Are We Merely Toiletheads?

"Speak truth to power" and "The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." as journalist Finley Peter Dunne once said, is the job of the journalist...the media.

However, in recent times, the opposite occurs, because powerful multinational corporations have gained monopolistic control over the mass media. This concentration of ownership has resulted in news organizations forcing journalists to primarily serve advertisers - advertising dollars, the sine qua non of media commercial success - and promote the pro-business agendas of the proprietary corporation, therefore restricting influence on the number and diversity of permissible news subjects

"Global conglomerates can at times have a progressive impact on culture, especially when they enter nations that had been tightly controlled by corrupt crony media systems (as in much of Latin America) or nations that had significant state censorship over media (as in parts of Asia). The global commercial-media system is radical in that it will respect no tradition or custom, on balance, if it stands in the way of profits. But ultimately it is politically conservative, because the media giants are significant beneficiaries of the current social structure around the world, and any upheaval in property or social relations—particularly to the extent that it reduces the power of business—is not in their interest". -- — Robert W. McChesney, The New Global Media; It’s a Small World of Big Conglomerates, The Nation Magazine, November 29, 1999

Interlocking directorates, where a director of one company may sit on a board of another company, only reinforces the incestuous relationship between mainstream media and corporate America, ensuring the final product will resemble propaganda rather than news.

In other words, 99% of what we read, see and hear from the mainstream media is what those in power want the general public to know, nothing more.

Rather than sit there like Mr. and Mrs. Toilethead, passively letting them sh*t down our throats, we have to remember that we the people are the government. It's time to stop drinking the kool-aid, or at the very least, close the lid.