Our State-run Media

The NY Times ran a lengthy piece about the Bush administration's use of video news releases (VNR's) to sell their programs to us through local "news" programs. Tom Tomorrow has two interesting followups. Basically, it appears that not only is the government distributing propaganda which local stations gladly show to help fill out their interminable news programs (BTW, a report of a possible terrorist threat in Detroit was the THIRD story on Fox News last night)--the government is actually PAYING them to show this crap. Basically, your tax dollars go first to pay the government to develop programs which are not in your best interest, like Medicare "reform." Then they use more tax dollars to hire a PR firm to make some VNR's. Then, they use your tax dollars to pay your local news stations to show you this propaganda. And finally, you have to pay the interest on the hundreds of billions of dollars spent which are going mainly into the pockets of big pharma CEO's and shareholders.

Just one more of the hundreds of schemes that our corporate political parties have devised to further concentrate wealth in the hands of those who have way too much already. (The Times article points out that the Clinton administration did this crap too, but not on the scale of the Bushies. They're all crooks, either way.)