Welcome to our “Federal” Reserve system; a system run by private international bankers that was created in 1913, the same year the federal income tax formally came into existence with the ratification of the 16th Amendment.  If you’re like most people, you know nothing or very little about this system, how money is created and circulated in our economy and about how this system is affecting your life and influencing the lives of future generations.   

To his credit, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been raising public awareness of this critically important subject (along with others, such as U.S. foreign policy “blow-back”), while big corporate media, including CNN (“the most ‘trusted’ name in news”), notably refuses to facilitate discussion, debate or reporting on the topic.  Have you also noticed how quiet the other presidential candidates (Republicans and Democrats alike) have been when Paul has broached the sensitive subject of monetary policy, our $9 trillion dollar (and growing) federal debt and the crashing value of the U.S. dollar during televised debates?  Please view the video referenced below and/or reference other information to become more informed about this highly important issue.  It will be time well spent.    

More Information:

“Money as Debt“ (A video by Paul Grignon that creatively explains our current monetary system that is sure to educate and perhaps shock most viewers.  Please note that there is a delay of about 12 seconds prior to the start of the video.) 

The following is a list of just a few of many subjects we should know more about that have been deemed completely or substantially “off limits” by our corporate-owned media, in addition, of course, to the behind-the-scenes “business of news,” a topic never addressed by the mainstream corporate media:

• How the media in other countries is and has been covering domestic and international news and what citizens abroad have to say about that coverage;

• The number of innocent Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children maimed or killed by U.S. and other allied forces as a result of President Bush’s war declarations and how the resulting death and destruction has impacted survivors’ lives and the reputation of the United States around the world;

• Differing viewpoints critical of U.S. foreign policy, including those that make strong arguments for why our policies, our expanding footprint and our funding of terror around the globe is the real great threat to our national security;

• The income gap between the rich and the poor, its root causes and consequences;

• More information about the advantages to be gained of giving us more freedom and flexibility as to how and where we educate our children, including changing policy to permit us to direct our real estate tax dollars to the school of our choice (public or  private);

• The disparity in force and deaths between Israelis and Palestinians, the construction of Israel’s so-called “security wall” and how this meandering wall and Israeli checkpoints are impacting the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank;

• How people in other industrialized and undeveloped countries live their daily lives;

• The names, faces and backgrounds of all the individuals who control the Federal Reserve Bank (a private bank) and our monetary policy and, thus, greatly influence our nation’s economy;

• More about the “New World Order” as referenced by George Bush Sr. and others;

• More details about the federal deficit, government waste and inefficiencies and consequences for our and future generations;

• Details concerning past and present CIA “black ops” including “extraordinary rendition” activities where individuals are transferred to secret locations abroad for the purpose of extracting information by torture; 

• Ross Perot, and why he really dropped out of the 1992 Presidential race;

• The extent of wiretapping, surveillance and other spying on American citizens on the part of part of federal, state and local government officials and employees;

• A study on the pros/cons of un-consolidating corporate media;

• The domestic and world impact of China’s booming economy, including its appetite for limited resources and unprecedented pollution emmissions;

• The extent of how space has been weaponized, and more details about NASA’s missions, its payloads, its budgets and the cost/benefits of its activities;

• More details about the pros and cons of universal healthcare and how and at what cost such systems function in other countries around the world.

The above items are just the tip of the iceberg of all that we should know and deserve to know if the public airwaves do, in fact, belong to us.  I look forward to delving into some or all of these subjects at a later date, as well as exposing, by name, media executives that bear responsibility for keeping us in the dark.  For now, I’ll close this post with some prophetic words spoken almost fifty years ago as the seeds of irresponsible media greed were beginning to take root.

The following quotes are excerpts of a speech given by Edward R. Murrow at a convention of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) in October 1958, four years after Murrow’s renowned 1954 CBS broadcasts that publicly exposed Senator Joseph McCarthy, the harm he had done to citizens and the danger he posed to democracy and free speech.

“….Our history will be what we make it.  And if there are any historians around fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black-and-white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism, and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live.  I invite your attention to the television schedules of all three networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m. Eastern Time….If this state of affairs continues….surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive.  I mean the word “survive” literally.”

“….I have said….that we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which is superior to any other.  But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and enterprising.  There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies.  But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Communications Act which says they must increase their profits each year, lest the Republic collapse….I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; (and) by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation….Unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late….”

“I do not advocate that we turn television into a twenty-seven inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense.  But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live…This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, it can even inspire.  But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.  Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.  There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance, and indifference.  This weapon of television could be useful….”

Today, a select few large corporations now own much of our TV, radio, print and other media, which in turn means that the control of news and other important content rests largely in the hands of a few individuals who head these corporations.  Despite this fact, Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin earlier this week went forward with a “fast tracked” vote to further relax media ownership rules and allow big media to get even bigger over strong opposition from the public and from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.  The 3-2 party-line vote and decision is likely to end up before Congress and the courts.   

Is junk media making you sick??? is a short video produced by a non-partisan media reform advocacy group opposed to this week’s FCC decision. It creatively highlights the sad state of our media today, a result of the changing face of the “business of news.”  What is depicted is the fallout of irresponsible demands and expectations by corporate executives and “numbers crunchers” (who don’t know or care about the role of journalism and diversity of opinion in a free society) that the News divisions of the media companies they now control generate profits on par with Entertainment and other non-news divisions.  While the video focuses on corporate-owned TV networks, the same “dumb down” provocative “infotainment” formula is being widely replicated nationwide in radio, newspaper and other media circles, as well.  The closing of important foreign news bureaus, the firing of reporters and other news gathering staff and the reduction or elimination of more expensive and risk laden investigative reports (that best hold governmental and corporate power interests accountable) are more fallout from this more demanding ”business of news.”  High quality news and forums that provide for civilized, wide ranging and important discussion and debate have become extremely rare, certainly the exception and not the rule.  

As more of us continue to notice the harm corporate media is doing to us, media decision makers at the holding company and operating levels struggle to try and keep the cat from coming completely out of the bag.  This includes denying the obvious and censoring passionate arguments advanced by respected journalists and others who make the strong case for how corporate greed has made TV, radio and print media an accomplice to the creation and/or maintenance of some of the most serious worldwide, federal, state and local problems and injustices in our lifetimes.  Media is like no other business, its importance to democracy and the public interest vital and unparalleled, its number one mission to hold people with power and influence over our lives and property accountable and to adequately inform us of the critical issues of our time.  If legendary broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow were alive today, he’d surely be disgusted and ashamed by what has become of TV and print journalism and of the “business of news” in America.  

A Few Sources for More Information:

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press (book)

Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News and the Danger to Us All (book)

Rich Media, Poor Democracy (video)