Reply #67: Obama is an individual, most of Gore's message targets our dysfunctional institutions, primarily

[Uncle Joe]

the corporate media.

Page 1 Is exclusively devoted to that.

The referee — in this analogy, the news media — seems confused about whether he is in the news business or the entertainment business. Is he responsible for ensuring a fair match? Or is he part of the show, selling tickets and building the audience? The referee certainly seems distracted: by Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen, the latest reality show — the list of serial obsessions is too long to enumerate here.

Page 2 Is devoted to reflecting evidence that man made global warming is real, that it's happening before our eyes and there are severe costs.

Page 3 Offers solutions and Gore taking the corporate media to task again, he does this with no equivocation or qualifying unlike his criticism of Obama.

Continuing on our current course would be suicidal for global civilization. But the key question is: How do we drive home that fact in a democratic society when questions of truth have been converted into questions of power? When the distinction between what is true and what is false is being attacked relentlessly, and when the referee in the contest between truth and falsehood has become an entertainer selling tickets to a phony wrestling match?

Page 4 is again devoted to critiquing the current state of the media, its' high advertising cost, example of propaganda power and dysfunctional effect on our election campaigns and American society in general.

And the "referee" — the news media — looked the other way. Some, like Fox News, were hyperactive cheerleaders. Others were intimidated into going along by the vitriol heaped on any who asked inconvenient questions. (They know it; many now acknowledge it, sheepishly and apologetically.)

Page 5 Starts off with an example of how media propaganda impaired serious deliberations in the Senate during the run-up to war with Iraq, it takes the corporate media to task again, it critiques the Congress, presents a rational for human psychological denial of global warming climate change and qualifies Gore's page 6 critique of Obama by citing the challenges facing him, stating some of Obama's accomplishments and reminding the people that Obama inherited the disastrous legacy of Bush upon taking office.

These vulnerabilities, rooted in our human nature, are being manipulated by the tag-team of Polluters and Ideologues who are trying to deceive us. And the referee — the news media — is once again distracted. As with the invasion of Iraq, some are hyperactive cheerleaders for the deception, while others are intimidated into complicity, timidity and silence by the astonishing vitriol heaped upon those who dare to present the best evidence in a professional manner. Just as TV networks who beat the drums of war prior to the Iraq invasion were rewarded with higher ratings, networks now seem reluctant to present the truth about the link between carbon pollution and global warming out of fear that conservative viewers will change the channel — and fear that they will receive a torrent of flame e-mails from deniers.

Page 6 Starts off with the only critique of Obama by name in the entire essay, it takes the media to task again along with the fossil fuel burners, presents possible solutions, a call for Presidential leadership, critiques the Citizens United Decision by inference and finishes by warning of the severe consequences of denying reality.

Those who profit from the unconstrained pollution that is the primary cause of climate change are determined to block our perception of this reality. They have help from many sides: from the private sector, which is now free to make unlimited and secret campaign contributions; from politicians who have conflated their tenures in office with the pursuit of the people's best interests; and — tragically — from the press itself, which treats deception and falsehood on the same plane as scientific fact, and calls it objective reporting of alternative opinions.

Page 7 Starts off with a call for individual/grass roots action to pressure the political leaders, encourages participation in the political process, encourages us not to give up and cites an example of how this pressure has already worked, it finishes by stating the stakes both from a climatic point of view and of our democracy's ability to use reason.

In short the vast majority of this essay criticized the corporate media, which is as it should be because that is an ongoing institution, will last far longer than Obama's career and in its' current state of dysfunction poses a major threat to our democratic republic's ability to use reason, this is the greatest danger.

I will close with a final question how much of this "fourth estate" critique; which dominates this essay did the corporate media cover?