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What Does it Cost to Change the World? from WikiLeaks on Vimeo.

Via Postal Mail - You can post a donation via good old fashion postal mail to: WikiLeaks (or any suitable name likely to avoid interception in your country), BOX 4080, Australia Post Office - University of Melbourne Branch, Victoria 3052, Australia

Monday, September 07, 2009

 

When Heaters Harm Democracy, Is Free Speech Enough?

Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio. - Bill Moyers

Henry Giroux, describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence.

Under the Bush administration, a seeping, sometimes galloping, authoritarianism began to reach into every vestige of the culture, giving free rein to those anti-democratic forces in which religious, market, military and political fundamentalism thrived, casting an ominous shadow over the fate of United States democracy. During the Bush-Cheney regime, power became an instrument of retribution and punishment was connected to and fueled by a repressive state. A bullying rhetoric of war, a ruthless consolidation of economic forces, and an all-embracing free-market apparatus and media driven pedagogy of fear supported and sustained a distinct culture of cruelty and inequality in the United States. - From "Living in a culture of cruelty" by Henry A. Giroux


In this deranged and dysfunctional democracy, where living in denial is the standard and truth-telling is deviant behavior, devious confidence men have developed weapons of mass distraction to destroy your sense of balance, Liberty One must re-define the media, or else become part of the problem.

Comments:
TV is also working to degrade civility as the way to treat other people. Jerry Springer and other similar pandering TV personalities have lowered the bar in what is considered reasonable public/private behavior.

I'm not about to suggest that there isn't a 'market place' demand for their public pandering to the lowest levels of popular behavior. I would like to think that maybe the 'leadership' types would try and live a little above the 'common' behavior and thereby set a higher mark for people to try and emulate.

Of course this would kind of put a damper on some 'news' organizations activities!
 
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