Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Apr 04, 2004 Posts: 579 Location: Western US
Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 3:20 pm Post subject: Mass media
Maybe I'm just a naive dolt
It's obvious that CNN has to a small degree picked up on this story. The New York Times ran an op ed. FOX is fair and balanced, preferring just to leave energy out of the news, period. Meanwhile small papers http://www.oaoa.com/news/nw051404i.htm and relatively unknown web sites http://www.worldphotos.com/ carry the bulk of what I now consider to be newsworthy news. Personally I couldn't care less if Jennifer Aniston and Oprah are getting married because Oprah's pregnant. Am I expecting too much? How is it that Americans have become so damned intrigued with themselves that international news isn't fit to watch unless there is a war on? Tell me one more time why this hasn't made the head lines or at least the 11:00 O'Clock news.
Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 3:45 pm Post subject: OMG
Oprah's pregnant! It is the end of civilization...
Actually Oprah doesn't really exist... she's just a photo-negative of Barbara Bush...
Because sex & violence sell.
The vast majority of any species exist for reproductive purposes. Only specific individuals make unique contributions which benefit, (or detract), from the species as a whole. By and large, most members of a species fall into the definition of "normal" for that species. Only the unique individuals challenge the definition of normal, and provide momentum for the social and genetic evolution of the group. So lowest common denominator services always emerge as the defacto standard. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 7017 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 3:57 pm Post subject:
I guess the American public follows the lead of the grandmother in chief:
"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths," Barbara Bush said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on March 18, 2003. "Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
Check it out! I figured out my Sig! Oh well, now I've wasted the rest of the day. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Joined: Apr 04, 2004 Posts: 579 Location: Western US
Posted: Fri May 14, 2004 4:42 pm Post subject:
Here's an example
May 14, 2004, 12:06AM
From Russia, without oil
Energy dialogue fails to develop
By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND
New York Times
MOSCOW — Almost three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States is still seeking sources of energy outside the Middle East, and Russia has plenty of oil to sell.
But after numerous meetings and high-level talks, the once-promising U.S.-Russian energy dialogue is sputtering, say government officials and foreign and Russian energy companies.
Worse, multinationals like Exxon Mobil are losing ground in developing promising oil and gas projects in Russia. In January, Exxon Mobil lost its license to a significant concession in theSakhalin Islands in Russia's Far East that it had not yet developed.
It seems the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the billionaire oil tycoon and founder of Yukos, was only the final blow. Before he was jailed, Khodorkovsky pushed for higher oil exports to the West and even pledged to build a pipeline to China, efforts the Kremlin came to view as a threat to its power. (Khodorkovsky's latest plea to be released on bail was turned down this week by a Moscow City Court, the Reuters news agency reported Wednesday.)
But there was another factor: With global oil prices soaring, Russian producers are raking in profits, so the Russian government no longer feels compelled to sell oil to the United States.
A hoped-for pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Murmansk in far northern Russia, from which Russian oil companies could ship to the United States, will probably not be built. Instead, the Kremlin is negotiating to build a pipeline to Nakhodka, a port on the Sea of Japan, which will bring oil to East Asia.
The war in Iraq, meanwhile, has impaired relations between the United States and Russia.
"Something is definitely wrong with U.S.-Russia relations over the past three years, and the results of the energy dialogue are not impressive," says Timofei Bordachev, director of the Institute of Foreign and Defense Policies research group here.
Peter Westin, an economist with Aton Bank, said: "The enthusiasm has waned, as high oil prices give Russia more leverage. Khodorkovsky also got his hands chopped off, and among many other things, that sends a signal to oil companies that they, too, should be careful."
In 2003, Exxon Mobil and ChevronTexaco declared their interest in buying into Russia's abundant oil reserves, and Total of France and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group have not been ruled out of the running, despite both companies' declarations to the contrary.
But ever since BP's $6.15 billion deal for a stake in TNK, no other sizable deals have been signed between foreign and Russian oil majors.
Russia's Energy Ministry is now revisiting some deals signed in the 1990s, like Exxon Mobil's Sakhalin-3 concession in the Sakhalin Islands off Japan in 1993. The ministry says that should be put out for new bidding.
No date has been set for a new tender of the concession.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested but as I recall the media demonized the guy (please correct me if I'm wrong) and they didn't explain exactly what he was doing, just that he was an oil baron. Maybe it was just a mis-perception on my part or it was my bad for not being educated OR maybe it was news presented for the few who knew what the guy was doing so they knew to check into it and make their monetary exchanges.
What the stance of the mass media is concerned. Ive been wondering about that so I asked a friend/journalist. She replied that at the moment there is great pressure on the journalists to get the news out first, since there is so much global competition on the internet. Only a few newspapers can afford journalist to work for a week on a single story like in the past.
What they are doing is basicallly, take the news from the newswire or other cnewschannels, rearrange it, write some comments on it and publish it. They have very little time to verify a story or to check other sources.
I quess that in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky the russian press agency is the main source for information which explains why the news about him has been so biased.
The time constraint issue from your journalist friend I am sure gets drummed into many journalist's heads on a regular basis. It would certainly explain the phenomenom I experience when reading various news sources ( i.e. they all are singing the same tune ).
So has this been a deliberate ploy by our masters ? This would certainly make it easier to control the steady diet of news stories. Who benefits from that ?
Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 7017 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Sat May 15, 2004 7:28 pm Post subject:
As I’ve commented before, news is a profit center. Reduce the fixed overhead by reducing the staff, increase ratings by telling people what they want to hear - whether its titillation or merely voyeurism, then sell advertising to make a buck.
In your particular business how much do you think altruism has a place at the boardroom table? Corporate media is no different.
Freedom of the press only applies to those that own a press. _________________ Make a plan and work it:
I liked listening to this presentation by Professor Robert Jensen on mass media. As much as C-Span talks about this subject they fail to mention the subject of oil peak while we're at war for oil...truely amazing if you ask me...and they fail to bring on people who know the score like Robert Jenson and many others...truely amazing. C-Span has their head up their a## on just about any really ROOT TOPICS like this and just plays the surface ying-yang games that are the same old BS with different names.
Sadly the human race is an embarrassment to me on the subject of getting the truth out above the constant stream of ruses and useless baloney. I've sent emails to c-span about this with no reply and everyday I see them airing the mainstream repartee of zealots that is getting us nowhere.
Like Timothy Leary said dropping out of society as we know is not such a bad idea.
Professor Robert Jensen discussing media, media & war (Iraq in particular) etc
(Video interview in Austin, Texas on 6th February 2003 )
1. What's wrong with contemporary mass media & what should we be asking from them? [6:29] mp3 | transcript
2. What has happened to journalism since 9/11 and how is the mass media handling the runup to the attack on Iraq? [4:38] mp3 | transcript
3. How is the media itself being manipulated, especially since 9/11, and now prior to Iraq? [3:02] mp3 | transcript
4. How does the US see itself in the world - purely as a force of good? [4:04] mp3 | transcript
5. What is the US connexion between space exploration, limits & Manifest Destiny? [4:14] mp3 | transcript
6. How do you view the 'oil peak' problem? [3:20] mp3 | transcript
Joined: Apr 06, 2004 Posts: 257 Location: Sydney, Australia
Posted: Sun May 16, 2004 7:36 pm Post subject:
From "Why do People Hate America?"
"The American media is notoriously parochial. with the exception of a couple of national newspapers, foreign news is, by and large, conspicuous by its absence. Television, the medium that citizens watch and use more than any other, ventures outside the national boundaries only to report disasters and American-led wars. As the American media has acquired a global reach, it has simultaneously, and paradoxically, become even more parochial and banal. Diverse and dissenting voices have been filtered out to create a bland media monoculture dedicated to promoting consumerism, business and the interests of the government and the power elite, and to keeping the masses entertained and docile. This is not the outcome of a 'free market' operating as a natural law - it is the product of conscious state policy.
Since the days of the Reagan administration, the US has been deregulating its own media industry, and leading an onslaught on international regulation, with the natural consequence that global media power is aggregating into fewer and fewer hands. In 1983 when Ben Bagdikian published The Media Monopoly, media ownership was concentrated in the hands of 50 trans-national conglomerates. In 2002 only nine trans-national firms dominate US and global media: AOL Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, News Corporation, TCI, General Electric (owner of NBC), Sony (owner of Columbia and TriStar Pictures and major recording interests), and Seagram (owner of Universal film and music interests). So one global super-industry now provides vertually everything that Americans see and hear on the screen, over the airwaves, in print and on the Web.
These media giants function as a powerful political lobby at the national, regional and global levels. In Washington alone, they spend an estimated $125 million per year lobbying against ownership restrictions. They not only have a heavy hand in drafting natioal laws and regulations, but also play and important part in shaping and directing international rules and regulations. In 2000, for example, the corporate media giants led the lobbying effort to open up trade with China, and fought against those who raised concerns about free speech and a free press. Earlier, they used US levers to open up Indian markets to satellite television.
Much of what this media cartel purveys to America, Mark Crispin Miller notes in The Nation, is 'propaganda, commercial or political'. Under AOL Time Warner, General Electric, Viacom and others, the 'news is, with a few exceptions, yet another version of the entertainment that the cartel also vends nonstop'. These entities, writes Miller,
Quote:
are ultimately hostile to the welfare of the people. Whereas we need to know the truth about such corporations, they often have and interest in suppressing it (as do their advertisers). And while it takes much time and money to find out the truth, the parent companies prefer to cut the necessary costs of journalism, much preferring the sort of lurid fare that can drive endless hours of agitated jabbering. (Prior to 9/11, it was Monica, then Survivor and Chandra Levy, whereas, since the fatal day, we have had mostly anthrax, plus much heroic footage from the Pentagon.) The cartel's favored audience, moreover, is that stratum of the population most desirable to advertisers - which has meant the media's complete abandonment of working people and the poor... ...In short, the news divisions of the media cartel appear to work against the public interest - and for their parent companies, their advertisers and the Bush Administration. The situation is completely un-American. It is the purpose of the press to help us run the state, and not the other way around. As citizens of a democracy, we have the right and obligation to be well aware of what is happening, both in 'the homeland' and the wider world. Without such knowledge we cannot be both secure and free.
Ok, that answer your question dmtu? In small countries, like Australia, most of the TV content is American. We have local content rules that are under attack from the latest 'free trade negotiations' with the US. Culturally Oz is pretty much drifting into a US colony. I have heard that US companies use Australia and NZ to test run products if the target is white middle class...
Joined: May 17, 2004 Posts: 293 Location: San Jose, CA
Posted: Mon May 17, 2004 4:46 pm Post subject: National Geographic Article
Hi everyone - first post here. :D
Has anyone seen the June 2004 issue of National Geographic? They've got a big article on the coming oil shortage (even have it on the front cover). I haven't finished reading it, just got it today, but it looks interesting. Here's a link where you can read a preview of it:
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