As I mentioned in class today, corporations in America can be broken down into 6 major players. Here's a link that you can look at as a resources.
http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main
Anyone who has taken a course on mass media is familiar with what I am talking about: basically ownership of virtually every well-known media corporation (barring Google and Facebook, who are rapidly becoming their own entities) can be traced back to 6 major players in media. In turn, these corporations have partnerships with other, smaller corporations via advertising deals and the like.
The movement.org study and today's class shows that the US government is actively using youth movements and a genuine interest in activism in order to garner involvement in maintaining the status quo. These corporations attract the use and divert their attention towards issues that are proving problematic to both the state department and US companies. For example, anti-American sentiments in the Middle-East, and a lack of product saturation in those countries. As Frank said in class today, a facebook group in Palestine was shut down by facebook after a request from an Israeli official (aka American puppet).
It's just sickening, absolutely sickening. Another thing that I mentioned in class was corporate tax evasion and the hypocrisy that it represents. By evading taxes last year, US corporations cost the government 100 Billion dollars. Here are some examples of the biggest criminals
http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-news/economy/the-top-7-corporate-tax-evaders.html
This vast amount of money could be used to fund public services that are being cut in the United States, but it seems that the government would rather maintain a partnership with corporations and push it's cultural hegemony abroad that help out it's own citizens. The whole system is corrupt and it really depresses me that we are allowing all of it to go unnoticed. Had I not taken this class, I doubt I would have even become aware of the problems inherent in these sort of corporate activism schemes.
Oh and by the way, look who is number one on the tax evasion chart, and then go to the sponsorship page on movements.org and see if there are any familiar names....
ReplyDeleteThoughtful post--I wish I could say something heartening. Anger and knowledge can be a powerful combination--so, knowing what you know and being sickened by it could lead somewhere...like, what might it take to break up or even bring down these corporations? Corporations don't last forever, they can be crumble.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. You have clearheaded analysis of exactly what I am worried about; I got emotionally frustrated and the clarity of my arguments suffer. I dig your brain-piece.
ReplyDeleteI have almost resigned myself to passively accept these things and feel an urge to seek change through disruptive practice. We live in a time of free-speech zones and a media that characterizes any form of real protest as dangerous.
I'd say don't let this get the best of you and what you want to do. I'm already part, and my career will be part, of this bigger corporate media landscape. From the outside, corporations ostensibly control so much. On the inside, it's not as bad as it seems. Do you think the money-making corporate bosses of GE (actually, Comcast owns more of NBCUniversal now) like having liberal-sided MSNBC (formerly Keith Olbermann and now Rachael Maddow)? I think not. I have more to say, will post more later.
ReplyDeleteSlight of hand.
ReplyDeleteIs having liberal commentators all it takes to convince you that the bosses of GE don't assert any control at all over the content of their networks?
Of course they like MSNBC if that's what brings them advertising revenue; as much as I like Rachel Maddow (and I do), she isn't exactly using a whole lot of revolutionary rhetoric in her reporting...
I can understand where Shane and John were coming from in their argument against Brian, but I have to agree with him and Martin. Corporate America is dismantling equality by being above the law. They use the government as a smoke shield in order to further their own personal gains while the American populace is left to pick up the pieces. And now that they are targeting the younger generation, it is only a matter of time ebefore the flood gates let loose what they restrain.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to keep in mind that there has never been a massive class based movement in the US. Periods of labor upheaval and generally reactive legislation have kept workers humming along. Is this sustainable in light of the hyper-hierarchical digerati corporate formulation of labor?
ReplyDeleteI don’t have an answer, but I think it’s interesting that this issue seems to be gaining traction, for a while it was largely taboo to call the US system so fundamentally flawed. In my limited experience, students and journalists are far more blasé in their criticisms of the US then they were just five years ago. Even as unions are gutted, workers complain about the relative power of their bosses. Anger at the US system bubbles up a lot in conversations, polls show faith in America at all time lows. So what’s this mean?
The system is broken and needs to be fixed.
I agree with stripping systematic problems, but I’m not yet convinced that it’s time to throw up my hands and retreat into my cabin to plot the implementation of untested theory. I maintain that the system is still workable and can be better than other contemporary forms of governance. I plan to go into business with a hardened ontology that privileges social responsibility and understands customers as stakeholders, not money bag waiting to raped. Vague as it may sound; I think if our generation affirms community ideals, responsibility and a sense of measured American exceptionalism we can make our system workable. A lot of bad habits, redundancies, and corruption need to be flushed. This will be a lot of work, but it can be done and it can be done within the framework we have. If we were to ‘start over’ all of these issues would have to be addressed along with whatever other changes ‘needed.’
It doesn’t make sense to get depressed about how flawed our system is; we should learn about it and address the problems without getting co-opted. I think you may be right to wonder about going into advertising; I bet you could do better. But if you do end up at an agency, I’m sure you could take the ‘skills’ you learn there and apply them to better causes.
There are antitrust-laws on the books. Lets use them!