US Media- the Dissent Barrier 'fakirs' Paid BIG money to ConTroll Agenda's

[SpaceBuddy008]

US Tv & Print media: a dialogue of THE RICH $

media personalities paid BIG money to tell YOU what to think.

Their professionalism is hampered and hostage to the lush, extravagant lifestyles they are enmeshed in and addicted to.
careers trump caring
ego gratification trumps informing their Nation~

7-part expose on the 'medium' from 2000, but still worth filing away in your research cabinet as ammunition for Imperative Change as we try to mature the youngest nation on Earth, who is telling everyone else what to do like an only child, spoiled brat, a big F**ckin' Shot!

Big Dough = Status Quo

*****
The US media: a critical component of the conspiracy against democratic rights—

Television personnel: money matters

What do the leading television and print journalists earn? Such a question is considered tasteless or “nobody's business”—therefore it must be important. Here's a brief survey, culled from a number of sources (principally the May 1999 issue of Brill's Content).
At the top of the list (aside from arch-reactionary radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh and “entertainment” personalities such as the vile Howard Stern or interviewer Barbara Walters) sit the major networks' anchors. Peter Jennings of ABC makes in the area of $9 million a year; NBC's Tom Brokaw pulls in approximately $7 million; CBS's Dan Rather, the same.

Other media stars include Ted Koppel of ABC's Nightline, who earns some $8 million annually, and Diane Sawyer of the network's Good Morning America, whose salary is $7 million. ABC's chief White House correspondent Sam Donaldson makes in the range of $3-3.5 million; the network's substitute anchor, Forrest Sawyer, takes in $2.5 million a year. Don Hewitt, producer of CBS's 60 Minutes, earns $4-5 million; the same program's Mike Wallace, $3 million. Lesley Stahl, also of 60 Minutes, reportedly makes (only) $1.75 million, Bob Schieffer, CBS's chief Washington correspondent and moderator of Face the Nation,(only) $1.5 million.

At NBC, Katie Couric, coanchor of NBC Today, rakes in $7 million a year, while her cohost, Matt Lauer, earns a mere $2.5 million. In 1998 Jane Pauley signed a five-year deal at NBC for $5.5 million a year. Lisa Myers, NBC's Washington correspondent and one of the chief Clinton persecutors, makes $375,000 annually. Larry King of CNN earns $7 million in salary; Bernard Shaw, also of CNN, $1.1 million; and Jeff Greenfield, CNN senior analyst, the same. Christiane Amanpour's pay is $2 million a year. At Fox, Brit Hume pulls in one million dollars a year, while Bill O'Reilly makes slightly less. MSNBC's Brian Williams makes $2 million annually.
Newspaper editors and leading reporters earn significantly less, but their pay is nothing to sneeze at. Joseph Lelyveld, executive editor of the New York Times, for example, makes an estimated $400,000-600,000 a year. Tom Shales, a television critic for the Washington Post, earns $200,000, and John Brecher, the page-one editor of the Wall Street Journal, the same. David Maraniss, national political correspondent of the Post, makes a reported $130,000 annually, while a senior news editor at the Journal is believed to average $160,000 and a senior reporter at the Times, $80-100,000.

These are salaries only. Well-known personalities can boost their incomes substantially through lectures and personal appearances. In a 1995 article (“Talking for Dollars”), Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz revealed some startling facts. Kurtz noted that Donaldson of ABC—remember this is five years ago!—received $30,000 per speaking engagement, William Safire of the Times took in $20,000 a speech, Cokie Roberts, $20,000 as well. Mike Wallace fetched $25,000 a speech and Larry King received $50,000.

According to Kurtz, David Gergen, then of the MacNeil/Lehrer news program on PBS and a U.S. News columnist, earned more than $450,000 for 21 talks in 1992. “The list of Gergen's benefactors,” observed the Post columnist, “read like a who's who of corporate America,” including the American Stock Exchange, the American Trucking Association, the Snack Food Association, Chase Manhattan Bank and Salomon Brothers.

Gergen, still a perennial on the television talk show circuit, made an uncharacteristically candid admission to Kurtz: “There is a corrupting influence.... You stay at a ritzy hotel. You shut people out. You just talk to these well-groomed, well-heeled business folks. You're traveling in a bubble. It tends to encourage a pro-establishment viewpoint. You're talking to the establishment, you're with them a lot.”

<snip>

There are those who enter the profession of journalism out of the desire to inform and educate, to challenge conventional wisdom and offer social criticism. Such individuals do not rise to the top. Theirs are not the faces one sees on the evening news and talk show programs.

rest of analysis @ http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/med3-d16.shtml
*****
The US media: a critical component of the conspiracy against democratic rights—Part 1

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/med-d05.shtml

The most striking feature of American television news programming is its extremely circumscribed character. The US is a nation of nearly 300 million people, one of the most diverse on earth. Yet a relative handful, perhaps several dozen individuals, dominate news presentation and commentary, and their ideas fall within a narrow range. The “free exchange of ideas” takes place between people all of whom defend the profit system, the two-party monopoly of political power and the defense of America's “national interest” around the globe.

The same small circle of experts and pundits, who have nothing original or perceptive to say, seems endlessly to make the rounds of the cable television talk shows. How many times, on a weekly basis, is the viewing public obliged to sit through the reactionary pieties of ex-Reagan cabinet member Bill Bennett, whose entire personality, to paraphrase the American novelist Philip Roth, is dipped in sludge, or the banalities of a Doris Kearns Goodwin or a David Gergen, or the ranting of right-wingers such as Barbara Olson or Ann Coulter?

The news anchors and leading figures of the television networks are not working reporters, struggling to get the truth out. These are individuals with a deep stake in the political and economic status quo, including of course the continued health of the stock market and corporate earnings. Their salaries alone amount to millions of dollars a year (the news anchors average $5-10 million). They are prominent members of the establishment, who are called upon at any moment of crisis to put the case for the existing political set-up. These media personalities belong to an exclusive social milieu, whose concerns and demands are light-years away from the problems of masses of Americans. The indifference and insensitivity to democratic principles start here.
*****
The US media: a critical component of the conspiracy against democratic rights—Part 7

Conclusions about the media in general, the liberal press in particular
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/jan2001/med7-j13.shtml

The leading television personalities in particular operate in effect as the public faces of their respective firms. There is no room for independence, no margin for error. The highest stakes, financially and politically, are in play. These individuals have arrived at their lofty status in the media by demonstrating their unswerving loyalty to the conglomerates who employ them and with whom they fully identify. Maintaining their positions requires them unfailingly to lie about social reality in the US, to conceal the extent of corporate influence over every sphere of life and to deny, above all, the glaring social divide which their wealth and rank only underscore.

In the final analysis, the liberal wing of the ruling elite fears the same social process as Geyer and company: the radicalization of wide layers of the population and their advancement of their own independent interests, above all, social equality. It fears this more than anything, including police-state dictatorship.

In The History of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky cited the comment of a Russian philosopher, who spoke more forthrightly than our present-day liberals—at least out loud: “Whatever we stand for, we must not dream of uniting with the people—we must fear them more than all the persecutions of the government, and we must give thanks to the government which alone protects us with its prisons and bayonets from the ferocity of the people.” Voila!

*parts 2 thru 6 are linked at bottom of page of other reports
*****
The Awesome Destructive Power
of the Corporate Power Media

by Glen Ford and Peter Gamble
www.dissidentvoice.org
February 2, 2004
First Published in The Black Commentator

It is no longer possible to view commercial news media as mere servants of the ruling rich -- they are full members of the presiding corporate pantheon. General media consolidation has created an integrated mass communications system that is both objectively and self-consciously at one with the Citibanks and ExxonMobils of the world. Media companies act in effective unison on matters of importance to the larger corporate class. For all politically useful purposes, the monopolization of US media is now complete, in that the corporate owners and managers of the dominant organs are interchangeable and indistinguishable, sharing a common mission and worldview. (That’s the underlying reason why their “news” product is nearly identical.) Monopolies do not require a solitary actor -- an ensemble acting in concert achieves the same results.

In the past year we have seen consciousness-shaking evidence of the corporate media’s implacable hostility to any manifestation of resistance to the current order. Media rushed to embed themselves in the US war machine’s Iraq invasion, and collaborated to actively suppress public awareness of a full-blown movement against the war. Hundreds of thousands of protestors were made to disappear in plain sight. Corporate media conspired -- which is what businessmen in boardrooms do as a matter of daily routine -- not only to shield the public from dissenting opinions (their usual assignment), but to drastically diminish, distort and even erase huge gatherings that were profoundly newsworthy by any rational standard. This is not mere bias, but the end result of the corporate decision making process. There is no line separating “news” producers from larger corporate structures, nor can media companies be neatly segregated from the oligarchic herd. Corporate media’s ties to the Pirates in Washington are organic and nearly seamless. Their collusion seems almost telepathic, because they share the same class and worldview -- the most far reaching consequence of media consolidation.

The corporate media is a window on the dialogue among the rich. They are saying loudly and uniformly that even mild resistance to their rule will be treated as illegitimate and subjected to censorship and ridicule by their media organs. The scope of tolerable dissent has been narrowed, as reflected in the behavior of corporate media. The Dean beat-down is just the latest twist in the tightening of the screws.

There is no question that Blacks and progressives must establish alternative media outlets, and not just on the Internet. However, there is no substitute for confronting the corporate media head-on, through direct mass action and other, creative tactics. The rich men’s voices must be de-legitimized in the eyes of the people, who already suspect that we are being systematically lied to and manipulated. African-Americans have an advantage in this regard, since they are used to being lied to and about.
No society in human history has confronted an enemy as omnipresent as the US corporate media. Yet there is no choice but to challenge their hegemony.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Petersen0202.htm

The world can be changed, but only by changing the way others see their world.

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!
We Don't Want Your War! (Flash Video)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/yourwar.htm

Why did the war commence in spite of unprecendented opposition and outrage? The media already had travel, hotel reservations secured !

None Of Us Are Free - If One Of Us Is Chained
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8199.htm
*****
Everything proceeds as if of its own accord, and this can all too easily tempt us to relax and let things take their course without troubling over details. Such indifference is the root of all evil.
-- I Ching (BC 1150)

Ecclesiastes:

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.


Ecclesiastes 3:1-8





I Cry for Rachel Corrie and all the kids for what could have been done if their lives could have BeCome
What in Earth ARE we doing?

[Old and In the Way]

1. Rush Limbaugh makes $21MM/year.......

you don't get paid that kind of money to tell the truth.

Great post!

[SoCalDem]

3. That's a LOT of Oreck sweepers & fold-up beds

Anyone ever know anyone who actually bought the crap that's "advertised" on AM radio??

The first order of business is to push the propaganda..even if they "lose money"..I have always thought that the ads were just a "cover"...

Most of these companies are kind of "fringe", and how on earth could they afford to buy so much advertising that it could support the salaries paid to Limbaugh & buds??

[JohnyCanuck]

2. What happens to someone who tries to be a real journalist

instead of just an enabler and a planted ass-kisser for the corporate establishment? Meet the buzzsaw -

Between them, the authors of the incendiary new book "Into the Buzzsaw," out this month from Prometheus, have won nearly every award journalism has to give -- a Pulitzer, several Emmys, a Peabody, a prize from Investigative Reporters and Editor, an Edward R. Murrorw and several accolades from the Society of Professional Journalists. One is veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration and a best-selling author, another is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.

And most of them are considered, at best, marginal by the mainstream media. At worst, they've been deemed incompetent and crazy for having the audacity to uncover evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors committed by government agencies and corporate octopi.

Edited by ex-CBS producer Kristina Borjesson, "Into the Buzzsaw" is a collection of essays, mostly by serious journalists excommunicated from the media establishment for tackling subjects like the CIA's role in drug smuggling, lies perpetuated by the investigators of TWA flight 800, POWs rotting in Vietnam, a Korean war massacre, the disenfranchisement of black voters in Bush's election, bovine growth hormone's dangers and a host of other unpopular issues.

Borjesson describes "the buzzsaw" as "what can rip through you when you try to investigate or expose anything this country's large institutions -- be they corporate or government -- want to keep under wraps. The system fights back with official lies, disinformation, and stonewalling.

http://www.freedomofthepress.net/intothebuzzsaw.htm

[SpaceBuddy008]

4. good book but your "signature" glorifies establishment oil ciminal

Mathew Simmons is part of oil crowd who

own this gov
help start this war
market manipulaters
gouging average americans at the gas pump
conscience less profiteers
no concern for environment
was probably in secret energy meetings

and THIS:
Saudi Oil Is Secure and Plentiful, Say Officials
Tim Kennedy, Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6§ion=0&article=44011&d=29&m=4&y=2004

Note that the oil reserves claimed by Saudi Arabia alone (1.2 trillion barrels) exceed what the Peakers claim are the total recoverable oil reserves for the entire planet. Let's pause here for a minute and think about the significance of that: one tiny patch of land, accounting for less than than 1/2 of 1% of the earth's total surface area, potentially contains more oil that the 'Peak' pitchmen claim the entire planet has to offer! Is there not something clearly wrong with this picture?


Needless to say, that sort of candor by the Saudis could put a serious crimp in Washington's plans to sell the 'Peak Oil' scam. Perhaps that is why, just three days after that announcement, the Saudi oil industry was attacked by some of those terr'ists. Not to be deterred, however, Saudi officials announced three weeks later, on May 21, that the Kingdom still intended to dramatically increase its petroleum output. And a week after that, on May 29, those crafty terr'ists launched yet another brazen attack on the Saudi oil industry. Shit happens, I guess.


At that very same time, and in the months that followed, the U.S. was sending clear signals that it would not hesitate to set its military dogs loose on the Kingdom if necessary. Michael Moore's "the Saudis are the real enemy" movie, for example, splashed across America's screens. Various voices involved in both the official and unofficial 9-11 investigations were pointing the finger toward the Saudis as well. The message couldn't have been clearer: "we can easily drum up public support for 'regime change' if you won't play ball." The Saudis, it would appear, have now fallen in line.

The real problem with the Saudi crude, as near as I can determine, is that the Saudis and the 'Peakers' have entirely different ideas about what the price of crude oil should be. At the time of the attacks in Saudi Arabia, it was hovering at about $40.00/barrel, and is now at about $50.00/barrel. The Saudis would like to bring it down to $25.00/barrel. And the 'Peakers' would like to see it raised to - are you ready for this? - a whopping $182.00/barrel -- which would, quite obviously, place oil out of reach for the vast majority of the world's people.
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3777413.stm)

The $182.00/barrel figure was provided by Matthew Simmons to a BBC reporter at the 'Peak Oil' conference held earlier this year in Berlin. According to Simmons, "Oil is far too cheap at the moment ... we need to price oil realistically to control its demand." Simmons is described in the BBC article as "an energy investment banker and adviser to the controversial Bush-Cheney energy plan." He is, in other words, a perfectly credible source -- if we choose to overlook the fact that everyone connected to the Bush-Cheney team reeks of corruption and outrageous lies.

Nevertheless, the Peakers just adore Mr. Simmons, who was described by Michael Ruppert as "the de facto star of the ." 'Peak Oil' pitchmen just love to quote Simmons, says Ruppert, "because his voice is refreshing."
( http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/062104_berlin_peak.html)

Simmons is a member of ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil), founded and led by 'Peak Oil' guru Colin Campbell and promoted relentlessly by Michael Ruppert, who boasts of having "a great many friends in ASPO." According to the BBC, ASPO includes in its ranks "a diverse range of oil industry insiders," including a good number of "oil executives" and "investment bankers." Just the sort of salesmen we should trust, in other words, when shopping for a suitably apocalyptic future.

And make no mistake about it: the future that has been scripted by the architects of 'Peak Oil' is not going to be pretty.

thanks for all the comments so far
highly suggest printing out all 8 articles

[JohnyCanuck]

5. I find it hard to see what would be the advantage

to the investment bankers and the oil industry moguls to totally wreck the worlds economies by unnecessarily driving up the price of oil into the stratosphere. Once prices increase sufficiently demand is going to be driven down with likely very deleterious effects on the world's economies. What would it profit the oil companies to destroy demand and wreck the very economies that buy their product from them in the first place?

Here's a working link to the Arab News story (the link you provided is broken):

http://www.arabnews.com/?page6%A7ion=0&article=44011&d=29&m=4&y=2004

I did notice from the Arab News story that these new figures are estimated reserves and not proven reserves.My understanding is that the Saudis have been very secretive about the research and exploration that has been done to justify their reserve figures. Apparently most of the oil that Saudi Arabia pumps today comes from the Ghawar oil field which is requiring increasing amounts of water injection to maintain production. Also the peak oil theorists claim is not that so much that we are running out of oil, but that we are running out of the easily accessible and easily refinable better quality grades of oil. Regarding the large claims made for Saudi reserves, do we know reliably what grades of oil are involved? Will the oil developed from new Saudi fields be as easily accessible as the oil pumped from Ghawar? Does it contain a high proportion of high quality sweet crude or is it composed of high sulfur content and difficult to refine sour crude?

Tho OPEC countries apparently have a history of producing large jumps in reserves when it is politically and economically advantageous for them to do so with no apparent new exploration used to backup the jump in reserve figures.

From www.hubbertpeak.com:

Now comes the interesting part. Many estimates been have made of the world Ultimate for oil, a recent example being the 1995 USGS global survey. The value they published was 2275 Billion Barrels (or Giga - barrels, Gb). These studies are always based on estimates of reserves taken directly from producing countries themselves. Therein lies the problem. Many OPEC countries have been announcing reserve numbers which are frankly very strange. Either their reported reserves remain the same year after year - suggesting that new discoveries exactly match production, or they have suddenly increased their reported reserves by unfeasibly large amounts. This is clearly shown in the following table:

Click on this link to see chart www.hubbertpeak.com/summary.htm (page down about one third)

These data are less odd when one realises that OPEC takes into account a country’s reserves when fixing production quotas: the more oil you say you have, the more you’re allowed to sell. Additionally, oil reserves can be used as collateral for loans - an example of this is the $50 Billion loan from the USA to Mexico: in December 1994, the Mexican Peso fell by around 35%. As a result, the Mexican Central Bank's international reserves fell from $29 billion to $5 billion. To stave off a collapse of the Mexican economy, President Clinton signed a $50 billion "Emergency Stabilization Package" loan to the Mexican government on 31 January 1995. The collateral for the loan was Mexico's pledge of revenues from its future petroleum exports.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/summary.htm

From a NY Times article from Feb 2004 (One month earlier than the Arab News article):

Energy forecasts call for Saudi Arabia to almost double its output in the next decade and after. Oil executives and government officials in the United States and Saudi Arabia, however, say capacity will probably stall near current levels, potentially creating a significant gap in the global energy supply.

Outsiders have not had access to detailed production data from Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, for more than 20 years. But interviews in recent months with experts on Saudi oil fields provided a rare look inside the business and suggested looming problems.

An internal Saudi Aramco plan, the experts said, estimates total production capacity in 2011 at 10.15 million barrels a day, about the current capacity. But to meet expected world demand, the United States Department of Energy's research arm says Saudi Arabia will need to produce 13.6 million barrels a day by 2010 and 19.5 million barrels a day by 2020.

"In the past, the world has counted on Saudi Arabia," one senior Saudi oil executive said. "Now I don't see how long it can be maintained."

Saudi Arabia, the leading exporter for three decades, is not running out of oil. Industry officials are finding, however, that it is becoming more difficult or expensive to extract it. Today, the country produces about eight million barrels a day, roughly one-tenth of the world's needs. It is the top foreign supplier to the United States, the world's leading energy consumer.

http://healthandenergy.com/saudi_arabia_oil.htm


If oil is a finite resource (and I have not seen convincing evidence that if abiotic oil exists, it exists in sufficient quantities to offset declining production from depleted wells) then it will hit a Hubbert Peak at some point. I remain to be convinced that Peak Oil is just a scam on the part of the oil companies and the rich to drive up oil prices and make more money.

While it is true that many (but not all) of those speaking out about the Peak Oil problem are people with connections (past and present) to the oil industry e.g. Campbell, Laherrere, Deffeys, Simmons etc, who else would be more qualified to speak to this issue? Who would be better qualified to point out the flaws in the construction of an aging aircraft likely to lead to structural failure than an aeronautical engineer who has spent his career designing and building aircraft?

It seems to me significant that the loudest criticism of the theory that we are close to the Hubbert Peak of world oil production is not coming from geologists but from economists. I personally have a very hard time accepting that someone like Colin Campbell, a PhD retired geologist (who admittedly spent his career working in the oil industry), would be in on a scam of the size that you believe the Peak Oil scam to be just to make a buck or for some other unknown nefarious reason (whatever it might be).

However, I would also point out that there are also other scientist who are (to the best of my knowedge) not in any way involved with the oil industry players who are also raising concerns that we are not facing up to the reality that endless growth in energy consumption can not continue in a finite world.

See for example Physics Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, Al Bartlett, and his presentation on exponential growth, doubling time and resource depletion. As Professor Bartlett shows, our economies predicated on perpetual growth have historically required exponential growth in consumption of resources, and with even quite small constant increases in consumption, the consumption will double in relatively short periods of time. It only take a few doublings to make large inroads into what were once considered bountiful resources.

Professor Bartletts' presentation on exponential growth, resource consumption and Peak Oil.

(Apple Quick Time or Real Player)
http://news.globalfreepress.com/movs/Al_Bartlett-PeakOil.mp4

Here's another physicist (non oil-industry connected to the best of my knowledge) Dr. David Goodstein speaking on global warming and Peak Oil at Caltech.

Streaming Real Media

56K - http://today.caltech.edu/theater/5602_56k.ram

Medium Broadband - http://today.caltech.edu/theater/5602_bb.ram

Full Cable/DSL - http://today.caltech.edu/theater/5602_cable.ram

Thanks for posting your links and I will be following with interest the stories coming out of Saudi Arabia and will continue watching for any further positive news on the state of their reserves or any evidence that they are able to expand pumping capacity in sufficient quantities to offset the declining production from the worlds oil fields that are now in decline (e.g. The North Sea) and still meet increasing world demand as well.

[SpaceBuddy008]

6. profit system-two/party monopoly-'national' interest

thanks for your reply and honing the information

"The “free exchange of ideas” takes place between people all of whom defend the profit system, the two-party monopoly of political power and the defense of America's “national interest” around the globe."

eliminate great disparities of wealth among peoples & nations
Social Equality & Peace! will be on The Way ...shortly



authorities lord over masses and instill legitimacy by controlling energy flow, control the energy spigots-control the people

that is why free energy, zero-point, from the vacuum is held back, it can be accessed by small devices anywhere, it is democratic,
non-hiearchical, DecenTralizing threat to Monopolies and
Top-Down RealityConTroll.

it is not about money it is about an agenda involving

malthusianism, colonialism, eugenics, racism, social darwinism, genocide and superiority complex's & 'secrets'...TOTAL CONTROL !

follow that path~~~~

interesting as i looked at image of BillBoard I posted i saw revealing symbolism

76...spirit of '76? looks like a Sun

Shell...fossil fuel Rockefeller 'myth'?

ExxonMobil...a cross or telephone pole?

Chevron....definately military patches

Texaco....JeWish star?

Phillips66...definately police badge! and 'P' is 16th letter in alphbet given ya' the much noted 666 obsession



'nother thing that came to me from this post, as article is 5 years old, lot of these media 'stars' are retired isn't Sam Donaldson retired, Bernard Shaw, Dan Rather

will they come out of their retirements with a vengeance? to...
REPORT FOR DUTY ?