This is bullshit. the evidence not only is in, but it is growing. The deniers rely purely on distorted data, and basically none of them are climate scientists. If you look at the famous list of climate "skeptics" often referred to as scientists, it turns out that almost none of them are actually scientists in the related fields.

The argument that scientists conspire to create panic so theyll recieve funding is complete bullshit. Anyone who believes that, simply doesn't understand how science works. The evidence for global warming comes from a wide vareity of fields, and the people responsible for collecting it includes, but are not limited to meteorologists, geologists, arctic explorers, glacier experts, NASA and other space-organisations, marine biologists, oceanographers and people who do climate research. If this is a conspiracy, it is simply unprecedented in the history of everything, and involves mostly people with no interest in fueling the panic. Much of the imagery that shows the ice receding, for instance, come from NASA, now why would a company that burns off a hundred tons of fuel every time they send a rocket to space, want to lie so that people thought burning fuel was destroying the planet?

If you are a climate scientist, and you are interested in making a shitload of cash, Call Exxon on and lend your credibility to them for an infomercial, and you wont need to lift a finger the rest of your life. Much, much easier than trying to co-conspire with thousands of scientists.

This is pretty much as close as it gets to demagoguery.

Consumers are spending less because they are continuing to rebalance towards saving. Businesses are preferring to build up saving buffers rather than investing partially because of this lack of demand and because they are still relatively uncertain about economic conditions given everything from debt worries in Europe, worries of a housing bubble in China, and from the tepid recovery itself.

Obviously in a case like this, the interest rate has very little effect on economy. Not that rates can be cut any lower. They've been at 0-0.25% since the end of 2008 and it appears will stay that way, with the official tagline since then being 'for an indefinite period of time' - something blatantly relevant and obvious that was omitted here.

That and the fact that they are doing something, buying up Treasury bonds from maturing mortgage debt securities.

Not to mention they have been for a while, they took their balance sheet up to $2.3 trillion, an unprecedented amount. It seems only yesterday that the complaint was that the Federal Reserve was taking on too much debt as an unelected government entity.

As for the argument the inflation rate is currently low, changing the money supply through the buying and selling of government securities takes 18 months to fully impact the economy, so it is easy to say there is no inflationary pressure currently, but it is much harder to predict with certainty the situation in one and a half year's time.

Also, I have something for Blacksphere's Uncle T. Junior here:
http://www.blackpast.org/files/blackpast_images/caliver_ambrose.jpg

Of course I could have pulled a picture of FDR in a crowd with some black people in it, but I thought something like this would be more interesting:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed an unprecedented number of African Americans to high positions. By mid-1935, forty-five had positions in cabinet offices and New Deal agencies. In 1936, this group began calling itself the Federal Council on Negro Affairs. Although these leaders were not officially cabinet members, their role in advising the President on black employment, education, and civil rights issues led the press to refer to them as FDR's "Black Cabinet" or the "Black Brain Trust."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cabinet

In principle, I agree.

But I know if the current president were aligned politically with Gingrich and Hannity, they would be cheering him on. They cheered on bush/cheney as they grabbed unprecedented power. (I guess they never figured it would be placed in the hand of a brother) I hoped that Obama would give it up, but that's a tall order for any human being to give up so much power.

Now we have a situation where a corporation (who increasingly have too much power themselves) has created a complete fuck-the-Earth disaster.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I think this is an unpopular/unpolitical message, but I fear that it may be the right one. Beware the doubled edge sword, it cuts both ways. The day comes where the president will be Nero, and the precedent of power will established will be fearsome indeed. F BP, let them face the courts and get reamed. But F the president as well, the executive branch taking more power will not get this country back to were we need.

Ah yes--The Oil Pollution Act-- that's it.

here is some of the transcript from the above link:

Steve Yerrid is a trial lawyer who was appointed as a special counselor to the state of Florida last week by Governor Charlie Crist. He will advise the governor about legal issues related to the spill. And Daniel Farber is director of the environmental law program at the University of California, Berkeley's Law School.

Steve Yerrid, let me start with you. Can the government, under current law, compel BP to start an escrow fund?

STEVE YERRID, special counsel, State of Florida: Well, Ray, we're clearly on new land right now, a frontier that was created after the Valdez oil spell -- spill -- excuse me.

And what I think they're going to do is premise it upon the -- the responsible party connotation and the Oil Pollution Act, which was packed -- passed in 1990, which makes a responsible party liable for all the damages and the cleanup.

What they want to do now is front-end that and put it in a trust fund to get away from BP looking like an oversight entity and put it on the government, a government we can trust a lot better than we can trust an oil company..................

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^longde:
Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.

Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.
It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.
Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.
The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.
The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)
(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

Pretty cool relevant link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june10/oil2_06-14.html

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/js/pap/embed.js?news01n408dqee7"></script>

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^longde:
Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.

Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.
It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.
Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.
The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.
The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)
(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

>> ^longde:

Congress passed a law in the early 90s giving the President the authority to do what he has, with respect to oil companies in this situation. I can't remember the name of that legislation, but what Obama did is perfectly legal.


Dunno about that, it seems to fall squarely on the shoulders of the MMS regulatory body, and then the courts...but I could be completely mistaken. linky.

It seems the MMS actually encourages people to get deep sea leases (all deep water is owned by the federal government). The MMS and the federal government get huge sums of money from these leases. This seems like an institutional failure in addition to all the other aspects. The MMS encouraged leases of offshore drilling. It now accounts for over a quarter of all domestic natural gas and crude oil. At this point, saying "lets shut it all down" would basically destroy us.

Interesting side note, the department of energy was founded in 1977 by Carter to try and purse an end to reliance of foreign oil. However, MMS falls under the department of the interior, not energy. Which is doubly insulting in their dubious leasing habits, as the DPI chief concern is the conservation of natural icons of the US. The fact that they get money, and encourage risky practices and glide over regulation points them out to be a blaring failure of a regulation body.

The legislation you are talking about is the President's role in moratorium. He has the ability to susped activities and such. He does not have direct arbiter, nor enforcer of penalties. Both he and congress have an annual moratoria responsibility. States also hold a veto power to a certain extent over the activities of off shore drilling. No where does there seem to be a piece of legislation that says the president can do what he has done. And as such, there is also no way in which to appeal to a different power, there simply isn't a system setup to handle this action.

The president has taken an unprecedented action at present (zing!)

(o and by the by, I could be completely wrong about this and the president may have some obscure power to do it, and while that is "good" in a certain way, it also seems bad to me to have the president involved with affairs that should be left to the courts...that is why we have them! We may trust this president with that power, but what happens when our "Nero" comes to power?)

Firefly is currently the highest second highest rated TV series in IMDB history (with an unprecedented 9.5). This makes me about as happy as it also makes me dumbfounded by Fox for canceling it.

edit: My bad, Twilight zone beats it by .1... but seriously, its the Twilight Zone...

>> ^Kevlar:

Hold on, now, let's earnestly consider Fox News' point before calling them out. We may only be able to blow up the entire goddamned earth 3 times over instead of 5 by the time this deal is done.


Oh, just to make sure I'm not exaggerating: let's take a look at our old friend, nuclear winter. Turns out you only need 50 bombs to destroy the earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

"A minor nuclear war with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas, could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. A nuclear war between the United States and Russia today could produce nuclear winter, with temperatures plunging below freezing in the summer in major agricultural regions, threatening the food supply for most of the planet. The climatic effects of the smoke from burning cities and industrial areas would last for several years, much longer than previously thought. New climate model simulations, that are said to have the capability of including the entire atmosphere and oceans, show that the smoke would be lofted by solar heating to the upper stratosphere, where it would remain for years.

Compared to climate change for the past millennium, even the smallest exchange modeled would plunge the planet into temperatures colder than the Little Ice Age (approximately 1600-1850). This would take effect instantly, and agriculture would be severely threatened. Larger amounts of smoke would produce larger climate changes, and for the 150 Tg case produce a true nuclear winter, making agriculture impossible for years. In both cases, new climate model simulations show that the effects would last for more than a decade."

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Friedman's ideas - which have guided the economic policy of the Reagan, the Bush and the Clinton administrations - have failed us.
Deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and trickle down economics have looted our treasury, created unemployment by sending our jobs oversees, and have allowed corporations unprecedented control over our democracy.
I'm sure this Ayn Rand loving fuckstick meant well, but that doesn't make him any less of a failure.


Giving everyone free hosing didn't work out so well either. I would say any pure political idealism gets lost in the translation to those who we entrust to govern. For my part, I would rather those people have less power than more because of that. It is easier to fight large corporate tyrants than tyrants that have all the same powers and guns...just my 2 cents ( did you know this text block edits out plus signs?).

Friedman's ideas - which have guided the economic policy of the Reagan, the Bush and the Clinton administrations - have *failed us.

Deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and trickle down economics have looted our treasury, created unemployment by sending our jobs oversees, and have allowed corporations unprecedented control over our democracy.

I'm sure this Ayn Rand loving fuckstick meant well, but that doesn't make him any less of a *failure.

EDWARD R. MURROW

RTNDA Convention
Chicago
October 15, 1958

This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television.

I have no technical advice or counsel to offer those of you who labor in this vineyard that produces words and pictures. You will forgive me for not telling you that instruments with which you work are miraculous, that your responsibility is unprecedented or that your aspirations are frequently frustrated. It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know.

You should also know at the outset that, in the manner of witnesses before Congressional committees, I appear here voluntarily-by invitation-that I am an employee of the Columbia Broadcasting System, that I am neither an officer nor a director of that corporation and that these remarks are of a "do-it-yourself" nature. If what I have to say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for the saying of it. Seeking neither approbation from my employers, nor new sponsors, nor acclaim from the critics of radio and television, I cannot well be disappointed. Believing that potentially the commercial system of broadcasting as practiced in this country is the best and freest yet devised, I have decided to express my concern about what I believe to be happening to radio and television. These instruments have been good to me beyond my due. There exists in mind no reasonable grounds for personal complaint. I have no feud, either with my employers, any sponsors, or with the professional critics of radio and television. But I am seized with an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments are doing to our society, our culture and our heritage.

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

For surely we shall pay for using this most powerful instrument of communication to insulate the citizenry from the hard and demanding realities which must be faced if we are to survive. I mean the word survive literally. If there were to be a competition in indifference, or perhaps in insulation from reality, then Nero and his fiddle, Chamberlain and his umbrella, could not find a place on an early afternoon sustaining show. If Hollywood were to run out of Indians, the program schedules would be mangled beyond all recognition. Then some courageous soul with a small budget might be able to do a documentary telling what, in fact, we have done--and are still doing--to the Indians in this country. But that would be unpleasant. And we must at all costs shield the sensitive citizens from anything that is unpleasant.

I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and more mature than most of our industry's program planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence. I have reason to know, as do many of you, that when the evidence on a controversial subject is fairly and calmly presented, the public recognizes it for what it is--an effort to illuminate rather than to agitate.

Several years ago, when we undertook to do a program on Egypt and Israel, well-meaning, experienced and intelligent friends shook their heads and said, "This you cannot do--you will be handed your head. It is an emotion-packed controversy, and there is no room for reason in it." We did the program. Zionists, anti-Zionists, the friends of the Middle East, Egyptian and Israeli officials said, with a faint tone of surprise, "It was a fair count. The information was there. We have no complaints."

Our experience was similar with two half-hour programs dealing with cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Both the medical profession and the tobacco industry cooperated in a rather wary fashion. But in the end of the day they were both reasonably content. The subject of radioactive fall-out and the banning of nuclear tests was, and is, highly controversial. But according to what little evidence there is, viewers were prepared to listen to both sides with reason and restraint. This is not said to claim any special or unusual competence in the presentation of controversial subjects, but rather to indicate that timidity in these areas is not warranted by the evidence.

Recently, network spokesmen have been disposed to complain that the professional critics of television have been "rather beastly." There have been hints that somehow competition for the advertising dollar has caused the critics of print to gang up on television and radio. This reporter has no desire to defend the critics. They have space in which to do that on their own behalf. But it remains a fact that the newspapers and magazines are the only instruments of mass communication which remain free from sustained and regular critical comment. If the network spokesmen are so anguished about what appears in print, let them come forth and engage in a little sustained and regular comment regarding newspapers and magazines. It is an ancient and sad fact that most people in network television, and radio, have an exaggerated regard for what appears in print. And there have been cases where executives have refused to make even private comment or on a program for which they were responsible until they heard'd the reviews in print. This is hardly an exhibition confidence.

The oldest excuse of the networks for their timidity is their youth. Their spokesmen say, "We are young; we have not developed the traditions nor acquired the experience of the older media." If they but knew it, they are building those traditions, creating those precedents everyday. Each time they yield to a voice from Washington or any political pressure, each time they eliminate something that might offend some section of the community, they are creating their own body of precedent and tradition. They are, in fact, not content to be "half safe."

Nowhere is this better illustrated than by the fact that the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission publicly prods broadcasters to engage in their legal right to editorialize. Of course, to undertake an editorial policy, overt and clearly labeled, and obviously unsponsored, requires a station or a network to be responsible. Most stations today probably do not have the manpower to assume this responsibility, but the manpower could be recruited. Editorials would not be profitable; if they had a cutting edge, they might even offend. It is much easier, much less troublesome, to use the money-making machine of television and radio merely as a conduit through which to channel anything that is not libelous, obscene or defamatory. In that way one has the illusion of power without responsibility.

So far as radio--that most satisfying and rewarding instrument--is concerned, the diagnosis of its difficulties is rather easy. And obviously I speak only of news and information. In order to progress, it need only go backward. To the time when singing commercials were not allowed on news reports, when there was no middle commercial in a 15-minute news report, when radio was rather proud, alert and fast. I recently asked a network official, "Why this great rash of five-minute news reports (including three commercials) on weekends?" He replied, "Because that seems to be the only thing we can sell."

In this kind of complex and confusing world, you can't tell very much about the why of the news in broadcasts where only three minutes is available for news. The only man who could do that was Elmer Davis, and his kind aren't about any more. If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don't care what you call it--I say it isn't news.

My memory also goes back to the time when the fear of a slight reduction in business did not result in an immediate cutback in bodies in the news and public affairs department, at a time when network profits had just reached an all-time high. We would all agree, I think, that whether on a station or a network, the stapling machine is a poor substitute for a newsroom typewriter.

One of the minor tragedies of television news and information is that the networks will not even defend their vital interests. When my employer, CBS, through a combination of enterprise and good luck, did an interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the President uttered a few ill-chosen, uninformed words on the subject, and the network practically apologized. This produced a rarity. Many newspapers defended the CBS right to produce the program and commended it for initiative. But the other networks remained silent.

Likewise, when John Foster Dulles, by personal decree, banned American journalists from going to Communist China, and subsequently offered contradictory explanations, for his fiat the networks entered only a mild protest. Then they apparently forgot the unpleasantness. Can it be that this national industry is content to serve the public interest only with the trickle of news that comes out of Hong Kong, to leave its viewers in ignorance of the cataclysmic changes that are occurring in a nation of six hundred million people? I have no illusions about the difficulties reporting from a dictatorship, but our British and French allies have been better served--in their public interest--with some very useful information from their reporters in Communist China.

One of the basic troubles with radio and television news is that both instruments have grown up as an incompatible combination of show business, advertising and news. Each of the three is a rather bizarre and demanding profession. And when you get all three under one roof, the dust never settles. The top management of the networks with a few notable exceptions, has been trained in advertising, research, sales or show business. But by the nature of the coporate structure, they also make the final and crucial decisions having to do with news and public affairs. Frequently they have neither the time nor the competence to do this. It is not easy for the same small group of men to decide whether to buy a new station for millions of dollars, build a new building, alter the rate card, buy a new Western, sell a soap opera, decide what defensive line to take in connection with the latest Congressional inquiry, how much money to spend on promoting a new program, what additions or deletions should be made in the existing covey or clutch of vice-presidents, and at the same time-- frequently on the same long day--to give mature, thoughtful consideration to the manifold problems that confront those who are charged with the responsibility for news and public affairs.

Sometimes there is a clash between the public interest and the corporate interest. A telephone call or a letter from the proper quarter in Washington is treated rather more seriously than a communication from an irate but not politically potent viewer. It is tempting enough to give away a little air time for frequently irresponsible and unwarranted utterances in an effort to temper the wind of criticism.

Upon occasion, economics and editorial judgment are in conflict. And there is no law which says that dollars will be defeated by duty. Not so long ago the President of the United States delivered a television address to the nation. He was discoursing on the possibility or probability of war between this nation and the Soviet Union and Communist China--a reasonably compelling subject. Two networks CBS and NBC, delayed that broadcast for an hour and fifteen minutes. If this decision was dictated by anything other than financial reasons, the networks didn't deign to explain those reasons. That hour-and-fifteen-minute delay, by the way, is about twice the time required for an ICBM to travel from the Soviet Union to major targets in the United States. It is difficult to believe that this decision was made by men who love, respect and understand news.

So far, I have been dealing largely with the deficit side of the ledger, and the items could be expanded. But I have said, and I believe, that potentially we have in this country a free enterprise system of radio and television which is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise, it must be both free and enterprising. There is no suggestion here that networks or individual stations should operate as philanthropies. But I can find nothing in the Bill of Rights or the Communications Act which says that they must increase their net profits each year, lest the Republic collapse. I do not suggest that news and information should be subsidized by foundations or private subscriptions. I am aware that the networks have expended, and are expending, very considerable sums of money on public affairs programs from which they cannot hope to receive any financial reward. I have had the privilege at CBS of presiding over a considerable number of such programs. I testify, and am able to stand here and say, that I have never had a program turned down by my superiors because of the money it would cost.

But we all know that you cannot reach the potential maximum audience in marginal time with a sustaining program. This is so because so many stations on the network--any network--will decline to carry it. Every licensee who applies for a grant to operate in the public interest, convenience and necessity makes certain promises as to what he will do in terms of program content. Many recipients of licenses have, in blunt language, welshed on those promises. The money-making machine somehow blunts their memories. The only remedy for this is closer inspection and punitive action by the F.C.C. But in the view of many this would come perilously close to supervision of program content by a federal agency.

So it seems that we cannot rely on philanthropic support or foundation subsidies; we cannot follow the "sustaining route"--the networks cannot pay all the freight--and the F.C.C. cannot or will not discipline those who abuse the facilities that belong to the public. What, then, is the answer? Do we merely stay in our comfortable nests, concluding that the obligation of these instruments has been discharged when we work at the job of informing the public for a minimum of time? Or do we believe that the preservation of the Republic is a seven-day-a-week job, demanding more awareness, better skills and more perseverance than we have yet contemplated.

I am frightened by the imbalance, the constant striving to reach the largest possible audience for everything; by the absence of a sustained study of the state of the nation. Heywood Broun once said, "No body politic is healthy until it begins to itch." I would like television to produce some itching pills rather than this endless outpouring of tranquilizers. It can be done. Maybe it won't be, but it could. Let us not shoot the wrong piano player. Do not be deluded into believing that the titular heads of the networks control what appears on their networks. They all have better taste. All are responsible to stockholders, and in my experience all are honorable men. But they must schedule what they can sell in the public market.

And this brings us to the nub of the question. In one sense it rather revolves around the phrase heard frequently along Madison Avenue: The Corporate Image. I am not precisely sure what this phrase means, but I would imagine that it reflects a desire on the part of the corporations who pay the advertising bills to have the public image, or believe that they are not merely bodies with no souls, panting in pursuit of elusive dollars. They would like us to believe that they can distinguish between the public good and the private or corporate gain. So the question is this: Are the big corporations who pay the freight for radio and television programs wise to use that time exclusively for the sale of goods and services? Is it in their own interest and that of the stockholders so to do? The sponsor of an hour's television program is not buying merely the six minutes devoted to commercial message. He is determining, within broad limits, the sum total of the impact of the entire hour. If he always, invariably, reaches for the largest possible audience, then this process of insulation, of escape from reality, will continue to be massively financed, and its apologist will continue to make winsome speeches about giving the public what it wants, or "letting the public decide."

I refuse to believe that the presidents and chairmen of the boards of these big corporations want their corporate image to consist exclusively of a solemn voice in an echo chamber, or a pretty girl opening the door of a refrigerator, or a horse that talks. They want something better, and on occasion some of them have demonstrated it. But most of the men whose legal and moral responsibility it is to spend the stockholders' money for advertising are removed from the realities of the mass media by five, six, or a dozen contraceptive layers of vice-presidents, public relations counsel and advertising agencies. Their business is to sell goods, and the competition is pretty tough.

But this nation is now in competition with malignant forces of evil who are using every instrument at their command to empty the minds of their subjects and fill those minds with slogans, determination and faith in the future. If we go on as we are, we are protecting the mind of the American public from any real contact with the menacing world that squeezes in upon us. We are engaged in a great experiment to discover whether a free public opinion can devise and direct methods of managing the affairs of the nation. We may fail. But we are handicapping ourselves needlessly.

Let us have a little competition. Not only in selling soap, cigarettes and automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public. Why should not each of the 20 or 30 big corporations which dominate radio and television decide that they will give up one or two of their regularly scheduled programs each year, turn the time over to the networks and say in effect: "This is a tiny tithe, just a little bit of our profits. On this particular night we aren't going to try to sell cigarettes or automobiles; this is merely a gesture to indicate our belief in the importance of ideas." The networks should, and I think would, pay for the cost of producing the program. The advertiser, the sponsor, would get name credit but would have nothing to do with the content of the program. Would this blemish the corporate image? Would the stockholders object? I think not. For if the premise upon which our pluralistic society rests, which as I understand it is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted information, they will then somehow, even after long, sober second thoughts, reach the right decision--if that premise is wrong, then not only the corporate image but the corporations are done for.

There used to be an old phrase in this country, employed when someone talked too much. It was: "Go hire a hall." Under this proposal the sponsor would have hired the hall; he has bought the time; the local station operator, no matter how indifferent, is going to carry the program-he has to. Then it's up to the networks to fill the hall. I am not here talking about editorializing but about straightaway exposition as direct, unadorned and impartial as falliable human beings can make it. Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors be damaged? Would the stockholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would anything happen other than that a few million people would have received a little illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country, and therefore the future of the corporations? This method would also provide real competition between the networks as to which could outdo the others in the palatable presentation of information. It would provide an outlet for the young men of skill, and there are some even of dedication, who would like to do something other than devise methods of insulating while selling.

There may be other and simpler methods of utilizing these instruments of radio and television in the interests of a free society. But I know of none that could be so easily accomplished inside the framework of the existing commercial system. I don't know how you would measure the success or failure of a given program. And it would be hard to prove the magnitude of the benefit accruing to the corporation which gave up one night of a variety or quiz show in order that the network might marshal its skills to do a thorough-going job on the present status of NATO, or plans for controlling nuclear tests. But I would reckon that the president, and indeed the majority of shareholders of the corporation who sponsored such a venture, would feel just a little bit better about the corporation and the country.

It may be that the present system, with no modifications and no experiments, can survive. Perhaps the money-making machine has some kind of built-in perpetual motion, but I do not think so. To a very considerable extent the media of mass communications in a given country reflect the political, economic and social climate in which they flourish. That is the reason ours differ from the British and French, or the Russian and Chinese. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

I do not advocate that we turn television into a 27-inch wailing wall, where longhairs constantly moan about the state of our culture and our defense. But I would just like to see it reflect occasionally the hard, unyielding realities of the world in which we live. I would like to see it done inside the existing framework, and I would like to see the doing of it redound to the credit of those who finance and program it. Measure the results by Nielsen, Trendex or Silex-it doesn't matter. The main thing is to try. The responsibility can be easily placed, in spite of all the mouthings about giving the public what it wants. It rests on big business, and on big television, and it rests at the top. Responsibility is not something that can be assigned or delegated. And it promises its own reward: good business and good television.

Perhaps no one will do anything about it. I have ventured to outline it against a background of criticism that may have been too harsh only because I could think of nothing better. Someone once said--I think it was Max Eastman--that "that publisher serves his advertiser best who best serves his readers." I cannot believe that radio and television, or the corporation that finance the programs, are serving well or truly their viewers or listeners, or themselves.

I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.

We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small traction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

>> ^My_design:
When Maddow tells people that Republicans have used reconciliation in the past, but fails to mention what it was used for, it makes me wonder. Reconciliation was put in place to use in regards to the budget, were Republicans using it in regards to the budget? Or to push their own agenda? I don't know because she didn't say in the clip I saw. When Obama has previously stated that Health care needed to be passed with out reconciliation and now they are pushing for reconciliation does she call Democrats on it?

Okay, when you say "were Republicans using Reconciliation in regards to the budget, or to push their own agenda", you're presenting a false choice. The Republican agenda is to cut entitlement programs and/or cut taxes on the rich. That "has to do with the budget", but so does health care reform. The CBO says the Democratic bill will massively reduce the deficit. So yeah, the Democratic "agenda" is to pass health care reform, but it also "has to do with the budget".

Case in point though, Democrats passed their bill without reconciliation, they just want to pass another bill that modifies it a bit via reconciliation, and that bill will be focused on things like tax amounts and entitlement amounts -- budgetary stuff.

As for Obama saying they "needed" to avoid using reconciliation, I gotta say, I never heard him say that. I certainly heard him say that Democrats would rather not use reconciliation for the whole bill because it'd severely limit what they could do inside the bill, but that's moot because they've already passed the main bill under regular order with 60 votes, and are talking about using reconciliation for a different bill.

As for the larger Republican lie about how it's unprecedented to modify health care under reconciliation, they need a history lesson, or really a memory refresher because many were there for these earlier bills, particularly on the bills passed in the 90's and 2000's.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

More ways to pass time and divert ourselves for sure- but definitely less autonomy. I won't walk out of the house without my iPhone, and am rarely away from my email or the Sift in case there's something that needs attention. Who is serving who in the networked world? I'm already serving my preferred corporate network person.>> ^Psychologic:
The decision was partly based on the designation of corporations being people, which was an "accidental" designation anyway. I can't really make any educated comments about the effects it will have though.
Tech: Computer networks, or whatever architecture we move towards, will continue to increase in sophistication and "intelligence". As far as free speech, I don't know how to handle that. It's difficult to imagine what those systems will be like at this point, though it may get interesting if distinguishing between human and machine in a virtual environment gets a lot harder.

> ^dag:
It doesn't take an oracle to see that the autonomy of the individual is decreasing.
Really? If anything, I'd say that autonomy is increasing. People have access to an unprecedented amount of information with minimal time investment, and the number of tasks that can be accomplished through tech is increasing monthly. People with disabilities have far more autonomy than they did even 20 years ago, and I can't think of anyone I know who would accept the government "doling out" work unless it were completely optional.
Of course, we could be defining "autonomy" differently. I think there are far more activities available to people today than there have been in the past, and we're still free to choose those activities for ourselves (depending on your country of residence).

The decision was partly based on the designation of corporations being people, which was an "accidental" designation anyway. I can't really make any educated comments about the effects it will have though.

Tech: Computer networks, or whatever architecture we move towards, will continue to increase in sophistication and "intelligence". As far as free speech, I don't know how to handle that. It's difficult to imagine what those systems will be like at this point, though it may get interesting if distinguishing between human and machine in a virtual environment gets a lot harder.


> ^dag:
It doesn't take an oracle to see that the autonomy of the individual is decreasing.

Really? If anything, I'd say that autonomy is increasing. People have access to an unprecedented amount of information with minimal time investment, and the number of tasks that can be accomplished through tech is increasing monthly. People with disabilities have far more autonomy than they did even 20 years ago, and I can't think of anyone I know who would accept the government "doling out" work unless it were completely optional.

Of course, we could be defining "autonomy" differently. I think there are far more activities available to people today than there have been in the past, and we're still free to choose those activities for ourselves (depending on your country of residence).