stefan segal
01-20-2007, 08:02 PM
Listen to or for a less impactful exprerience read Bill moyers speaking to the media about thier failures of responsibility and those monopolies who orchestrate their failures...along with what we must do and become to dismantle the yoke and chains that bring and keep the rest of us on our knees.
Stefan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011807B.shtml
To listen to the audio, click here. (GO TO THE SITE FOR THE LINK IF "HERE" DOESN'T FUNCTION)
Life on the Plantation
By Bill Moyers
t r u t h o u t | Address
Friday 12 January 2007
Address to the National Conference for Media, Memphis, Tennessee - as prepared for delivery.
It has long been said (ostensibly by Benjamin Franklin, but we can't be sure) that "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
My fellow lambs:
It's good to be in Memphis and find you well-armed with passion for democracy, readiness for action, and courage for the next round in the fight for a free and independent press.
I salute the conviction that brought you here. I cherish the spirit that fills this hall and the camaraderie we share today. All too often the greatest obstacle to reform is the reform movement itself. Factions rise, fences are built, jealousies mount - and the cause all believe in is lost in the shattered fragments of what was once a clear and compelling vision.
Reformers, in fact, too often remind me of Baptists. I speak as a Baptist. I know Baptists.
One of my favorite stories is of the fellow who was about to jump off a bridge when another fellow runs up to him, crying: "Stop. Stop. Stop. Don't do it."
The man on the bridge looks down and asks, "Why not?"
"Well, there's much to live for."
"Like what?"
"Well, your faith. Are you religious?"
"Yes."
"Me, too. Christian or Buddhist?"
"Christian."
"Me, too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me, too. Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Me, too. Are you original Baptist Church of God or Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me, too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1820, or Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1912?"
"1912."
Whereupon the second fellow turned red in the face, shouted, "Die, you heretic scum," and pushed him off the bridge.
That sounds like reformers, doesn't it?
By avoiding contentious factionalism, you have created a strong movement. I will confess to you that I was skeptical when Bob McChesney and John Nichols first raised the issue of media consolidation a few years ago. I was sympathetic but skeptical. The challenge of actually doing something about this issue - beyond simply bemoaning its impact on democracy - was daunting. How could we hope to come up with an effective response to an inexorable force?
It seemed inexorable because over the previous two decades a series of mega-media mergers had swept the country, each deal even bigger than the last. The lobby representing the broadcast, cable, and newspaper industry is extremely powerful, with an iron grip on lawmakers and regulators alike. Both parties bowed to their will when the Republican Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That monstrous assault on democracy, with malignant consequences for journalism, was nothing but a welfare giveaway to the largest, richest and most powerful media conglomerates in the world - Goliaths whose handful of owners controlled, commodified and monetized everyone, and everything, in sight.
Call it the "plantation mentality" in its modern incarnation. Here in Memphis they know all about that mentality. Even in 1968, the Civil Rights movement was still battling the plantation mentality based on race, gender, and power that permeated Southern culture long before and even after the groundbreaking legislation of the mid-1960s. When Martin Luther King came to Memphis to join the strike of garbage workers in 1968, the cry from every striker's heart - "I am a man" - voiced the long-suppressed outrage of a people whose rights were still being trampled by an ownership class that had arranged the world for its own benefit. The plantation mentality was a phenomenon deeply insulated in the American experience early on, and has it permeated and corrupted our course as a nation. The journalist of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, had envisioned this new republic as "a community of occupations," prospering "by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole." But that vision was repeatedly betrayed, so that less than a century after Thomas Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt, bolting a Republican party whose bosses had stolen the nomination from him, declared:
It is not to be wondered at that our opponents have been very bitter, for the lineup in this crisis is one that cuts deep to the foundations of government. Our democracy is now put to a vital test, for the conflict is between human rights on the one side and on the other, special privilege asserted as a property right.
Today, a hundred years after Teddy Roosevelt's death, those words ring just as true. America is socially divided and politically benighted. Inequality and poverty grow steadily, along with risk and debt. Many working families cannot make ends meet with two people working, let alone if one stays home to care for children or aging parents. Young people without privilege and wealth struggle to get a footing. Seniors enjoy less and less security for a lifetime's work. We are racially segregated in every meaningful sense except the letter of the law. And survivors of segregation and immigration toil for pennies on the dollar compared to those they serve.
THERE IS MUCH MORE...SEE THE SITE...OR LISTEN TO MOYERS GIVE THE SPEACH...IT IS TRULY MOVING AND POWERFUL.
Stefan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011807B.shtml
To listen to the audio, click here. (GO TO THE SITE FOR THE LINK IF "HERE" DOESN'T FUNCTION)
Life on the Plantation
By Bill Moyers
t r u t h o u t | Address
Friday 12 January 2007
Address to the National Conference for Media, Memphis, Tennessee - as prepared for delivery.
It has long been said (ostensibly by Benjamin Franklin, but we can't be sure) that "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
My fellow lambs:
It's good to be in Memphis and find you well-armed with passion for democracy, readiness for action, and courage for the next round in the fight for a free and independent press.
I salute the conviction that brought you here. I cherish the spirit that fills this hall and the camaraderie we share today. All too often the greatest obstacle to reform is the reform movement itself. Factions rise, fences are built, jealousies mount - and the cause all believe in is lost in the shattered fragments of what was once a clear and compelling vision.
Reformers, in fact, too often remind me of Baptists. I speak as a Baptist. I know Baptists.
One of my favorite stories is of the fellow who was about to jump off a bridge when another fellow runs up to him, crying: "Stop. Stop. Stop. Don't do it."
The man on the bridge looks down and asks, "Why not?"
"Well, there's much to live for."
"Like what?"
"Well, your faith. Are you religious?"
"Yes."
"Me, too. Christian or Buddhist?"
"Christian."
"Me, too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me, too. Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Me, too. Are you original Baptist Church of God or Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me, too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1820, or Reformed Baptist Church of God Reformation of 1912?"
"1912."
Whereupon the second fellow turned red in the face, shouted, "Die, you heretic scum," and pushed him off the bridge.
That sounds like reformers, doesn't it?
By avoiding contentious factionalism, you have created a strong movement. I will confess to you that I was skeptical when Bob McChesney and John Nichols first raised the issue of media consolidation a few years ago. I was sympathetic but skeptical. The challenge of actually doing something about this issue - beyond simply bemoaning its impact on democracy - was daunting. How could we hope to come up with an effective response to an inexorable force?
It seemed inexorable because over the previous two decades a series of mega-media mergers had swept the country, each deal even bigger than the last. The lobby representing the broadcast, cable, and newspaper industry is extremely powerful, with an iron grip on lawmakers and regulators alike. Both parties bowed to their will when the Republican Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. That monstrous assault on democracy, with malignant consequences for journalism, was nothing but a welfare giveaway to the largest, richest and most powerful media conglomerates in the world - Goliaths whose handful of owners controlled, commodified and monetized everyone, and everything, in sight.
Call it the "plantation mentality" in its modern incarnation. Here in Memphis they know all about that mentality. Even in 1968, the Civil Rights movement was still battling the plantation mentality based on race, gender, and power that permeated Southern culture long before and even after the groundbreaking legislation of the mid-1960s. When Martin Luther King came to Memphis to join the strike of garbage workers in 1968, the cry from every striker's heart - "I am a man" - voiced the long-suppressed outrage of a people whose rights were still being trampled by an ownership class that had arranged the world for its own benefit. The plantation mentality was a phenomenon deeply insulated in the American experience early on, and has it permeated and corrupted our course as a nation. The journalist of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, had envisioned this new republic as "a community of occupations," prospering "by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole." But that vision was repeatedly betrayed, so that less than a century after Thomas Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt, bolting a Republican party whose bosses had stolen the nomination from him, declared:
It is not to be wondered at that our opponents have been very bitter, for the lineup in this crisis is one that cuts deep to the foundations of government. Our democracy is now put to a vital test, for the conflict is between human rights on the one side and on the other, special privilege asserted as a property right.
Today, a hundred years after Teddy Roosevelt's death, those words ring just as true. America is socially divided and politically benighted. Inequality and poverty grow steadily, along with risk and debt. Many working families cannot make ends meet with two people working, let alone if one stays home to care for children or aging parents. Young people without privilege and wealth struggle to get a footing. Seniors enjoy less and less security for a lifetime's work. We are racially segregated in every meaningful sense except the letter of the law. And survivors of segregation and immigration toil for pennies on the dollar compared to those they serve.
THERE IS MUCH MORE...SEE THE SITE...OR LISTEN TO MOYERS GIVE THE SPEACH...IT IS TRULY MOVING AND POWERFUL.