Blog PostsBig Government or Big Money?
By Mark Mason at Jun 22, 2011 |
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People blaming "big government" don't know how the world of state power works. No surprise, though.
The mass media, owned by the super-wealthy, don't want people to understand how the world works. The world is controlled by the super-wealthy through their corporate entities. Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, as John Dewey stated some years ago (and as is often quoted by Noam Chomsky). If you don't like what government is doing, look at how government is controlled by the one-tenth of one percent of the population--the super rich. If you don't like the way government functions, get involved in government to change the policies to suit you. Because so few people in the US have any experience with democracy, they have no clue what it is.
If you don't like government policies, get involved. Participate in decision-making. Do you find it difficult to get involved? Why is that? Because the problem behind government policies is Big Money. Big Money blocks democratic processes, from city hall to the White House, and also in the workplace.
Big Government isn't the problem. Big Money is. People would never know this by watching TV or listening to the radio, or reading a newspaper. Why not? Don't we have a free press? Because Big Money owns all the mass media. Why would they want us to understand how the world works?
This is perhaps the single most important lesson I've ever learned---ever. "Professional journalism" is a Big Lie.
Without a mass media environment that permits a wide range of facts, ideas, and analyses for discussion a democracy is not possible. This also explains how the more "well-read" members of society are the most deeply indoctrinated---the more effort I put into "being an educated person" drove me further and further from reality.
The one thread of human hope is referring back to a gut feeling that the death, destruction, and human misery around us isn't okay. All the TV game shows, basketball playoffs, and "news" programs cannot hide all the human misery. At some point, one chooses either the path of condoned and rewarded delusions which are in defense of abuse of centralized power--offered up by the powerful, or else "refudiates" the insane "reality" in which we are submerged and bombarded with daily.
The mass media, owned by the super-wealthy, don't want people to understand how the world works. The world is controlled by the super-wealthy through their corporate entities. Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, as John Dewey stated some years ago (and as is often quoted by Noam Chomsky). If you don't like what government is doing, look at how government is controlled by the one-tenth of one percent of the population--the super rich. If you don't like the way government functions, get involved in government to change the policies to suit you. Because so few people in the US have any experience with democracy, they have no clue what it is.
If you don't like government policies, get involved. Participate in decision-making. Do you find it difficult to get involved? Why is that? Because the problem behind government policies is Big Money. Big Money blocks democratic processes, from city hall to the White House, and also in the workplace.
Big Government isn't the problem. Big Money is. People would never know this by watching TV or listening to the radio, or reading a newspaper. Why not? Don't we have a free press? Because Big Money owns all the mass media. Why would they want us to understand how the world works?
This is perhaps the single most important lesson I've ever learned---ever. "Professional journalism" is a Big Lie.
Without a mass media environment that permits a wide range of facts, ideas, and analyses for discussion a democracy is not possible. This also explains how the more "well-read" members of society are the most deeply indoctrinated---the more effort I put into "being an educated person" drove me further and further from reality.
The one thread of human hope is referring back to a gut feeling that the death, destruction, and human misery around us isn't okay. All the TV game shows, basketball playoffs, and "news" programs cannot hide all the human misery. At some point, one chooses either the path of condoned and rewarded delusions which are in defense of abuse of centralized power--offered up by the powerful, or else "refudiates" the insane "reality" in which we are submerged and bombarded with daily.
