Do American people get the real news of the World?

[builder]

Bumpety bump.

 

As snafu has pointed out, supposed WMD's have been found in Iraq.

 

Or have they?

 

First there were those ubiquitous WMD trailers. Shot down in flames.

 

The latest "find" of some 500 chemical WMD's has been a progressive count found since 2004.

 

The latest was used by resistance fighters who were basically clueless as to what they had used. Just the same as was claimed back in 04.

 

As the war issue backfires on the shrubber, and his popularity slides into the gutter (worse than Nixon's) straw-grasping is all that is left.

 

The media sucks the big one alrighty, even more so in times of bad polling.

 

And don't forget, snaf~U, the US of A supplied Saddam's regime with chemical weapons in the first instance.

[Lethalfind]

I don't trust the American Media at all. I NEVER watch the national news. I watch what is going on locally from time to time but I prefer to read the news on other sources then NBC, CBS and ABC (Fox is so laughable I can't even include them as a source of news).

 

When I was in the UK with my husband, I saw how different the news is there. I had the opportunity to speak to people at home and they had no idea of the things that I saw on the BBC news.

 

The news here leaves alot of things out, the situation in Africa for one. Its all over the BBC news (we have BBC here now) and I have yet to speak to an American that is aware of it.

 

Relying on the news here in America makes you feel insulated from what is going on in the rest of the world when in fact we are not. Maybe that is the point. To deny the American news is slanted is to be living in denial period. How else can you explain that certain sources (written and televised) lean toward a democratic ideal and others a republican ideal. If they were reporting what was really going on wouldn't the resulting news stories be more similar? During the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans, you could change from MSNBC to FOX and it was like they were running reruns on FOX the stories were so different.

[builder]

As an aside, I was tiling a house for a couple here, and the hubby was working in Papua New Guinea. He brought the local papers home, and the gov-related articles in those local rags were much more insightful and informative than the "news" delivered by our controlled media released here.

[Vortex]

For me...I dont watch the news (especially fox news....yaaccckk)...

 

If i hear someone talk about this or that...ill look it up online and cross refrence all over the place....

 

but...honestly, I dont even care anymore....

 

Even my own local news doesnt concern me unless my gas prices are going up, or the fact that I cant get married (oh wait...I can't)....

 

I enjoy hearing about other countries...but honestly the fact that some queen mother has cancer, or some small country is disqualified at playing soccer (sorry football), or some sexual scandal in some contries government.........

 

i really dont care.....I pick and choose what i want to listen to...and that includes local news....

 

screw the news...screw the governments of every single country...The entire world wants to live their life and not be bothered by outside forces......every single person on the planet can relate to that!!!!!!

[jokersarewild]

For me...I dont watch the news (especially fox news....yaaccckk)...

 

If i hear someone talk about this or that...ill look it up online and cross refrence all over the place....

 

but...honestly, I dont even care anymore....

 

Even my own local news doesnt concern me unless my gas prices are going up, or the fact that I cant get married (oh wait...I can't)....

 

I enjoy hearing about other countries...but honestly the fact that some queen mother has cancer, or some small country is disqualified at playing soccer (sorry football), or some sexual scandal in some contries government.........

 

i really dont care.....I pick and choose what i want to listen to...and that includes local news....

 

screw the news...screw the governments of every single country...The entire world wants to live their life and not be bothered by outside forces......every single person on the planet can relate to that!!!!!!

 

I'm like you.

 

I hate watching the news. That's why I read it on the web.

 

I don't care about most of what is going on...it just doesn't seem to concern me.

[eisanbt]

Wither you watch it or read it, news is still news. Although it is prudent to question any third hand source of information, it is all we are left to rely on (With the odd exception of course). While weighing these source's validity one may choose to compare multiple sources, preferably of opposing and limited bias (Which as was previously stated, are unavoidable). This allows for a balance outlook so long as you yourself are willing to limit your bias towards one source.

 

However it would be best, would it not, to cut out the reporter element (Wither in script or on TV) and instead find a source with the information they're reporting itself? Although far more rare, such sources do exist. When reporting a story, journalists and the like must seek this information themselves along with the possibility of interview with somebody who has a first ahnd account of events. It is than their job to put all this in their own words and spin it whatever way; herein lays an unnecessary layer of misconception and alteration of the facts.

 

Ergo: Cut the shit, do it yourself.

 

Outside information is always going to be questionable but you can limit that uncertainty by not allowing somebody else’s interpretation of that information be your own foundation.

[Hamza123]

I think the fourth branch of the government would have to include major Crown-Corporations, which control the media.

 

In the American political system, the fourth branch of government refers to the growing collective of administrative agencies that exercise power officially reserved for the "first three" branches (or not reserved at all). Since the American Constitution specifically defines a three-branch model of governance (legislative, judicial, and executive), reference to the "fourth branch" is often a kind of rhetorical shorthand to illustrate the illegitimacy of certain types of governmental authority, and usually laden with skepticism towards whence such authority originates.

 

http://eatthestate.org/08-08/FourthBranchGovernment.htm

 

The Fourth Branch of Government: Corporate Media Complicity from Miami to Iraq

 

by Peter Gelderloos

 

 

Many people have stated that the Media are the "fourth branch of government." What we are supposed to infer from this sentiment is that the media's responsibility to inform the populace is essential to the healthy functioning of the democracy. However, the old adage takes on a new meaning in light of the corporate media's invisible role in facilitating police brutality against protestors in Miami, the war of conquest in Iraq, and other crimes committed by the government, or by the corporations the government serves.

 

In Miami, which was to host the hemisphere's fat cats for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or "NAFTA on steroids") summit, corporate news sources became the police department's de facto Public Relations office. For weeks in advance of the summit, and accompanying protest, corporate media in Miami uncritically broadcast police misrepresentations and fearmongering, lending a stage to threatening prophesies of hordes of "violent anarchists" who would descend on the city and cause millions of dollars in property damage. The police PR campaign was so successful that Miami police got $8.5 million from Washington, notably in Bush's $87 billion Iraq reconstruction bill, for extra security, and Police Chief Timoney got tacit permission to line the streets with 2,500 riot cops, some carrying submachine guns, and even bring out tank-like Armored Personnel Carriers.

 

Without all the media support, it would have been a pretty risky career move for Chief Timoney to prepare for a protest by amassing a veritable army and decking it out for battle. And the cops on the streets on November 20th and 21st had clearly been authorized to act with impunity. How else can we explain the multitude of baseless arrests, so frequent some officers were heard complaining about having to invent the charges? How can we explain the ubiquitous acts of brutality--peaceful and injured protestors being pepper sprayed in the eyes, people shot in the back with rubber bullets multiple times while dispersing, entire crowds beaten by mobs of cops, arrested activists tortured, injured, and sexually assaulted while in jail? The climate of police repression leveled against activists in Miami, suffered by nearly everyone in the streets that day, students and union organizers, teenagers and grandparents, was described by many as a "police state." International solidarity activists with experience in Palestine or Iraq compared Timoney's police state to the military occupations in those countries, and a crucial part in any police state is media complicity.

 

Iraq is an apt comparison in other respects. Even more dramatically than in Miami, the corporate media made government atrocities possible in Iraq. How much support would Bush have gotten for his invasion if the big corporate media channels in the US were all reporting what independent media and foreign presses were saying since January, 2003--that Iraq was not involved with Al Qaida, had no part in the September 11th attacks, had no WMDs; that all the reports saying they were building nuclear weapons were hoaxes or forgeries; and that while Hussein was guilty of many atrocities, most were committed with US support and in any case were not as numerous as the atrocities committed by US allies like Colombia or Saudi Arabia? Of course, the President and his neoconservative cabinet still had the power to carry out their war without popular approval, but it would have been a poor decision considering that even with the media lying for them, they faced some of the largest, most quickly organized anti-war protests this country has seen.

 

In Iraq, as elsewhere, the media represented the interests of their corporate masters, who profited immensely from the invasion. They devoted hours every day to repeating the lies justifying an invasion, and gave little or no airtime to critics exposing the fallacies in Bush's propaganda. They certainly did no objective investigating of their own, and when the invasion started, everyone from FOX to CNN to the New York Times did their best to make the war as colorful, exciting, entertaining, and antiseptic as possible. A few months later, tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of Americans, are dead, many more are injured, and a nation has been transferred from one kind of slavery to another; meanwhile its museums, archives, and infrastructure have been destroyed, and its natural resources have been given away to US corporations. Is it unreasonable to suggest that the media companies that made the invasion expedient and advantageous for the Bush administration should be held accountable for all the suffering that has resulted?

 

In the aftermath of the invasion, as the occupation drags on, the US body count rises, and some lies become too apparent to ignore, the corporate media (except for FOX) have largely abandoned the neoconservatives sinking ship, like rats. They have begun suggesting that the occupation of Iraq may not be in US interests (nevermind the Iraqis), again pretending to be the nation's honest conscience and the government's stern critic, when just half a year ago they had their tongues firmly lodged in Bush's large intestine. The media played the same game in Miami, airing a few criticisms after the fact, when it was too late, to sell the illusion that they were "fair and balanced."

 

The American mass media are indeed an essential part of the government, telling the lies and inciting the fear or apathy that are required to keep the population in line. Corporate media are more effective as propaganda agencies than officially state-run media, because they have the appearance of independence (when in actuality mass media companies are owned by the same people who own the politicians). We need to hold the media accountable. Whatever punishment is deemed fit for Chief Timoney, or Bush and Rumsfeld, should also be dealt on Tom Brokaw and Rupert Murdoch, for there is no atrocity the politicians have committed without in some way being aided by their able propagandists in the corporate media.

 

 

I believe the most effective way of retrieving the truth within a major issue is to just simply research it. Watch FOX, CNN, ABC, and for those Canadians CTV, CBC etc.. Look it up on the net, and figure out your own conclusion. Most importantly, talk to others about it.

[Lethalfind]

A wise person once told me:

 

Believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see.

[hugo]

I think the fourth branch of the government would have to include major Crown-Corporations, which control the media.

 

 

 

http://eatthestate.org/08-08/FourthBranchGovernment.htm

 

 

 

I believe the most effective way of retrieving the truth within a major issue is to just simply research it. Watch FOX, CNN, ABC, and for those Canadians CTV, CBC etc.. Look it up on the net, and figure out your own conclusion. Most importantly, talk to others about it.

 

Why did you bother to quote such garbage?

[Quarky1.0]

Builder, you are such a moron.

 

1) In the US the press is free and is guaranteed its freedom by the 1st ammendment. The Government is barred by law to force, coerce, deny, or alter any news source or news agency.

 

2) They obviously can, and do, manipulate their own sources for propoganda purposes, like every other government, corporate entity, and individual in the entire world, including Australia, and even you builder.

 

 

Were you dropped on your head at birth!?

The USA government manipulates the press and is manipulated by the press, yes the 1st Ammendment is supposed to stop is; but no offence, the USA constituion is full of holes! It does say you can't "Force, corrce, deny or alter" the news blah blah blah. How about bribe! Or better yet, sharing the same political and religious idology? The latter of the two doesn't break the 1st ammendment, however it still is manipulation.

 

People who believe that the press is free to print what they want, are either just plain stupid (ie, most of you) or naive. Take your pic. In Australia we have a Howard government and the right wing press crawl up his shit hole every day and spew up the agreed politial press, if you do some channel surfing, every damn commerical station has the same new stories, the same points of view etc etc.

 

In a perfect world, the press would be free to print and say what they want, however we don't don't live in a perfect world.

 

Oh yeah and before you come back with the usual "That was crap" spewtum, remember this. I don't care what you have to say! Because you a fucking Slave! With the deluded point of view that you are free.

[Hamza123]

Why did you bother to quote such garbage?

 

Perhaps it is garbage to one who has a state of mind that cannot concieve information, good information, by those who are not neo-conservative.

 

Oh and read it... But if you don't like to see a different view on things, I can understand, .

[TerroristHater]

I am quite sure that nobody will vote for another Bush (I do not believe that anybody wants to see another neo-child of Geroge H.W. Bush in the whitehouse. I know I don't. I think the entire Bush clan needs to be banned from holding public office.

 

However, I must protest the very idea of a fourth branch of government. Those of you who know me are well aware of the fact that I do not like seeing big business in the government. I believe that this is the staff of corruption by which big business assholes attempted to use the government to make laws that favor them and ONLY THEM.

 

A good example of this is phenomenon is the oil industry. Thanks to the repeated interfearence of Bush Sr. we will all be paying higher gas prices until the day jesus comes back and sends Bush Sr. and his motely crew straight to hell.

 

There is absolutely no reason why working class Americans needs to be struggling to purchase enough fuel to get through the week while oil execs are reaping the benefits of 400 billion dollarrs in profits. There are laws against excessive profiteering in this country, which would be enforced if there was a democrat in the oval office.

 

However, Geroge W. Neocon and his crew of sellouts is currently allowing Americans to be bent over of a table for the pleasure of big business. This is because Bush and his cronies are getting kick-backs from the suffering of the American people.

 

We need to work togther to force Bush and his theiving buddies to cease interference with the enforcement of the law. This will finally bring scum like Exxon/Mobil to justice so they can answer for raping the American public.

 

The price of gasoline in this country is an outrage (I don't give a rat's ass if you foreigners don't like hearing this argument) and it needs to be curbed. The oil companys needs to be forced to lower their prices so that gas reaches the pump at no more the $1.75 9/10s per gallon for SUPER.

 

As Americans, we must make it abundantly clear to the government and big business that the welfare of the American people comes before their profit margins and kick-back checks.

 

If you want to pay less then $3.00 per gallon for fuel, you MUST NEVER ALLOW ANOTHER BUSH-NEOCON or other mindless neocon scumbag to be elected president. Fuck Jeb Bush and his governmental naziism, fuck the neocons and their absolute abuse of the American public's rights and liberties and most of all FUCK BIG OIL SIDEWAYS WITH A NINE FOOT, LEAF BLOWER-POWERED, ASS VIBRATOR.

[Lethalfind]

I am quite sure that nobody will vote for another Bush (I do not believe that anybody wants to see another neo-child of Geroge H.W. Bush in the whitehouse. I know I don't. I think the entire Bush clan needs to be banned from holding public office.

 

However, I must protest the very idea of a fourth branch of government. Those of you who know me are well aware of the fact that I do not like seeing big business in the government. I believe that this is the staff of corruption by which big business assholes attempted to use the government to make laws that favor them and ONLY THEM.

 

A good example of this is phenomenon is the oil industry. Thanks to the repeated interfearence of Bush Sr. we will all be paying higher gas prices until the day jesus comes back and sends Bush Sr. and his motely crew straight to hell.

 

There is absolutely no reason why working class Americans needs to be struggling to purchase enough fuel to get through the week while oil execs are reaping the benefits of 400 billion dollarrs in profits. There are laws against excessive profiteering in this country, which would be enforced if there was a democrat in the oval office.

 

However, Geroge W. Neocon and his crew of sellouts is currently allowing Americans to be bent over of a table for the pleasure of big business. This is because Bush and his cronies are getting kick-backs from the suffering of the American people.

 

We need to work togther to force Bush and his theiving buddies to cease interference with the enforcement of the law. This will finally bring scum like Exxon/Mobil to justice so they can answer for raping the American public.

 

The price of gasoline in this country is an outrage (I don't give a rat's ass if you foreigners don't like hearing this argument) and it needs to be curbed. The oil companys needs to be forced to lower their prices so that gas reaches the pump at no more the $1.75 9/10s per gallon for SUPER.

 

As Americans, we must make it abundantly clear to the government and big business that the welfare of the American people comes before their profit margins and kick-back checks.

 

If you want to pay less then $3.00 per gallon for fuel, you MUST NEVER ALLOW ANOTHER BUSH-NEOCON or other mindless neocon scumbag to be elected president. Fuck Jeb Bush and his governmental naziism, fuck the neocons and their absolute abuse of the American public's rights and liberties and most of all FUCK BIG OIL SIDEWAYS WITH A NINE FOOT, LEAF BLOWER-POWERED, ASS VIBRATOR.

 

Down here in Florida there is always talk that Jeb Bush (he is currently our fearless leader/governer) is going to run for President...I sincerely hope not for the well being of the ENTIRE world...

[jokersarewild]

Down here in Florida there is always talk that Jeb Bush (he is currently our fearless leader/governer) is going to run for President...I sincerely hope not for the well being of the ENTIRE world...

 

1. Pretty much everybody knows who Jeb Bush is. We aren't stupid.

 

2. I sincerely hope he runs. I hope he runs and spends every cent he owns.

 

It'll make the Democratic nominee a shoe-in.

[Lethalfind]

1. Pretty much everybody knows who Jeb Bush is. We aren't stupid.

 

2. I sincerely hope he runs. I hope he runs and spends every cent he owns.

 

It'll make the Democratic nominee a shoe-in.

 

He won't spend every dime he has, his family has very deep pockets AND influential people as friends wanting to make sure ANOTHER Bush ends up in the White House.

[TerroristHater]

He won't spend every dime he has, his family has very deep pockets AND influential people as friends wanting to make sure ANOTHER Bush ends up in the White House.

 

Actually, thanks to Geroge Jr., I seriously doubt another bush will ever be elected to public office ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, EVER...period. Bush is universally disliked because of his neocon-ish behavior.

 

Jeb Bush WILL NOT get elected because of GW's behavior and obvious use of the whitehouse to pad his personal pocket.

 

[builder]

Actually, thanks to Geroge Jr., I seriously doubt another bush will ever be elected to public office ANYWHERE, ANYTIME, EVER...period. Bush is universally disliked because of his neocon-ish behavior.

 

Jeb Bush WILL NOT get elected because of GW's behavior and obvious use of the whitehouse to pad his personal pocket.

 

 

But isn't that the American way? Jobs for the boys, profit from your position of influence, and fuck the rest?

[builder]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1431436,00.html

 

[hugo]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1431436,00.html

 

 

Our soldiers shooting accurracy needs improving.

[jokersarewild]

Our soldiers shooting accurracy needs improving.

 

Oops. Shit happens.

[Lethalfind]

But isn't that the American way? Jobs for the boys, profit from your position of influence, and fuck the rest?

 

Pretty much, I think they call it "the old boys club" as well.

[ImWithStupid]

Our soldiers shooting accurracy needs improving.

 

Only because they weren't able to kill everyone in the car.