We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Brothers-in-Arms: Capitalism and Corporate Journalism

from Creative-i, original source from Media Lens, but I couldn't find any permalink to this article at their site. 

This article does a very good job of illustrating how corporate media protects the system that feeds it. Hence, it is clear that the system's beneficiaries know that controlling the minds of ordinary people is of great importance. This is the kind of information people need to begin to arm themselves against such propaganda and to seek independent sources of information.
An essential role of corporate journalism is to shore up public confidence in an unjust, crisis-riven financial and economic system. Although plenty of gloom and doom is permitted, especially in the face of obvious crisis, the legitimacy of the system is rarely questioned.