Building a Balanced Media for #Gaza

ACTION ALERT AT END OF ESSAY!

I ran into an old friend on the train the other day.  He asked how I was and I responded, "completely distraught, aren't you?"  He wasn't.  We proceeded to have a riveting conversation about all of the crimes against humanity around the world and why Gaza in particular was so alarming to people.

It's "mowing the grass," he said.  They do this every other year or so, everyone gets hot and bothered, then things quiet down, everyone forgets, and then the grass needs to be cut again in another two years.  

I tried my best to convince him that it was different this time.  People who typically shrug their shoulders, are speaking out.  People who typically say, "I could never boycott Starbucks," are giving up their coffees.  Reporters are being taken out of Gaza by networks then being put back in because of public pressure. It's different!

About Ending Perpetual War...

There was a lot of hoopla in my city last week, as President Obama was re-inaugurated amidst large crowds. Given the centrality of Obama to our blog (we started this 4 years ago after his initial inauguration, with some of our first posts devoted to capturing the movement that developed around him that catapulted him into the presidency), I though it'd be useful to write down a few thoughts about inauguration #2. The main takeaway from his speech was that he seemed far more bold on domestic politics: the references to climate change, Stonewall, and immigration were much stronger stances than he was willing to make in his first inauguration. Second-term presidencies can bring about more activism, obviously. But, for me, the most interesting part was his discussion of the need to end perpetual war (d'uh, I do international politics). Like so much about Obama, a lot of liberals applauded this (supposedly) brave statement and felt optimism about further distancing ourselves from the Bush years. But...yeah, as seems to be frequently the case with liberals and Obama, they didn't pay attention to what he has actually done. The press didn't do a particularly good job with this either, analyzing his words more than his actions. Perhaps Barry O is really committed to shifting away from militarism. But, the reality is, he's got to walk away from a lot of his own policies to do so.

Who hasn't tried to co-opt MLK?

As we celebrate MLK Day in America today (and the second inauguration of Barack Obama, one that is definitely being linked to MLK on a few levels...more on that later), I started thinking: why do we know so little about the real King and, as a result, why are so many able to co-opt his messages?

The MLK we're told about (that I've written about before - click here and here to read more) was a man who told us to live together in peace, for whites and blacks to embrace each other, and let our kids play together. This isn't a bad message at all, of course. However, we rarely get the more complicated politics that MLK touched on. He understood the connection between racism, economics, and politics. "I have a dream" is very special and historical...but the dream MLK wanted us to get to involved addressing war, poverty, and the nature of our political system. He was pro-labor (he was assassinated while supporting sanitation workers on strike in Memphis). He was critical of the economic divide in America. He was staunchly opposed to the Vietnam war, and not supportive of our foreign policy in general. He thought we exploited the poor at home and abroad. He had problems with moderate white American leaders, who would be willing to compromise on social issues to bring about a "peace" without justice. So...yeah, not as warm and fuzzy as we hear about. Of course, reality makes him (and those who fought alongside him - one man does not make a movement) far more courageous, noble, and worthy of rememberance. It wasn't easy to fight against segregation. Fighting against segregation, Vietnam, poverty, aspects of capitalism, political dealmaking...yeah, that's a lot more challenging.

Argo and Hollywood's "Muslim World" Problem

I happened to read a blurb about Argo, the new Middle East thriller directed by and starring Ben Affleck a month ago. As someone with a bit of understanding of the dynamics of Iran in the 20th century, I was clearly interested. Also, knowing that Affleck, a politically knowledgeable actor who was close to one of the most outspoken progressives of the 20th century, the late Howard Zinn, made me think that this might be a movie that could teach America a little about the Middle East, minus the usual jingoism and xenophobia. Well, having just watched Argo a few nights ago...progress is slow. Considering the rise of the Islamophobia network over the past decade, this is unfortunate. Argo is only slightly better than the usual Hollywood narrative about Muslims.

MLK: More Than Just "I Have a Dream"

(This oldie-but-goodie is reposted from our archives. Oh, and don't forget to check out this MLK-related post, either) Another year, another MLK day. While many people enjoy this as an extra day off from work or school, a lot of us enjoy to reflect on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That legacy is pretty impressive, but is often reduced to a ridiculously simplistic "black and white people living in harmony" angle by the press and political leaders. In fact, this year, the DoD suggested MLK might understand America's participation in wars today. I'm not even making that up. Seriously. Go read the thing for yourself...it is one of the more insane things I've ever heard.

The MLK Memorial, the Occupy Movements, and Social Justice

I was watching/listening to some of the ceremony this morning at the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial here in Washington, DC. It was an interesting assortment of voices. Some reflected on the past, taking a stroll down memory lane. Others were grateful to see Dr. King being honored - even though the memorial may have been built with unpaid Chinese labor, something Dr. King would absolutely demonstrate against (not the Chinese part, but the unpaid part - remember, he was very pro-labor). Some tried to keep the message alive by pointing out that MLK was not some simple "can't we all just get along" man, and that he would be outraged by the growing economic and social disparities in American today. He'd also certainly be protesting the wars. In other words, the timing couldn't have been better, considering the massive October 15th protests the day before associated with the Occupy movement across the globe. MLK was not a docile spiritual leader who made this one famous speech on the National Mall in 1963, highlighted by four special words. He was a  tireless social justice fighter. We get our MLK watered down in America, so I wanted to repost something I wrote a while back about the good Doctor, with the hope that people realize, with the attention on MLK and his memorial, that he would have been out there marching the previous day. The Occupy movements are very much in line with the ideal Dr. King fought for, and ultimately died for. Let us not forget the real MLK in these hard times. Read More >>

How to Follow the Latest Developments in Egypt

Al Jazeera has kind of owned the coverage of the revolt in Egypt, though apparently their Cairo offices were just raided (according to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now this morning). If you're like many in the U.S. who don't get Al Jazeera on TV, you can stream their around-the-clock coverage online here. Another one of my favorite sources is Democracy Now's Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who has been on many news shows in the past few days, including the Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz shows on MSNBC. Sharif has been one of the best sources on the ground in Cairo, and his tweets have gotten picked up by everyone. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here. Sharif's latest tweet, as of an hour ago: "Thousands continue to stream across Kasr El Nile bridge. Very festive atmosphere. What a contrast to Wednesday's govt-sponsored brutality."

Keep Fear Alive - the Juan Williams Edition

Juan Williams became a center point of attention this past week. Williams, a contributor to both NPR and Fox News, made some controversial comments about his feelings of fear whenever he saw people in Muslim garb on planes. This follows his colleague Bill O' Reilly's comments about Muslims and 9/11 the previous week on "The View". Not surprisingly, Williams was fired from NPR for his comments. Also, not surprisingly, conservatives went on the offensive about his firing. Williams' comment, and the defense of his comment, only reinforce points I've made earlier re: bigotry in America towards Arabs and Muslims...apparently, it's totally cool. Hell, candidates are using bigotry openly as a campaign strategy this year - hating Muslims, immigrants, blacks, gays...apparently all kosher. The response to the Williams firing has made this point even more clear.

Pakistan: A Possible Future

(To help flood victims, please click here)

Ali thought to himself: should I report this? He had just walked by a conversation between two men regarding an effort to plan attacks against U.S. troops guarding the new massive embassy in Islamabad.

What do I do?

Ali and his family lived in the Northwest Frontier Province, in a small village about 100km away from the Swat valley. His family was quite poor. They lived in a small shack and he and his parents both worked in the fields. They basically kept to themselves and their family, and were apolitical in every sense of the word. They assumed that since they were all uneducated and illiterate, that they had no place in speaking out about their country.

The Ground Zero Islamic Center, Fareed Zakaria, and Islamophobia

Aren't you glad we live in the age of Obama, where racism no longer exists? Man, what a load off my mind. You know, there's a black U.S. president. That makes everyone everywhere equal somehow (even though he hasn't actually changed policy that much from his white predecessors regarding U.S. financial institutions, foreign policy, welfare policy, etc. - but those are just facts, don't mind them). Oh wait...sonofa...

Now, I don't usually do the race/identity stuff that much. It's not my thing. I leave that to much smarter folks, like my friend Professor Lewis, amongst many others. However, all the talk about the Islamic Center near the Ground Zero site, the reaction to it, and the press coverage of it made me say, screw it, I'm going to put in my two cents.

Remember Afghanistan?

"Hey! Are you even listening to me?" Afghanistan snapped her fingers at American Media to get her attention. "What's wrong? It's like you don't even remember me. We used to be so close and now, you're...so distant," she muttered to her old friend as she looked away in confusion. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, I've just been busy. You know, Helen Thomas' chair, LeBron James, Lady Gaga, the new iPhone, and oil on some animals," replied American Media, still looking away from Afghanistan and focusing on something in the horizon.

"But, you forgot...you forgot about the anniversary."

"Anniversary?" American Media had a puzzled look on her face.

"Yeah...the anniversary. Just this past month, your conflict here surpassed Vietnam as America's longest war."

"But...but...no, that can't be right. How is that possible?" American Media started pacing around the room, nervously. She finally looked at Afghanistan in the eyes. "How did this happen? How did I forget?"

Dictatorship, Transparency, and the NBA (or: How Chairman Stern has destroyed pro basketball)

So, one of the potentially great NBA Finals series just ended, with the Lakers topping the Celtics. The series, however, was a huge disappointment, largely because of the one issue that has plagued the NBA for the past few seasons: the officiating. The timing is interesting, to say the least. The league has lost a lot of money the past few years, and each extra playoff game, particularly a Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals game, generates a decent amount of change for the league. Throw in the fact that NBA Commissioner David Stern runs the league like a dictator, allowing no real dissent or questioning about anything, particularly refs, and allows essentially no transparency in the process, and it's not hard to see why there is a mounting view that there is a conspiracy in place, whereby the league does what it can with the refs to extend playoff series as much as possible to make sure they get as much money as they can. Even my mom, who doesn't follow basketball, called me up to tell me she thought the Lakers huge free throw advantage in Game 7 was very suspicious. But those who don't believe there is a conspiracy, read the whole post - I don't know that I believe in it myself!

The Continued Failure in Gaza

The recent Israeli raid on the flotilla bringing aid to Gaza, that resulted in the deaths of nine civilians, more injuries, and near-global condemnation for Israel's actions, has brought a lot of attention to Gaza in the past few days. Unfortunately, much of the discourse has centered around the specific incident itself (who fired first, whether Israeli troops were right to protect themselves, etc.), and not about the politics and conditions in Gaza overall. There's a larger debate about the occupation itself that I won't get into here (there are obviously countless sources you can look to for that debate), which is quite crucial to this whole thing. However, the situation in Gaza itself is one that has been largely neglected by the Western press, particularly the politics of Gaza.

Wikileaks, the Military, and Accountability

In case you haven't heard, wikileaks, a website that publishes anonymous leaks of sensitive government/organizational documents (which Spoon blogger Falcon wrote about a few months back), has come under fire lately. In this age of government secrecy, a website like this is pretty important. It recently put out a horrifying video, leaked from the U.S. military, showing an attack on July 12, 2007 in Baghdad that killed 12 people, including two Reuters news staff. None of those killed were seen as hostile. The story obviously got a lot of media attention, and has drawn the ire of many, including U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called the release irresponsible, stating that wikileaks has no accountability. A secret report from the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center goes so far as to call wikileaks a threat to the military.


Accountability...that's an interesting word to use. It is particularly ironic, because, if anything, I'd say the military doesn't seem to be accountable for its actions. This terrifying video shows the cold-blooded murder of unarmed civilians. The official story from the Pentagon was that the helicopter fired because it was itself under fire. The video shows that this is clearly not the case, and the conversation between the troops makes that point, too. Nothing in the records show that U.S. forces were under fire at all. This appears to be a complete fabrication, and a case of the military trying to cover its ass. Some legal experts suggest that the crew may have acted illegally.

Is releasing information a threat? Really? Particularly when that information shows the military, a government, or an organization/business acted with duplicity, and possibly illegally? Of course, the military establishment and government officials attacked wikileaks, because it makes them look bad. That's not surprising. It's just odd that they use "accountability" as the source of their attack.

I do agree that, oftentimes, websites put information up that is completely false, or problematically skewed, and don't face any repercussions for their actions. Hell, that's our mainstream press today, to some extent. But here's the thing...wikileaks didn't manufacture this video. It's real. The documents and footage that go on its site are real.

The reason we have a need for leaks like this is the increasingly secretive nature of governments. They do everything to cover their collective asses on seemingly everything. It'd be one thing if this video was leaked solely to fan the flames over this incident. That's the issue. Nobody did anything about this when it happened. Gates thought it would just go away. Some argue the military did not sufficiently investigate this, and other, instances where journalists were killed, or did not publicly disclose its findings. Some international law and human rights experts also think the killings in the wikileaks video could be war crimes. These are all quite serious issues. At the very least, the military should have been far more active in investigating this incident, along with others.

Instead, they assumed it would just go away and now that they are being pressed on it, they're getting defensive. Nobody was punished for this, nobody outside the military seems to have investigated this, and Gates sure as hell seems disinterested in dealing with it. Hence, his ridiculous response to the video. If there's anyone who seems to lack accountability at this point, its the military leadership. The soldiers in the video themselves seem to be more interested in making things right than the military leadership, which isn't necessarily that surprising.

The reason we need websites like wikileaks is because those in power seem disinterested in holding anyone accountable for their horrific mistakes, and our press isn't up to the task like they used to be (which has a lot to do with the political economy of the mass media, but that's a whole different topic). Yeah, maybe wikileaks is a threat to the military. But maybe that's a good thing. If Gates et. al. aren't interested in accountability, somebody needs to pick up the slack.

Lies, Damn Lies, and the Health Reform Debate: Hello Insanity!

I personally would have preferred a "hello, Cleveland!", but alas, it is not to be. The health care debate has been absolutely absurd, our leaders in Washington have been absolutely moronic at times discussing it, and the media hasn't really done a great job reporting some basic facts about what is going on - though I give some of them some credit, because their showing the ignorance and straight-up gangsta behavior by people at these town hall meetings is illustrating just how looney some of these folks are. Anyway, we here at the "Spoon" decided to do a little PSA of sorts on health care reform. We hope to have a more detailed analysis up soon, but here's a quick read that we hope will be informative. (Note: this was supposed to be a quick-read piece, but damn it all, I couldn't stop writing!)

First of all, I want to address the town hall meetings and "widespread" public dissent about President Obama's health care reform. #1, a lot of these people that are disrupting these meetings are doing so on the bill of the health insurance industry. So, that tells you something. Rachel Maddow did a nice piece detailing the connections and ties behind this nonsense the other night. Straight-up Hessians, to some degree. #2, those who aren't are saying some of the most incredible things I've heard. So, even if they're actually angrily opposed to reform (as opposed to angry because a paycheck from the insurance industry tells them to be so), they have no clue what they're talking about. That's kind of the media's fault - I realize they're sort of helping by playing these incredibly ignorant comments, but maybe they could spend more time providing basic facts about parameters of the debate on a constat basis to help. "The government needs to keep its hands off my Medicare" is priceless (since Medicare is a government-run program), along with the GOP talking point that health care reform will include a provision that will essentially force euthanasia on seniors, another ridiculous statement. Craaaa-zeee. So, yeah, the "widespread" dissent is largely either being paid for, or is informed by ignorance. Oh, and while I am happy to see public discourse and dissent, "paid for by" and ignorant dissent is not good, particularly when it gets dangerous, especially in settings where the public is actually allowed to participate, as opposed to other boisterous protests where the opposition is loud particularly because it is not ever allowed anywhere near the discussion. A fight broke out at one of the town hall meetings in Tampa where cops had to calm things down, a Texas Democrat was shouted down by right-wingers who didn't even live in his district, a Maryland congressman had an effigy of him hung in opposition to reform (following the loud cheers Rep. Todd Akin received when he joked about Democrats getting lynched at these town hall meetings), and Rep. Brad Miller from North Carolina cancelled his town hall meetings after his office received a death threat. These are troubling signs, and very emblematic of where this debate has gone. Former Right-to Lifer Frank Schaeffer offers us some chilling words on what the reform debate has become.

Second, let's talk about the government role in all of this. Look, the "bureaucrat" in the system that is going to make decisions about your care isn't the government! We already have bureaucrats in the system, except they work for the insurance companies, are often called actuaries, are not health care or medical experts, and make decisions about what is and isn't covered. Again, private insurance...bureaucrat. The public option is the government part of the plan that many on the right are angry about, arguing its socialist and will destroy the private insurance industry. I've already written a little about that in an earlier post. Well, okay, so what is the public option? Its still a work in progress, but basically, it will function as a national health exchange of sorts, essentially being a plan organized and facilitated by the government, not necessarily run by them in the classic sense of the word. The various bills on the Hill right now basically put regulations on the public plan that will require the plan to meet the same benefits and cost requirements of private insurance companies. Obviously, there will be some differences, but no government bureaucrat will sit at a desk and decide what is covered.

Plus, this isn't a single payer system AT ALL! The government is not taking over health care IN ANY REAL WAY with this plan. I can't emphasize the fact that this point needs to be made clear every single time someone raises it. Again, like I said before, the public option involves more government involvement, certainly, but its primarily setting up particular regulations on the type and scope of coverage that can be offered, which is to be modeled on regulations for private insurance. There will most likely be some level of sliding scale subsidies for coverage, based on family income. So, yes, the government will be more involved. But this in no way is even remotely equivalent with government-run health care. And, by the way, I'm not sure whether government-run health care isn't better than private insurance. Medicaid, for instance, covers a substantially sicker population at relatively reasonable per-person rates. Yes, overall Medicaid spending certainly has increased over the past handful of years, but that is being driven primarily by more individuals being covered by Medicaid...largely because employer-based care has eroded. That is to say, public programs like Medicaid and SCHIP have come through to help prevent a larger increase in the uninsured than we've actually seen. Research shows that, when adjusting for health conditions and socioeconomic status, Medicaid is actually less expensive than private insurance. That is to say, if Medicaid patients were on private insurance, getting the same care, their care would cost quite a bit more. Conversely, if people on private insurance were on Medicaid getting the same care, their care would cost less. Again, the reform being postulated isn't the government-run socialist medicine "nightmare" that people are saying it is in any way, shape, or form, but if it was, that might actually not be a bad thing.

Third, about rationing...look, there is a finite supply of money and services, so care is going to probably be rationed to some extent. This is a very hard thing to deal with when the person it affects is someone you love, but understand that we already ration care. Of course, our rationing is primarily based on class. If you have money, you usually get a distinctly different type of health care than if you're not rich. So, the 55 year-old high executive at one of the major banks, who totally blew it and should have been fired on the spot, not only keeps his job, gets bailed out by the government, gets a ridiculous bonus, this person also has great health insurance coverage for the ulcers they got when they thought they were going to be fired because they completely screwed up. A hard-working twenty-something employee at said bank, who did everything right, was a model worker, got laid off, lost a lot due to all types of investments gone awry due to the economic problems partly caused by their own executives, and is now uninsured and is now facing some serious financial difficulties due to a few medical bills. So, what we have is a highly immoral type of rationing of care. I want to have a moral rationing of care, where things like medical conditions and projected health outcomes help determine who gets what. Its far more efficient and far more humane. Again, it makes it tough for those whose loved ones are on the losing end, but at least there is a method to the madness, and we're ultimately helping more people with our difficult calls. That is not the case at all right now.

Fourth, our health care system is not the best in the world. It is, in fact, a middle-of-the-pack health care system, at best. The WHO World Health Report had us at #37 in overall system performance, and #72 in overall health. Not exactly numbers to write home about. A more recent study compared us to six other major nations, and we rank last in pretty much every category. We also ranked last among 19 countries in a survey looking at preventable deaths. We do pretty poor on both issues of access to care and quality of care, and are going in the wrong direction. But, we are number 1 in one thing...spending. This tells you one thing...we are doing a terribly inefficient job. Tons of spending, mediocre (at best) results. Any argument that we need to stay away from reform because our system is already the best in the world...is crazy as hell.

Fifth (or fif...damn, do I miss Chappelle's Show), about choice. The proposed plan does not scrap the current system (which I think it should, but that's another story). If people feel their current employer-based insurance or whatever other form of health care coverage they have is good, they can stay on it. Nobody is being mandated to go onto government-facilitated (that is much more accurate than government-run) health care. Also...I'm sorry, choice is nice, but real coverage that is affordable, period, should be the main concern. I hate this line of arguing...I won't be able to see my normal doctor in this plan, blah blah blah. Yes, its valid to argue about that, but when you're looking at comparing that against not having real (i.e. no smoke and mirrors high-deductible plans, or other types of coverage that don't pay for much in the end, which, ultimately lead to patients foregoing necessary care) and affordable health care, I go with the latter as the most important point every time. And...again...if you like your current insurance, you can stay there!

Sixth, about costs and the problem of health care spending....we need to curtail our health care spending, no doubt about it. It will take up a greater and greater portion of our budget, but the problem with the system as it is is that we're not really going to get much for that spending. There are so many inefficiencies present - we need to alter incentives, financing mechanisms, etc., in order to really start seeing a true deceleration of costs, as opposed to just cutting back coverage (which, I'm sure the insurance industry would have no problem doing - I linked to it in my previous post, but please check out Wendell Potter's damning testimony against the insurance industry, which has not gotten nearly as much media play as it should have...Potter was a whistleblower from CIGNA who really spilled some beans on just what our insurance industry has been doing - here is a ton of info about him, his testimony, and a great interview he did with Bill Moyers. Because so many patients are underinsured or uninsured, health care providers often have to game the system to ensure that they don't lose money. This means they might perform a variety of tests that aren't quite necessary, but are expensive, for patients with good health insurance, in order to compensate for the care they provide to patients who don't have insurance, or whose insurance doesn't really cover much of anything. The incentives of the system, in general, are to do as many tests as possible, too. I'm not saying this is what providers necessarily do, but the way they are compensated, as well as how the system is financed overall, often doesn't help this issue. A major step in the right direction would be to alter the mechanisms by trying to lower the number of uninsured and underinsured. This would likely lead to a change in efforts to game the system. The public option, some other type of hybrid system that the Senate Finance Committee is looking at as an alternative to the public option, and expanded public coverage for the poor and low-income, would be ways to address this issue. Additionally, we do need to reconsider how we finance care overall. A real emphasis on prevention, with some money behind it, could help. But, keeping the disjointed system as-is, or simply providing "more choice" through tax credits, etc., will do nothing to lower costs. The tax credit argument has serious flaws in it, which research has clearly illustrated. We need a real change in the system in order to stave off major financial problems down the road. Yes, the bill isn't low - about $100-150 billion/year, or around $1 trillion over 10 years. This, of course, doesn't exclude cost savings that will occur from reform. Yes, it's still going to cost us money, but under 1% of a national income that grows at around 2.5% each year. That's not cheap, but that's not going to destroy the country's economy.

Finally, this is a point I abstractly discussed in my previous post, and intimated above, but here it is more bluntly: is an increased government role in health care a bad thing? Seriously, think about it. Again, the point of clarification (in case I didn't make it obvious enough yet), Obama's plan will NOT create government-run health care in any real sense of the word. According to the CBO report, the public option will NOT drive insurance companies out of business. However...maybe it should. Spend a few minutes going through the info Potter shells out in the link above. This is what private insurance is. Innovation? Hardly. Better prices and better services? No way in hell. I'd argue there is both correlation AND causation between our highly inefficient health care system and the private insurance industry. Look, I have no problem with profits. I'm generally cool with capitalism, in concept (not what we call capitalism, which is borderline socialism for corporations, in America - again, prior post!). But, here's the thing. These private insurance companies have clearly sacrificed the health of Americans to make money. I mean...that's the point, right? Its not exactly easy to regulate a lot of private insurance, due to ERISA preemption. For instance, many state efforts to require Wal-Mart to pay more of the costs of its health insurance for its employees (having done some research on this, I'll say that Wal-Mart health insurance plans were very expensive, which, combined with low pay, resulted in many employees not only not being able to afford insurance coverage, but then enrolling in Medicaid - California had a big fight over this, as did Maryland, and a bunch of other states) were attempted, but defeated due to ERISA preemption - its not easy to mess with employer-sponsored plans.

So, here's the thing...when we are dealing with people's lives, which we literally are with health insurance, is this really an instance where the private sector is appropriate if it is not easily regulated, and has not exactly been doing a good job up to this point? I mean, its one thing when we're talking about televisions, stereos, iPods, etc. It is entirely different when we are talking about lives. I'm not saying the private sector can't have a role in health care. I'm not even saying it can't have the major role. I'm saying that the private sector model of profit maximization is highly problematic in this area, because lives are at stake in a very direct way. Given the track record, I don't quite get why people are so dead-set on ensuring the health care industry survives intact in this debate. We can be a capitalist society (it would help if we actually were one, of course!) without every single thing being pure free market. Health care is an area where I'm not sure a free market is ideal. It could work, if we could get some real regulations in place that required certain conditions, such as ensuring people had access to real insurance at affordable prices that didn't discriminate against pre-existing conditions (or maybe even create a national high risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions). Let private insurance companies bid on big regional or national contracts for insurance, let them run things their way so long as they comply with a reasonable set of federal regulations, let them innovate and compete...they'll almost certainly still do quite well, simply because you're talking about an incredible number of people they get to enroll in their plans. But, if the industry is left as it is, where we don't have any real innovation or competition, but much more of an oligopoly, where it is hard to really regulate plans to ensure they are providing real coverage at reasonable rates and not discriminating, and where they profit more from cutting people off from coverage when they need it the most (this isn't some made-up highly-cynical scenario, this is what continuously happens)...why is this something to defend at all? Look, it is not the idea of private insurance, or the idea of a free market, that is problematic - this can certainly work if implemented correctly. However, what we have right now absolutely isn't working, so I don't understand why critics use terms like capitalism and the free market as abstract ideas that need to be defended against increased government involvement, when it is painfully obvious that the private insurance system we have in place has done a terrible job. We need a real debate about whether a real free market, or increased government involvement, in health care is the better option. This would be healthy and helpful to all. What we don't need is this nonsensical discussion where the government involvement is linked to the Soviet Union and fascism, and the current system we have is tied to Adam Smith. Neither is true.

And in the end, we get the insane debate that has happened thus far on health care reform. We're talking about nonsensical stuff, most of it based on pure lies and deception. We should be discussing far-more important issues, like what kind of delivery system works best, how do we best incentivize the incorporation of health IT and quality of care standards, what are the optimal levels of cost-sharing to ensure appropriate use of care, what are the best pooling options to maximize economies of scale, whether we can we find a way to regulate private insurance companies in a manner to ensure that they stay in check while maximizing their flexibility to capture the benefits of true capitalism in terms of competition...these are all really important discussions to be had by supporters and critics of the type of health care reform being proposed right now. There's plenty of factually-based dissent to be heard from all sides. I don't think Obama is going far enough, whereas some old-school Republicans (do they exist anymore?) might say we need to keep the government out, but stop protecting the insurance industry and make the system truly a free market. These are real and valuable discussions to be had. But, what do we get? Discussions about euthanasia, unfounded fears of a fall into autocratic socialism, and, of course, Senator Grassley talking about dragons and health care like a lunatic. I'd say shoot me now, but I might not be able to afford the co-pay for the hospitalization.

The MJ Coverage: 1) Make it Stop, 2) What It Could and Should Have Been Like

So, we at "the Spoon" (or lack thereof) have been good about not posting anything related to the death of Michael Jackson. Well...we want some more hits on the site, so we're changing our minds! No, I'm just kidding. But seriously, tell your friends!

Well, while the media frenzy has been quite preposterous over the past month (yes, they are still covering this story. Really. Go to a TV and put on one of the "news" [because there really should be quotes there] channels. Odds are, there will be an MJ-related story on within 10 minutes), its not to say there isn't a sort of legitimate reason for it. Not for quite the scale, and certainly not for the angle of the coverage, but it is not surprising, and maybe not even illegitimate, to have so much focus on Jackson. Incidentally, you absolutely should read the best piece about Michael Jackson's death on the internet, which is written by Spoon blogger [naturally] Dumi, on his own blog.

The media had an opportunity to do some really interesting work with this story. They failed. Shocking. Instead of making it a test in US journalistic lunacy, as best exhibited by the scrolling info and breaking news stories ("MJ's body moving in a car at 12 mph", "See the inside of Neverland next", "MJ to be buried", "Exclusive interview with Judge Ito on MJ", "News on North Korea at the end of the hour"), they could have: a) scaled the psychotic types of coverage down significantly, and b) used the time to reflect on a few big topics related to the death that had more meat than, I don't know, showing us the same clip of him holding his son over the balcony 20,000 times. Specifically, there were, in my opinion, three major stories here that we could have seen some thoughtful analysis on: prescription drugs, America's addiction to celebrity, and the ability for a musician to be more than a musician. The last one is what I'm most interested in addressing here, but let me touch on the first two briefly.

There was an opportunity to talk about the issue of prescription drug abuse in America, being that Michael Jackson apparently took more pills than some clinics. Not to not be cruel about some of this - I have sleeping issues myself, though I just write blog posts at 2 am instead of popping tablets, etc. - but its pretty freaking obvious the man was taking way too much stuff. And...was it him, or was he being enabled by doctors, some of whom may have ties to pharmaceutical companies? Could we discuss this issue in general? Not just doctors, but hospitals, clinics, etc. Is this relationship problematic? In some cases, maybe not. But yeah, could have been important to discuss. Also, how about the hypocrisy of drugs in America? So, I guess marijuana is a horrible, harmful, immoral drug, you should go to jail if you're in possession of it, and we should outlaw its medicinal usage, even when that usage could literally save somebody's life (because chemotherapy is not at all problematic for someone's diet or anything). On the other hand, the stuff you get from your pharmacist at CVS, which is totally not harmful if improperly (or properly) used is totally fine. Okay...you're right, there's no chance in hell the US media could have been expected to tackle drugs appropriately. But we should!

The second issue is the about "celebrity" in America. One could argue the massive amount of attention thrust at Michael Jackson for basically his whole life had something to do with some of his odder behavior, right? If we left him alone a little more often, who knows what would have happened? America is addicted to celebrity, though. It's a disgusting problem - look, some of them are, admittedly, slightly better musicians, singers, writers, and actors than me (some), but that isn't a reason to ignore damn near everything else going on. So, instead of having a serious discussion about America's celebrity issue, we got to see the problem first-hand with basically non-stop coverage of MJ. I get it, big story, but I don't need to see a helicopter landing at a hospital which will presumably carry his body repeatedly for about 20 minutes...I was trying to find out what the hell was going on in Tehran!!!

Well, those are two of the main parts of the story they could have covered, but didn't. The third was even more obvious, I think, and the least controversial of all. They sort of did do this part, though it was kind of impossible to miss. That is, the massive level of global outpouring for MJ. It was truly incredible to see so many people grieve for one dude, no? Is celebrity part of the reason? Sure. But there was something else...to grieve for someone like this, you actually had to appreciate them pretty highly. There's a reason people loved this guy, even if many kind of dogged him since 1993 or so. That was...the music. It actually did touch people and have an impact. As did the man's work itself. The sad thing is, this is an anomaly with the music scene today.

I mean...everyone was trying to claim him. You got Jamie Foxx at the BET awards (which, btw, wow...is the Klan working through BET?) saying Michael was one of theirs (African-Americans) who they lent to the world. Muslims claimed MJ had converted, much like his brother, Jermaine (who actually had - Michael might have, but it seems unlikely). They danced in the Gulf in honor of him. Everybody wanted to be associated with him. Why? Well, as Dave Chappelle put it a few years ago, "he made Thriller." Ha...no, seriously, he made some music that did touch people around the globe. Not Thriller the song itself (unless you're really into the occult, etc.), but he did take on serious topics that many people identified with. Beat It, Earth Song, They Don't Really Care About Us, Heal the World, Human Nature, Will You Be There, Man in the Mirror, We Are the World...there are quite a few of these. MJ was, at his height, a pretty powerful dude, and that he tried to make music that, as Dumi puts it, used a humanist approach to inequality. I think it was painfully clear that poverty and social injustice really bothered him, and though he didn't go all M-1 and stic.man on us (which would have been awesome!), he did use his music as a calmer vessel to address some of these problems - though later in his career, when lots of people turned on him, he did cut it loose a little easier. I mean, They Don't Really Care About Us is not a subtle song, and the two versions of the video, which were Spike Lee productions, don't really pull many punches either.

So, the music touched people. And I think that's part of why they came in droves to mourn him. But, he also gave a lot (no pedophile jokes here), especially to children. He started charities and donated a hell of a lot of time and money to causes for the poor, dispossessed, and politically weak. He didn't necessarily take a political stance on many issues, but he stood up for a lot of people. We know less about this here in the US, but around the world, Jackson was known as a legendary musician and a humanitarian, and in some places, the latter more than the former. That those two are even in the same sentence, given his musical success, says something.

Truthfully, I wish they did more a spotlight on people in foreign lands, especially those we might think of as not very modern or open. Why would they mourn this very Western musician? There answers could give us some real insight, and start understanding this thing a little better. We'd probably find that they appreciated his work as a humanitarian, along with his embracing and singing quite openly about vulnerability and difficulties in many of his songs.

Isn't that a far more interesting and powerful story? Its not that music can change the world...but it kind of can in some cases. And it kind of should. And at the mainstream level, it kind of doesn't at all. Instead of 20 minutes on where MJ's body is actually going to be buried, couldn't CNN,MSNBC, Fox, et. al. , talked a bit about this? This is why he was mourned so widely. I'm not comparing him to John Lennon, but its the same idea...massive numbers gathered after Lennon's murder because he was more than just a simple musician. His songs did mean something (okay, maybe not I Am the Walrus, but most of his catalog did), as did his actions. Now, I wouldn't put Jackson at Lennon's level, politically or musically (though people could debate the latter point), but his music and actions carried some serious weight.

There was a time when music did really matter, and did really connect to people, more than just sonically. Music truly did bring people together, did speak to struggles and hardships, did stand up for the marginalized, did compel us to hug one another more, did give us messages of kindness and hope...and musicians gave a damn about a lot of things that didn't have to do with nightclubs in LA, bling, or award show honors. Actually, it still does today, but that is the anomaly, not the norm. And it shouldn't be. I'm not suggesting all musicians need to do the equivalent of the moonwalk at the Motown 25 show, support 39 charities, work tirelessly for the environment or HIV/AIDS, fuse disco, R&B, and rock and roll seamlessly into an entirely new sound...but they've got to do something.

Plenty do, of course. Bruce Springsteen has built his entire career on writing music for and about common people and their times and struggles. He also took on massive issues, such as calling for self-reflection, mourning, and kindness, as opposed to violent nationalism after 9/11 with The Rising. He is also, not surprisingly, quite political - when you write about the marginalized, it's hard not to take corporate and government greed and deception personally. Pearl Jam is another example, an insanely popular band that pulls absolutely no punches in their stands. They certainly use their music as a vehicle to talk about deeper social issues, maybe best exemplified by frontman Eddie Vedder's performance of "Here's to the State". Listen to Game Theory, the Tipping Point, or Phrenology by the Roots and tell me you don't hear those as discussions of social issues. Radiohead takes plenty of swipes at things they see as problematic or insane, as does U2. That first Blackstar album sounded pretty good, but there is no doubt Kweli and Mos were striving to challenge and change the state of hip-hop, period, when they made it - and they did pretty good on that. With newcomer K'naan, we certainly get a sound that is banging (African folk + great hip-hop = incredible), but his albums really hammer into us the extreme poverty and violence of Somalia, which should give us pause about how we disregard the difficulties people have in other lands. Michael Franti's life and music are seemingly one and the same, devoted to causes of social justice and kindness, or as he would put it, just trying to stay human. Dead Prez...well, I don't even need to say anything about them, they're that serious! The Coup, Common, Neil Young....the list is pretty long. It's not that they all make every song Ohio or anything, but they write music for a lot of essentially-voiceless people, speak on serious social ills, and treat their art with the utmost respect. Now, the problem is, most of the music we have out there is mindless crap, as are the "musicians" (since I seriously wonder how many of them are actually musicians) making said music. Honestly, how much of today's popular music is really just an endless array of non-sequiturs, put together with a hook?

Part of this is due to the changing nature of commercial music - quality doesn't necessarily sell or get pushed by record labels, massive radio consolidation post-Telecommunications Act of 1996 has killed the radio (forcing some of us, like myself, to largely abandon that medium entirely)...would the Beatles have even made it today? Artists who take their art seriously and produce really remarkable work that can transcend the airwaves often struggle to get their work distributed to the masses.

Anyway...back to MJ....like I said, I think the particular content of his music, along with his work outside of the studio, tells us a lot about why there was such a widespread level of outpouring for the man. That outpouring could have been used as the framework of much of the coverage. It could have turned into an interesting discussion about the role of art and artists in society. It could have looked at a music industry that keeps giving us crap, and ask questions about why that is. There were a lot of options, most of which would have led America to a much more valuable and interesting discussion and debate than the nonsense we got. All you had to see were the numbers of people all over the world who were affected by Michael Jackson's death. Simply put, you don't get that unless there is something fascinating going on.

So, yeah, I think MJ dying was a story to cover. A big story, at that. Though, you know, we could have done with a bit more news on other topics as well. I just wish we got something more than watching ambulances driving, helicopters flying, close-up photos of EMTs trying to revive an already-dead legend, analysis from Corey Feldman and Randy Jackson...I mean, it was ridiculous. MJ mattered to a lot of people all over the globe, and for reasons that go beyond the moonwalk. His music mostly spoke of kindness, good will, and generosity, and his charity work suggested much of the same. He wasn't a saint by any means, of course (another problem - for the love of god, stop doing that! It's okay to not deify every person that dies...you don't have to throw dirt on their graves, and I think MJ's good outweighed his weird/bad by a bit, but he did not walk on water, people), and there was no reason to make him one, but if focused on what he did that made people connect with him, along with a broader discussion of art and artists in society, we could have actually had some pretty valuable coverage of his death. Maybe next time...

Injecting sanity into the torture/prisoners debate - waterboarding, anyone?

Okay, that was sort of/completely a joke. I am not actually advocating we waterboard Congressional leaders, members of the media, or advocates regarding how ridiculous these discussions have become. At least I won't suggest such measures publicly. Sorry...some more torture humor. But there are a few important points that I think these discussions are just flat-out missing overall. Some folks are raising them, but in general, we don't hear enough about them.

1. Let's drop the moral issue for a second. Not to say that's not important/the most important issue at stake here, but I wonder if we even need to get that far. The question that might make all this debate pointless is...is torture useful? Seriously...can we try to really get a handle on this question? I realize we're not going to get a definitive answer, but I do think we can get a consensus view about how reliable torture actually is. Remember, the whole point is for intelligence, not to break somebody. This is why back-engineering SERE for interrogation seems to be useless...it doesn't really seem to serve any intelligence purposes.

Manufacturing Consent

Sometimes I feel like we forget just how problematic the media's coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq War was. I don't care if you're on the left, right, north, south, whatever, if your media is incapable of deciphering pure government propaganda for a war, your society is in a lot of trouble. We cannot be "oh, we know the media stinks, la di da" about this.

This is the kind of stuff that can bring down a (quasi) democratic system. If your press recites the government's talking points with minimal effort to double-check the information (or, is run with an eye towards the bottom line so that they cut budgets to the point that they don't employ many people who actually do real research on the supposed facts), and your government puts out disinformation (which all governments anywhere want to do), how exactly do you correct the problems? This is a really frightening problem, one that the FCC hasn't helped on at all.

The only thing we can hope for is that some journalists call out the propaganda, and get recognized for it. David Barstow of the NY Times was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his stories about the Pentagon's propaganda machine leading into the war. As a reminder...they basically bought out a bunch of military types to go on the airwaves and follow their scripts about Iraq leading up to the war, without disclosing the fact that they were following a script and on the payroll. That, my friends, is called manufacturing consent. Get people who others think are good sources to go out and lie to the masses. These military officers who sacrificed for America before, basically sacrificed America with these despicable actions. But the story didn't stay in the news cycle for a long time when it came out. Shocking. Anyway, Barstow had a great interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman on Friday that I recommend you all listen to.

In terms of what we can do about this...make sure people are aware of what was done, and what is still going on. The media still does minimal research. Their coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan is abysmal, and might lead us to support actions that are not in our, or Pakistanis and Afghanis, interests. Same with Iran. We need to make the public aware just how dangerous the media situation is. Our government, whether Republican or Democrat, has an incentive to lie. What the Pentagon did prior to Iraq was borderline treasonous. Its up to the press to do their job as the fist line of defense for the public. But they are asleep at the wheel. The only way that will change is a) if the masses know they're being had, and b) putting pressure on the FCC and the networks. David Gregory gives this line about how he thinks the media did a good job leading up to the Iraq War. I was 20 feet from him when he said this once. He should be booed and challenged every time he utters that nonsense. All the press members who mutter that crap should. Make them feel real heat. Challenge the FCC to do their job in regulating the press. Oppose media consolidation efforts. Support independent news sources if you can. Write letters. Get out in the streets. Organize groups to confront your congressional leaders on this issue. The future of our democracy depends on it.

Note: I guess this was well-timed...I totally forgot the White House Correspondents' Dinner is tonight. A few hours after writing this, I biked right by it - lots of journalists in tuxes and gowns, a handful of celebrities, and tons of security - the Obama's were supposed to arrive a few minutes after I rode by. A few years ago, Stephen Colbert used this event to skewer Bush and the media. Hopefully Wanda Sykes drops some gems tonight. The dinner is, of course, a prime example of the entirely-too-friendly relationship between the media and the government. Frank Rich wrote a great piece in 2007 about this, and the NY Times, a paper I both like and hate, has since boycotted the event.

Getting to the Roots of Somali Piracy

Over the weekend I reluctantly listened to the news as they discussed Somali Pirates and the container ship Maersk Alabama. Yesterday's decision by the US Navy seals to kill three Pirates further saddened me. While I've heard people quickly jump behind the American crew and ship, most of this has occurred without context. This isn't to suggest that if you read these links, watch these videos, etc. that you will or should support the Pirates, but I am pretty sure it will help you better generally understand some of the dynamics that the Somali people live under. It will help you better understand who is involved and why this is not just a traditional "stand off." Like most current events, when you scratch the surface, history bleeds through. I encourage you to check them all out.

First up, video interviews with K'Naan by Davey D. K'Naan is a phenomenal voice for Somalian struggle with his first two albums: The Dust Foot Philosopher and Troubadour. Remember when Chuck D said rap was Black America's CNN, K'Naan has taken that to heart in his discussion of his life and his people's lives.





Second up, an article that recently appeared in GQ magazine (yeah, Gentleman's Quarterly) by Jeffrey Gettlemen of the NY Times. The article is one of most context sensitive mainstream press article on the situation, though it has its limitations.

Third up, Black Agenda Report was one of the first analyses of the Pirates that went beyond "Pirates after booty"/"maritime terrorist" approach of mainstream media. The deeper you dig, the more you see the manipulation of political powers for the good of few and the pain of the majority. Here is a piece from December on Sadia Ali Aden on some of the US involvement in the struggles happening there.

Keep informing yourself and keep on believing in the value of human life. As K'Naan said T.I.A.

Shout out to K'Naan and Davey D's twitter feeds where I got a lot of this and you can find much more... see people twitter can be useful for more than telling us what you ate today or your complaints about the weather ;)

Is it Good or Bad that one of America's Great "Journalists" is a Comedian?

God bless Jon Stewart. If it wasn't for the Daily Show, I don't know that I'd be able to watch anything related to the news on TV. Seriously, I can't take it...everytime I manage to watch several consecutive minutes of mainstream media news, I want to throw things at my TV. And I love my TV. It's been so good to me.

The thing is, news (particularly news emanating out of the Beltway aka home for me) is painful. The things our leaders do, the things other leaders do...you'd think you were watching a competition of incompetence. It's so damn pathetic its hilarious. Particularly because nobody calls them on it. Enter the Daily Show. Stewart et. al. have no problem calling a spade a spade. During the Bush years, they didn't really even need to write jokes, things were that preposterous. They would report horrible things, but at least you could laugh. Then cry later. Possibly assault someone on the street walking into/out of a neoconservative think tank. I've never done that, by the way, nor do I condone such behavior. Not one bit. Really. Honestly.

But most important of all, they cut all the spin out. Instead of giving a damn about what each party said, they attacked the absurdity of the arguments themselves. And everything was absurd. Particularly Ted Stevens and his expertise on the internet/a series of tubes. I digress. You didn't get talking points from each party, seeped in lies (do I think one party lies much much more than another? Yes. That doesn't excuse the other party for its crap, though). You know, like the news is supposed to do.

This is the problem. Jon Stewart is not a journalist. The Daily Show is not a news show, per se. It is not competing with the CBS Evening News. It does not have the resources to have a bureau in Jerusalem to report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It doesn't have a bureau in Baghdad. For the love of god, it has to use a blue screen to make it appear that its correspondents are reporting live from DC! And, oh yeah, why would they? It's a comedy show. A comedy show that does so well because it reports the truth about American politics without filters - something that makes it hilarious.

This "feud" between Stewart and CNBC has been great...and terrible. He obliterated Jim Cramer on an interview, and has gone to town on the financial cheerleaders that helped make this crisis happen. It is clearly not a gimmick. Stewart was obviously seriously infuriated, and his grilling of Cramer makes that point clear. But why is this terrible? Because...why is Jon Stewart the dude doing this? Why did Jon Stewart ask David Gregory why the media doesn't report about the illegal Israeli settlements and how that kills the peace process? Why did Jon Stewart have to tell the Crossfire hosts their partisan hackery (no actual news, just reporting and/or making love to the spin) was hurting America? Why did Jon Stewart have to shout down his friend John McCain on insane views on Iraq for two entire segments of an interview?

I think Bill Moyers was right. Jon Stewart is the Mark Twain of our time. The problem is, he's having to do the media's job. Sure, I don't expect CNN anchors to drop as many f-bombs as he does. Though that would be awesome. I do expect them to report...THE NEWS! If they want to highlight the views of different parties on an issue, fine. But that's not the news...how about some real freaking analysis? Do some research on topics you're reporting on. We need to know how much money we spend on our military bases overseas, how many of them there are, and what they do to public opinion of the citizens of whatever country they're in. We need to know how much money allocated to private contractors in Iraq has gone "missing". We need to know if welfare recipients are actually able to obtain adequate job training to enable them to get jobs once their cycle on welfare is finished. We need to know which industries are financing which politicians when contentious "American public versus corporate interests" issues are up for votes in Congress. We don't need to hear Republican or Democrat talking points on issues that have no real facts and don't really contribute much towards our understanding of issues. There's a place for that, and I'm not suggesting we cut that out, but that should NOT be the main focus of the news.

The issue is, the media might be structurally incapable of actually doing its job adequately. Since the 1970s, we've seen a major consolidation of the news. A handful of companies now own most of the mainstream media. That by itself isn't necessarily a problem, but the issue is, the FCC basically abandoned its duties with the 1996 Telecommunications Bill (which let consolidation happen to a degree previously never granted), and their regulations in general. Instead of insuring that the media does something, namely provide us a public good (good journalism) in exchange for the massive amounts of free money they get (through free use of airwaves, etc.), the FCC has opted to protect the media as a private entity. As a result, commercialism has infiltrated the press to a major degree, leading to a race for the bottom line. Instead of providing us a public good, the deregulated media has focused on making profits.

The thing is, good journalism costs money. You need financing to do good research, to have foreign bureaus, etc. Why is Fox News so profitable? Because it spends little on its actual news...shocking. Foreign bureaus have been the biggest casualties over the past 30 years - the level of downsizing and outright elimination of these bureaus is why no journalists know anything about foreign policy. Why did we get Iraq so wrong? Well, because we had no eyes and ears on the ground. Real media would have had inside sources, developed over years of being in the region, who could have gotten us the actual info that Iraq didn't have WMD. But, of course, we didn't have them. Instead, we had a media that used the Executive Office, DoD, and State as their sources for over two-thirds of their stories leading up to the invasion. Do you think those agencies had any incentives to, I don't know, not tell the whole truth???? Preposterous. As a result, how many Americans and Iraqis have died?

I'm not saying companies shouldn't make profits. I actually tend to be more of a free market person than not (even though I don't think the type of "capitalism" we have is a good thing). But when it comes to a public good like the media, our main watchdog over the government, and an entity that is supposed to provide us quality journalism in exchange for free use of airwaves, etc., the whole "profits" business needs to be thrown aside. If a news corporation wants to make money, fine. Just don't let it compromise journalistic standards. If it does, then you don't get free use of the airwaves. If only the FCC did its job, we wouldn't be in this mess today.

Yes, "new media", such as blogs (like this one!) are great, and have broken some major stories...Talking Points Memo comes to mind with the AG/Gonzalez scandal, but they don't have the resources ABC or CBS do. If we come to rely on people who are doing their own research from their laptops to report the news accurately, we're in trouble. No matter how brilliant and bad-ass I am, for instance, I can't just up and go to Baghdad to check with some sources about some behind-the-scenes negotiations on the Status of Forces Agreement. You need resources to really report the news. "New Media" isn't supposed to compete with "real media"...it's supposed to supplement it, and provide commentary on issues. Instead, we get real news from TPM, etc., and nothing but commentary from CBS, ABC, CNN, etc.

The scary thing is, most Americans have no clue about any of this stuff. Sure, some think the media is not the greatest, but they have no idea how much of a structural problem it actually is. The whole media model we have in place right now is built to fail. If a US president wants to launch an illegal war, I honestly don't think the press, short of massive grassroots opposition (and I mean more than the peak of Vietnam), can stop them. For the so-called leader of the free world, that is deplorable.

It's not like the media is going to tell us they're doing a terrible job. Most politicians won't, either...a weak press makes it easier for them to do their jobs aka catering to special interests. Only a major level of awareness of the problem at the grassroots level, and then major action, can do anything. Or else we'll have to watch comedian Jon Stewart become our generation's Edward R. Murrow instead of Mark Twain. As much as I love his show, that would be a tragedy of the greatest magnitude.