Damn Media!
Written by Mike
February 9, 2008
Hello folks...
I don't know about you, but I can't even watch the news anymore! We're down to three Republican candidates and still they rarely mention Ron Paul! It's truely amazing that people aren't outraged by the censorship. Something must be done.
A little history on the media. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Prior to 1927, public airwaves in the United States were regulated by the United States Department of Commerce and largely litigated in the courts as the growing number of stations fought for space in the burgeoning industry. The Federal Radio Act of 1927 (signed into law February 23, 1927) nationalized the airwaves and formed the Federal Radio Commission (later named the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC) to assume control of the airwaves.
The Communications Act of 1934 refined and expanded on the authority of the FCC to regulate public airwaves in the United States, combining and reorganizing provisions from the Federal Radio Act of 1927 and the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910. It empowered the FCC, among other things, to administer broadcasting licenses, impose penalties and regulate standards and equipment used on the airwaves. The Act also mandated that the FCC would act in the interest of the "public convenience, interest, or necessity."The Act established a system whereby the FCC grants licenses to the spectrum to broadcasters for commercial use, so long as the broadcasters act in the public interest by providing news programming.
Lobbyists from the largest radio broadcasters, ABC and NBC, successfully petitioned to attach a cost to the license required to broadcast, and were thus able to "price out" many amateur broadcasters that had previously existed. Such was the precedent for much of the following regulatory decisions, which have mostly focused on the percentage of a market deemed allowable to a single company.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 set the modern tone of "deregulation," a relaxing of percentage constrictions that solidified the previous history of privatizing the utility and commodifying the spectrum. The legislation, touted as a step that would foster competition, actually resulted in the subsequent mergers of several large companies, a trend which still continues.
The FCC held one official forum, February 27, 2003, in Richmond, Virginia in response to public pressures to allow for more input on the issue of elimination of media ownership limits. Some complain that more than one forum was needed.
On June 2, 2003, FCC, in a 3-2 vote under Chairman Michael Powell, approved new media ownership laws that removed many of the restrictions previously imposed to limit ownership of media within a local area. The changes were not, as is customarily done, made available to the public for a comment period.
Single-company ownership of media in a given market is now permitted up to 45% (formerly 35%, up from 25% in 1985) of that market.
Restrictions on newspaper and TV station ownership in the same market were removed.
All TV channels, magazines, newspapers, cable, and Internet services are now counted, weighted based on people's average tendency to find news on that medium. At the same time, whether a channel actually contains news is no longer considered in counting the percentage of a medium owned by one owner.
Previous requirements for periodic review of license have been changed. Licenses are no longer reviewed for "public-interest" considerations.
The decision by the FCC was overturned by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the decision Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC in June, 2004. The Majority ruled 2-1 against the FCC and ordered the Commission to reconfigure how it justified raising ownership limits. The Supreme Court later turned down an appeal, so the ruling stands.
Disney, "New" Viacom (and its former parent CBS Corporation, the former "Old" Viacom), TimeWarner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, and General Electric together own more than 90% of the media holdings in the United States.
Some people say that's not a real problem because we have the internet. But the media companies are taking control there too. Just in the past few weeks Microsoft is buying Yahoo. Google has bought over 10 internet related companies...and the noose tightens there too. Just think if you tried to google something and nothing showed up for it... does it exists? And lets say it was something the government didn't want you looking into. So the next thing you know the police show up at your door. Don't think that's possible? It hapens everyday! In China. People who have googled Tiananmen Square, in China have been turned over to the authorities by that very same company. And it's the same with Yahoo.
Here's one example:
http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_federalism/2006/01/tiananmen_squar.html Now with that...I think it's a pretty simple leap to the suggestion that we aren't really living in the country we thought we were. Our government has been taken over by the same people that control the media. As with the censorship in the media...its obvious that the government agencies that are supposed to protect us are actually doing the exact opposite. Some examples: the FDA approving medicine, food products and food additives that are in fact dangerous; the Consumer Protection Agency allowing lead laced toys to continue to be imported even though they should have all imports halted until a safe product is assured; the Immigration Department's obvious lack of enforcement of laws for employers of illegal immigrants; on and on...in nearly every case the government is not our servant, it's our oppressor and we need to wake up the people around us to the fact that if we don't do something soon.... we are going to be goose stepping to the gas chambers.
Is it really that bad? Should we really be worried? The unfortunate answer is Yes. Evil happens when good people do nothing. Ron Paul is not just a candidate for President...he's our wake up call.