Organizing for America | Posts with the tag Media reform

Posts with the tag Media reform

By Bluejane - Jul 20th, 2009 at 4:15 am EDT

Also listed in: President Obama, Please Get FISA Right

It's been exactly a year since my last post and since then Pres Obama has betrayed us on FISA and has refused to bring Bush-Cheney crimes to justice. AG Holder might investigate torture but only "beyond" what was "authorized" by Yoo and Bybee memos, giving credence to those absurd rationalizations. Obama and Holder appear to be willing to overrule the Nuremburg principle which refused to accept following an illegal order as a defense.

They must think we are little children.

The president's appointments have been pathetic (Judd Gregg for Commerce who fortunately resigned) to bordering on criminal (Geithner and Summers to manage the economic crisis whose beginning they oversaw and did nothing about). He seems like a Wall Street "insider wannabe," letting Goldman Sachs rule the roost and benefit by public money while speculating in the oil market and raising gas prices while also rapid trading to inflate Goldman's profits sky-high. He is about to open up a new potential "bubble" in the cap-and-trade market which Goldman Sachs will dominate. Obama has catered to the coal industry, refusing to stop mountain top stripping and even allowing the coal industry to use a portion of his speech about "clean coal" in a nationally aired TV commercial (Most energy experts believe there is no such thing as "clean coal" and this is a mere marketing PR scam). Pres Obama has refused to release visitor logs showing coal industry execs' visits to the White House (just like Cheney). He appointed Dennis Blair to the top intel post despite abundant evidence of Blair's complicity in mass killings in East Timor.

The list goes on and on. I'm a moderate progressive independent who voted for Obama, largely to avoid letting McCain and Palin get into the White House. I was concerned about Obama's weakness of leadership long before the election, based largely on his FISA vote and his disingenuous and even misleading statements surrounding his vote.

Pres Obama has been a passive leader, letting healthcare reform get out of control in the hands of corrupted Dem Senators in the pockets of private insurance companies like Sen Baucus. The bill is not yet final but so far it is shaping up to give us a public option, which won't kick in for 4 years (2013), based not on Medicare or even a "Medicare-like" national public system but on the already overburdened state-based Medicaid system which will create a medical welfare system in which we have to prove ourselves poor. Then he says he will cut Medicaid to help pay consumers' premiums for private insurance. OUTRAGEOUS!

Pres Obama should have insisted on a full healthcare overhaul to single payer. His standard line is we can't "disrupt the employer-based healthcare system" but in this disastrous economy so many employers are laying people off that millions of workers are losing their healthcare anyway and so many companies are going out of business that now is exactly the right time to change the system to single payer which will save companies millions of dollars and thus save jobs and provide healthcare in the bargain. Single payer is not just a health plan but an economic plan.

At this rate, I and many of my colleagues and friends are looking for a way to vote for a different candidate for president in 2012. We're working on a concept for a non-party movement to influence voters and candidates on 3 main issues: Clean elections (public financing of elections and purge lobbyists from Congress); media reform (create a parallel noncommercial public information/news system; break up media monopolies); and bring about universal public healthcare based on single payer with a commonly shared view toward decorporatizing these three vital areas of our democracy and getting back to "putting people first."

Read this and weep. We're still young and we're going to get this done. Lead, follow or get out of the way, Pres Obama. This is where we're going.

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The Narrative Flood

By Joseph - Sep 19th, 2008 at 12:23 pm EDT

I have noted this once before, but it might work if I note it three times: The Media is Conservative, The Media is Conservative, The Media is Conservative. Since the success of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN have all leaned to the right when delivering the news. This affects what polls they reference, who they bring on their shows, and, most of all, what they try to pass off as fact. Since the Republican convention, there has been a strong narrative John McCain, with the help of Super Palin, has caught up to and pass Barack Obama. Read More »

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Common Cause comparison of Obama and McCain Re: Media Reform Issues -- no info about Obama concerning Public Access (PEG)

By WallyStuart - Sep 7th, 2008 at 11:47 pm EDT

http://www.commonblog.com/story/2008/8/22/123647/812

Obama and McCain on Media Reform Issues By Jon Bartholomew
Posted on Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 12:36:47 PM EST

Where do the two major party candidates stand on the media reform issues we highlight in our new report, "Media and Democracy in America Today: A Reform Plan for a New Administration"?

It's a mixed bag.

McCain has a strong record of supporting Low Power FM Radio, increasing diversity of media ownership, funding public broadcasting and free air time for campaigns. However, he has opposed stopping media consolidation and is against net neutrality.

Obama on the other hand has been a vocal supporter of net neutrality and has actively opposed media consolidation. While generally good on most of the issues we highlight in the new report, he has less of a record to show for it.

And there are gaps in our knowledge. That's why we would like to hear from their campaigns and anyone else who can tell us where they stand on issues like reforming the processes at the Federal Communications Commission and if they support PEG Access TV.

We have a full chart of their stands on the issues we raise in our new report - as far as we know them. Check it out, and let us know if you have any more information.

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I am happy to read above that Obama has been a "... vocal supporter of net neutrality and has actively opposed media consolidation." However, my prime media issue is PEG Access TV. From this web site, link to Common Causes' "full chart of their (Obama's and McCain's) stands on the issues." Follow that chart to "Public Access (PEG)". Under Obama, you'll see no finding concerning Obama's stated position or legislative record on Public Access (PEG).

How does a voter find out Barack Obama's views on Public Access (PEG)?!

Wallace Stuart

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not this term vs. never again

By Christopher from Anchorage, AK - Feb 11th, 2008 at 12:31 am EST

Pundits have claimed that the only difference between Hillary and Obama is health care. It's much more than that. It's the way they do things. What we need is an election that repudiates 8 years of identity politics, spin, and lies. Barak Obama does that. Hillary Clinton uses the same Bush tactics to push new policies.

She's taken to heart the Bush lesson of claiming a strength where she is weakest. At her Super Tuesday speech, she said: "After seven years of a president who listens only to the special interests, you’re ready for a president who brings your voice... to your White House." Yeah, and the Clear Skies Initiative would reduce air pollution. Hillary has entrenched her campaign in special interest money, accepting millions Obama has refused to take. Accepting the money is not disturbing. Lying about it is.

Hillary learned from Karl Rove. Obama wants to prove Karl Rove wrong. The concrete under Obama’s platform is that Americans are smart enough for honesty to win.

The difference between Obama and Hillary is HOW they will go about things. For young Americans, the change that matters is the restoration of the America we love: an America based on the idea that given the facts, reasonable people make reasonable decisions, and every citizen is competent to make a choice. We see 7 years of incompetence as the root of a broken system. Both candidates will bring competence. Obama will bring honesty and openness. That's the healing America needs. The fact that he keeps gaining on someone who holds IOUs in every district proves that America is beginning to believe, too.

Rupert Murdoch is sponsoring Hillary Clinton fundraisers. The corporate media got us into messes in both elections and in Iraq. The 1996 Telecommunications Act created a media that allowed George Bush to get away with lies. I guarantee you Obama won’t be soft on media consolidation. Clinton knows she needs media support to win reelection. Clinton claims competence. Obama will change the fundamental sources of incompetence. A vote for Hillary is "not in the next four years." A vote for Obama is "never again."

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Bill Moyers' Speech at the National Conference for Media Reform

By CarolJ - Feb 11th, 2007 at 12:52 pm EST

Also listed in: 4 groups

I turned to Link TV this morning and they were showing some of the speeches from this year's National Conference for Media Reform. I tuned in just in time to catch the end of Bill Moyers' speech, and was so glad to hear him confirm that he is coming back to TV news. He also ended his speech with a sentiment (see the bold text below), and poem, that I felt was apropo for the beginning of the Obama campaign. The link below will take you to the transcript of the entire speech.

Bill Moyers' Speech at the National Conference for Media Reform, Jan 12, 2007

...in April, I will be back with a new weekly series called Bill Moyer’s Journal, thanks to some of the funders in this room. We’ll take no money from public broadcasting because it compromises you even when you don’t intend it to — or they don’t intend it to. I hope to complement the fine work of colleagues like David Brancaccio of NOW and David Fanning of Frontline, who also go for the truth behind the news....

And in case you do get lonely, I’ll leave you with this. As my plane was circling Memphis the other day, I looked out across those vast miles of fertile soil that once were plantations, watered by the Mississippi River, and the sweat from the brow of countless men and women who had been forced to live somebody else’s story. I thought about how in time, with a lot of martyrs, they rose up, one here, then two, then many, forging a great movement that awakened America’s conscience and brought us closer to the elusive but beautiful promise of the Declaration of Independence. As we made our last approach, the words of a Marge Piercy poem began to form in my head, and I remembered all over again why I was coming and why you were here: Read the rest of the speech >>

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