by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
March 25, 2013
Image by pandabrand via Flickr
I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual—a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission, when it consciously chose to become a carnival act, it would probably be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.
[…]
via Truthdig
Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.
Copyright © 2013 Truthdig
see also
Injured Veteran Keeps Up His Fight, Deciding To Live
see
The Sociocide of Iraq by Bush/Cheney by Ralph Nader
Every Building in Baghdad that Falls, Crushed and Broken to the Ground…. by Felicity Arbuthnot
The Crucifixion of Tomas Young by Chris Hedges
The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News (2002; must-see)
Once Again, War is Prime Time and Journalism’s Role is Taboo by John Pilger
Media Lies, Corporate Ties, and Truth Dies? … Don’t Count on It! by Andrew Gavin Marshall
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This is an excellent post by Chris Hedges and very important. He probably understands this opposition to the Iraq war as well as anyone as he was at the NY Times during this period of time too. The FACTS are and they are well established, we have a corporate media supporting corporate fascism in the U.S. And it is only through alternative media such as this that the truth can be told and that we have any chance of delivering the messages. Thank you Truthdig and Dandelion Salad and those other blog sites who continue to convey independent messages and data!!
Thanks, DoctorTom.
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Profound, timely and profoundly significant.
Jerry Mander got it right back in 1977 with his Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.
At 76 he is Director of the International Forum on Globalization. This is an excellent six minute interview with him that summarizes the current corporate media tyranny most adequately https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/jerry-mander-connects-the-dots-between-corporate-media-and-the-food-we-eat/
Intelligent food for thought and thought about food.
It shouldn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out, but the the Western mindset is so utterly brainwashed and conditioned there really is no difference between what is being fed to the masses today, and the Roman model of bread and circuses. Humanity is regressing into ecocidal anarchy. We are living in an age of unprecedented atrocity.
We must re-vision civilization itself, subordinate corporate controls and institute representative accountable systems of governance. The only way to do this is to organize for constructive change, by inspiring, empowering and motivating youth.
Thanks, David. Great interview! Just posted it.