roundtable: Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days

roundtable: Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days

Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days

Jeff Porten (porten@pobox.upenn.edu)
Wed, 4 Jan 1995 02:29:49 -0500 (EST) 

From: porten@pobox.upenn.edu (Jeff Porten)
Message-Id: <199501040729.CAA18495@pobox.upenn.edu>
Subject: Re: Back to the Future Robber Baron Days
To: roundtable@cni.org
Date: Wed, 4 Jan 1995 02:29:49 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <9501030848.AA06923@athena.capital.edu> from "Jeff Briggs" at Jan 3, 95 03:42:12 pm


> If you are looking at Gingrich as an individual, rather than as a 
> potent representative of business interests whose task is to continue 
> the Reagan agenda (and Nixon and Bush and Ford) of subverting what 
> elements of democracy and free speech remain to the interests of the 
> media-industrial complex (a debateable but as yet pungeant phrase), 
> then you have not yet grasped the enormity of what is happening, and 
> how, and why, in the United States. 

Personally, it's always been my theory that when we view our opponents
as individuals with needs, wants, desires, and occasionally
principles, we are much more effective in our opposition than when we
view them as caricatures.  Even if the caricature is a wonderfully
complex conspiracy theory.  Even if the wonderfully complex conspiracy
theory has a grain of truth to it.

>      Why be so defensive? We may not agree on exact details or issues, 
> but there is no question that the gatekeepers of the corporate media 
> (including Murdoch) are becoming ever more effective at controlling 
> the flow of "news", as well as what topics may or may not be discussed, 
> as well as what opions the audience is left with the impression are 
> "moderate' and "right". 

It is my opinion that the sort of communication that we are engaging
in at this moment will over time make the impact of the gatekeepers
less poisonous.  In the meantime, a fair amount of research indicates
that the news tends to cause people to identify with the moderates
regardless of their own personal political leanings, which to me
implies that the gatekeepers are not manipulating the agenda as
thoroughly as the conspiracy theorists would like to claim.

>      Why does G. want to do away with PBS? So there will not be even
> the flickering embers of a critical light cast upon the activities
> of his clients. 

Not, perhaps, because he genuinely believes that the government should
not fund broadcasting?  Again, to give the devil his due, he is
consistent here in his claims that National Empowerment Television is
the model that he would like to see for PBS, rather than the CPB
support.  I don't agree with him, but I don't have to reach as far as
political conspiracies to see why he wants to shut down PBS and NPR.

>      No matter what twisting of logic and rhetoric, there is no way 
> that the Republican party (and unfortunately most of the Democratic
> party) can by any stretch be said to be representing any vital interests
> of the mass of American voters, tax-payers, middle class, or citizens.

I think the mass of American voters, tax-payers, middle class, or
citizens would disagree with you.  Of course, you'd probably say that
that proves your point.  To me, I still believe that people are able
to act on their best interests as they understand them, and that the
nationwide subliminal mind-control broadcasting network isn't quite
that effective.

>      This is a critical time.

No argument.

>      So let's forget about how we appear to a ruthless, relentless,
> and powerful opposition, and compromise less, rather than more, with
> what we may regard to be the truth.

Much as I enjoy the firebrand position, it's hard to do that from the
minority.  TPR issues faced enough opposition in the 103rd to shut
down many of our good ideas; in the 104th we must adapt or truly be
marginalized.  We do not compromise our principles, but we may
moderate our actions to reach our goals.

Jeff Porten
Millennium Consulting
<porten@pobox.upenn.edu>

[CNI Home Page]