Guess Which Candidate Is Toughest on Media Monopolies?

Give me a break with the whole media anti-trust thing. Do you really think that with the internet, bazillion cable channels, and various other ways to express one's view, that there is really some suppression of free speech due to a media monopoly? It would be hilarious, however, if suddenly all members of the media had to say as many positive things about McCain as they do about Obama. I think, in reality, the media's darling will take his pretty little time in taking on his media sweethearts.

Maybe Obama will start by going after google, a dangerous monopoly being formed in front of our very eyes.

The media types would love to avoid being made redundant during media mergers. The journalists would actually applaud Obama for saving their skins.

Clue: Of the three left standing, he's the one who just starting shaving.

Last I checked, the media attacks the government's policies at just about every turn so..... The media is the Handmaidens of whom again??  Isn't this the same media that months after the president stated that this was going to be a long war (2001) were wondering why we were Quote "Failing in AF".  Handmaidens to the governement my foot, themedia has been so left leaning for so long that its no longer interested in facts.  The only use the mdern media, with the exception of blogs, has for facts is to figure out how best to spin them to put forth their agenda.  Blogs do this as well, but the good thing about blogs is that if you aren't a total idiot, you can figure out which ones go with the facts and which one do the same crap that the big media does. 

"provoke the media to cease being the handmaidens of the government they were during the Bush years"

WOW.  I need to get some of what you are smoking.  I mean, did you just write that the media was kind to Bush?  Seriously, thats some potent stuff you got in your pipe!

 Besides, its is obvious why Obama wants to enfore anti-trust in media.  Because it will harm the one or two centrist or right-leaning outlets left in media - Murdoch and Scaife.  The rest of the media will be reliably liberal as usual.  Then all he has to do is invoke the 'fairness doctrine' to shut down all the rest of the opposing voices in the country.

Anti-trust my tush. 

That's right, the big bad media corporations are too strong compared to government.  The big bad oil corporations are too strong compared to government.  The big bad drug companies are too strong compared to government.  Who will help the poor lidoo government?  Barack Obama will stop those evil corporations, and return the wonderfulness we call government to its full power and glory.  There's a great idea.

What's the difference between "post-modern irony" and regular irony?

Surfbum Says:

Handmaidens to the governement my foot, themedia has been so left leaning for so long that its no longer interested in facts.

And then Joe says:

Besides, its is obvious why Obama wants to enfore anti-trust in media. 
Because it will harm the one or two centrist or right-leaning outlets
left in media - Murdoch and Scaife.  The rest of the media will be
reliably liberal as usual.

First of all, the idea that the media outlets are spewing leftist propaganda is too absurd to even be recognized. Intellectually, it can be classed with the belief that copper bracelets cure arthritis and Uri Geller's "psychic" tricks. The only way such a proposition can be considered credible is if you consider the ideal journalistic standard to be embodied by Pravda and Tass.

But there's something particularly grotesque about seeing it presented unchallenged in a Jewish context. The Republicans have been pushing this idea of the liberal media for over thirty years now, until we're just supposed to take it as a given. But who are these liberal elites who control the media? Who are these treasonous intellectuals who stab our soldiers in the back while they serve bravely in the front line?

The Republicans have been very specific in certain details about who the "liberal media" is. They're concentrated in New York and Hollywood; they're well-educated;  they're upper-class, and have contempt for the lives and traditions of the "Real Americans" who live in flyover country.  

In short, it sounds like one of the oldest slanders against Jews ever conceived, repackaged for a more delicate time. Wrapped up neatly so that even some Jews will help sell it.  But "liberal media" is code for "Jew media," just as much as "San Francisco values" is designed to say "faggot" to the right-wing footsoldiers. 

Xopher sez:

"First of all, the idea that the media outlets are spewing leftist propaganda is too absurd to even be recognized."

Falls into the category of "Believe me, not your lying eyes." Its the content, not the standards Sparky, and this characterization only works if you define Bernie Sanders
as the center of american politics. I suggest you dig youself out of whatever bunker your hunkered down in, the revolution isn't happening for a couple of weeks at least, and try to connect with reality.

"But "liberal media" is code for "Jew media," "

Ah, no. It's code for "liberal media". Sometimes the cigar is just a cigar. And your position that the Republican party is anti-semetic is hard to square with their support of Israel. I now await your proof that support of Israel is, at its heart, anti semetic.

Who are you kidding?  What's the most corporate of the corporate media?  A case could be made for NBC, as a subsidiary of GE; defense contractor, lobbying organization extraordinaire, rent-seeking conglomerate.  Which network has been more pro-Obama, anti-Bush, pro-Greenie, pro-Progressive than any other "news" organization?  Ah, NBC?

 Yes, you're right, N   B   C.

 NBC, home to Keith Olberman, home to Chris Matthews, home to Richard Engel, home to Green Week and who knows what else.  Big Corporations love Big Government.  They can use their influence on Big Government to get Big Contracts for themselves.  The idea that Big Corporations were home to Laissez Faire capitalism was a joke 60 years ago and is a Big Lie today.

 Courage for Obama to attack Corporate Media --- on what planet?  And all the little drone reporters hate their corporate overlords, so the love to attack corporate media that THEY are part and parcel of and are too dumb to realize that they are doing corporate media's bidding by promoting the Biggest Government supporter of all time.

Whew, I'm glad I have that out.

Hey Ali, let's ask the Golden Child how he feels about a REAL antitrust violation-the acquisition of Wild Oats by Whole Foods and it's hideous CEO Mackey!  At least the government agencies are pursuing an appeal on this one.

Thanks to the previous posters for giving Xopher the beatdown he had coming.  I just remember the initial coverage of the China earthquake on NPR.  The reporter got 15 seconds into the report when the first mention of Katrina came out, and the rest of the story spent more time bashing the Bush administration than reporting on the disaster.

When's someone in the Jewcy camp going to find out whether Rupert Murdoch's mother is a Jewess?

Mr. Eteraz,

Do you have any actual knowledge of antitrust law, from either an economic or a legal perspective? My law practice does not entail antitrust, but I did study it in law school and it's had some relation to corporate work I've done since. Others will disagree, but from what I've seen the entire field of antitrust regulation arose as a way for politicians to (1) act populist, in the worst sense of the word, and (2) extract rents from so-called monopolists.

The definitions used by the regulators vary wildly and unpredictably. The decisions are arbitrary. Most actual litigation is brought by corporations seeking to block one another from engaging in actual competition. Even today most of the cases the government brings are laughable from an economic standpoint, though they fall within the boundaries of existing case-law. The fact that a regulation-averse administration brings fewer cases than its regulation-happy predecessor tells us absolutely nothing about whether the right number of cases are being brought. And I defy you to identify any anti-trust cases brought by the Clinton administration that actually resulted in materially greater competition and a net benefit for consumers.

All these anonymous posters: so free with their ideas while so unwilling to back them up with an identity. I will take on one point, though, as it needs to be challenged:

And your position that the Republican party is anti-semetic is hard to
square with their support of Israel. I now await your proof that
support of Israel is, at its heart, anti semetic.

First of all, I have to get pedantic: You misspelled "anti-semitic." Twice.  Apologies for sidetracking on that point, but gratuitous spelling errors really bug me.

But on to the idea that the Republicans aren't anti-semites because they "support" Israel. First of all, what does it mean to "support" Israel? I'm pretty sure that it doesn't mean backing up the Israeli Refuseniks. Does it mean a respect for the universities or the artistic communities of Israel?  If you "support Israel," you're usually pretty safe in writing gays and lesbians out of the picture.

What "support Israel" is usually assumed to mean is that you unconditionally support the foreign policies of the right wing in Israel toward the occupied territories and the  settlements. It means advocacy of unrestricted militarism on the part of Israel, and feeding them all the guns, bullets, and bombs that they want. That's all you need to do to be "pro-Israel." You need not waste a single moment's thought about four thousand years of Jewish history and culture, nor of what the next four thousand years might bring; you don't need to look past slogans or hype about what Jews are. You don't even have to be friendly toward Jews, as long as you're friendly to the foreign-policy interests of Israel. (And whether these policies themselves are pro-Israel, or good for Israel is a whole other story.)

 Is John Hagee a lover of Jews? Is Pat Robertson? They've both been very vocal about their political support for Israel, and equally vocal about their antisemitism. One of the great tragedies of modern American Jewish life is how often prominent Jews and Jewish organizations make their spines soft and supple so that they can kowtow to antisemites who want to promote militarism in the Middle East in hopes of bringing conversion or damnation to the Jews.

Is the Republican Party antisemitic? Yes. As long as the fundamentalist Christians make up their base, they are antisemites at the core. 

Xopher, you're just going to have to reconcile yourself to the fact that the average Republican's foreign-policy views are closer to those of most Israeli Jews than yours are.

I have to say your article raised a few hackes and brought out the drones en masse.  Or perhaps the sheeple, but I think, more likely, the drones.  

 If our media were reporting real news, where are stories about FEMA camps, corn syrup in just about every food product we have, alerting people -especially the lower income variety, that the tax cuts are not for them, that our water supply is being poisoned -deliberately and is starting to get into the watered bottle industry deliberately... impeachment is wanted by a full 68% of americans -at least... that Bush is considered by the world to be a major hold up to getting anything meaningul done about climate change and global warming... that the world view of the US is in the toilet, that Blue Dog Democrats are basically Republicans and if your senator or representative is one of them, he/she is why Congress can't seem to get anything done in Washington, why the Republicans handily managed 6, 7 presidential nominees and the Democrats had to narrow to 3 to focus on the issues was not an absurd assumption... can you say coal?  Lack of coverage of the 911 commissions glaring inconsistencies -that McCain got upset and fleed when questioned and how the Bush regime kept sending the commision back to the drawing board to make the facts fit their scenario... onto to infinitum...

 Right, there's no anti-trust, and there is a santa-claus.  I think that these bastards may just have made enough money off the rape, pillage and murder they have wreaked to make a dent in the, at least, monetary cost of the last seven years... and that's a good start.