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76 comments on Resource Depletion, Persuasion, and the Ongoing World Meme

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Samsara on October 26, 2007 - 10:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Just for the record, Who owns the media?

GENERAL ELECTRIC --(donated 1.1 million to GW Bush for his 2000 election campaign)

Television Holdings:
* NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households.
* NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.
* CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).
The "MS" in MSNBC
means microsoft
The same Microsoft that donated 2.4 million to get GW bush elected.

Other Holdings:
* GE Consumer Electronics.
* GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants.
* GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment.
* GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains.

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WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC.

Westinghouse Electric Company, part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL)
whos #1 on the Board of Directors? None other than:
Frank Carlucci (of the Carlyle Group)

Television Holdings:
* CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US.
* CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute.
* Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks.
* Group W Satellite Communications.
Other Holdings:
* Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry.
* Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US.
* Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance.

===========================================================

VIACOM INTERNATIONAL INC.
Television Holdings:
* Paramount Television, Spelling Television, MTV, VH-1, Showtime, The Movie Channel, UPN (joint owner), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Sundance Channel (joint owner), Flix.
* 20 major market US stations.
Media Holdings:
* Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Video, Blockbuster Video, Famous Players Theatres, Paramount Parks.
* Simon & Schuster Publishing.

=============================================

DISNEY / ABC / CAP (donated 640 thousand to GW's 2000 campaign)
Television Holdings:
* ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households.
* ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America.
* ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E!
* Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television.
Media Holdings:
* Miramax, Touchtone Pictures.
* Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover.
* 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers.
* Hyperion book publishers.
* Infoseek Internet search engine (43%).
Other Holdings:
* Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas.
* All Disney Theme Parks, Walt Disney Cruise Lines.

======================================================

TIME-WARNER TBS - AOL (donated 1.6 million to GW's 2000 campaign)
America Online (AOL) acquired Time Warner–the largest merger in corporate history.
Television Holdings:
* CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Brothers Television, Cartoon Network, Sega Channel, TNT, Comedy Central (50%), E! (49%), Court TV (50%).
* Largest owner of cable systems in the US with an estimated 13 million subscribers.
Media Holdings:
* HBO Independent Productions, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera.
* Music: Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, WEA, Sub Pop (distribution) = the world’s largest music company.
* 33 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, In Style, Fortune, Book of the Month Club, Entertainment Weekly, Life, DC Comics (50%), and MAD Magazine.
Other Holdings:
* Sports: The Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling.

=======================================================

NEWS CORPORATION LTD. / FOX NETWORKS (Rupert Murdoch) (donations see bottom note)
Television Holdings:
* Fox Television: includes 22 stations, 50% of US households.
* Fox International: extensive worldwide cable and satellite networks include British Sky Broadcasting (40%); VOX, Germany (49.9%); Canal Fox, Latin America; FOXTEL, Australia (50%); STAR TV, Asia; IskyB, India; Bahasa Programming Ltd., Indonesia (50%); and News Broadcasting, Japan (80%).
* The Golf Channel (33%).
MEDIA HOLDINGS:
* Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight.
* 132 newspapers (113 in Australia alone) including the New York Post, the London Times and The Australian.
* 25 magazines including TV Guide and The Weekly Standard.
* HarperCollins books.
OTHER HOLDINGS:
* Sports: LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, National Rugby League.
* Ansett Australia airlines, Ansett New Zealand airlines.
* Rupert Murdoch: Board of Directors, Philip Morris (USA).

*(Phillip Morris donated 2.9 million to George W Bush in 2000)*

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php

I think we have as much chance of encouraging people to drive less, use CF lighting, etc will work about as much as we try to have them walk up to the TV and change the station while the Remote Control is still sitting on the table.

We will keep doing what we're doing till we can't, then we won't.

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auntiegrav on October 26, 2007 - 8:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Date this quote:

"The class inhibitions that haunt the contemporary press under its multimillionaire ownership are responsible in large measure for the neurotic character of American newspapers. Because so many fields of editorial investigation and exposition are taboo, the press as a whole must confine itself to a relatively restricted "safe" area.
This accounts for the undue measure of attention given to the underworld; to petty scandals involving actresses, baseball players, and minor politicians; to sporting affairs and the activities of the quasiwealthy. The press, in short, must compensate for enforced lack of vitality in dynamic fields by artificial enthusiasm in static fields. In place of an evenhanded, vital, varied daily news report, the American press as a whole is obliged to present a lopsided news report that is of doubtful reader interest. And in order to recapture the constantly waning attention of readers it must rely upon comic strips, inane "features", contests, gossip columns, fiction, cooking recipes, instruction columns in golf, chess, bridge, and stamp collecting, and similar nonsense. American newspapers, in short, are, paradoxically and with few exceptions, not newspapers at all."

-Ferdinand Lundberg, "America's 60 Families", c. 1938

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writerman on October 27, 2007 - 3:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

And probably the most disturbing thing about this piece is that since the 30's things have actually gotten worse. The concentration of media power has accelerated, espcially in the last twenty years. The 1930's almost seems like a 'golden age' of ownership diversity! I read the other day that the FCC was considering 'relaxing' the restrictions on concentration even further. The way we're going in a relatively short space of time over 90% of the US media will be controlled by just three giant corporations who 'co-opperate'.

One can also look at the negative cultural effect all this has on American music. There's so much great music that never gets played or heard, because the formats are so proscribed and controlled. These days many of the iconic and groundbreaking bands from the sixties would never get played because they don't conform to the station's format. These 'monopolies' are strangling American music culture, and that's a shame.

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airdale on October 27, 2007 - 8:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Writerman,

Your right man.

So my response is to find that music on the FM radio as 'Golden Oldies' and of course zero 'news' on that station or just a very little.

That music however just doesn't seem to want to 'fade'. Its far too good to do so. Yet mainstream America doesn't listen to it...one wonders just what the hell they do listen to?

I think nothing ...except the incipient(correct word?)..cellphone stuck to their ears and the ubiquitous TV.

My wife was enchanted and enthralled by the 'infomercials' on TV..she thought they were honest folks who knew everything. I suppose to her Ron Popeil was a visionary.

For her generation(the one after mine) she was totally hooked and never could squirm off. It seemed to feed some part of her brainstem, some imperative to just 'listen' to this quakery. And then of course "Go Shopping"....

I never did understand this behavior in her. Perhaps why I live more or less alone sans TV..but lots of sound and music..bluegrass primarily and some favorites from my youth...music that really spoke to the inner person..and not just advertising trash.

To this day my wife hears it on TV..to her its gospel!
She never really was able to read either fiction or non-fiction..her parents had wired her brain backwards I think. My daughter ditto...even if she is a school teacher...my son the same..even if he is a CPA and has a MA in accountancy...they are wired far different than myself...not a boomer. Yet my wife's father was never in the military!

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