Once upon a time, political observers fretted that the free press, the government and the democratic process itself were under threat of being overwhelmed and eventually controlled by corporatism – special interests, corruption and greed. William Greider’s prescient work on the subject, Who Will Tell the People? : The Betrayal of American Democracy was published almost 20 years ago and presaged, in great detail, the economic, political and ethical morass we find ourselves drowning in today.

In the book, Greider predicted the demise of a free press and its replacement by an increasingly corporate owned press devoid of any real investigative power. He also predicted a legislative process hamstrung by gerrymandering and corporate lobbyists, an executive branch whose independence and power is made impotent by elections controlled by financial contributions from corporations and a judiciary deeply compromised by ethically problematic relationships and the appointment of justices more inclined toward ideological interpretations of the law than the rule of law.

What William Greider did not predict is equally as alarming. He could not have foreseen the extent to which the aforementioned

attacks on the foundations of our democracy would move from the dark shadows to being entirely out in the open. Nor could Greider have foreseen the always-on 24 hour instant news cycle of the internet, how it would alter the media landscape in profound ways and how the corporate owned news media would come to parrot anything and everything that trends on the internet, Twitter or Facebook, regardless of the facts. Gossip, innuendo, anonymous sources, timed leaks and even violations of privacy and blackmail have become the rule rather than the exception.

Two decades after Greider’s book, we have come to the point where legislators, politicians and justices who don’t play “by the rules” set down by those who control the purse strings are shown the door via recall elections, redistricting, retention votes, old-fashioned dirty tricks and disinformation. And, disinformation is the front line in the war for influence and power.  Media firms such as Freedom Works have created an entire political movement out of whole cloth, based upon and energized by well financed internet distributed disinformation.

The severe lack of media literacy in the general public is crucial to the equation. A society that treats information and disinformation equally is one that is not prepared to conduct business, let alone find solutions to the problems that it faces. The inability of large numbers of citizens to differentiate between propaganda and factual information is the central reason why groups such as Freedom Works are able to influence and manipulate so many. It is also why we struggle so profoundly to engage and fix the problems we face as a  society. We don’t see the forest for the trees. We get bogged down in the short game, rather than the long term ramifications.

The recent fall of Rep. Anthony Weiner (NY) is an excellent example of this process at work. Weiner resigned from his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives when it was revealed that he had shared nude photos of himself (some sexually graphic) with a female college student he communicated with via Twitter. On the surface, what happened to Weiner appears to be a version of the basic run-of-the-mill found with his pants down scandal. But, there is more to the story.

There was little discussion in the press  (or anywhere for that matter) of Anthony Weiner’s relatively harmless moral transgression. Yet, it was immediately treated as a career ending event for Weiner when other politicians have done much worse (adultery, felony crime) and remained in office. It was a singular moment of trial by media fire and political brinksmanship fueled by media illiteracy, since real facts were (and still are) hard to come by regarding the story.

An important and overlooked fact: The person who broke the Weiner story on the internet remains anonymous, and the events surrounding it are suspicious at best. As the New York Times has reported, “Fake Identities Were Used on Twitter in Effort to Get Information on Weiner” That should raise a few eyebrows, get people asking “what happened?” but it has not.

To be sure, what Weiner did was a serious moral and ethical breach. But, sharing nude photos of oneself with other adults in not a crime. No laws were broken. The simple reality is: the reaction of the media and politicians to Weiner’s mistake did not suit the problem.  It was an overreaction at best. The situation was exploited and hyped by a press more interested in sensational headlines, sex, scandal and gossip that it is in establishing facts and reporting news. And, the reaction of politicians to the event paints a picture of elected officials falling over themselves to be seen on the “right” side of the propaganda tsunami which struck fear in their hearts.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow raised a very salient point regarding Weiner’s resignation and the double standard practiced by the press and politicians. From The Huffington Post:

“Democrats have not only refused to hold Republicans accountable for the double standard, but they have joined with Republicans in piling on with the demands that Anthony Weiner had to resign even as David Vitter stays in the Senate,” Maddow said. She then went on a long monologue, listing all the Republicans and Democrats who were not forced out of office even after admitting to more serious ethical violations than Weiner.

“Anthony Weiner, who was not accused of corruption, who does not appear to have done anything illegal, who does not even appear to have had sex with any of the women with any of the people with whom he had scandalous talk and picture-taking, for him a line was drawn,” Maddow concluded, her voice bristling with anger. She then turned her focus on the media, saying that the story was actually “the media covering the media ending a man’s career.”

Maddow ended by addressing Democrats. She issued a dire warning.

“Congratulations, Democrats,” she said. “In an era of unhinged, ideological, big money conservative media that is wholly and admittedly divorced from the precepts of journalism, in hounding Anthony Weiner into resigning … you have just fed and unleashed this beast onto yourselves, probably for a generation.”

Maddow’s statement is a clarion cry to every American, a warning that we’ve crossed a line into being manipulated and controlled by people who do not care about our liberties. They care about making money. Not an entirely evil pursuit on its own, but when it comes at the expense of peoples life, liberty and happiness, we have a problem.

The lynch pin is media literacy. Citizens need to be educated in the critical analysis of the information that is presented to them in the modern era. The instant always on news cycle requires that we all have the ability to discern fiction from reality, truth from propaganda.

We must continue to correct disinformation, but we also need to bring the fight to those who would harm our liberties. As the Anthony Weiner case shows, not doing so means we do the dirty work for those who benefit from it.

Weiner’s transgression should have meant a reprimand at best. We may have been shocked at what occurred, but no crimes were committed. Yet, he was treated as if he had broken the law. Why?

The answer is important. Our democracy depends upon it.

And, as the decades rolled on, each continual success served to confirm our superiority over all – even the truth was manipulated. Responsibility fell to the way side. And, if a negative ramification presented itself, we quickly waved it away with the simple justification that the world and everything within it was ours to do with as we wish, and profiting from it was a natural act. Our birthright. It never occurred to us that building an economy based primarily upon a single finite resource – oil – would some day place our entire civilization at great risk of collapse.

Adolfo Doring‘s excellent documentary Blind Spot, contains an interview with Jason Bradford, who explains this epistemological issue very succinctly and eloquently as it relates to our inability to see reality and deal with the responsibility of our massively consumptive society.

We have lost the ability to deal with the concept of responsibility in a proper manner both as individuals and as a society. It’s quite important because lack of responsibility, and its consequence of not confronting reality, leads to the inability to solve complex problems and establish consistent ethical boundaries. Both are the cornerstones of a successful society. A society that is unable to deal with important issues responsibly, and use that knowledge to its advantage in a way that is beneficial to a majority of its citizens is a society that will die. We see the results today in the current culture war. Everyone senses that something is wrong, we simply can’t agree on the truth. It’s as if we’re entrenched in a form of madness.

Which brings us to Charlie Sheen.

As the mass media exploits and the public gorges itself on the ever-unfolding tragic life of actor Charlie Sheen, it has become apparent that Sheen is a practitioner of this epistemological disconnect. So is the mass media. They are by no means alone in this endeavor. It’s widespread. We are all in some way or another, practitioners of the epistemological disconnect from responsibility.

We now face the challenge of rebuilding how we think, how we acquire knowledge and information, and how we apply that knowledge. It is, as Douglas Rushkoff has said, a new renaissance.

…radical sociologist David Harvey asks if it is time to look beyond capitalism, towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane.

Very much worth watching. My comments are below the video.

The trigger to the financial mess is greed. The idea that the system is open-ended, that the sky is the limit, is simply irresponsible. All systems have limits. We’ve reached the limit of capitalsim. And, to be sure, many will simply dismiss this argument as “socialism”. But, as Harvey’s argument posits, there are important points to be gleaned from a socialist approach. You can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater on this issue. This doesn’t mean that people don’t have the right to pursue financial success. What it does mean is that the way that success should be measured needs to change. Warren Buffett has the right idea. There’s a responsibility that comes with financial success. It’s good economics. And, Buffett understands that. The problem is, it’s become a political football.

The tragedy for the USA is that the political atmosphere is super-charged with partisan political nonsense. True discussion is almost impossible. At the moment, Conservatives have shown themselves  to be more interested in refuting their core beliefs, at the expense of the stability of the country, for political power. Liberals are lost in an over reactive loop of fixing failed Conservative policies with overreaching programs that miss the big picture. The result is inconsistent economics. Add to this the polarized atmosphere of the poltics of fear that dominate, and it’s a mess.

Engaging in a coherent debate under these circumstances is impossible, let alone implementing a cogent economic plan.

I fear that something truly horrendous will have to occur for people to break free of their ideological constraints and deal with the issues at hand properly with intellect and maturity.

We shall see.

Mayor Vaughn: [to reporter] I’m pleased and happy to repeat the news that we have, in fact, caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers. But, as you see, it’s a beautiful day, the beaches are open and people are having a wonderful time. Amity, as you know, means “friendship”. – From the movie “Jaws“.

and…

But we haven’t had, really, any impact. I mean, we haven’t had enough oil hit Mississippi’s beaches to fill up a milk jug. Now, we’re prepared and we’re prepared for the worst. But thus far, we haven’t had any kind of incursion, except the news coverage is killing our tourist business. – Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

More on Barbour’s links to big oil over at Think Progress.

Part 2

Part 3

• Five Symptoms of Republican Schizophrenia – Lots of illogical minds out there… that’s what happens when hate dominates….
• Revealing Hate: Inside White Supremacist World – Much of the current political atmosphere in the USA can be traced to the increase in hate based thought…. It’s more common than you think….
• Health Care Reform: Sorting Facts From Fiction…. – Good facts versus fiction… much needed in these times…
• Why the deficit hysteria? I only wish we’d borrow more… – Robert Reich’s interesting take on the deficit…

…all of the above-listed people are examples of America’s Great Meritocracy, having achieved what they have solely on the basis of their talent, skill and hard work — The American Way. By contrast, Sonia Sotomayor — who grew up in a Puerto Rican family in Bronx housing projects; whose father had a third-grade education, did not speak English and died when she was 9; whose mother worked as a telephone operator and a nurse; and who then became valedictorian of her high school, summa cum laude at Princeton, a graduate of Yale Law School, and ultimately a Supreme Court Justice — is someone who had a whole litany of unfair advantages handed to her and is the poster child for un-American, merit-less advancement.

From Motorman Mark – Why Middle America Must Be Crushed:

There are a large number of US citizens, traditionally referred to as “Middle Americans,” who are engaged in small, private industry-jobs that have an uncertain future and that live and die on the prospects of a marketplace that is unhindered by taxes and government regulation. Even if they live in a rental unit, they live in communities dominated by the concerns of low-income home owners-people who do not know how to get along with more than $500 a month spent on housing costs-to whom the yearly property tax bill is a very big deal. They can’t spend too much breath decrying the expense of the local school system, or the roads, or the courts and emergency services-each of which provides them an obvious benefit. So what do they get mad at?? “Government.” Whatever that means.

A pattern emerges. We worship an ideal which most of us will never attain and deny what we truly are in order to insure at least the fantasy that we are part of the aristocracy. An aristocracy that devours us as we cheer it on in the hope that they will let us in the door.

It’s a perspective that is enforced and propagated by advertising and marketing as well.

Something better lay ahead to be sure… Break free.

• Beck and Goldberg team up to claim that James von Brunn was a left-winger
• A ‘PRESCRIPTION’ FOR A MANUFACTURED CONTROVERSY….
• White “Separatist” Turns “Bad PR Lemons Into Lemonade” In TV Interviews
• Toil And Trouble…. – In case you were wondering what Glenn Beck thinks about all this right wing violence (and who doesn’t?) here it is…
• Sarah Palin’s Politics Of Grievance Are Back!
• Beck: ‘[W]e’re in the same situation here’ as in Iran.
• Bill O’Reilly Selectively Edits Joan Walsh Interview

• Why So Scared of a Public Plan?
• Miranda On The Battlefield
• So… Now It’s A Pandemic?
• Bill O’Reilly wonders why Dr. Tiller’s supporters want to protect their anonymity

Life Inc. Dispatch 01: Crisis as Opportunity from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

It’s hard not to notice that there are no actual numbers therein.

From Charles Johnson, king of the stink pile over at Little Green Footballs.Here’s the link, but Chuckie has a bad habit of diverting links to his mistakes.

While the media treats the economy like it treated the Iraq war – swallowing disinformation whole -there’s also plenty of advice for the new President floating around. What not to do, what to do. There’s hopeful statements that look forward to success, and statements hoping for failure. (Hard to believe, but true.)

And, there’s a lot of petty nonsense being proffered as well. A lot.

It’s important to remember a few things: If we are going to climb out of the hole we are in, we have to be united. We can’t do it splintered. Yet, there are factions among us who plan to do nothing but stoke partisan divisions. They aren’t interested in solutions, only power, and the way they obtain power is by creating hatred, fear and divisiveness. It’s what they do. They know nothing else. They are incapable of seeing past their hatred and ideological blinders.

After 9/11 George W. Bush had a golden ticket to unite and rally the nation behind him. But, he and his Administration and the GOP chose instead to divide the nation through fear, intimidation and disinformation in order to solidify power. They chose bipartisan bully tactics  rather than solve problems. They chose to dismantle government, and when that government was needed to do the peoples work (Katrina for starters) it was unable to do the work. And, today, we need the government to work.

So, the road ahead is pretty plain: Those that do not join the discussion, engage the process and participate should have the temerity to take the bench. But, they do not. So, they must be marginalized, because that is the only language they understand. If you don’t have the intelligence and insight to pull yourself from the game when you’ve fumbled the last two plays and it’s 4th and long, the coach will do it for you.

That’s life. And, whining about it only solidifies just how incompetent and marginal you’ve become. So, bitch away. We’re listening.

And, when you’re ready to rejoin the world of ideas, problem solving, non-partisan discussion and negotiation, and hard work that lay ahead, we’ll welcome you back.

But, no one is holding their breath.

“What recession? The $170 million inauguration”

Except it’s untrue. Eric Boehlert has the ugly truth. In a nutshell:  The costs quoted and compared – Bush spent 42 million, Obama spent 170 million  – are incorrect:

” …the unsubstantiated Obama cost of $160 million (inauguration + security) compared with the Bush cost of 42 million (inauguration, excluding security). Those are two completely different calculations being compared side-by-side, by Fox & Friends, among others, to support the phony claim that Obama’s inauguration is $100 million more expensive than Bush’s”

Sadly, it will be stated as the 100% truth within the hour and at a thousand dining room tables by supper tonight.

(via Digby, who notes how it’s part of the larger “big spending liberals” meme that conservatives will be peddling ad nauseum.)

The problem with public relations spin, deception and lying is it will come back to haunt. You’d think that the Bush White House would have learned that lesson from the Clinton experience. But, no.

In the spirit of “If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.“, the current administration has worked assiduously at priming the public relations pump, spreading the word, insisting that the once over and now continuing war against Iraq is not about oil. The sound bite rhetoric is familiar to us all: “This is not about oil. This is about a tyrant, a dictator, who is developing weapons of mass destruction to use against the Arab populations.”

The problem is twofold: 1) the intelligence used in the failed attempt to convince the world that Iraq had viable WMD’s is suspect, the search effort is slowing down, and all of this is creating great trouble for British Prime Minister Tony Blair. 2) The truth is hard to ignore. Statistics are brutal in their logic. The economic/oil situation is not a constant one at all. It is in flux. And, at risk.

The fact that it was always about oil is becoming much more clear. Especially since members of the Bush administration and advisors own words regarding Iraq and Hussein don’t shy away from mentioning oil as a primary concern. As stated in a “Letter to the President” dated January 26, 1998, signed by Elliott Abrams, Richard L. Armitage, William J. Bennett, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter W. Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and several others: “It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.” (Italics mine.)

That seems pretty clear doesn’t it? But, the massive PR push the past few years had a very specific task- to convince the populace both in the US and abroad that the war was over more palatable issues- terrorism, human rights, spreading democracy. Things that make us feel good about invading another country. Anything except oil. Because, there is always the great possibility that, as stated in “The Trouble with Powell“: “the American people do not want their young dying for $ 1.50 a gallon oil.” But, deception is deception. And, it would appear at this juncture that it may have gotten out of control. And, investigations on the WMD problem are coming. Even if the Bush White House and Republicans don’t want it.

Which begs the question: Would they investigate the possibility of cooked Intel if the WMD’s were wearing a blue dress? That old double standard is a drag, isn’t it?

Yes it is.

Chris Matthews and guests Howard Fineman and Andrea Mitchell started out discussing Obama’s looming VP choice, the various “front runners” on the “short list” (a completely made up list by the media, since no one has a clue, but they make it sound like they do.) and then they switched to discussing McCain’s choices for VP, (which they are equally as clueless about) in particular Joe Leiberman. It went like this:

FINEMAN: Well, I don‘t know. First of all, I think a lot of conservative activists, including Rush Limbaugh, wouldn‘t take Joe Lieberman, either. They respect him. The same with Sean Hannity. But they…

MITCHELL: They wouldn‘t take him. They‘ve already said (INAUDIBLE)

FINEMAN: They said they wouldn‘t take him…

It’s an extraordinary admission that went entirely overlooked. Here are three major media players discussing how conservative media pundits have a powerful role in choosing who will be the Republican choice for VP. The equivalent simply does not exist on the Liberal side. Which Liberal media pundit has that much power? None. An important point to remember in these times.

One of the basic tenets of the modern conservative movement is a hatred for the “mainstream media”. The “conservative wisdom” is that it’s riddled with Liberals and that Liberals control it. Far from the truth obviously.

Yet, by their own logic, Limbaugh is the enemy, since he is a member of the mainstream media who literally has a role in controlling our lives and our government functions. Yet, they don’t seem to mind. It’s about ideology of course. It has nothing to do with the higher ideals of democracy and freedom of the press and everything to do with limiting the message to only those ideals they profess, limiting it to conservative ideas. It’s basic fascism and eliminationism.

And, seeing it referred to in such a blase manner on Hardball was shocking to say the least.

When I was a boy, I would read about how military and press people had control of the process of government in the Soviet Union, and it sent a cold, rippling shiver down my spine that I always remembered.

That feeling has returned.