Free Press?
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcolm X.
The media of the United States is the most successful at controlling the ideas of the masses to match the desirable views of the profiteer. With that profiteer being completely indifferent to the real needs of the masses. Take for instance the biggest networks in the US: CBS and NBC. These networks happen to be owned by the two largest nuclear arms producers: General Electric and Westinghouse. With these profiteers yielding billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how can one expect to obtain non-biased coverage of what is really going on abroad? The 2011 Defense budget is the largest in US history at $708 billion and the media has certainly missed pointing out this “insignificant” fact. They also happen to miss pointing out that this budget does not include the spending on veteran affairs; an area lacking in benefits and rising in need for the ex-military personnel. The human costs of war, far greater than any monetary value, are disgustingly disregarded by the media as well. To learn that there are well over 2 million post-invasion violent deaths in Iraq and that this “measly” fact is bluntly ignored in the media is preposterous.
The US will however cry foul when given the opportunity to call out on a violation of “free press”; that criticism being aimed 99% of the time at a country with opposing ideologies to those of capitalism. It is interesting to point to the case of Venezuela for example. The US, amongst other capitalist countries (i.e. Colombia) paints Venezuela’s government as having no freedom of press. This is in fact a myth. The media opposition that is allowed in Venezuela is far greater than any ever being allowed in the US. Globovision, one of the most watched TV networks in Venezuela went as far as to push forward the idea of lynching the president. This type of behavior would violate FCC rules in the US and would send the network owners to prison. In Colombia, if a journalist is denounced by the president for criticism against him, the journalist would fear for his or her life, face realistic death threats and in many cases flee the country. This is not the case in Venezuela, yet the press in Colombia and the US show fallacy after fallacy feeding misinformation and shaping dangerously the public views.
The establishment of the so-called “War on Terror” mentality brings the general American public to believe that war is acceptable and necessary, however this myth only strengthens the capitalist profiteering propaganda and destroys the real needs of the working class. Education is vital in every regard, in this particular instance education is key and the only tool against this American hegemonic nurturing of aggression abroad for the sake of “protecting US borders”. Independent news outlets are the ideal source for real-time information, but they will not come to you alone. There is a requirement to foster critical thinking amongst the working class, this means understanding the pressing need to reform the existing system and how as workers we must unite and contest the spread of misinformation.
Get involved! Show solidarity and help spread outright education.
“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” Malcolm X.
The media of the United States is the most successful at controlling the ideas of the masses to match the desirable views of the profiteer. With that profiteer being completely indifferent to the real needs of the masses. Take for instance the biggest networks in the US: CBS and NBC. These networks happen to be owned by the two largest nuclear arms producers: General Electric and Westinghouse. With these profiteers yielding billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how can one expect to obtain non-biased coverage of what is really going on abroad? The 2011 Defense budget is the largest in US history at $708 billion and the media has certainly missed pointing out this “insignificant” fact. They also happen to miss pointing out that this budget does not include the spending on veteran affairs; an area lacking in benefits and rising in need for the ex-military personnel. The human costs of war, far greater than any monetary value, are disgustingly disregarded by the media as well. To learn that there are well over 2 million post-invasion violent deaths in Iraq and that this “measly” fact is bluntly ignored in the media is preposterous.
The US will however cry foul when given the opportunity to call out on a violation of “free press”; that criticism being aimed 99% of the time at a country with opposing ideologies to those of capitalism. It is interesting to point to the case of Venezuela for example. The US, amongst other capitalist countries (i.e. Colombia) paints Venezuela’s government as having no freedom of press. This is in fact a myth. The media opposition that is allowed in Venezuela is far greater than any ever being allowed in the US. Globovision, one of the most watched TV networks in Venezuela went as far as to push forward the idea of lynching the president. This type of behavior would violate FCC rules in the US and would send the network owners to prison. In Colombia, if a journalist is denounced by the president for criticism against him, the journalist would fear for his or her life, face realistic death threats and in many cases flee the country. This is not the case in Venezuela, yet the press in Colombia and the US show fallacy after fallacy feeding misinformation and shaping dangerously the public views.
The establishment of the so-called “War on Terror” mentality brings the general American public to believe that war is acceptable and necessary, however this myth only strengthens the capitalist profiteering propaganda and destroys the real needs of the working class. Education is vital in every regard, in this particular instance education is key and the only tool against this American hegemonic nurturing of aggression abroad for the sake of “protecting US borders”. Independent news outlets are the ideal source for real-time information, but they will not come to you alone. There is a requirement to foster critical thinking amongst the working class, this means understanding the pressing need to reform the existing system and how as workers we must unite and contest the spread of misinformation.
Get involved! Show solidarity and help spread outright education.
