Yesterday, Wednesday 29 January 2014, the leader of congressional
Democrats, Harry Reid — the U.S. Senate Majority Leader — came out
publicly saying, “I’m against fast track.” This
means that unlike the international-trade treaties that were rammed
through Congress under George W. Bush, Obama’s trade deals won’t be —
and that they are thus now practically dead.
The TPP was a disastrous deal for America and the details, mostly keep secret by this administration, deserve the full inspection of the American people.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Vermont on the road to Single Payer Health Care
From the Brattleboro Reformer –
The health care committee of the Vermont House is lining up some of the tasks that will have to be finished before the state rolls out the first-in-the-nation single payer health care system, now scheduled for 2017.
Meeting Friday at the Statehouse, the committee heard from legislative staffers who outlined details that will have to be worked out, such as how to ensure the state gets the maximum amount of federal dollars and who would be covered.
There are details such as what would happen if a person living in Vermont works in another state where their employer offers health insurance or if someone from another state worked in Vermont and their employer didn’t offer insurance.
On Tuesday, Gov. Peter Shumlin recommitted the state to the single payer goal.
The health care committee of the Vermont House is lining up some of the tasks that will have to be finished before the state rolls out the first-in-the-nation single payer health care system, now scheduled for 2017.
Meeting Friday at the Statehouse, the committee heard from legislative staffers who outlined details that will have to be worked out, such as how to ensure the state gets the maximum amount of federal dollars and who would be covered.
There are details such as what would happen if a person living in Vermont works in another state where their employer offers health insurance or if someone from another state worked in Vermont and their employer didn’t offer insurance.
On Tuesday, Gov. Peter Shumlin recommitted the state to the single payer goal.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
America Isn't Destined To Be More Liberal
If anything, we're trending toward libertarianism.
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, left-wing activist
Steve Rosenthal sounds a lot like other wishful thinkers arriving
at a comfortable partisan conclusion. America, he writes, is only a
few years from a full-blown progressive electorate. "A close
examination of U.S. attitudes in the past decade-plus," Rosenthal
contends, "reveals that the United States is steadily becoming more
progressive."
It seems to be widely accepted by the media that demographics,
GOP ineptitude and internal division, and a generational shift on
social issues place the American voter on an enduring leftward
course. Is this inevitable? Well, about as inevitable as Karl
Rove's durable Republican majority.
You don't have to be a stickler for academic rigor to appreciate that an 825-word column with a few links to some Gallup polls is not really a "close examination" of anything. But you don't have to be a historian to understand that the electorate, though hardly immune to terrible ideas, is, in the end, stubbornly moderate with little use for philosophical consistency. Which is to say, no one knows what the future will look like.
Voters not only have conflicting ideological views but also change their minds on those issues all the time—and oftentimes for no good reason at all. We are irrational. We are mercurial. We're irresponsible. And when we're not, events that "change everything" (9/11 and the Great Recession come to mind) tend to blow up these alleged electoral trajectories we're on anyway. And let's not forget voter backlashes, religious awakenings, economic booms and busts, political scandals, charismatic leaders, and technological advances, all of which can disrupt lines on the graph.
That's just broadly speaking, of course. Even if we accepted Rosenthal's facts in the short term, a person could use his piece to make a rather compelling case that the nation is trending more libertarian than it is progressive.
A cultural shift is not always an ideological one—or at least not always the one you imagine. Our norms are always evolving. Immigration, pot legalization, same-sex marriage and "big business" are the issues that Rosenthal claims portend progressivism's triumph. Yet most of these are only incidentally progressive. Marijuana legalization or support for same-sex marriage is far more likely caused by a growing "live and let live" mindset than it is any burst of leftist idealism. And if the "live and let live" mindset starts bleeding into other areas of American life—say, education, health care, and religious freedom—the left is in trouble.
In the end, the progressive agenda demands that you trust the state to control economic outcomes—an idea that is yet to be proved especially popular among Americans. Will it be? Who knows? But right now, what does seem to be growing is skepticism toward government, especially among the young. When Gallup asks about what people "think the most important problem facing this country today is," it doesn't bode well for the left that a plurality of people—independents, Republicans and Democrats—say it's government. Fifty-three percent of Americans claim to believe government does "too many things." (Forty percent think its powers should be expanded.) Add to this the fact that according to Gallup, a record number of Americans (42 percent) are rejecting partisan labels and identifying as political independents. Sounds as if there's a growing number of voters with a libertarian disposition—though most would never articulate it that way.
And right now, the unpopularity and struggles of Obamacare—the most notable political accomplishment associated with the progressive left—make it tough to imagine any electorate signing off on another national technocratic adventure in the foreseeable future. The Obamacare debate has made it nearly impossible to do anything in Washington (a triumph for libertarian governance). Judging from the polls, the voters Rosenthal claims are turning hard left seem to be more amenable to supporting reforms that loosen, rather than expand, federal control over health care. What makes anyone believe a more progressive alternative would be popular?
But like many folks on the left, Rosenthal is forced to make a big leap. He contends that a shift on social issues and the electoral success of (a now-unpopular) Barack Obama prove that the entire progressive buffet is destined for widespread approval. Guess what. It doesn't work that way. Support for gay marriage does not mean support for unions. (Unions, one of the backbones of political progressivism, have never been less popular in practice.) Pot legalization does not mean we're ready to nationalize energy policy. And support for immigration reform doesn't mean people are prepared to "make everything owned by everybody" as a writer in Rolling Stone suggests. And though I certainly don't believe we're about to privatize Social Security, to believe that the philosophy of the electorate is on a fixed leftward arc—which seems to be conventional wisdom these days—is premature.
See the Article Here:
You don't have to be a stickler for academic rigor to appreciate that an 825-word column with a few links to some Gallup polls is not really a "close examination" of anything. But you don't have to be a historian to understand that the electorate, though hardly immune to terrible ideas, is, in the end, stubbornly moderate with little use for philosophical consistency. Which is to say, no one knows what the future will look like.
Voters not only have conflicting ideological views but also change their minds on those issues all the time—and oftentimes for no good reason at all. We are irrational. We are mercurial. We're irresponsible. And when we're not, events that "change everything" (9/11 and the Great Recession come to mind) tend to blow up these alleged electoral trajectories we're on anyway. And let's not forget voter backlashes, religious awakenings, economic booms and busts, political scandals, charismatic leaders, and technological advances, all of which can disrupt lines on the graph.
That's just broadly speaking, of course. Even if we accepted Rosenthal's facts in the short term, a person could use his piece to make a rather compelling case that the nation is trending more libertarian than it is progressive.
A cultural shift is not always an ideological one—or at least not always the one you imagine. Our norms are always evolving. Immigration, pot legalization, same-sex marriage and "big business" are the issues that Rosenthal claims portend progressivism's triumph. Yet most of these are only incidentally progressive. Marijuana legalization or support for same-sex marriage is far more likely caused by a growing "live and let live" mindset than it is any burst of leftist idealism. And if the "live and let live" mindset starts bleeding into other areas of American life—say, education, health care, and religious freedom—the left is in trouble.
In the end, the progressive agenda demands that you trust the state to control economic outcomes—an idea that is yet to be proved especially popular among Americans. Will it be? Who knows? But right now, what does seem to be growing is skepticism toward government, especially among the young. When Gallup asks about what people "think the most important problem facing this country today is," it doesn't bode well for the left that a plurality of people—independents, Republicans and Democrats—say it's government. Fifty-three percent of Americans claim to believe government does "too many things." (Forty percent think its powers should be expanded.) Add to this the fact that according to Gallup, a record number of Americans (42 percent) are rejecting partisan labels and identifying as political independents. Sounds as if there's a growing number of voters with a libertarian disposition—though most would never articulate it that way.
And right now, the unpopularity and struggles of Obamacare—the most notable political accomplishment associated with the progressive left—make it tough to imagine any electorate signing off on another national technocratic adventure in the foreseeable future. The Obamacare debate has made it nearly impossible to do anything in Washington (a triumph for libertarian governance). Judging from the polls, the voters Rosenthal claims are turning hard left seem to be more amenable to supporting reforms that loosen, rather than expand, federal control over health care. What makes anyone believe a more progressive alternative would be popular?
But like many folks on the left, Rosenthal is forced to make a big leap. He contends that a shift on social issues and the electoral success of (a now-unpopular) Barack Obama prove that the entire progressive buffet is destined for widespread approval. Guess what. It doesn't work that way. Support for gay marriage does not mean support for unions. (Unions, one of the backbones of political progressivism, have never been less popular in practice.) Pot legalization does not mean we're ready to nationalize energy policy. And support for immigration reform doesn't mean people are prepared to "make everything owned by everybody" as a writer in Rolling Stone suggests. And though I certainly don't believe we're about to privatize Social Security, to believe that the philosophy of the electorate is on a fixed leftward arc—which seems to be conventional wisdom these days—is premature.
See the Article Here:
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Minimum Wage... Wasn't this what I said?
Open Letter to a Business Owner Who Supports Raising the Minimum Wage
Washington, DC
Dear Ms. Schaefer:
You’re identified in a mass e-mail, sent by “Business for a Fair Minimum Wage,” as “co-owner of nine ACE Hardware stores in Washington DC and Maryland.” And you also signed a petition calling for a higher minimum wage – a stance that you justify with the following argument:
“We have nearly 200 employees and our starting wage for sales associates is $10 an hour. That helps us attract and retain employees who deliver the great service that draws large numbers of customers to our stores and enables us to stay competitive. Increasing the minimum wage will help promote a healthy, dedicated workforce and keep more dollars circulating in our local economy.”
Your statement raises many questions. For example: if all employers would be better able to “stay competitive” by paying all of their workers wages above the current minimum, why do they not already do so? After all, you now pay such higher wages. Why do you suppose that your particular business plan will work equally well for other firms? Asked differently, why do you presume that other business owners are so inept that they’re leaving easy money on the table?
If history is any guide, you – a business owner who supports a higher minimum wage – actually presume no such ineptness on the part of your competitors. Your support for raising the minimum wage is almost surely driven by your wish to increase your profitability by throttling your competitors. Quite likely, your rivals now profitably use business plans that rely more heavily than does your plan upon the use of low-skilled workers. Because your workers already earn wages at or above the proposed higher minimum, your costs will be unaffected by a hike in the minimum wage. Your competitors, however, won’t be so lucky. When their costs are forcibly raised, they’ll be less able to compete effectively with you for customers. Some rivals will exit the industry while others scale down their operations.
Your enhanced profitability, in other words, will be extracted from the hides not only of your hapless competitors but also from the many low-skilled workers whose employment prospects will shrink – and all while you wear a cloak of faux altruism that, sadly, fools the gullible into thinking that you’re a friend of the poor.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
http://cafehayek.com/2014/01/open-letter-to-a-business-owner-who-supports-raising-the-minimum-wage.html
The media ignored an “earth-shattering” story out of Wisconsin
The ‘Earth-Shattering’ News Rush Limbaugh Says the Media Ignored, but You Need to Know
Conservative radio host Rush
Limbaugh expressed disgust, though not shock, that the mainstream media
ignored an “earth-shattering” story out of Wisconsin that “should have
caused a political earthquake.”
The state of Wisconsin’s unemployment
rate is “rapidly falling” and the government’s budget ended the year
with a $912 million surplus, Limbaugh explained. He says the dramatic
turnaround is due in large part to the conservative policies of Gov.
Scott Walker.
What’s even more amazing, he continued,
is the fact that Walker is going to “rebate the money in the form of
tax cuts to the people, who he said own the money.” Limbaugh says the
news is “earth-shattering” because, in one of the bluest states, Walker
was targeted for removal twice but continued to implement conservative
policies that he was confident would help his state — and his strategy
appears to be working.
“They did everything they could to gin
up hate, anger, tried to destroy his reputation, his career, and his
life,” he said. “He hung in there. The state of Wisconsin instituted his
policy reforms, de-emphasizing the role of unions in the state.”
Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker, a member of the executive committee of the National
Governors Association, speaks to the media after meeting with President
Barack Obama at the White House Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, in Washington.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
“He’s going to cut income taxes and
property taxes, and he made the point that it’s not just a gimmick of
budgeting or accounting. It’s the result of serious, significant policy
changes,” Limbaugh argued.
“Now, folks, what I just told you was
not reported once anywhere in what you would consider mainstream media.
It was not reported on one cable network, much less all of them. It was
not reported in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the LA
Times,” he added. “It was reported in Wisconsin. There was an AP story
on it, maybe some local papers picked it up, but just as a filler.”
“And to me, for us as conservatives,
Wisconsin and Governor Walker, I mean, everything that we want to
happen, happened there,” the radio host concluded.
Walker is proposing a $504 million property and income tax cut plan
as a means to return some of the surplus money to the people of
Wisconsin. Some Democrats and Republicans are already criticizing the
plan and are calling for changes.
“The budget surplus is really your
money,” Walker recently said at a meeting of the Wisconsin Grocers
Association. “You earned it.”
However, some lawmakers are concerned
that Walker’s tax cut plan would increase the state’s projected budget
shortfall from $700 million to $800,000 million. The Republican governor
argues the estimates don’t take into account any revenue growth, which
he says will cover the difference.
The unemployment rate in Wisconsin dropped to 6.2 percent in December and has been dropping steadily since 2011.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Ironic Musings Of A Misguided Socialist
For those of you see the flaws in the proposition that socialism is a stellar choice for America.... you might want a drink... or two before reading this...
Saturday, Jan 18, 2014 06:45 AM PST
Imagine
a world without the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, the Wall Street
Journal, and countless other tools used by the 1 percent to rule and
fool.
In a socialist society run by and for the working people it represents, the mega-monopolies like Walmart, Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the corporations that run the tightly controlled “mainstream media” will be a thing of the past.
It’s not news that the major US media are run by and for big business, or that the major media companies are themselves big businesses. Twenty years ago, thirty corporations controlled 90 percent of US media. Today, it is a grand total of six mega-corporations—Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and Comcast. Besides accumulating their own profits, the media are daily trumpets for the rest of the corporate world’s advertising.
If you’ve ever worked for a newspaper or magazine, you know the process of layout and design. The ads are laid out before anything else except the lead stories; the other news and feature stories are then fit between ads. “What can we find to fill this hole?” an editor will frequently shout, referring to a page where stories have not yet been designated to fill the space between the ads, thus leaving a “news hole.” Media owners’ profits do not come primarily from the money we spend to buy their publications, but from the ads inside them. While big advertisers don’t directly select what news is published, publishers, editors, and news directors know what they like and will rarely risk their disapproval.
“It would be foolish to expect objective reporting: not because journalists are bad people, but because of the economic structure of the organizations they work for,” Arundhati Roy wrote in 2011. “In fact, what is surprising is that despite all this, occasionally there is some very good reporting. But overall we have silence, or a completely distorted picture.”
Online news sources also rely on ads for their profits even more than their print-media cousins. So do the search engines and portal sites through which people gain access to them, such as Google and Yahoo!. But it’s online media that have the potential for wider than ever public participation and exchange of views.
A democratic, accessible-to-all media will move to center stage in a socialist USA. In some ways this democratization of the media is already happening on the Internet. But the government’s ability to spy on and even turn off the Internet belies any real democracy. In a socialist democracy, working people will control the political process, the way in which they make a living, and collectively and individually, they will influence mass culture. The Internet will be a powerful and democratizing tool in this effort.
Yet the media business, for those who now own and run it, is more than just a money-making operation. The owners also promote their political agenda. Through selecting and disseminating news—or presenting propaganda like “the recession is over” or “drones almost always hit their targets”—the media moguls push the public to support that agenda, from their political candidates to their wars. In capitalist societies, what’s reported as “news” is selected, organized, and presented by an army of self-important publishers, editors, and writers who—if they want to keep their jobs—follow their corporate employers’ political line. And what’s not reported is often just as telling. In 2012, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting noted that less than one percent of news stories in eight major outlets covered poverty.
Indeed, almost a century ago, Upton Sinclair, in “The Brass Check,” defined journalism in the United States as “the day-to-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.”
But
what will the media be like in a socialist USA? There is no blueprint,
but in a society that has erased corporate control, the articles in
newspapers and magazines and online will not be filler between ads for
teeth whiteners and weight-loss pills. There won’t be TV commercials for
Coke, cars, or million-dollar condos. There will be no private
corporations to create and sponsor the news.
Most of us could probably manage to struggle through life without Coca-Cola and Colgate, but who, then, will pay for the news? Who will pay the salaries of reporters, camera people, technicians, announcers, maintenance staff, online journalists, professional bloggers, and videographers?
In a socialist society a portion of the media would be reserved for news disseminated by the democratically elected governing bodies, that is, working people elected by and for working people.
But state ownership is not the only way media can represent the interests of working people, to speak with or through their voices. In most cases, the media would be owned and operated by working-class organizations—labor unions, neighborhood associations, and cultural centers.
So news (and views) in a socialist society will be brought to you by a plethora of noncommercial sponsors. The government media will report on and discuss, for example, the major government plans for production, how to improve education, and more. But other media—newspapers, TV and radio stations, and Web sites sponsored by workers’ organizations, cultural organizations, youth groups, sports teams, and neighborhood groups will report on issues specific to their interests.
Socialist media will be multisponsored and multifaceted and reflect a range of opinions even when there are disagreements and arguments.
But what about the cost? Can workers’ organizations such as labor unions, tenants’ organizations, or citywide parent-teacher associations really afford to pay for daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, TV and radio newscasts, blogs, and online audio-and video-streaming techniques?
In most cases, workers could meet the cost of media-making with add-ons to union dues, but that may not always be needed. New technology has drastically cut the costs of producing media. Smaller, easier-to-use cameras, recorders, and other airwave technology, as well as the electronic publication of books, newsletters, and blogs, have brought media production within the reach of almost everyone.
Union dues today pay for the publication, including staff salaries, of many union newspapers. In a socialist society, where money is allocated based on assessed social need and not on projected profits, government will subsidize many salaries in social, economic, political, and educational areas. (Even under capitalism, the government funds public schools, although usually in a distorted manner through which schools in wealthier areas get the most money.) So salaries at the media operations of smaller unions will most likely be covered by government subsidies.
The organizational outreach of such workers’ groups—through their affiliates and friends across the country (and often around the world) will provide the circulation that is so critical—and in capitalist society, so costly.
But what about bias? Can a newspaper or TV news program run by the autoworkers’ union, for example, provide critical reports about that union’s problems and weaknesses? When workers on one section of an auto assembly line feel that the line is moving too fast for safety—perhaps it has already caused some minor injuries, and they believe a major accident is inevitable—while union officials are publicly boasting about their plant’s speed and “socialist efficiency,” will the union’s TV program invite the complaining workers on the air to discuss their issues? Indeed, will “Autoworkers News and Views” on TV have a regular segment devoted to union members’ criticisms?
Why not? Who better to discuss and debate problems inside a union than the members who live with and often suffer from those problems? If unions or neighborhood councils are truly trying to make things better for their members, what more effective tools than media outlets to spur such improvements?
But the main difference between news media under socialism and the news media we know today will be what gets covered.
Since the first hieroglyphics, the role of the media has been to spread the word—to disseminate news (and views) to readers, listeners, and viewers. And from the very beginning, the number-one question has been: Whose news and whose views?
With no corporate padlocks, the media door will be open for a variety of forms different from the news we’re permitted today. Instead of assigning reporters and editors to cover beats (and often it’s not just beats but entire sections of each day’s news) such as celebrity weddings or Wall Street wheeling and dealing, socialist media will have beats of a different class—working-class beats.
Instead of who makes profit—and how much profit—from the sale of GM trucks, socialist media will cover who makes those trucks. They would also talk to the people who drive those trucks, to evaluate their safety features and propose new ones.
Imagine the news media with no Wall Street business reports, no stock-market prices—the socialist economy will no longer be controlled by Wall Street businesses. Indeed, there will be no big businesses on Wall (or any other) Street, and no stock market. News media will no longer report on the president’s golf game or the first lady’s new dress, or propagandize for war, or lie about and cover up scandals.
To be sure, there will be no shortage of economic news in a socialist society. Some news will still come from local and national governments that set product-distribution quotas or help to negotiate them, sponsor trade and international exchange with other countries, and—if the world is still partly controlled by capitalist powers—organize defense against economic (as well as cultural, and possibly military) assaults. But most news reports in socialist media will come from working people themselves.
Here are a few news-story possibilities:
• At an air-conditioner factory in Brooklyn, a man and a woman on the assembly line recently both lost a finger in an accident in the grid-cutting operation. When the workers first tried using safety gloves to protect their hands, they were so bulky that it was almost impossible to operate the machinery effectively. They came up with a thinner glove, which was better for working but not strong enough to prevent blades from slicing through. Finally, with help from their machinists union local, several plant workers developed, tested, and installed a new electric-eye “hand shield” that automatically shuts down the line before any injury can occur. This might well be a national news story, especially if there was controversy over whether the new device shut down the line unnecessarily and thereby impaired production.
• A union theater group, part of the nationwide New Workers Theater League that is often in the culture section of the media, produces new dramas written by workers as well as old but still popular pieces like “Threepenny Opera,” ”Waiting for Lefty,” and “West Side Story.”
• There could also be reports of school poetry slams, neighborhood art shows, music festivals, rival baseball teams cooking contests, and dance parties.
And there will be stories of continuing struggles to make sure that the revolution represents the entire working class—especially struggles against the old but adhesive attitudes of racism and sexism. In a society where racism and sexism are as widespread as they are in the United States, they will not evaporate simply because revolutionaries nail a “closed” sign to the door of the New York Stock Exchange.
Discussions, debates, even battles will continue, and social justice committees will be elected by the union membership to look into complaints and to dig up and root out capitalist, racist, and sexist weeds that continue to grow.
Social justice committees in each workplace and community will have no shortage of complaints to consider—and the media will have no shortage of stories to investigate.
Besides reporting news, the media will be key to ensuring the fullest public discussion and debate of policies under consideration by national and local governments, as well as of proposed changes in local workplaces, schools, and communities. Functioning as a public forum in this way will involve more than simply letters to the editor and interviews with readers.
Online media will continue to play its vital role. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs strengthen discussion and debate and ensure that all readers have a voice in the societal dialogue.
Moreover, working people, students of all ages, and retired people, all can and will also launch their own reports and discussions, only adding to the sense of participatory democracy.
The major news media—municipal, regional, or national—can and almost certainly will include selections of highlights from local online forum discussions and blogs.
These media forums will also include sections—perhaps certain pages, perhaps certain days of the week—for discussion and debate about readers’ everyday problems. Children, teenagers, and young adults would have their own columns.
There will be many other features in the media of a socialist society. One would certainly be “never forget,” stories in words and pictures—on-air or online or both—describing battles waged previously during life under capitalism: tent cities for homeless families, “stop-and-frisk” police policies that singled out young black and Latino men, and the experience of unemployment and long-term joblessness. But “Never Forget” would also feature stories about fighting capitalist oppression through strikes and marches, and about heroes of past struggles.
Besides “Never Forget” columns in the daily and weekly media, a series of historical TV specials or mini-magazines on themes such as the Native American resistance movement, labor organizing, and the fight against racism could be produced by student journalists working with older folks who took part in those struggles.
These would also be available to teachers for classroom use. Stories about life under capitalism, about the struggles to create a new and just society, and about forming a socialist democracy will all make for compelling reading. It is up to us to make sure this happens.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/18/lets_nationalize_fox_news_imagining_a_very_different_media/
Saturday, Jan 18, 2014 06:45 AM PST
Let’s nationalize Fox News: Imagining a very different media
Bye, Rush! If corporate media disappeared, and the people had their voices heard, here's what it might look like
Excerpted from "Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA"
In a socialist society run by and for the working people it represents, the mega-monopolies like Walmart, Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and the corporations that run the tightly controlled “mainstream media” will be a thing of the past.
It’s not news that the major US media are run by and for big business, or that the major media companies are themselves big businesses. Twenty years ago, thirty corporations controlled 90 percent of US media. Today, it is a grand total of six mega-corporations—Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, and Comcast. Besides accumulating their own profits, the media are daily trumpets for the rest of the corporate world’s advertising.
If you’ve ever worked for a newspaper or magazine, you know the process of layout and design. The ads are laid out before anything else except the lead stories; the other news and feature stories are then fit between ads. “What can we find to fill this hole?” an editor will frequently shout, referring to a page where stories have not yet been designated to fill the space between the ads, thus leaving a “news hole.” Media owners’ profits do not come primarily from the money we spend to buy their publications, but from the ads inside them. While big advertisers don’t directly select what news is published, publishers, editors, and news directors know what they like and will rarely risk their disapproval.
“It would be foolish to expect objective reporting: not because journalists are bad people, but because of the economic structure of the organizations they work for,” Arundhati Roy wrote in 2011. “In fact, what is surprising is that despite all this, occasionally there is some very good reporting. But overall we have silence, or a completely distorted picture.”
Online news sources also rely on ads for their profits even more than their print-media cousins. So do the search engines and portal sites through which people gain access to them, such as Google and Yahoo!. But it’s online media that have the potential for wider than ever public participation and exchange of views.
A democratic, accessible-to-all media will move to center stage in a socialist USA. In some ways this democratization of the media is already happening on the Internet. But the government’s ability to spy on and even turn off the Internet belies any real democracy. In a socialist democracy, working people will control the political process, the way in which they make a living, and collectively and individually, they will influence mass culture. The Internet will be a powerful and democratizing tool in this effort.
Yet the media business, for those who now own and run it, is more than just a money-making operation. The owners also promote their political agenda. Through selecting and disseminating news—or presenting propaganda like “the recession is over” or “drones almost always hit their targets”—the media moguls push the public to support that agenda, from their political candidates to their wars. In capitalist societies, what’s reported as “news” is selected, organized, and presented by an army of self-important publishers, editors, and writers who—if they want to keep their jobs—follow their corporate employers’ political line. And what’s not reported is often just as telling. In 2012, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting noted that less than one percent of news stories in eight major outlets covered poverty.
Indeed, almost a century ago, Upton Sinclair, in “The Brass Check,” defined journalism in the United States as “the day-to-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.”
Most of us could probably manage to struggle through life without Coca-Cola and Colgate, but who, then, will pay for the news? Who will pay the salaries of reporters, camera people, technicians, announcers, maintenance staff, online journalists, professional bloggers, and videographers?
In a socialist society a portion of the media would be reserved for news disseminated by the democratically elected governing bodies, that is, working people elected by and for working people.
But state ownership is not the only way media can represent the interests of working people, to speak with or through their voices. In most cases, the media would be owned and operated by working-class organizations—labor unions, neighborhood associations, and cultural centers.
So news (and views) in a socialist society will be brought to you by a plethora of noncommercial sponsors. The government media will report on and discuss, for example, the major government plans for production, how to improve education, and more. But other media—newspapers, TV and radio stations, and Web sites sponsored by workers’ organizations, cultural organizations, youth groups, sports teams, and neighborhood groups will report on issues specific to their interests.
Socialist media will be multisponsored and multifaceted and reflect a range of opinions even when there are disagreements and arguments.
But what about the cost? Can workers’ organizations such as labor unions, tenants’ organizations, or citywide parent-teacher associations really afford to pay for daily and weekly newspapers, magazines, TV and radio newscasts, blogs, and online audio-and video-streaming techniques?
In most cases, workers could meet the cost of media-making with add-ons to union dues, but that may not always be needed. New technology has drastically cut the costs of producing media. Smaller, easier-to-use cameras, recorders, and other airwave technology, as well as the electronic publication of books, newsletters, and blogs, have brought media production within the reach of almost everyone.
Union dues today pay for the publication, including staff salaries, of many union newspapers. In a socialist society, where money is allocated based on assessed social need and not on projected profits, government will subsidize many salaries in social, economic, political, and educational areas. (Even under capitalism, the government funds public schools, although usually in a distorted manner through which schools in wealthier areas get the most money.) So salaries at the media operations of smaller unions will most likely be covered by government subsidies.
The organizational outreach of such workers’ groups—through their affiliates and friends across the country (and often around the world) will provide the circulation that is so critical—and in capitalist society, so costly.
But what about bias? Can a newspaper or TV news program run by the autoworkers’ union, for example, provide critical reports about that union’s problems and weaknesses? When workers on one section of an auto assembly line feel that the line is moving too fast for safety—perhaps it has already caused some minor injuries, and they believe a major accident is inevitable—while union officials are publicly boasting about their plant’s speed and “socialist efficiency,” will the union’s TV program invite the complaining workers on the air to discuss their issues? Indeed, will “Autoworkers News and Views” on TV have a regular segment devoted to union members’ criticisms?
Why not? Who better to discuss and debate problems inside a union than the members who live with and often suffer from those problems? If unions or neighborhood councils are truly trying to make things better for their members, what more effective tools than media outlets to spur such improvements?
But the main difference between news media under socialism and the news media we know today will be what gets covered.
Since the first hieroglyphics, the role of the media has been to spread the word—to disseminate news (and views) to readers, listeners, and viewers. And from the very beginning, the number-one question has been: Whose news and whose views?
With no corporate padlocks, the media door will be open for a variety of forms different from the news we’re permitted today. Instead of assigning reporters and editors to cover beats (and often it’s not just beats but entire sections of each day’s news) such as celebrity weddings or Wall Street wheeling and dealing, socialist media will have beats of a different class—working-class beats.
Instead of who makes profit—and how much profit—from the sale of GM trucks, socialist media will cover who makes those trucks. They would also talk to the people who drive those trucks, to evaluate their safety features and propose new ones.
Imagine the news media with no Wall Street business reports, no stock-market prices—the socialist economy will no longer be controlled by Wall Street businesses. Indeed, there will be no big businesses on Wall (or any other) Street, and no stock market. News media will no longer report on the president’s golf game or the first lady’s new dress, or propagandize for war, or lie about and cover up scandals.
To be sure, there will be no shortage of economic news in a socialist society. Some news will still come from local and national governments that set product-distribution quotas or help to negotiate them, sponsor trade and international exchange with other countries, and—if the world is still partly controlled by capitalist powers—organize defense against economic (as well as cultural, and possibly military) assaults. But most news reports in socialist media will come from working people themselves.
Here are a few news-story possibilities:
• At an air-conditioner factory in Brooklyn, a man and a woman on the assembly line recently both lost a finger in an accident in the grid-cutting operation. When the workers first tried using safety gloves to protect their hands, they were so bulky that it was almost impossible to operate the machinery effectively. They came up with a thinner glove, which was better for working but not strong enough to prevent blades from slicing through. Finally, with help from their machinists union local, several plant workers developed, tested, and installed a new electric-eye “hand shield” that automatically shuts down the line before any injury can occur. This might well be a national news story, especially if there was controversy over whether the new device shut down the line unnecessarily and thereby impaired production.
• A union theater group, part of the nationwide New Workers Theater League that is often in the culture section of the media, produces new dramas written by workers as well as old but still popular pieces like “Threepenny Opera,” ”Waiting for Lefty,” and “West Side Story.”
• There could also be reports of school poetry slams, neighborhood art shows, music festivals, rival baseball teams cooking contests, and dance parties.
And there will be stories of continuing struggles to make sure that the revolution represents the entire working class—especially struggles against the old but adhesive attitudes of racism and sexism. In a society where racism and sexism are as widespread as they are in the United States, they will not evaporate simply because revolutionaries nail a “closed” sign to the door of the New York Stock Exchange.
Discussions, debates, even battles will continue, and social justice committees will be elected by the union membership to look into complaints and to dig up and root out capitalist, racist, and sexist weeds that continue to grow.
Social justice committees in each workplace and community will have no shortage of complaints to consider—and the media will have no shortage of stories to investigate.
Besides reporting news, the media will be key to ensuring the fullest public discussion and debate of policies under consideration by national and local governments, as well as of proposed changes in local workplaces, schools, and communities. Functioning as a public forum in this way will involve more than simply letters to the editor and interviews with readers.
Online media will continue to play its vital role. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs strengthen discussion and debate and ensure that all readers have a voice in the societal dialogue.
Moreover, working people, students of all ages, and retired people, all can and will also launch their own reports and discussions, only adding to the sense of participatory democracy.
The major news media—municipal, regional, or national—can and almost certainly will include selections of highlights from local online forum discussions and blogs.
These media forums will also include sections—perhaps certain pages, perhaps certain days of the week—for discussion and debate about readers’ everyday problems. Children, teenagers, and young adults would have their own columns.
There will be many other features in the media of a socialist society. One would certainly be “never forget,” stories in words and pictures—on-air or online or both—describing battles waged previously during life under capitalism: tent cities for homeless families, “stop-and-frisk” police policies that singled out young black and Latino men, and the experience of unemployment and long-term joblessness. But “Never Forget” would also feature stories about fighting capitalist oppression through strikes and marches, and about heroes of past struggles.
Besides “Never Forget” columns in the daily and weekly media, a series of historical TV specials or mini-magazines on themes such as the Native American resistance movement, labor organizing, and the fight against racism could be produced by student journalists working with older folks who took part in those struggles.
These would also be available to teachers for classroom use. Stories about life under capitalism, about the struggles to create a new and just society, and about forming a socialist democracy will all make for compelling reading. It is up to us to make sure this happens.
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/18/lets_nationalize_fox_news_imagining_a_very_different_media/
Another Way Of Looking At The Vote You Give
This is the preface to a book by Ludwig von Mises titled:
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
Originally published in 1951 with a second addition in 1962 this book was an English version of the original German print of 1922. The preface to the German version is considerably longer but no less profound in its indictment of socialist thinking and the lengths to which the socialist will go to sell if possible, discredit logic as necessary and force if required, their brand of .... 'leadership'
The world is split today into two hostile camps, fighting each other with the utmost vehemence, Communists and anti-Communists. The magniloquent rhetoric to which these factions resort in their feud obscures the fact that they both perfectly agree in the ultimate end of their programme for mankind's social and economic organization. They both aim at the abolition of private enterprise and private ownership of the means of production and at the establishment of socialism. They want to substitute totalitarian government control for the market economy. No longer should individuals by their buying or abstention from buying determine what is to be produced and in what quantity and quality. Henceforth the government's unique plan alone should settle all these matters. 'Paternal' care of the 'Welfare State' will reduce all people to the status of bonded workers bound to comply, without asking questions, with the orders issued by the planning authority.
Neither is there any substantial difference between the intentions of the self-styled 'progressives' and those of the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis. The Fascists and the Nazis were no less eager to establish all-round regimentation of all economic activities than those governments and parties which flamboyantly advertise their anti-Fascist tenets. And Mr. Peron in Argentina tries to enforce a scheme which is a replica of the New Deal and the Fair Deal and like these will, if not stopped in time, result in full socialism.
The great ideological conflict of our age must not be confused with the mutual rivalries among the various totalitarian movements. The real issue is not who should run the totalitarian apparatus. The real problem is whether or not socialism should supplant the market economy.
Think about it when you decide who is best to lead our country...
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis
Originally published in 1951 with a second addition in 1962 this book was an English version of the original German print of 1922. The preface to the German version is considerably longer but no less profound in its indictment of socialist thinking and the lengths to which the socialist will go to sell if possible, discredit logic as necessary and force if required, their brand of .... 'leadership'
The world is split today into two hostile camps, fighting each other with the utmost vehemence, Communists and anti-Communists. The magniloquent rhetoric to which these factions resort in their feud obscures the fact that they both perfectly agree in the ultimate end of their programme for mankind's social and economic organization. They both aim at the abolition of private enterprise and private ownership of the means of production and at the establishment of socialism. They want to substitute totalitarian government control for the market economy. No longer should individuals by their buying or abstention from buying determine what is to be produced and in what quantity and quality. Henceforth the government's unique plan alone should settle all these matters. 'Paternal' care of the 'Welfare State' will reduce all people to the status of bonded workers bound to comply, without asking questions, with the orders issued by the planning authority.
Neither is there any substantial difference between the intentions of the self-styled 'progressives' and those of the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis. The Fascists and the Nazis were no less eager to establish all-round regimentation of all economic activities than those governments and parties which flamboyantly advertise their anti-Fascist tenets. And Mr. Peron in Argentina tries to enforce a scheme which is a replica of the New Deal and the Fair Deal and like these will, if not stopped in time, result in full socialism.
The great ideological conflict of our age must not be confused with the mutual rivalries among the various totalitarian movements. The real issue is not who should run the totalitarian apparatus. The real problem is whether or not socialism should supplant the market economy.
Think about it when you decide who is best to lead our country...
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
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