A lot of corporate profits are banked in Ireland, because of various corporate tax loopholes that allow it to be one of the EU’s tax havens.(Luxembourg also does this) this boosts GDP per capita, but doesn’t reach the pockets of the Irish people, who are still getting the hard end of the slow grinding recovery that the ECB is still insisting on to bail out French and German banks.
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Oh boo! That sucks.
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Well for the main UK TV broadcasters (BBC, ITV, C4, C5) there is a statutory public service requirement. One might suggest the major national newspapers should be held to the same standard but
- the howls from them would be heard over everything else (‘tell your MP to stop telling us what you want to read’ all over every front page for ever)
- how do you define that standard for commercial print media?
Some ownership restrictions (no single entity to own more than 49% of any publication?) might have an effect, but this is all so much pissing in the wind, when the public (voters) in the main show little interest in being, or capability to be, educated in some fundamental realities. Yes, that comes off as rather (very?) patronising and elitist, but is in reality no more so than the elites who DO have the power to define what becomes ‘common sense’ and do so at every turn.
How to crack it? Revolution. And that ain’t gonna happen in Western ‘liberal’ democracies while we all have the illusion of ‘democracy’.
Signing off now. Too depressing for a Sunday night. Back to the bread and circuses (Football World Cup).
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We used to have laws here in the US to ensure media independence and fairness. However, those have been whittled away over the last few decades, and they are now gone for all intents and purposes.
FCC Fairness Doctrine - Repealed in 1987
Media Cross-Ownership Restrictions - Weakened in 1996, Effectively removed in 2007, Killed in 2017
Restrictions Against Government Propaganda - Removed in 2013
As a result, we went from 50 corporations controlling 90% of the media consumed by US citizens (already dangerously consolidated) in 1983 to 6 corporations controlling that same 90% in 2016. So it’s not surprising to see that this story has received little press. If covering a story goes against the interest of Viacom, News Corporation, Comcast, CBS, Time Warner, or Disney, most people will never hear about it.
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Taking to a historian friend the other day, I think that Argentina (see the 1930’s) might have us beat.
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It occurs to me that in order to counter MSM hegemony, what’s required is some kind of movement to unite the left, setting aside petty differences in order to create a coherent aggregation of resources that actively serves to get folks on the same page, and provide a hub for coordinating efforts.
Digital solidarity.
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There are lessons to be drawn from modern Argentina about how to change things, though.
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That’s was an interesting time. A lot of experimentation with counter-institutions. Argentina really kicked indymedia into high gear, and the World Social Forum had just started in Brazil. “They are all Enron, we are all Argentina” isn’t so topical anymore. Times are ripe for new anti-capitalist sentiment to take hold; hopefully politicians won’t be able to turn it into a photo op.
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That campaign form where you have to fill in your name and address and willingness to engage in civil disobedience will also make a great list of anti-Trump dissidents, that may come in handy later, after Trump’s Great Leap Forward (when it will be your contitutional duty to sit up straight when the president speaks).
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The NSA already has those lists.
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That implies that the Trump administration does not have them yet.
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Y’know, I suddenly wonder what proportion of the internecine strife in the political left (see the perpetual ‘more-woke-than-thou’ circular firing squads) is actually deliberately incited by right-wing agitators…
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I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I am a US citizen and this is the first I’ve heard of it.
I’m curious what they were charged with. (Not that there aren’t a great variety of charges that could be levied against anyone for no reason here in the land of the “free”.)
Or Russians or anyone in this new world of globally sourced trolling of national politics.
Hmm… Then again, how long has the US government been mucking about in other countries elections/laws?
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The answers to that are going to depend a lot on how you define “left”.
David Brock’s bastards are still up to their Correct The Record tricks:
There may be some organised GOP bottery as well, but it isn’t really required. The DNC are sabotaging the party well enough on their own.
There are also infinite variations of fake radleft sites set up by Nazis, as both honeypots and misinformation, plus Nazi trollies pretending to be everything from liberal to communist.
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First I’ve read about it as well.
Also, ancient Sparta was not at all like the movies portray it.
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Are there any nouns which could not be inserted in front of that?
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