About the Pentagon Dish network channel-surely taxpayers

[liveoaktx]

are funding this. Isn't this against the law? If so, who to contact about this that would give a hoot?

[rawtribe]

1. Working Assets action page

http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=18530

[otohara]

6. Charlie Ergen's E-mail

[e-mail]

[otohara]

10. Dish VP of Programming E-mail

[e-mail]

His quote from DOD press release:

"Dish Network serves consumers all across the country, and many of our customers have a personal stake in the military," said Eric Sahl, vice president of programming at EchoStar. "The Pentagon Channel will be especially appreciated by military service members and their families who live on or near U.S.-based military facilities across the U.S."

I'm sick about this.

[liveoaktx]

12. Me, too, sick. It's not an issue about just any old type of show

or channel, but the fact that the Pentagon is breaking the law by using taxpayer money for propaganda on US stations. It's objectionable for them to be doing it in other countries, like the bogus happy-butt pap they put out, say, for the Iraqis, but not to be used to propagandize citizens.

And make no mistake. After the Saddam statue toppling, Jessica Lynch, etc, no way it won't be propaganda.

Doesn't even matter if the military families sneer at it. The fact that it appears at all on entertainment television opens the door, as someone said above, taxes paying for us to be propagandized while also paying for the sat services.

I read a book a few years back called "Amusing Ourselves to Death" which made the case that our society has gone from a thoughtful, information model to an entertainment model. That's all I see the television as, with news as infotainment... it nonetheless crosses the line to use taxpayer money for this.

[otohara]

16. Turns Out Most Dish Customers Won't See This Afterall

unless you get a 2nd Dish.

I just made a huge deal out of it when I called to downgrade my service (something I was going to do anyway) only to find this out.

[raysr]

2. I find it hard

to believe that Ergen (Dish Network) is going along with this in as much as he had FSTV and no one else did.

[tridim]

3. We're taxed for it, then we have to pay for it again via DishTV

Not to mention that this is worse than state run television in the former Soviet Union. The times they are a changin'.

[paineinthearse]

4. See 2/12 thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=109&topic_id=18555

Includes DoD press release.

[liveoaktx]

5. Calling them up tomorrow-this type of thing would cause me,

finally, to give up cable, despite enjoying Democracy Now and Cspan.

[otohara]

7. Dish is Satellite

Choices suck - Direct TV owned by Murdoch, Comcast big repubican donors, Adelphia huge GOP donors.

[otohara]

17. See My Post #12

Still, I don't understand why Dish would hand this gift to the government. D.C. handed DirectTV to their buddy Murdoch, is making Dish convert to all programming to be on one dish by 200__something.

Doesn't make sense...????

[KharmaTrain]

8. Are You Talking About The "Military Channel"

History Channel has a subdivision that is called this and there was a TV station in the DC area that also used that name. Both are private entitites.

The U.S. Government is the largest broadcaster in the world. There's VOA, AFRTS, Radio Marti and dozens of overt and covert stations all around the world. Federal law prohibits the government from owning broadcast station inside the U.S., but it sure doesn't prohibit them from compromising them and visa versa through money and deregulation.

I like the NASA Channel...there's our tax dollars doing some good.

[liveoaktx]

9. No, it's a new specific channel that will apparently be on the list

around the same area as other *public interest* stations such as FSTV, Linktv, etc.

http://www.pentagonchannel.mil/

[KharmaTrain]

11. I'm On Lowly Digital Cable

We get the "Military Channel" where World War II never ends on the weekend here.

Honestly, this site looks pretty straight-up. Not that I like the messages or how the DOD is operated now, but the value of this type of service...especially for military families is a good thing.

[liveoaktx]

13. Look how the military has used the media so far to push its

agenda. Rumsfeld LIES, and the Pentagon has been in the business before of propaganda with CNN, as well as avoiding responsibility for actions such as torture with Abu Ghraib.

I'm fed way up with baloney like the Sex Ed-Abstinence propaganda, Spelling talking about *our people* and using PBS to censor content, piping Rush Limbaugh to the troops without a corrsponding left-wing radio show to balance it. If the military families need to have sunshine and warmongering blown up their asses, then let them get a paid channel from some private right-wing corporation that can make up shit 24x7. Otherwise, I want the government OUT Of the propaganda business on my dime, in my country

[KharmaTrain]

14. That's A Different Issue

Your bitch is with corporate media that allows itself to be compromised and mainuplated. These are private corporations only regulated, not owned by the government.

There are massive wastes of our tax money in government broadcast ventures that should be investigated. The "Commander Solo" projects in Iraq that handed juicy contracts to large GOOP donors like Cheap Channel, Salem and Sinclair is an example. Others were described at the Democrat hearing on Iraq funding abuses earlier this week.

Think about how government can be an agent of positive, not negative...including the military. One means is to communicate. Again, if you look at this site it's pretty straight forward as to its purpose, the content and who owns it.

[liveoaktx]

15. Not entirely... I don't disagree that 1. corporate media is

compromised and manipulated and 2. there's lots of waste and misappropriations of taxpayer money that ought to be investigated. Just because the other uses are more obtuse, sneaky and under the cover doesn't make the P-channel's In-Plain-Sight tactic okay. And merely because there are lots of other instances of tax payer money being abused doesn't mean this one instance isn't appropriate to fight.

Rumsfeld was in charge of an office whose objective was to spread disinformation around the globe. The military arranged for the embeds in order to muzzle real war-time reporting. Even when Rumsfeld, perturbed, was criticized for the disinformation office, he defended it by saying that they needed to present the military in a certain way. Sure, there's already enough of it in a covert way on the corporate news channels (and including the optional military histroy channels, etc). The Pentagon is supposed to be OUT of that business of doing anything in the US that would also spread disinformation-the collusion with Dish violates that *standard*.