BECK, BUCHANAN & NAPOLITANO Who's Next on the Corporate Media's Chopping-block?
by James Jaeger
On 09 February 2012, FOX Business News (FBN) cancelled FREEDOM WATCH, hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano, after just one year of truth-telling.FBN vice-president, Kevin Magee, announced that, in addition to the cancellation of FREEDOM WATCH, his network was going to cancel POWER & MONEY with David Asman and FOLLOW THE MONEY with Eric Bolling -- the hope presumably being that no one would notice that FREEDOM WATCH was missing in the crowd. And what are all these shows to be replaced with?
Re-Runs:FREEDOM WATCH, et al, are to be relaced with shows known in TV parlance as "re-runs" -- similar to what's known in Hollywood parlance as "sequels." So, it seems that the New York media is catching up with Hollywood's "sequelitis" in its pursuit of maximum profits through minimum effort.
Yes, when a TV show takes a viewpoint, or serves a vital, public interest, THAT show requires more than minimum effort. Worse, that show is sometimes "controversial," "truth-telling" or even "revolutionary" -- all attributes inappropriate for mass consumption. After all, today's audiences are supposed to simply sit on the couch, stuff their faces with the food and pharmseuticals authorized by advertisers and pay their cable bills on time. No mention of thinking or LEARNING. JUST WATCH, STUFF and PAY.
So, when millions of people across the nation were suddenly confronted with a show like FREEDOM WATCH, the network executives didn't know how to "handle it."
The WATCH, STUFF and PAY paradigm was challenged. An extra, hence unwanted, element, LEARN, was injected into the WATCH, STUFF and PAY Formula.
But while network execs were freaking, millions of WE THE PEOPLE were rejoicing. With FREEDOM WATCH, millions across the nation began to feel there was hope for the so-called corporate-dominated, mass media -- hope led by the FOX network, a network that dared to run GLENN BECK, FREEDOM WATCH and even STOSSEL.
But, with the axing of FREEDOM WATCH, we are all reminded that our mass media joy was but a mass hallucination.
Media Consolidation:We were also reminded that, prior to 1990, there were over 50 media corporations.
That, from 1990 to 2000, those 50 media corporations consolidated down to just 17 media companies: DISNEY; AOL-TIME WARNER; NEWS CORP.; VIACOM; SEGRAM/UNIVERSAL; SONY; LIBERTY-AT&T; BERTELSMANN; GENERAL ELECTRIC-NBC; COMCAST; HEARST; NEW YORK TIMES; WASHINGTON POST; COX; ADVANCE; TRIBUNE CO.; and GANNETT.
Then, as of 2012, these 17 consolidated further to just 6 multinationals that now dominate all global media: COMCAST; DISNEY; VIACOM; CBS; TIME-WARNER and NEWS CORP. More specifically:
Actually NEWS CORP owns many more entities than this. See http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=newscorp for a current and complete list and realize that each one of the other 5 multinationals has an expanded list as well. See http://www.cjr.org/resourcesCOMCAST owns 14 television stations, NBC, Universal Pictures, Telemundo, E Entertainment, Versus and Hulu.
DISNEY owns 10 television stations, 277 radio stations, ABC, ESPN, A&E, the History Channel, Lifetime, Discover magazine, Bassmaster magazine, Hyperion publishing, Touchstone Pictures, Pixar Animation, and Miramax Film Corp.
VIACOM owns 10 television stations, The Movie Channel, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon, TV Land, MTV, VH1, and Paramount Pictures.
CBS owns 30 television stations, Smithsonian Channel, Showtime, The Movie Channel and Paramount Network Television.
TIME-WARNER owns HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros., Time magazine, Turner Broadcasting and DC Comics.
NEWS CORP owns 27 television stations, FOX Network, FOX Business News, FOX News, FX, National Geographic Channel, The Wall Street Journal, TV Guide, the New York Post, DirecTV, HarperCollins, Twentieth Century Fox and MySpace.
Ownership and Government Mandates:So, it's easy to see that when FOX Business News terminated FREEDOM WATCH, it may have done so in order to avoid conflicts of interest with its advertisers, stockholders and the people in political office who not only run the White House, the Congress and the military-industrial complex, but also the people that grant their broadcast licenses, namely the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
But, many people forget that WE THE PEOPLE own the airwaves. The FCC is supposed to grant licenses to broadcasters, like FOX News, with the understanding that such broadcasters will serve the public interest. Unfortunately, to the stockholders of FOX News-type media corporations, these companies don't exist to serve the public interest, but to make profits.
THUS, MEDIA CORPORATIONS ARE TRYING TO SERVE TWO MASTERS: THE FCC MANDATE TO SERVE THE PUBLIC INTEREST AND THEIR STOCKHOLDERS WHO WANT A RETURN ON THEIR INVESTMENT.
But today, given the consolidation and axing of important public service shows -- such as FREEDOM WATCH and GLENN BECK -- it seems the mass media is serving its stockholders more than the public interest. And this is no accident.
The Media Lobby:K-street lobbyists for the New York media corporations and the Hollywood-based MPAA studios have pumped over half a billion dollars into the Democratic and Republican Parties since 1990. Given this, is it any wonder that, when a Judge Napolitano gives platform to a libertarian-conservative like Ron Paul, the Romney's, Santorum's and Gingrich's of the Establishment are going rise up from the grave and spit blood?
And so entrenched are these Establishment candidates, they are the ones that get into government. And when they are in government, who runs the FCC? And if the FCC is in charge of broadcast licenses, who does this concern? Follow the dots and you will get the REAL picture as to why the Networks have axed Beck, Buchanan and now Napolitano. Too much "truth-telling" begets too much "regulatory capture."
But as the Supreme Court once stated in Red Lion v. FCC in 1969:
"It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market, whether it be by the Government itself or a private licensee. It is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral, and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here. That right may not constitutionally be abridged either by Congress or by the FCC."
Market-place of Free Ideas:So what are we going to do about this folks, as Bill O'Reilly would never say? The Supreme Court and the Constitution SEEM to be on the same side of the game. Wow, that's the good news! And we DO live in a media landscape where it seems we now have many more choices, if one remembers the days when we had only ABC, CBS and NBC. Today we have hundreds of channels on our cable TV so to proponents of deregulation, this is proof that we now have incredible diversity. But the reality is, as discussed above, all of these stations are owned, hence controlled, by just 6 multinational corporations. This permits centrally-planned propaganda at a level Joseph Goebbels could never have dreamed of.
SO OF COURSE THE DAYS OF FREEDOM WATCH AND THE GLENN BECK SHOW WERE NUMBERED. OF COURSE THE DAYS OF PAT BUCHANAN'S WISDOM ON MSNBC WERE NUMBERED. AND OF COURSE THE DAYS OF STOSSEL ARE ALSO NUMBERED.
But all this Goebbels-style media consolidation not only costs WE THE PEOPLE our wisdom and knowledge, it costs us our money as well, for our cable bills have risen more than 90% since the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This Act was SUPPOSED to increase competition in the industry but it was sabotaged by K-street lobby firms and now we're lucky if our cable bill is less than $70 per month. AND we have to suffer through endless, repetitive obnoxious commercials, something the cable companies originally promised we would NOT have to do if we paid a monthly fee.
So again, the question we all need to be focusing on is this: CAN A FREE MARKET PLACE OF IDEAS EXIST IN A MEDIA DEVOID OF DIVERSITY AND INTERESTED PREDOMINANTLY IN COMMERCIALISM?
Obviously the answer is NO. Commercialism creates an environment where good journalism and political diversity suffocate. Is it any wonder Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan and Andrew Napolitano were cancelled? And these media personalities weren't even critical of the media itself, as was Ted Turner in his famous article, MY BEEF WITH BIG MEDIA, and John Cones in his controversial book, WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD.
Cultural Marxist Hollywood and New York Media:Anyone who does not believe that the Hollywood-based MPAA studio/distributors and the New York-based "elite media," aka "mainstream media," aka, "LameStreet Media" are so anti-Christian they are foaming at the mouth, simply has to watch a few movies or shows on network TV. Currently GOP presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, is out there playing the Christian card, and as he does, you can literally watch the media aliens dropping from the ceilings with acid pouring from their teeth.
As Pat Buchanan states in the motion picture, CULTURAL MARXISM -- The Corruption of America:
"The United States has undergone a cultural, moral and religious revolution. A militant secularism has arisen in this country. It has always had a hold on the intellectual and academic elites, but in the 1960s it captured the young in the universities and the colleges. This is the basis of the great cultural war we're undergoing….We are two countries now. We are two countries morally, culturally, socially, and theologically. Cultural wars do not lend themselves to peaceful co-existence. One side prevails, or the other prevails. The truth is that while conservatives won the Cold War with political and economic Communism, we've lost the cultural war with cultural Marxism, which I think has prevailed pretty much in the United States. It is now the dominant culture. Whereas those of us who are traditionalists, we are, if you will, the counterculture."
As Nelson Hultberg sums it up:
"As always, Buchanan is outspoken and splendidly patriotic in his testimony on the present degeneration of our country. Many of us born before the 1960s and its shocking nihilism agree vehemently with him. We were raised in a land far removed philosophically from the America we are cursed with today, and this disturbing fact weighs heavily upon our hearts and minds. We, who were raised in pre-nihilist America, find most of today's movies, TV programs and literary works hideous and depressing. We cringe at the obsessive sexuality of Hollywood's cinematic pretensions, at its love affair with anti-heroes, and the reprehensible way it so cavalierly saturates its stories with over-the-top violence. We find ourselves aghast at how much boorish mediocrity and phantasmagoric ugliness pulsate through the commercial byways of modern America calling itself "cutting-edge art from the avant-garde." And we wonder what is it that has wrought such decadence -- where once righteous ideals and a heroic sense of life prevailed?"
Watch an excerpt of CULTURAL MARXISM at http://youtu.be/gkwgbQ_VarA if you have no idea what any of this is about.
Mainstream Media Blackout:
Ironically, a new Russian TV network known as "Russia Today," or simply RT, constantly reminds Americans of "what the mainstream media chose to ignore" and to "question more." Good advice, given 50 million of their citizens were murdered by the Stalin regime for failing to "question enough." Thus industry observers who speak out over this new network maintain that the American mainstream media consistently misses some of the most important stories and airs only that narrow spectrum of speech acceptable to the thin zone between corporate interests and FCC mandates.
Is this crazy? Americans now have to watch RUSSIAN TV in order to get comprehensive reporting about what's going on in their OWN COUNTRY! The demise of the USSR and the Berlin Wall could be envisioned for 50 years, but Russian TV broadcasting out of Washington DC using a U.S. multinational satellite to give a "free nation" their own news in their own back yard was never on anyone's radar. But this makes sense if you think about it. The Russians have already been through all this controlled media stuff. They know where it leads -- totalitarianism and dissolution of the union. So now they -- like Germany who learned about hyper-inflation and now props up the European Union with the most sound monetary policy -- have learned their lessons about an unfree media, in the U.S. case, a corporate-controlled, mainstream media, and its rogue, anti-Constitutional accomplices in government.
Thus, in the U.S. media, you will rarely see any "news" that's CRITICAL of functionalities of big government or big corporations, critical news pertaining to: the military-industrial complex; fiat currency; fractional reserve banking; the Federal Reserve System; the war on terror, the war on drugs; the war on poverty; gun control; pharmaceutical drugs; big corporate "agriculture"; food supply control; the FDA; the Democratic or Republican parties; Israel, Zionism or Jewish domination of Hollywood; equality, diversity or multiculturalism; socialism, cultural Marxism; gay marriage or abortion; the poor, unions or the welfare state; global warming; the New World Order, globalization, the CFR or the UN, WTO, NAFTA, GATT, the IMF/World Bank and other UN organs; public schools; the New York media or the Hollywood-based MPAA studio/distributors.(1)
Accordingly, material that's SUPPORTIVE of Christianity; the U.S. Constitution; the Founding Fathers; traditional values; the nuclear or paternal family unit; stay-at-home mothers; home schooling; tariffs; lower corporate taxes; term-limits; third political parties; the militia of the several states; libertarian ideology; border control; gun rights; non-interventionist foreign policy -- material supportive of these issues will always be ridiculed or suppressed by the mainstream media.
It's the Media, Stupid:
It's particularly important to remember: a consolidated media will NOT discuss any issues relating to itself. Given this, it's obvious that:
THERE CAN BE NO REFORM OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA THROUGH THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA BECAUSE THE POWERS-THAT-BE REFUSE TO MAKE IT AN ISSUE.
Note, in the Buchanan case, and the more recent case with Napolitano, there was, and still is, a complete media black out on the real issues as to why these two well-received experts were canned. I saw no coverage on CNBC or CNN that Buchanan was let go because of his views set forth in his recent book, Suicide of a Superpower. Only FOX commentators like O'Reilly, Hannity and Napolitano touched on the subject in Buchanan's defense. BUT they all touched on it gently. I'm sure their corporate masters made sure of this, for were the public in general to have been made too aware of what actually happened to Buchanan -- one of America's most respected and studied academics, censored by a corporately-controlled, left-wing socialist network -- there would be outrage and further dismissals. But as quiet as it seems out there, the outrage is building. Believe it; MSNBC's days are numbered as a network. And sensing this, little hack apologist bloggers, are coming to the Establishment media's defense to "justify" this dirty deed. Liz Spikol of The Philly Post, for instance, wrote:
"Pat Buchanan has been suspended from MSNBC since October. Apparently, someone at the network turned off the TV and picked up a book, namely Buchanan's latest opus, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?. Buchanan has been saying the same things for years, but he always metes out his extremism with care. You almost don't notice what he's saying, which I suppose is the only excuse for MSNBC's late arrival to the party."
Since Buchanan doesn't have a nightly TV show like Napolitano, his departure wasn't as obvious to the viewing public. But it would have been just as obvious had he had his own show. The outcry on the FREEDOM WATCH cancellation was so great, Judge Napolitano was practically begging people to stop "screaming" at the FOX executives in emails with all capital letters. On Facebook, Napolitano stated:
"It will be far more productive for my work at Fox and the work of my friends and colleagues here -- many of whom share our values -- if the email traffic to Fox is toned down considerably. I will continue to voice the message of freedom in many more Fox venues, and you will hear that message . . . . You have been very strong in your views and generous in your comments about the show, but now is the time to relax and lay low and prepare for the future. God bless each of you."
Many feel FREEDOM WATCH was -- by far -- the most hard-hitting, yet tempered and balanced, political show to have graced network TV.
World Net Daily founder and senior editor, Joseph Farah, said:
"Say goodbye to the most uncompromisingly conservative program on TV. It may have been the only show on TV that measured politics and economics through the lens of the U.S. Constitution."
But obvious to loyal viewers, Napolitano was much more than just a conservative: he was a conservative with a strong libertarian bent and a sincere advocate of the U.S. Constitution -- very rare in the media cesspool we wallow in today. Thus, when a Constitutionalist like Napolitano is silenced, we have a serious problem Houston.
When the case for liberty is not proclaimed loud and clear throughout the land -- or silenced by functionaries of some faction or elite -- it creates a bottleneck for all other issues, issues that must be freely discussed amongst a well-informed public so that decisions can be made and the democratic process can breath.
WITH THE TERMINATION OF BECK, BUCHANAN AND NAPOLITANO, WE ALL SUFFOCATE A LITTLE MORE.
Thus, if the Freedom Movement is to survive -- if THE RON PAUL REVOLUTION is to flourish -- we MUST make the media an ISSUE. We must make media apologists like the Liz Spikols and executive cowards hiding behind corporate board meetings the issue, for unless we do, no one will ever know the sole, 3, 5 or 7 executives that actually voted to terminate Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan or Andrew Napolitano. These cowardly and ignorant "decision makers" know that if they were known, fans would chop off their heads and place them upon a pike before their corporate headquarters at Rockefeller Plaza and Avenue of the Americas. Yes WE THE PEOPLE are coming to understand the MO of this mentality -- the way plutocrats in the corporatocracy and government work -- hidden in boards of directors, at DAVOS, secret meetings, behind high gates of "security" or on days like December 23rd, 1913 while most of Congress was away for Christmas vacation. Not only was the Federal Reserve Act "passed" on a day like this, so were acts like the criminal and anti-Constitutional PATRIOT Act and the TARP Act "passed" on days like this.
So, just like auditing and phasing out the Federal Reserve is a issue; just like tax reform is an issue; just like getting out of NATO and down-sizing the empire is an issue; just like term limits is an issue -- we MUST make the mainstream media an ISSUE.
THE ONLY WAY TO BREAK OPEN A FREE DISCOURSE ON ALL OTHER ISSUES IS TO MAKE THE MEDIA AN ISSUE.
As the book states, IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPID. And the media deserves to be made an issue because WE THE PEOPLE own the airwaves, not the media; not the multinational corporations that dominate the media; not Kevin Magee, Rupert Murdock or Jeff Zucker.
Although some allies exist in Congress (such as Senator Paul Wellstone, Representative Bernie Sanders and Representative John Conyers) the Democratic and Republican parties WILL NOT be the parties to make media an issue because, again, they are too dependent on the media to get their candidates elected.
Media reform won't come from the conservative right either because, as author, John Nichols, states:
"Conservative critics of the media in the end, are handcuffed by their allegiance to maintenance of corporate and commercial rule, so they are incapable of providing real explanations for, and real solutions to, the problem they describe."
More than likely, media reform will have to be launched by a new third party or a coalition of existing parties. See "SPOiLER - Why a Third Political Party Could Win" at http://www.SpoilerUSA.org
Internet Reformation:
Without media reform, a fundamental building block of political reform is inhibited or made impossible. Had the Internet not come along when it did, the mainstream media would have had its way with WE THE PEOPLE from 1990 on.
As Anthony Wile, editor of The Daily Bell has maintained for years:
"The Internet Reformation is changing the context of elite dominant social themes. These themes, enunciated throughout the mainstream media, are intended to separate middle classes from wealth and power while supporting globalist institutions. The Internet Reformation is the culmination of the power and glory of Western civil society and free-market thinking. It is NOT just an "Internet Revolution." The Internet Reformation, a much more deeply disruptive concept, is truly a revolutionary one affecting every aspect of human society and human relationships with modern elites, for it is focused around the INSIGHTS generated by the Internet, NOT just the Internet itself."
This is a time for a new war. The War on Media -- a war between the free marketplace of NEW IDEAS and a mainstream media that wants to KILL ALL NEW IDEAS, a media that's dominated by corporations hell-bent on little more than PROFIT. Hey, no one is saying that honest PROFIT generated through the free market is BAD. As RT and WikiLeaks' Julian Assange -- who is being being unfairly savaged by the governmet-lapdog mainstream media -- might say, the "bigger picture" is a free market of sppech is GOOD, a truncated market is BAD. A free market of speech will always lead to honest competition in a free market of products and services. Ask the Russians.
So here's to The Judge, Patrick J. and Glenn Beck. We salute you for your unprecedented courage in the media and look forward to your next incarnations for the cause of liberty.(2)
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(1) What may have been the REAL reason FBN cancelled FREEDOM WATCH was his show with Michael Scheuer, former Head of the CIA bin Laden Unit. In this installment of FREEDOM WATCH -- which you can watch at http://youtu.be/MY7DXvelO9k -- Scheuer said the following:
"The only people that would benefit from that (a war in Iran) would be the Israeli's and the Saudis ... and I think if I was looking at a counter-intelligence operation to decide where this information came from I'd be very interested to see if I could find an Israeli hand, or Saudi hand... because in the long run, Judge, both Israel and Saudi Arabia are much more dangerous enemies to the United States than the Iranians are. The Iranians are a third-rate military power that we could handle very easily. But you know, the Congress is CRAZY for war with Iran ... listen to senator Graham, and senator McCain and Joe Lieberman ... they're owned by the Israeli's... the Saudi's are VERY influential so when you look at these kind of things you have to ask who would benefit from the war? The Israeli's and the Saudi's would LOVE to see our money and our young men and women being killed to fight their enemies in Iran."
Giving platform to things like this over U.S. airwaves, as was done on FREEDOM WATCH, is apparently not "authorized" by AIPAC -- The American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
(2) The Judges's final broadcast of FREEDOM WATCH on 14 February 2012: http://youtu.be/a2tC-npvuGk
Originated: 13 February 2012
Supplemented: 14 February 2012
Revised & Supplemented: 22 February 2012
Spell-corrected & Polished: 23 February 2012
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