Us Versus Iraq

[clocker]

Originally posted by sara5564@29 May 2003 - 21:32
....Of course, in politics the difficulty of reaching agreement in a hetergeneous state means that most people just go for the lesser of evils....in the case of the US this is 2...in other western nations...the 3rd or 4th choice often acts only as a protest vote for dissenters of the majority view and not a real choice per se.

!

An interesting observation Sara.

Here in Denver the leading candidate for Mayor is a man who owns brewpubs. His primary asset ( as revealed in polling) is that he is not a insider/professional politician . He has never held any elected office.
The consensus seems to be ( and for transparency I'll admit he has my vote ) that he certainly can't fuck things up any worse than the pros have, so why not?
And he does make killer beer, of course.

The perception of homogenity breaks down below the national level, also. Local officials may be labeled Republican or Democrat but most often bend to currents felt only in their district/bailiwick. A Republican in Maine is quite a different animal than a Republican in Texas.

After our last national electoral debacle ( I'll leave Michael Moore out of this if you will, j2) I would be surprised if the third party candidate (Nader?) doesn't gain more strength (i.e. bargaining power) and over the course of say, the next 5 elections, present a real possibility of winning.

Back atcha, myfiles.

[myfiles3000]

Originally posted by clocker@30 May 2003 - 04:28
Okay Myfiles.
For the sake of moving past this sticking point I am willing to stipulate that American politics are more homogenous than other western countries ( although how you get more homogenous than a monarchy I'm not certain...).
So how does this pertain to our media access/media bias/general ignorance?

actually, i'm not sure. I'll have to think about it. but i'm pretty sure i have some brilliant things to say, if i can only get my bearings.
ps-i never said i was born in, or lived in a monarchy. my citizenship(s) is/are a closely guarded secret. fyi.

[clocker]

Originally posted by myfiles3000@29 May 2003 - 22:04

ps-i never said i was born in, or lived in a monarchy. my citizenship(s) is/are a closely guarded secret. fyi.

I never implied that you were.
I respect your Caped Crusader act.

[myfiles3000]

Originally posted by clocker@30 May 2003 - 05:02
After our last national electoral debacle ( I'll leave Michael Moore out of this if you will, j2) I would be surprised if the third party candidate (Nader?) doesn't gain more strength (i.e. bargaining power) and over the course of say, the next 5 elections, present a real possibility of winning.

Back atcha, myfiles.

aha. okay. here we go. its a big topic. where to start.

I would disagree with the idea that a party based on Nader's values would ever have a change of winning. Believe me, its not that I would mind particuarly, but it gets back to the USA being the only uberpower in the world (uberpower is my own word, i can't guarantee its in common usage anywhere). Much of my thinking about the world is rooted in the systemic limits over individual achievement, so for me, the election of a Rader-esque president would signal nothing less than a revolution. I don't use the word lightly. literally, a revolution, perhaps a peaceful one, but completely incompatible with the way the USA operates today.

Basically, my view of media can't really be evaluated without looking at the big picture. Now, this may appear very much like a cop-out, but i think such an approach is necessary. You can't really discuss media without addressing the business context, as the vast majority of media products are created, distributed and sold by corporations. Now, before the connotations of the C word get some people all excited, let me say that I believe in capitalism. So for me, "corporation" is a neutral word (believe me, if you knew who my current employer was, you'd never question this assertion).

Nonetheless, if i continue on, likely someone will accuse me of a conspiracy theory. there's nothing i can do about that, i'll just move forward, with the hope that you'll actually give my world view some thought before out-right rejecting it.

Now, as I can't really discuss media without addressing the business context, it would be silly not to make note of a vital element of the US biz context: namely, that the US is the economic hyperuberpower of the world. Peerless.

Pop quiz: Macdonalds makes fast food, ford cars; what does nbc make?

[echidna]

i don't think that the Goering quote was misplaced
it seems he was historically correct :: the cart follows the hands with the reins

peoples do seem to follow leaders to war

the allied governments all acquired and integrated axis technologies and methods very quickly after WWII [icbm, magnetic-tape, jet-tech]
beyond the specific black recruitments, no film/media/advertising student/professional worth half their salt wouldn't have studied Leni Riefenstahl who worked for Goering, and who invented many of your favourite shots from sports telecasts to car and beer ads
-- i am definitely not trying to tint advertising with national socialism

all media is biased. Just as people follow leaders to war corporations like GE [who sell many components for missiles & own NBC] know that war is great business, and seem willing to follow leaders to war too.

the most succinct way to understand how a diverse commercial media could foster propagandistic bias is for everyone to read this; it's from a fascinating book of rigorous, academic, media case studies

[Rat Faced]

Originally posted by clocker@30 May 2003 - 03:28
Okay Myfiles.
For the sake of moving past this sticking point I am willing to stipulate that American politics are more homogenous than other western countries ( although how you get more homogenous than a monarchy I'm not certain...).
So how does this pertain to our media access/media bias/general ignorance?

It depends upon the monarchy.

The Queen in the UK has a lot of power, IN THEORY.

The Queen is unable to use any of this power.

The Royal Family is removed from politics, and any Royal that utters anything that can be taken as giving an opinion in a political sense is hauled through the coals.



The Prime Minister can use the Powers that in theory are reserved for the monarch, he therefore has more 'Power' than the President of the USA (in a purely relative sense obviously).


The 'Monarchy' therefore are completely removed from any politics in a Constitutional Monarchy. They sign papers that Parliament/Prime Minister lays before them and are a tourist attraction and tradition.

They are also 'ambassadors' for the country.


The other type of Monarchy, absolute....OK we'll agree on that one.

[cyprushil]

I stand by the original Hermann Goering quote.

"All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked"

The whole point of war in Iraq was to protect the British and American people from Sadam Hussians WMD, to date no such weapons have been found.

It was also billed as the "War on Terror"

During the war, I watched a US Soldier being interviewed on CNN, he said he wanted to fight in Iraq to and get some "payback" for the 9/11 attacks.

The link between Hussian and the terroist attacks has never been proven.
yet it was openly banded about by US Officals to the point that a majoity of Americans belived it to be truth. (I did see figures for this, I will try to them find again and post the link)

Look at the way the US Government has manipulated the media during the War. The Jessica Lynch Story, and why wer'nt the Pictures of the American Prisoners of war shown? I saw them, (Ogrish.com) They wer'nt shown because as soon as the American Public started see bodies in bin bags support for the war would be lost.

I am not anti American, I live in a country with a fairly large American Ex Pat Community, and have made some great friends, I often disuss with them the issues that I see in this forum. One of them once said " Here you will met two type's of American, Those that have lived here for some time, and those that have just arrived".

I'm not denying that Saddam Hussian was a ruthless evil man who needed to be ousted. What I object to is the way in which the case for war was made.

[clocker]

Originally posted by myfiles3000@29 May 2003 - 22:20


Pop quiz: Macdonalds makes fast food, ford cars; what does nbc make?

POP QUIZ

What does NBC make?

a.) Tom Brokaw comfortable

b.) "Good things for life"

c.) Money

answer : erm, C?*


I assume you're referring to the National Broadcasting Corp. and not the National Bank of Canada- cause, like, dude, that would change everything

[myfiles3000]

Originally posted by myfiles3000@30 May 2003 - 05:20
Pop quiz: Macdonalds makes fast food, ford cars; what does nbc make?

NBC makes tv shows, generally speaking, or at least makes them available to their viewing audience. But programming is NOT their primary product, and not where most of their money comes from. The only point of bothering with Friends, ER, whatever is to create an audience that has commercial value to advertisers -- ie, programming is means to an end. In a strange kind of way that has no obvious parallels in other industries, advertising-based media create one thing (shows), and sell another (audiences).

For the record, its true that audiences do pay some media some amount of money (print media, cable, satellite, etc), but if memory serves correct, advertising revenue accounts for about 75-80% of total revenue. Which means that a lot of the more profitable media business could give away their content for free and still remain profitable.

Now, here's where we get into what someone out there is likely to discredit as conspiratorial: because media depend on advertisers as their primary source of revenue, they are unlikely to bite the hand that feeds, like any other business. Very generally speaking, the profit motive tends to compromise the coverage of certain topics, and influence the kind of content found in for-profit media, because doing an investigative report on how slimy your number one customer has acted is not in your best interest.

That's the basic point as regards what some call 'corporate media.' i will elaborate as time permits.

[clocker]

Okay Myfiles.
Let me save you some more time...

I'm willing to stipulate that "corporate media" bends to the will of Money. Even "corporate media" reports on a fairly regular basis how some producer ( for a recent example see the brouhaha about the producer of "Hitler") got in hot water with the main office or some advertiser.
Have the big media corps of other countries achieved primacy by "biting the hand that feeds"?
Wasn't the BBC a goverment owned outlet altogether?

I will also stipulate that as a whole the American populace is woefully underinformed about world affairs.
But, in our increasingly media saturated environment, who isn't?
I'm guessing ( and yes, it would have to be guess) that the general conversation in a British pub, a French bistro, an Italian trattoria or a German beerhall would all be indistinguishable if translated to Esperanto.
Soccer/football, taxes, tits and how crappy the job is.
So we're all sheep, so what?