Democracy is about to be killed unless something happens now

[disneyboy20022]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/opinion/22fri1.html


I think I might be leaving the USA if this becomes a reality in the next few years....and isn't stopped....

[Lazario]

It'll probably happen. If people can't understand what it's about - and I was having trouble understanding that - then, they won't care.

[Goliath]

the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Huh? How is this news? This has been happening in the US for decades now. Corporations buy politicians, and once in office, they do the bidding of the corporations. If a politician refuses to take corporate money, he'll never get any further than representing his home district in the House. It takes an absurd amount of money to run campaigns, after all.

[Maerj]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VebOTc-7shU

[IagoZazu]

Sounds like the NYT is overreacting to me. Corporations already choose candidates with the help of something called unions.

I'm sure people know about it, but they know that it's nothing new. If Democracy was in jeopardy now, it would have been nonexistent in the days of John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and other Gilded Age corporal titans.

[SpringHeelJack]

the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.

Huh? How is this news? This has been happening in the US for decades now.

This eases and alters the currently existing limitations.

[Goliath]

Sounds like the NYT is overreacting to me. Corporations already choose candidates with the help of something called unions.

Huh? Corporations and unions working together? Since when?

I'm sure people know about it, but they know that it's nothing new. If Democracy was in jeopardy now, it would have been nonexistent in the days of John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and other Gilded Age corporal titans.

Uh... it was. It wasn't until 1920 that women in all 50 states were allowed to vote. Black people weren't allowed to vote everywhere until 1964. Real democracy only started then. Besides that it was killed a year earlier.

[Maerj]

Hre's a releveant article to the subject, I think:

http://trueslant.com/timzimmermann/2010 ... n=20100122


Politics is a rat infested sewer, huh?

[Goliath]

For those of you who are angry that the media have paid no attention to this story:

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[disneyboy20022]

Olberman brings up a valid point......which I've had that view for a while....why do we need to focus on Politicians and their Sex Lives or whether one is gay or not.....I mean the 2 weeks before 9/11 happened all they talked about on the news was this missing girl and a senator who she was having affair with....and that's all I heard on the news for 2 weeks....then 9/11 happens....my point is maybe if we quit obsessing over the sex lives or choices they make unless it's like they molested a child or something....let's instead focus on finding Bin Laden and goons like him...rather than trying to Figure out who the next Political Sex Scandal will be....because.....Honestly I care far more to capture and catch Bin Laden than find out about the sex lives of senators and politicans...yes its wrong what Edwards did and I am not condoning....just there are other things that are way more important such as getting relief to Haiti and also Finding Bin Laden or any kind of terroist and getting healthcare passed........because honestly I feel Bin Laden is a bigger threat to our country than John Edwards or Bill Clinton's or any poltiican be republican or demorct's sex sins combined....

[Goliath]

The only thing that Olbermann got wrong, I think, is that the media isn't just stupid... It's intentional. 'News' channels nowadays owned by only a handful of (foreign) corporations. Corporations which buy off politicians in Congress and, through campaign contributions, also the White House. Corporations which not only own media outlets, but also have a stake in maintaining the status quo in US foreign policy, since they profit from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when they're also in the arms dealing... Like General Electric, which owns MSNBC (Olbermann's employer).

They don't care about informing the public. They stopped caring a long time ago. Their task nowadays is keeping the public uninformed. They keep a few 'truth-tellers' employed (like Olbermann and Maddow) to give the false impression that they're doing real journalism, yet even they aren't allowed to question the 'system'. Olbermann has to do back-and-forth fighting with Fox hosts to entertain the sheeple (tabloid journalism); and even Maddow has to tolerate "funny" animations and captions in-between or during her segments. Nothing can be serious anymore. Everything has to be made 'fun'. Then the same MSNBC gives Joe Scarborough three hours and that weasel Matthews his own show, and they employ Pat "Haïti made a pact with the devil" Robertson, and they have Ed Schultz, who is nothing more but a liberal equivalent of O'Reilly.

Please watch PBS; watch the BBC; watch The Real News; watch Democracy Now. (And, despite everything I said, watch Olbermann and Maddow. Within the limits that MSNBC sets, they're the only ones in cable news doing actual journalism.)

[DaveWadding]

I think the best "newspersons" on TV are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Yes, comedians are giving better information than news networks.

[ajmrowland]

That reminds me of the Endangered Species/Anna-Nicole's Death comcined "report". Not nearly enough time on the animals(cute things that could change your life), and they cut to the death story even when nothing new has surfaced.

[Goliath]

I think the best "newspersons" on TV are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Yes, comedians are giving better information than news networks.

So true. I would also throw in Bill Maher. I've learned a whole lot from watching his show that I wouldn't have known had I only watched the 'news' channels.