The corporate media's agenda
General Electric has embarrassed itself again, but to no one's surprise, by successfully pushing to keep Dennis Kucinich out of last night's televised Democratic presidential debate on MSNBC. The corporation had initially invited the anti-corporate candidate to appear when it opened the debate to "the top four" candidates, and then Bill Richardson backed out of not just the debate, but the entire presidential race (though Richardson already trailed Kucinich in a number of national polls.) The invitation was extended to Kucinich as fourth, then rescinded, and the corporation's appeal of a lower court ruling to allow Kucinich was overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court less than an hour before the start of the telecast, leaving the Ohio Congressman on the sidelines.Another consequence of the court's ruling was that the debate could only be transmitted on cable television (the reason I keep avoiding the use of the words aired and broadcast) so the MSNBC telecast went out to a national cable audience, but the local NBC affiliate in Las Vegas, broadcasting over airwaves owned by the public, had to pull its plug. Then the first words out of the mouth of corporate journalist Brian Williams on the telecast were, "It's down to three."
You can bet that regardless of who becomes the next president, whether it's one of the leading Republican candidates, Hillary Clinton, or even Barack Obama, we will see further deregulation of the telecommunications industry. That's part and parcel of the agreement.
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Slate has a hilarious feature up on their site, juxtaposing Hillary Clinton with the character Tracy Flick, played by Reese Witherspoon, in 1999's "Election," one of the CM Top 50 American Movies of All-time (see blog postings 12/2004-1/2005). Forgive me for the 15 second advertisement you're forced to watch first. (Also, sound warning.)
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I've been on a lot of St. Louis Cardinals baseball blogs and websites, and everyone's got their own opinion about the trade of Scott Rolen to Toronto for Troy Glaus, but almost no one is talking about the fact that Glaus was cited in the Mitchell Report less than a month ago for having received mail shipments of Human Growth Hormone between September 2003 and May 2004. This is because no one outside of the mainstream sports media and a grandstanding Congress gives two shits. And obviously the Cardinals brass doesn't. They were more than willing to pick up Glaus if it meant unloading an unhappy and very expensive Rolen.
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Quote of the day 1: George Mitchell, Tuesday, to the Congressional committee on steroids in baseball, "It has been settled law in the United States for more than 20 years that drug testing in the workplace is a subject of collective bargaining in those employer-employee situations where a recognized bargaining unit exists."
Quote of the day 2: Players Association chief Donald Fehr, to the same committee, "Let me begin by stating something which is obvious to labor lawyers but perhaps in this day and age isn't as well known. Under the law, we have the legal right but more importantly the responsibility to to negotiate all terms and conditions of employment."
They're forced to speak to our Congressional representatives as if they're children.
posted by CM @ 8:40 PM
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