Outfoxed and Unprecedented
Unprecedented is a look at the 2000 Presidential election that led to the appointment of George Bush to the position of President of the United States. It follows the chain of events starting with election eve when we saw unprecedented confusion about the winner of that election. Earlier that day, Gore was projected the winner, with many question mark states going to him. Florida was also projected to go to Gore. All the major networks were forecasting Gore. That is, until Jack Welch, president of GE, which owns NBC, went into the studio, put his hand on the shoulder of the man who projected the winners and said, "You know, I think it's time we called Florida for Bush".
The film takes a much closer look at the players and irregularities. Even with such glaring coincidences as having the candidate's brother as Florida's Governor and the chief election official in the state being an active campaigner, at least, for Bush, the American public and even Al Gore himself, with the whole party in tow, just rolled over like it was some kind of soccer match.
In fact, I take that back, soccer players would be screaming foul. When the US bombs and subverts our enemies, or, our friends, as we just bombed Pakistan today, the people take to the streets in protest. I just saw them today, there's always lots of footage of foreigners out there shouting about fucked up US policy. Well, you know, there were people protesting in Washington when Bush was inaugurated, not many, but certainly enough to warrant news coverage. However, the media, en masse, ignored it.
I guess it would be naive to think that more information, better, more accurate reporting, would make any difference. Yet, the film does shed more light on what the Republican leadership in Florida did to insure his brother's election. I mean, it's not like Florida is exactly known for encouraging blacks to vote, intimidation and disenfranchisement of black voters went on throughout the south since slavery was abolished. There was a huge effort to get out the black vote in Florida in the years leading up to 2000, because many local elections were unexplainably going to Republicans.
But, come on, they took 92,000 people off roles and refused to allow them to vote. Were these 92,000 random people? Not exactly, they paid a company $400,000.00 to ascertain who should be deleted. Ostensibly, they were removing felons. When other states have done this in the past, it cost a fraction of the price. But, then again, they weren't getting the smart sort the Republicans were going for. They knew it would come down to Florida, and, they had to make sure Florida would go to Bush. When you consider the fact that Bush won Florida by a margin of less than 600 votes, it just shows how much Bush had to subvert the electorate to get that win.
And, I'm not even going to get into the computerized voting, but, let's just say that throughout the south election results from computerized voting have been going to many republicans who were not the true winners. There was no way to prove it. The machines leave no paper trails, there is no way to examine the tallies because the makers of these machines will not let anyone look at their technology. But, in all cases, the exit polls pointed to different winners. And, they were all considered upset elections, in that all prior polling projected a Democratic winner. The companies that conduct these polls threw up their hands in disgust and quit. Ever hear any news stories about all this? Me neither.
The film was made by Joan Sekler and Richard Perez in 2002, well in time to warn us, yet, two years later, we reelected Bush. How did we lose our democracy not once, but twice, to same liars? Well, that gets us to the second film, Outfoxed.
While the media in this country, in general, turn a blind eye to the corporate forces that effect what we are shown and told about, and how it is covered, it gets even more egregious than that. This is the subject of Robert Greenwald's film, Outfoxed, which turns the light on Rupert Murdoch. This man's media holdings are unbelievable. It absolutely boggles the mind that one man, a blatant zealot, no less, is allowed so many media outlets. He owns over 100 cable channels, nine satellite broadcasting networks, a major movie studio, 175 newspapers. Frankly, I can't even remember it all, but News Corp's holdings are beyond extensive. I would estimate a fifth of all US media is Murdoch, an Australian.
And, if you think this is some kind of neutral, benign ownership... think again. Fox News was allowed three years to operate as a fairly traditional news outlet. It was successful and trusted, and in 1988 that trust was completely subverted. At that point, Murdoch started to implement an autocratic leadership style that dictated exactly what was run on the channel. He sent daily memos telling staff what stories to run and how to run them. Anyone working for him that countered the right-wing extremist views he held, was fired.
What makes all this so dangerous is that the shows run on Fox network do not look like the unabashed propaganda they are. They are formatted to look and feel very much like real news shows and many, many people believe that is exactly what they are. It's not like they run a little banner throughout the 24/7 propaganda day saying this is really opinion. Quite the opposite. Their motto is "fair and balanced". The film had interviews with a number of past employees speaking to the methods used to make the extremist right-wing swill seem like real reporting, such as putting up seedy looking, unqualified shills to present mildly liberal, if weak, views.
Yes, it's hard to believe there are people stupid enough to buy all this, but there are. I'm sure Bush owes many, many votes to Rupert and gee, what a coincidence that US law, changed under Bush, now allows him even more media outlets to own. And we are talking exponential numbers here. The amount of media outlets that can be owned by one company went from a handful to hundreds.
The Republicans (and the Democrats) are working hand in hand with the huge conglomerates in charge of 98% of our media outlets to keep ownership in as few hands as possible. The goal is to concentrate the power in the hands of a very few, extremely wealthy, and powerful individuals who will work very hard to keep the status quo. So, if you ever ask yourself why the media did so little to challenge a clearly unfair Presidential election, or why Copyrights, originally for seven years, now last for over 75, or why our news coverage is so different from the rest of the world's.... now you know. Will you do anything about it? Will you start getting more of your news from the internet? Will you start blogging about the problems, or write to your Congressperson or FCC Commissioner about these issues?
I hope so. Do it for MLK, who had some dreams about fairness and equality and democracy. They're still dreams. Anyone who thinks that the interests of the massive majority of average people who work hard and vote are in control in this country today better get a clue and start looking at what is really going on. Take a look at the films of Robert Greenwald over the past few years and educate yourself. I assure you, it will be quite an eye-opener. Let's do something unprecedented and refused to be outfoxed by a cadre of individuals who love the power we've turned over to them while playing the thought-provoking Mariah Carey on our iPods.
The film takes a much closer look at the players and irregularities. Even with such glaring coincidences as having the candidate's brother as Florida's Governor and the chief election official in the state being an active campaigner, at least, for Bush, the American public and even Al Gore himself, with the whole party in tow, just rolled over like it was some kind of soccer match.
In fact, I take that back, soccer players would be screaming foul. When the US bombs and subverts our enemies, or, our friends, as we just bombed Pakistan today, the people take to the streets in protest. I just saw them today, there's always lots of footage of foreigners out there shouting about fucked up US policy. Well, you know, there were people protesting in Washington when Bush was inaugurated, not many, but certainly enough to warrant news coverage. However, the media, en masse, ignored it.
I guess it would be naive to think that more information, better, more accurate reporting, would make any difference. Yet, the film does shed more light on what the Republican leadership in Florida did to insure his brother's election. I mean, it's not like Florida is exactly known for encouraging blacks to vote, intimidation and disenfranchisement of black voters went on throughout the south since slavery was abolished. There was a huge effort to get out the black vote in Florida in the years leading up to 2000, because many local elections were unexplainably going to Republicans.
But, come on, they took 92,000 people off roles and refused to allow them to vote. Were these 92,000 random people? Not exactly, they paid a company $400,000.00 to ascertain who should be deleted. Ostensibly, they were removing felons. When other states have done this in the past, it cost a fraction of the price. But, then again, they weren't getting the smart sort the Republicans were going for. They knew it would come down to Florida, and, they had to make sure Florida would go to Bush. When you consider the fact that Bush won Florida by a margin of less than 600 votes, it just shows how much Bush had to subvert the electorate to get that win.
And, I'm not even going to get into the computerized voting, but, let's just say that throughout the south election results from computerized voting have been going to many republicans who were not the true winners. There was no way to prove it. The machines leave no paper trails, there is no way to examine the tallies because the makers of these machines will not let anyone look at their technology. But, in all cases, the exit polls pointed to different winners. And, they were all considered upset elections, in that all prior polling projected a Democratic winner. The companies that conduct these polls threw up their hands in disgust and quit. Ever hear any news stories about all this? Me neither.
The film was made by Joan Sekler and Richard Perez in 2002, well in time to warn us, yet, two years later, we reelected Bush. How did we lose our democracy not once, but twice, to same liars? Well, that gets us to the second film, Outfoxed.
While the media in this country, in general, turn a blind eye to the corporate forces that effect what we are shown and told about, and how it is covered, it gets even more egregious than that. This is the subject of Robert Greenwald's film, Outfoxed, which turns the light on Rupert Murdoch. This man's media holdings are unbelievable. It absolutely boggles the mind that one man, a blatant zealot, no less, is allowed so many media outlets. He owns over 100 cable channels, nine satellite broadcasting networks, a major movie studio, 175 newspapers. Frankly, I can't even remember it all, but News Corp's holdings are beyond extensive. I would estimate a fifth of all US media is Murdoch, an Australian.
And, if you think this is some kind of neutral, benign ownership... think again. Fox News was allowed three years to operate as a fairly traditional news outlet. It was successful and trusted, and in 1988 that trust was completely subverted. At that point, Murdoch started to implement an autocratic leadership style that dictated exactly what was run on the channel. He sent daily memos telling staff what stories to run and how to run them. Anyone working for him that countered the right-wing extremist views he held, was fired.
What makes all this so dangerous is that the shows run on Fox network do not look like the unabashed propaganda they are. They are formatted to look and feel very much like real news shows and many, many people believe that is exactly what they are. It's not like they run a little banner throughout the 24/7 propaganda day saying this is really opinion. Quite the opposite. Their motto is "fair and balanced". The film had interviews with a number of past employees speaking to the methods used to make the extremist right-wing swill seem like real reporting, such as putting up seedy looking, unqualified shills to present mildly liberal, if weak, views.
Yes, it's hard to believe there are people stupid enough to buy all this, but there are. I'm sure Bush owes many, many votes to Rupert and gee, what a coincidence that US law, changed under Bush, now allows him even more media outlets to own. And we are talking exponential numbers here. The amount of media outlets that can be owned by one company went from a handful to hundreds.
The Republicans (and the Democrats) are working hand in hand with the huge conglomerates in charge of 98% of our media outlets to keep ownership in as few hands as possible. The goal is to concentrate the power in the hands of a very few, extremely wealthy, and powerful individuals who will work very hard to keep the status quo. So, if you ever ask yourself why the media did so little to challenge a clearly unfair Presidential election, or why Copyrights, originally for seven years, now last for over 75, or why our news coverage is so different from the rest of the world's.... now you know. Will you do anything about it? Will you start getting more of your news from the internet? Will you start blogging about the problems, or write to your Congressperson or FCC Commissioner about these issues?
I hope so. Do it for MLK, who had some dreams about fairness and equality and democracy. They're still dreams. Anyone who thinks that the interests of the massive majority of average people who work hard and vote are in control in this country today better get a clue and start looking at what is really going on. Take a look at the films of Robert Greenwald over the past few years and educate yourself. I assure you, it will be quite an eye-opener. Let's do something unprecedented and refused to be outfoxed by a cadre of individuals who love the power we've turned over to them while playing the thought-provoking Mariah Carey on our iPods.
posted by Intervision at 6:24 AM
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