Free the Press
Liberating human consciousness...
Can we have a Free Press?
Partisan politics are tiresome for anyone who isn’t a performer in the political circus. Apparently, most of the performers revel in the idea that, “All the world’s a stage”…and the TV cameras are just a function of stage direction. The scripting is predictable, the usual rhetoric is lacking in creative exploration, and the socio-economic parameters are etched in stone and are as routine as the 5 day/40 hr work week. We are living in a Truman Show matrix.
Enter the Press Corpse. When did the Free Press die? That’s a matter of perspective, and some might argue that we never had a Free Press due to ownership of the printing presses.
As a simplistic—yet helpful—historical review, Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane is a reasonable touchstone when considering the Press and the Politics of the 20th century as well as the 21st century—thus far. Most movie fans have probably watched Citizen Kane, and were swept up in the Dickensian ‘rags to riches’ plot line.
And many are aware that real-life Newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, did everything in his power to obstruct the release and success of Welles’s film due to similarities with his own life.
Without going into the complexities of plot and brilliant story-telling, there are several details of note within the film’s historical treatment of Press and Politics that merit attention in 2022.
The primary point of conflict has to do with how a media mogul like Hearst can control a political narrative and choose the headlines that will sell the most newspapers(drama-appeal). In real life, Hearst was a useful tool for the political players who were interested in promoting the Spanish-American war in 1898. The Encyclopedia Britannica states this detail as: “Through dishonest and exaggerated reportage, Hearst’s newspapers whipped up public sentiment against Spain so much that they actually helped cause the Spanish-American War of 1898.”
Also related to the previous war-mongering effects of a newspaper headline—
The NY Times would report (May 7th, 1915) the tale of the sinking of the Lusitania—which was useful in codifying the imperatives that would serve as another trigger event for The Great War.
The storyline goes:
“On May 7, 1915, the German submarine (U-boat) U-20 torpedoed and sank the Lusitania, a swift-moving British cruise liner traveling from New York to Liverpool, England. Of the 1,959 men, women, and children on board, 1,195 perished, including 123 Americans. A headline in the New York Times the following day—"Divergent Views of the Sinking of The Lusitania"—sums up the initial public response to the disaster.”
Many years later it was verified that the Lusitania was indeed carrying armaments, and the passengers were plausibly used as decoys, and unfortunately, the victims of war—the military labels civilain deaths as “collateral damage.”
Scientific American reported:
“The ship was, after all, acknowledged to be carrying 4,000 cases of rifle ammunition (at a thousand rounds a case) made by Remington. Trade in such military materiel was legal between a neutral country and a belligerent, but perhaps there were questions on whether all that ammunition had contributed to the disaster. Five weeks after the sinking, an article with a more thorough treatment of what can happen with all that live rifle ammunition: even with 4 million rounds, not much”
[https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anecdotes-from-the-archive/sinking-the-lusitania-part-2-death-and-blame-may-7-1915/]
This detail from History.com:
“By February 1915, German naval commanders knew British merchants were arming their ships and that both merchant and passenger ships were transporting weapons and supplies from the United States to Europe.
As a result, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles a war zone and stopped following international naval “prize laws,” which warned ships of a submarine’s presence. This break from naval protocol angered and troubled the United States and the European Allies.”
And yet, it wasn’t until 1917 that the US declared war on Germany. [On April 6, 1917, Congress voted to declare war.]
In terms of war-mongering, it’s a forgone conclusion that political adversaries are in a press war before the real shooting begins. And even after war has begun, the press keeps a particular point of view front and center for the general public’s entertainment. As Frank Zappa said, “Politics is the entertainment for the Military Industrial Complex.” And in consideration of how much of the nation’s tax pool goes to fund the defense contractors we may also presume that the News Corpse will stay tuned to the cash flow potential for its own reasons. Sponsor dollars rule the newsroom.
THE COORDINATES OF A “FREE PRESS”
OPEN SOURCE—SANS CENSORSHIP
—observing the use of an organizational tool:
bylaw |ˈbīˌlô|
noun
1 a rule made by a company or society to control the actions of its members.
2 a regulation made by a local authority; an ordinance.
The following statement may ruffle some feathers—in particular, the hardcore stoic proponents of Capitalism may interpret the following as “socialism” or worse.
The Press should be part of a greater social collective in terms of its ability to share information and allow for creative debate. This means that centralized ownership is a problem—unless we create a parliamentary style, democratically aligned board or ‘advisary council’ to monitor and maintain the principles of the News Organization Bylaws. The proposed “Free-Press” bylaws would act as a protective mechanism that would ideally function as an “integrity” monitor—and yet not behave as a Stasi-style state overlord.
In shorthand: We the People need to regulate the Free Press—not some liars for hire working on corporate lobbying deals—collecting dough for the next political election campaign cycle. Aye—there’s the rub: The accursed Lobbyists! [solution: No Private Money For Public Office]…Trouble is—in a capital dominant realm where mass formation hypnosis has rendered too many people as slaves to the Beast, questioning the corrupted system’s design(even though the non-system is clearly past its prime) will bring reactive fearful criticisms. “What are you saying!?—you naive dreamer, you!” Insert inflection point here:
Fractional Reserve Banking is an invention. Usury is an invention. These two social constructs are not some form of universal law or even logically relevant when we consider the bigger picture defined by the desired intentions in support of Life and Liberty and Creative freedoms.
Many of the current government programs and their respective management agencies within the DC hive are broken and obsolete from the vantage point of society’s authentic “needs”, and maintaining an un-corrupted allegiance to the basic principles that will define a Free Press. Otherwise, we may as well revert to medieval society constructs and or hunter-gatherer status.
On the topic of governmental regulation gone amok—and as a point of reference: Consider how the notion of “hate speech” has been politicized to such degree that censorship has been seriously proposed as the cure for dissenting opinions.
And irony of ironies—the Press and Media beast is presently in lockstep with various efforts to control dissent under the guise of “safety” —or protecting the people from disinformation—as if we need a nanny to protect us from over-thinking, or questioning authority. Orwell's predictions come home to roost yet again.
The Money:
The critical detail regarding a working cash-flow/commerce construct is truly where the rubber meets the road. What is profoundly relevant from a perspective of removing ‘capital-dominance’ as the de facto overriding influence for any possible Free Press business set-up is framed by a question: How to fund the news enterprise without corporate advertising as the primary financial foundation for news reporting? Obviously, history has taught us that ‘conflicts of interest’ (characterized by corporate profit schedules) have impeded the dissemination of valuable data and up-to-date accurate reports on political and social issues. The recent pandemic hysteria is still running the show, even if it’s in its last gasp death-rattle stage.
In the language of the 21st century—“Open Source” will define a Free Press.
Current Newsroom circa 21st century:
Wall Street and its Stock Market:
The Truman Show may serve as a reminder that whatever this Matrix or Simulacrum may appear to be…the ontological/metaphysical recognition of our place in this realm prompts a divine revelation: We are the people We have been waiting for. It’s our choice to participate in the creation of the world, or to follow the controller’s agenda in herd lockstep. The cavalry is Us.
Cartoon by Michael Maslin
