of 12 billion dollars during the early phase of the Iraqi War are being promoted as a legitimate counter weight to the Democratic Party. That’s just shitastic!

My criticism of Obama has been the criticism I have charged the whole of the Democratic Party with, and that is accepting Republican talking points as a baseline for debating policy; accepting that Republicans are better with the economy; accepting that Republicans are better on national defense. Just because they say so doesn’t make it true. Reality is my witness. Democrats have internalized Republican hatred of them and over compromised, but when they compromise, the corporate media and Republicans call them “flip-floppers” or weak with no core values. When will the Democrats understand that Republicans are out to destroy them? Democrats will eventually wither away because of their inability to stand up to the corporate pirates who pay their election bills, and the Republicans who approval they constantly seek.

The corporate media understands that when Republicans are in power, they benefit. So don't be surprised that Obama and the Democratic congress take the fall for the last 8 years of Republican failure in governance--e.g. the banking system, and two occupations, and unemployment rates. After six months the media has already begun trying to raise the Republicans from their political graves by making them seem like the Greek prophetess Cassandra, on bailouts, and fiscal responsibility--only in Bush world, does failure equals success and that any of this would make any sense.

Corporate media, and a dumb ass populace mean a return of the Republican Party in 2010?

Friday, July 17, 2009

THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 82, VOLUME 110
'NUF SAID
by Malik Isasis



Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States has brought about white rage from the White Man's Party (Republicans of course) and the Flying Monkey Right. It goes to show that even when People of Color have reached the pinnacle of success, education or wealth, it is never enough to outweigh the false assertion by white men that they are still, more deserving of power.

Pat Buchanan, a white supremacist, a White Man's Party Member, and an MSNBC talking head has stripped away any pretense that People of Color have no place in the government power structure because of their lack of intellectual capacity.






The corporate media has given Patrick Buchanan a forum to spew his brand of hate, cloaked as unfairness to working class whites, but it is a ruse to blunt social progress. People like Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, all of Fox News defines racism as actions that effect white working middle class. When African American argue racism, or even use it as a motivating factor like Judge Sotomayor had, it becomes a threat to white man's existence.

Affirmative Action has been used as a tool to stop People of Color from entering higher education, from being considered for jobs, and government contracts. Since corporate media shares the white supremacy system of thought, they have contributed to so-called "Reverse Discrimination" claims by white people by falsely equating it to four centuries of slavery and genocide, and one hundred years of American apartheid. This supposition is no accident, they are trying to make People of Color suffrage a wash with that of the working class whites.

White man has imbued himself as God by carving himself into stone and marble in the image of God; he has painted himself on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as God. He has stated that he is God’s chosen people. What kind of entitlement do you think this creates? This is what drives the thinking of people like Patrick Buchanan, who continues to have a cush job at a mainstream news organization.

Monday, July 13, 2009

THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 81, VOLUME 110
THE TYRANNY OF THE WEAK
by Malik Isasis



We seem to be stuck between a Sisyphean loop of a fascist Republican Party and a weak and self destructive Democratic Party. Republicans revel in their conservatism and fascism like pigs rooting in shit. Whenever they are in power, they never shy away from appointing rightwingers to positions of power. When the Democratic Party are in power they run from liberalism, or progressivism in an effort to be bi-partisan, which means absolutely nothing—because Republicans would rather cut their throats and watch them bleed out. Democrats put Republicans into their administrations, and Republicans do not reciprocate this so-called bipartisanship. It only confirms the mythology of the Democrats’ weakness.

Whenever we vote Democrats into power it is always a rain of disappointment. It is why people loath politicians as much as they do. The Democrats took charge of congress in 2006. We didn’t expect that the Democrats would change a systemically-broken political system in 24 months, however, Democratic supporters weren’t expecting the Democrats to continue to give George Bush and his flying monkeys the resources of the government to continue to carry out torture, domestic spying, and expansion of the Iraq occupation, and covert military aid to Turkey in bombing Northern Iraq. The new Democratic majority, despite Americans’ strong opposition to Bush’s policies, has sustained Bush’s policy of death and fear.

The Democratic Leadership Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada have been about as affective as an extra thumb. Bush has clubbed them like baby seals, dragging their bloody corpses onto a heap of irrelevance. The spinelessness of the Democrats is why so many people are cynical about change, and voting. Democrats and Republicans are opposites of the same coin; they’ll do anything to maintain power. The Democrats are no better than their rightwing brethren if they were allowing the country to fall apart and people to die so that they can be elected, but it appears that this was the strategy, giving Bush enough rope not to only hang himself, but the rest of us too.

Change We Can Believe In

After eight years of George Bush, and twelve years of Republican governance I don’t have patience for Obama trying to appease any Republicans and their corporate media with so-called bi-partisanship. Bipartisanship really means Republicans get what they want and the rest of us living with the consequences of backward-looking policies. Yet, it seems the cornerstone of every Democratic decision, bipartisanship.

Obama has filled his administration with neoliberals (Democratic Leadership Council), who are no better than their counterparts, neoconservatives; they both believe in neocolonialism, which means more wars, occupations and corporate destruction of unions. Just as House Leader Nancy Pelosi took impeachment of Bush off the table, Obama will take indicting Bush officials including Bush, off the table. Bush will get away with crimes against humanity.

The best predictor of past behavior is future behavior. Democrats will appease the Republicans because they are one in the same, one is just nicer, but we still get fucked in the end, so being nice doesn’t really mean shit, does it?


Shills, Operatives, and Flying Monkeys

The infiltration of corporate shills disguised as democratic consultants have driven the party out of the interests of the people and into the interests of corporate power. Just as the neoconservatives have subverted the Republican Party, neoliberals whose belief that the economy [think globalization] should be transferred from the control of the public sector to the private sector, has and is subverting the Democratic Party. Either way, we the people are left with our trousers at our ankles.

The Democratic Leadership Council (notice the page and how proud they are to be in Obama’s administration) was founded in 1985 to introduce a “third way” of winning by turning Democrats away from populism and toward globization. The DLC’s theory of winning was only reinforced when former President Bill Clinton, the council’s most well known neoliberal won two presidencies.

The DLC members read like the Who’s Who of Democrats. President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Representative Harold Ford, Jr., Senator Diane Feinstein, Senator John Kerry, well known Democratic political operative Terry McAuliffe and many more—see the list for yourself, here. Investigate any of these Democrats' records and you will find broad support of globalization, support for the Iraq invasion and occupation and corporate interests. All of these Democrats have sold their souls to become meat puppets of the corporate lobbyists. Al Gore has since defected from the DLC and deprogrammed himself.

The DLC’s “third way” hasn’t worked in two presidential cycles [2000’s election was stolen] and four congressional cycles, yet they’re like someone playing the same numbers because that hit once. Bush and his flying monkeys fucked up so badly that the Congressional election of November 2006 the Democrats were able to limp their way into power. The Democratic consultants have pushed the Democratic Party into almost irrelevance. The leadership in the party don’t make a move without first putting a finger to the wind. Almost every choice is calculated based on a cost benefit analysis.

Susan Estrich, Pat Cadall, Juan Williams, Tammy Bruce on Fox News's fake Democrats and a host of other Democratic consultants on CNN and MSNBC are professional bullshitters, and sellout the party roots by sustaining political status quo, in order to sustain corporate interests. They puke their bile on the airwaves day after day, after day like an airborne virus infecting, constantly infecting.

In a move to remake themselves into former President Ronald Reagan, members of the Democratic Leadership Council have created a Frankenstein monster who lacks identity. This Frankenstein monster has developed a co-dependence, it needs approval of Republicans for its esteem. The DLC and their political hackery have sacrificed the Constitution for the sake of power and the maintenance of power.

The Co-op of the Democratic Party by corporatism has completed the assimilation program by multinationals, and has illuminated the limitations of a two-party system. The use of post bipartisanship or bipartisanship is covering the smell of shit with air freshener. The shit is still their even though you may not smell it.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

THE REAL POLITIK EDITION: ISSUE 80, VOLUME 110
Seeing Obama as Norwegians See Him
by George Lakey, Common Dreams



I just returned from a research trip to Norway where the people I interviewed often brought up the topic of our new President. The first was Kristin Clemet, the director of a conservative think tank. "This spring on a delegation to Washington I was struck again," she said, "by how different the political spectrum is in Norway from your country. Here, Obama would be on the right wing." I checked her view with others -- academics, politicians, activists all over the Norwegian spectrum -- and all but one agreed. In Norwegian terms, our President's positions are very conservative.

When Norway hit a major financial crisis in the early '90s (from a real estate bubble and speculating banks), the Norwegians decided against bail-outs. Three of the biggest banks were simply taken by the government, their senior management fired, their stockholders sent packing. The government nursed the seized banks back to health over time while the economy made a quick recovery. The other troubled banks were left to declare bankruptcy or find new capital. Norway's action sent a clear message to the banks: mismanagement and greed don't pay. The result is that today its own financial sector is clean and only needs to deal with the impact of other countries' disasters. Norway's strategy was very far from Obama's bank-friendly game plan.

When Norwegian oil was discovered, the country decided not to risk putting their new treasure in private ownership. Norwegians were therefore able to lead the world in environmental responsibility and to avoid boom/bust impact on their seacoast cities. Most important, Norway has been stashing the oil profits in a public, socially responsible "Pension Fund" that will support the Norwegians' famously high living standard for many generations to come.

Half a century ago Norway already had a universal health care system that is simplicity itself. There's a single payer (the government) and minimum red tape, something like Medicare but for everyone and better. The entire political spectrum supports this. By contrast, Obama says he backs the failed U.S. private insurance scheme and his team is wobbling on his own modest proposal to add a public option. So I would have to say to thoughtful Republicans: even if you don't like the Nordic blend of capitalism and socialism, with its virtual abolition of poverty, free university education, and enlightened environmentalism, you're only confusing the issue when you try to label the President with the "S"-word. You may think his policies are wrong, but in Norway even conservatives would say the Democrats and Obama don't go nearly far enough.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

THE MJ EDITION: ISSUE 79, VOLUME 109
THREE KINGS
by Malik Isasis



Only James Brown could have brought Michael Jackson and Prince together for a rare, if strange performance in the mid eighties.





As I write this I'm listening to Michael Jackson. It is only now that his death is hitting me, and I am truly sadden. Millions of us have grown up with Michael Jackson and was moved by his music; his ethos was clearly one of self-loathing, which follows a pattern of abuse. Michael was a deeply conflicted man and physically abandoned his blackness in order to accept other parts of himself. But like most people at the pinnacle of success in entertainment, pleasing and needing acceptance becomes a prime motivator. When he was above ground the media was relatively nasty, coining him "Wacko Jacko" and other derogatory names, and now they exploit his death.

Like every human being, we just want to be loved and accepted, the thing is Michael, you were loved and accepted, but you were too blind to notice, or maybe it could have been that it wasn't enough to help you accept yourself. The pain is no more my brother, I hope you are at peace now.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

THE MEDIA EDITION: ISSUE 78, VOLUME 108
AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH
The Making of an Idiotocracy
by Malik Isasis




The corporate media are spending literally millions of dollars in resources to cover and convert the Michael Jackson death into a soap opera, to be milked for months to come. Their multi-million dollar newsreaders are discussing Michael’s love life, family problems and other innuendoes of his sexuality that have absolutely nothing to do with nothing. There is no value in the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death beyond the initial news for the American public, the value for corporations however, is to keep Americans obtuse and uninformed in the Matrix, cleverly disguised as news.

The people in Iran are still in the streets being bloodied, beaten and killed, but where’s the coverage? Did you know that Israel seized a shipping vessel of activists trying to deliver medical supplies to Palestinians in Gaza? Among those activist being detain by Israel is an American former congresswoman. Did you know that? (read here)

Entertaining Ourselves to Death

The corporate media has predictably formed a circle jerk with wall-to-wall coverage revealing themselves as the pornographers they really are. According to the US Census Bureau, television penetrates at least 98.2% of American homes. The late media critic and media studies founder, Neil Postman stated in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death that “The clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation (8).” The 98.2% penetration rate of television suggests that Americans main form of news consumption is through the television.

In June of 1994 a television phenomenon occurred. A once famous football player, Orenthal James Simpson, better known as O.J. Simpson, was watched by millions in a low speed chase with California State Patrol. Simpson’s wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her alleged boyfriend, Ronald Goldman’s bodies were found mutilated, stabbed and lying in a pool of blood at O.J. Simpson’s estate. It was dour, like a made-for-television movie, set in Hollywood. It had all the ingredients of an American taboo, a wealthy black man, who dated and then married an attractive white woman, who would end up dead at the alleged hands of her famous husband. Hollywood couldn’t have written a better set up.

Also in June of 1994, as the low speed chase occurred down the interstate with hundreds of people cheering O.J. Simpson on, half a world away, thousands of bloated and decomposing bodies were floating down the Kargera River, emitting a stench so foul it could be smelled in the neighboring Uganda. In thirteen weeks after April 6, 1994, an estimated 800,000 people were killed in 100 days during the Rwandan genocide.

Here we are today, with the corporate media making a cottage –industry out of another black man, who coincidentally, like O.J. Simpson has astute issues with his black skin.

It seems when the corporate media has a choice, it always choose the path of least resistance. The corporate media’s main goal is to penetrate our consciousness and sub consciousness every second of every day with its news, images, and products. In ‘94, the media had made a choice, and that choice was to exploit the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, over exposing genocide in Rwanda. Today the choice has been made to cover the death Michael Jackson ad museum, over the Health Care, the Iranian Revolution, and holding the Republicans accountable for the last generation of trickle-down economics, which has trickled jobs and dollar value right down the drain.

Media critic Ben Bagdikian stated in his 1998 book The Media Monopoly, "At issue is the possession of power to surround almost every man, woman and child in the country with controlled images and words, to socialize each new generation of Americans, to alter the political agenda of the country" (Bagdikian, IX).
Under this new imperial paradigm, corporate expansionism, and acquisition and ownership of mass media by industrial corporations such as newspapers, book publishing, magazines, broadcast and cable news has allowed these corporations to exercise unprecedented influence over national legislation and government agencies. The corporate media has created an illusion that the American people are well informed, have choices and are in control of the information that they receive.

The malfeasance of the corporate media keeps my fire lit, and citizen journalism is just the antidote to awake the people from their stupor, and the Matrix, which has us completely surrounded.