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levite · 02-16-2008, 08:57 AM

I'm not necessarily going to speak to what kind of music people are enjoying, because I'm not sure that's likely to be a phenomenon of anything more than different tastes. But I would certainly agree that a major ill in our society is the monopolization of the media. Right now we basically get all our news, cultural commentary, and political coverage from six or eight sources. That is not what a free press is supposed to be. It is an unfortunate consequence of campaign finance laws permitting what is essentially legal bribery by special interests, ultra-right wing nutballs filling the positions on the FCC, and the Executive and Legislative being far too interested in playing petty power games and lining their pockets to agree on strengthening our antiquated anti-trust legislation and directing the DOJ to puruse vigorous prosecution of media conglomerates for violating anti-monopoly laws.

It is shocking how, if you go to other countries, their news and political coverage is far more thoughtful and nuanced than ours. Also, it was only after I spent a couple of weeks in Europe, that I realized how saturated our media is with Christian religious rhetoric. Try taking a couple of weeks and counting how many stories you see in newspapers, magazines, and on television that have to do with "religion" (which almost invariably means Christianity) or religious beliefs. Try counting how often that kind of language appears in our political discourse over those couple of weeks. I did this, when I got back from Europe a couple of years ago, and I was sickened, especially when my count went into the triple digits before the first week was up.

I am spending the year living in Israel, The Jewish State. And when I read their major newspapers and magazines, there is far less presentation of Jewish religious rhetoric than there is of Christian religion in the newspapers and magazines in America. There is also a much broader spectrum of coverage of news, society, and politics, than there is in American newspapers and magazines-- despite the fact that Israel has no law providing a free press. I can't help but suppose it might have something to do with the fact that there are independent news sources, with different owners and publishers, and the whole thing isn't conglomeratized. It seems to me that if a country like Israel, which has no laws about free press or monopolies, and which actually is literally in the middle of a war on terrorists (not an abstract excuse for using the military to fund the military-industrial complex, but actual fighting with actual terrorists, right at the country's front door, so to speak) can have free, independent, thoughtful, critical press coverage, there is no excuse why America, which ought to have a leg up with its laws and protections, cannot.

02-16-2008, 08:57 AM	#12 (permalink)
levite Minion of Joss Location: The Windy City	I'm not necessarily going to speak to what kind of music people are enjoying, because I'm not sure that's likely to be a phenomenon of anything more than different tastes. But I would certainly agree that a major ill in our society is the monopolization of the media. Right now we basically get all our news, cultural commentary, and political coverage from six or eight sources. That is not what a free press is supposed to be. It is an unfortunate consequence of campaign finance laws permitting what is essentially legal bribery by special interests, ultra-right wing nutballs filling the positions on the FCC, and the Executive and Legislative being far too interested in playing petty power games and lining their pockets to agree on strengthening our antiquated anti-trust legislation and directing the DOJ to puruse vigorous prosecution of media conglomerates for violating anti-monopoly laws. It is shocking how, if you go to other countries, their news and political coverage is far more thoughtful and nuanced than ours. Also, it was only after I spent a couple of weeks in Europe, that I realized how saturated our media is with Christian religious rhetoric. Try taking a couple of weeks and counting how many stories you see in newspapers, magazines, and on television that have to do with "religion" (which almost invariably means Christianity) or religious beliefs. Try counting how often that kind of language appears in our political discourse over those couple of weeks. I did this, when I got back from Europe a couple of years ago, and I was sickened, especially when my count went into the triple digits before the first week was up. I am spending the year living in Israel, The Jewish State. And when I read their major newspapers and magazines, there is far less presentation of Jewish religious rhetoric than there is of Christian religion in the newspapers and magazines in America. There is also a much broader spectrum of coverage of news, society, and politics, than there is in American newspapers and magazines-- despite the fact that Israel has no law providing a free press. I can't help but suppose it might have something to do with the fact that there are independent news sources, with different owners and publishers, and the whole thing isn't conglomeratized. It seems to me that if a country like Israel, which has no laws about free press or monopolies, and which actually is literally in the middle of a war on terrorists (not an abstract excuse for using the military to fund the military-industrial complex, but actual fighting with actual terrorists, right at the country's front door, so to speak) can have free, independent, thoughtful, critical press coverage, there is no excuse why America, which ought to have a leg up with its laws and protections, cannot. __________________ Dull sublunary lovers love, Whose soul is sense, cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove That thing which elemented it. (From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)