Freeze Frame

Yellow journalism is more than sensational stories about celebrity lawsuits, alien babies, Elvis sightings, nude photos of Princess Kate, or, my personal favorite, the World Weekly News claim that Abraham Lincoln was a woman and John Wilkes Booth was his jilted lover. All of these fall under the broad banner of yellow journalism, defined as manipulating or manufacturing news for the purpose of boosting profits and influencing public opinion. Yellow journalism techniques include sensationalism, altering photos to elicit a particular response in the viewer, misleading headlines, selecting quotes or interview clips in order to highlight (or hide) a particular point of view, manufacturing false news, omitting factual details in order to influence a particular audience, failing to make a clear distinction between opinion and news. The list could go on, but you get the idea. Before radio and television, citizens got their news from newspapers. As sales and profits increased, so did com...

By Jamie York Our Constitution and Bill of Rights is a model for people in developing countries around the world. And rightly so! It gives citizens -- we the people -- the power and authority over government. People everywhere dream of this. As do we, since the reality has never caught up with the dream. Even so, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major blow to the dream of democracy. In Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission , the high court ruled that corporations are persons, with the same First Amendment rights as living, breathing people. Corporations, which should still be considered artificial legal entities to conduct business on a limited scale, were given constitutional protection as though they were alive. The ruling itself did not even have to mention personhood at all, but the effect of this ruling has been deep and profound, and may lead to our undoing as a nation. The main thrust of the ruling allows unlimited corporate spending to influence the o...

By Jamie York Why occupy Wall Street? Well, the short answer is that corporations have overthrown the United States. I had a teacher in middle school who spoke about the dangers of monopolies and how concentrated corporate ownership resembled a dictatorship. She was right. The richest one percent control trillions of dollars. The more entrenched corporate conglomerates become in the systems of power, the harder it is to remove them. They control production, transportation and distribution of essential consumer goods and they have created a system to manipulate markets, create shortages, raise demand, raise prices, and avoid federal taxes. They WANT to tank the economy, and natural disasters, terrorism, and prolonged economic downturns help them do just that. It gives them the opportunity to privatize with impunity and create special emergency rules to speed up the process. They can keep people so afraid of losing their jobs that they are willing to accept wage and benefit cuts. New Orl...

MSNBC is so full of crap about Libya as a humanitarian mission. It's about oil, not Libyan freedom. China is far worse for repression, yet it floods our markets with cheap consumer goods and funds our huge debts from war spending and tax cuts for the rich, so we just turn our heads about repression in China. What hypocrites! It makes no difference which corporate political party occupies the White House, for the pandering to Big Oil continues unchecked. Of course, this is nothing new. Expansion and private control of resources has been our shameful legacy ever since Columbus set foot in the hemisphere. This is no way to share a fragile planet.

By Jamie York Corporations – emboldened by a 2010 Supreme Court ruling allowing them unlimited spending in U.S. elections, and bolstered by a pro-corporate Congress – are now poised to eliminate the right of union workers to bargain collectively for fair wages and benefits. The right to strike is embedded in the American psyche. Americans overwhelmingly support the right to negotiate a fair contract for wages and benefits. Without such protection, employers can impose any hours they wish, hire and fire at will, and pay starvation wages with no health or retirement benefits whatsoever. And this is their goal. Corporate lobbyists and their mouthpieces in Congress and the media know full well what the impact of the actions will be on U.S. elections. Without dues collected from unions, financial support for Democrats and Independents would drop, thereby providing Republican corporatists and Teabaggers with a better chance at victory. Deny the opposition campaign money. This is behind the ...

By Jamie York Bill Clinton told columnist Joe Klein that the biggest mistake he made with his health care reform proposal was his support for universal coverage (Time, 8/10/09, p. 35.). The insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists were ruthless and had a well-directed campaign against universal coverage. Clinton was blindsided and had thought he had no choice but to cower and try to sneak away from the fight as the lobbyists got their message across in the media while the voices of single payer advocates were drowned out. While Clinton may think that advocating single payer insurance was a mistake, I think it was his finest hour. His mistake was not that he supported single payer, but that he failed to stand up for single payer as logical and viable. He didn’t even try to fight the insurance lobby. “Hillary, “ he cried, “help me Hillary!” And so the insurance industry reformed itself and “managed care” came into being. At that time there were 33 million people without health coverage and...

By mediagonebad While I wholeheartedly support genuine movements for freedom and democracy anywhere in the world, I find it interesting that so many Americans have jumped on the #iranelection bandwagon without taking the time to learn about Iran, its culture, its mullahs (supreme leaders), its wars, and its history with the United States. Groupthink is a decision-making process that occurs when an idea is put forth and becomes publicly accepted without proof. Groupthink is like an intellectual snowball effect carried from person to person with little, if any, firsthand knowledge or scientific scrutiny. The effect of Groupthink is that it makes the quest for historical truth that much harder when people already accept a given idea as the truth. Ordinarily, one would gather information from first-hand sources, then form an opinion and subject it to examination and reexamination. Groupthink forgoes this process and leads directly to an opinion. Fact: There has been no vote recount in Ira...

By mediagonebad [Occasionally I like to throw in an older piece just to get it into electronic format. These are from the pre-computer days when I used a Royal typewriter.] Thoreau once wrote: "We do not ride upon the railroad; it rides upon us." Thoreau's words took on special meaning for me in April 1981, when I was hired as a trackman on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. I was elated. I had a job with good pay and good benefits. After I had worked five years, however, my elation had turned to bitterness and anger. I no longer cared about the pay and benefits; I just wanted out. Of course, people said I was crazy for wanting to give up "such as good job," but I knew better. I had learned something about people and production and I felt that the C & O had ridden upon me. For the first couple of years, I worked on an undercutter on my home division between Columbus and Portsmouth, Ohio. An undercutter is basically a large plow. It has hydraulic arms that l...

By mediagonebad It is a matter of public record that in August 2001 George W. Bush received a Presidential Daily Briefing stating that Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization planned to use jet airplanes as weapons. Did Bush read the report? Did he read it and fail to act upon the information? Did he, by extension, allow 9/11 to happen by not acting upon the information in the PDB? What would Bush have stood to gain by not acting upon this information, by not beefing up airport security immediately? This would have been the responsible course of action would it not? Well, consider first that the Bush family business is oil and weapons. A president whose family stands to gain financially from war might be less inclined to prevent one. Second, the Bush family world view supports Hitler’s view of unrestricted corporatism. Under the 8-year Bush/Cheney regime, the United States of America was slowly and methodically overthrown by a small group of economic zealots who believed in the ...

By mediagonebad Hardcore free-market Republicans often rail against “big government,” so let’s take a few minutes to figure out what the role of government should be in the United States. What do we want from the federal government? What do we, as citizens, expect our government to be? What services do we want it to provide on our behalf? The first thing about government is that we all want it to work for us, not against us. We do not want to be taxed excessively and we do not want to be spied upon like “big brother.” We want our elected officials to serve us honorably and we want our justice system to be fair and equal. I would venture to guess that few Americans would argue with these general points, no matter what their political beliefs. Now, forget government for a minute. What do American citizens want America to be? Do we want the best health care and education in the world? Do we want retired citizens to have a guaranteed income? Do we want the strongest military in the ...

By mediagonebad It seems that every new day brings another newspaper failure. So many people are getting their news from television and online sources that newspapers cannot compete. So they reduce the size of the paper, create online content, lay off and furlough employees -- anything to start operating in the black. In the mid-1970s I was a student at Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, Colo. Every day at the bus stop I would pick up a copy of the Rocky Mountain News (RMN). Its tabloid format was perfect for spreading out on a table in the student lounge; I even had room on the table for my coffee cup and a snack. The Denver Post, however, was a full-size paper that you had to open up and hold to read, which was more convenient for reading in a doctor’s office or sitting on the toilet. I would often read the RMN from back to front, paying particular attention to stories buried on the inside. I found that the RMN had the Denver Post beat for the sheer diversity of the news. ...

By mediagonebad Obama’s much anticipated changes to U.S.-Cuba policy have turned out to be much ado about nothing. While changes in family remittances, unlimited travel to and from the island to visit relatives, and increased telecommunications are positive steps, the economic blockade remains intact. The “wet foot/dry foot” policy of instant citizenship for those who make the treacherous 90-mile trip to U.S. soil remains in place, as does the cruel, inhuman policy of using food and medicine as political weapons. So, too, remains the policy of interfering with the right of other nations to do business with Cuba. Thus far in his presidency, Obama has proven to be a status quo politician interested in propping up capitalist banking and corporate interests while working people take a back seat. On Cuba policy, he is playing south Florida politics very effectively and will likely win some supporters in the next election cycle, but his slogan of “Change We Can Believe In” has been forgotten...

By mediagonebad The Obama administration did the right thing in releasing the "torture memos" from the Bush administration and they should be applauded for it. However, the Department of Justice failed to call for an independent special prosecutor to investigate the memos. Learning the truth is one thing, but failing to hold individuals responsible for wrong-doing is quite another matter. How do we justify letting public officials off the hook for possible crimes when common citizens are expected to either follow the “rule of law” or risk going to prison. Public officials should not be above the law or given immunity for crimes. In the coming days and weeks, we will learn more about these torture memos and how public officials violated the Geneva Conventions and International Law.

By mediagonebad OK, Mr. Obama, you have my heartfelt congratulations! A Chicago grassroots organizer is now president of the United States. That is a major accomplishment in and of itself. It is early in your presidency and I am pleased that you have dealt with some of the worst offenses of the Bush administration through executive orders, but I must say that your larger policies concern me greatly. GREATLY. First, there is the matter of privacy vs. warrantless wiretapping and electronic spying on Americans. Your Department of Justice, Mr. President, not only supports but goes beyond the Bush administration in preventing government accountability for willful violations of the law regarding COINTELPRO-style electronic eavesdropping. Your DOJ recently argued that the U.S. possesses “sovereign immunity” from misconduct lawsuits. Yet you pledged government accountability during the campaign. Strike one. Then there is the matter of giving away billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to the ...

By mediagonebad [Stop Monsanto's draconian bill now in Congress. HR875 is disguised as a food safety bill but it would give AG companies the power to virtually control agriculture. http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum959.php ] Genetically Engineered foods, also known as GEOs (genetically engineered organisms) and GMOs (genetically modified organisms), which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says are essentially equivalent to conventional foods and therefore do not require mandatory labeling or pre-market testing, can now be found in 60 to 75 percent of all non-organic supermarket foods. Concern over the use of GE products, however, goes beyond the need for safety testing and product labeling. The concern to all of us should be directed toward the corporate scientists creating these products for AG employers such as Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Aventis Crop Science, BASF, BIO, Zeneca Ag Products and Novartis. While most of us generally view technology as beneficial to humank...

*** TOPICAL TWEETS *** by @mediagonebad Cable News When I see military aficionado Wolf Blitzer on CNN, I turn to MSNBC. When I see military aficionado Chris Matthews on MSNBC, I turn to Democracy Now! O’Reilly and Limbaugh are toads. Ignore them. Let them be toads, hopping & eating bugs. Don’t pick them up and let them pee on your hand. Dear Fox News: You think big national media ask the right questions? Really? They sure didn’t in lead-up to Iraq occupation. Dear Fox News: Why do you hate anything that resembles democracy? Repeat after me: “Media diversity is a good thing.” Dear Fox News: Big corporate media have failed us time and again. It is refreshing to see smaller, less self-serving media asking questions. C’mon President Obama, stand up to the cronyism, to the good ‘ol boys (including Coultergeist) on Fox News. This is the change we need. Ethics Biggest problem is separating news from advertising and entertainment, for example ads with fake news anchors. Note to Journalists...

Support the National Health Insurance Act (HR 676)! By Jamie York When Bill Clinton was in his first term as president in 1992, he vowed to revamp the health care system in the United States. He held up a single insurance card and said that under his plan every American would have one of those cards. It was to be the only insurance card a person would need because Clinton was advocating a single payer health care system and every American was to be covered. In addition, that card was to be imbedded with a memory chip that would hold all of one's medical records, including medical history, test results, digital XRAYs, Pet Scans, MRIs, dental and optometrist records -- anything that pertains to one's well being. Present your card to a health care provider and you will be taken care of. No other insurance needed. Clinton's plan immediately drew intense fire from the multi-billion-dollar insurance industry, so, rather than stick up for single payer as rational and viable, he b...

By mediagonebad Suppose you have a health insurance plan such as Mail Handlers and your employer, the Veterans Administration, required you to opt-out of Medicare if you took it. You pay your premiums, your co-pays and your prescription costs. You visit your doctor regularly and you have lab work. Then maybe you have an X-Ray and visit the emergency room. You may even have surgery which requires a hospital stay and your plan pays 80/20 after you meet a certain deductible. Things are basically going O.K. and you have managed to keep up with the costs and pay your bills. You may go on like this for years and your premiums keep going up. You are retired, stay active, and don’t think too much about your insurance. After all, it has been there for you when you needed it. Then BAM! You have a stroke or another illness that requires a hospital stay and extensive aftercare and physical therapy. It may even require time in a nursing home. THEN you discover that you have to fight with ...