Who controls what Americans believe?

Fictional allegories can sometimes explain aspects of our lives. Corporate media, no matter how much we push back against it these days, exerts astounding influence. If you want to understand it, this clip might help.



A couple of years ago, CBS honcho Les Moonves infamously declared,

"Super-PACs May Be Bad for America, But They're Very Good for CBS" [...]

...something Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS Corporation, said at an entertainment law conference last year. Moonves was understandably over the moon about the rise of super-PACs: In 2012, he explained, the network's profits were expected to soar by $180 million thanks to political ads.

And it's not just CBS that's riding high thanks to political ad spending. TV stations in battleground states are magnets for ad spending, and they're driving a new wave of consolidation in the broadcast industry, leaving a handful of big media companies well-positioned to reap hundreds of millions during the 2014 midterm elections and, especially, the 2016 presidential race.

Let's set aside the frustration Progressives are facing today. Many Americans who might want to be Progressives seem to be locked in on Plutocracy's most powerful couple in our country -- Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Corporate media -- a capitalistic mechanism/institution -- controls the information most Americans are spoon fed about society, about government, about the world in general. It has engulfed us.

Consider the 2014 book, Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America.

Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled, predictable enterprises that are managed by a new class of consultants who wield millions of dollars and define our politics as never before. As the money gets bigger—especially after the Citizens United ruling—and journalism, a core check and balance on the government, declines, American citizens are in danger of becoming less informed and more open to manipulation.

In the 1980s, heavily influenced by a fundamentalist Christian sect (which, in turn, was heavily influenced by the John Birch Society), I voted Republican. Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush got my votes for president in that decade.

Someday perhaps I'll write the story of my political conversion, but for now suffice it to say I changed in the 1990s. By February 1992 (before he took the lead in the Democratic primary), I predicted based on a strong hunch, that Bill Clinton would be our next president. It wasn't until 2008 that I had a similar hunch, equally strong, just as early in the cycle, telling friends I believed Obama would be elected.

My hunches didn't come out of the blue. I recognized indicators, including how those two candidates interacted with voters.

I've been following Bernie Sanders for years because of his take on representing the real interests of American voters. In the fall of 2011 I raised several thousand dollars for the Arizona Advocacy Network because Bernie would be speaking at its February 2012 fundraising dinner.

The United States needs President Bernie Sanders.

Corporate media, however, is deathly afraid of Sanders.

The hunch I had in 1992 and 2008 returned in 2015. But something far bigger has reared its ugly head in opposition to his candidacy. Far bigger than the incumbent President Bush I. Bigger than Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008. Corporate media has removed all pretense of democracy from the American political system.

Corporate media has a love/hate relationship with Donald Drumpf. It's addicted to him on one hand. On the other, it knows that regardless of how serious (or not) he might be with his fascist schtick, Drumpf's violent rhetoric is dangerous.

So, that leaves Hillary as the only candidate the plutocracy deems acceptable. And it has been doing everything possible to promote her, despite the specter of indictment hanging over her. Well, really it's been doing everything possible to suppress Sanders' ability to reach the American people with his message.

If Clinton's elected, she will control the Department of Justice and won't allow it to prosecute her for crimes despite the fact that the FBI has been engaged in an intense investigation of her communications security breaches for several months. Few people believe the GOP-controlled Congress will impeach her, despite their overwhelming animosity toward her.

The Democratic establishment seems to be willfully blind to the very high likelihood that Clinton's negative favorability ratings will suppress voter turnout. Some formerly awake Arizona Democrats acknowledge that voter turnout is the key to chances for any wins in the November election. But they've called me delusional for spelling out my belief that a Hillary Clinton nomination will suppress turnout in November.

As if all they have to do is get enough people to canvass door-to-door and make those annoying phone calls to voters and all will be well.

People, Republicans know they've got Democrats over a barrel. They've already won. All the wheel spinning activity in the world won't convince enough voters to change the course of history.

Democrats rationalize this naïveté by telling themselves that the negative reporting about her is just the GOP throwing mud. Therefore, it can't be true. Really? It's can't be true? And you're trusting this lame notion?

They're in shocking levels of denial about the degree to which corporate special interests will control her decisions that will impact their lives. The truth is plain as the nose on any of your faces. It's out there. If you want to know it, you can find it. Not in corporate media, but it's available on the internet and social media.

I have to fucking give up. But that can be a good thing.

Letting go, I know if it's going to happen, it will happen.

But if corporate media wins, we have to regroup and refocus. But don't expect me to get on board for Hillary. That ship has sailed. If my understanding of her being owned by Wall Street is delusional, then me getting on board to support her campaign won't change a damn thing.

If you want a chance to change America, there's only one candidate willing to stand against the plutocracy/oligarchy. Or are you the frog put in a pot of gradually heating water?