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Originally Posted by GX  You have all hit the nail on the head with your prescient comments as far as Im concerned. There is however one more important factor here that needs to be addressed: The media. As of now, 9 corporations own over 90% of the print, radio and television media. It was not like this during the social and political upheavals of the 60's and 70's and it is my guess that the government allowed media consolidation so as to eliminate competition and to foster corporate and governmental control of the information flow. IMHO, the media barons choose which candidate they wish to give saturation coverage and which ones they wish to ignore. Ron Paul was making a lot of headway in polling and the early debates which should have garnered apporpriate media coverage but they deliberately chose to ignore it.
In this society, the competitive, accurate, fair flow of information needs to considered as essential to maintaining a democracy by and for the people and the media conglomerates should be forced to divest their holdings to a bunch of smaller companies as was the case in the 60's and 70's. |
Some excellent points, GX. I've contended that any candidate for high office in this country has already been bought and sold. Otherwise, like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich or Paul Wellstone, they wouldn't be viable candidates. And the increasingly fewer and wealthier media conglomerates are just additional players in the moneyed power structure that is approaching the status and efficacy of an absolute monarchy.
And what do ordinary citizens like you and me, who are sitting on the sidelines and watching the wealthist 1% continue to exert their influence on the policies adopted by the elected representatives they were largely responsible for electing, do about it?
I humbly admit to being out of ideas, at least ideas that might have a chance of working without the infusion of millions of dollars that can realistically come only from the wealthiest among us who are not at all interested in upsetting the status quo.