Change The Ideology
Revive The Fourth Estate

What is the point of watching two presidential candidates bickering about the details of political issues that they both essentially agree on? CNN and other mainstream media have created a spectator sport of dubious visceral appeal that distracts Americans from the root causes of what is destroying our country. A floundering economy, increased poverty, out of control immigration, inferior health care and school systems are only a few symptoms of our broken democracy.

The catalyst is a foreign policy that costs millions of lives, incurs massive debt and creates enemies around the world while suborning an ideology of militarism and corporatism. It is an ideology that permits unprecedented corporate influence in both foreign and domestic policies. It is an ideology where election fraud, dismantling the constitution, war profiteering, corruption, fear-mongering, the Iraqi debacle and forgotten war veterans are the accepted consequences of its power. It is an ideology that the American people did not want or vote for. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s fear of the military industrial complex trampling our democracy has become reality

Now corporations have control of the government instead of the people. Lobbyists are heard while citizens are ignored. The CIA has reign to start wars or topple governments without the benefit of congressional oversight. Only six corporations control the mainstream media and the information the people need to make intelligent decisions about our country’s future.

The Fourth Estate is the most significant casualty of this militarism and corporatism. It is no longer the watchdog of government and business but an advocate for both. Professional journalism, where facts are neither Democratic nor Republican, is all but dead in America. News and information is largely sensationalized, hyperbolized and infused with subjective opinion while bereft of fact and, often, relevance. The guiding journalistic principle of “seek truth and report it” has been replaced with the profit-motivated faux news principle of “fair and balanced”. It is the result of an ideology that is destructive to public enlightenment.

The Blogosphere and grass roots Internet organizations have become the new communications frontier and the best hope for the salvation of our democracy. Public enlightenment is the foundation of democracy. The truth must supersede fairness or balance. One of today’s biggest enemies of professional journalism actually understood it ... long ago.

“Unless we can return to the principles of public service we will loose our claim to be the Fourth Estate. What right have we to speak in the public interest when, too often, we are motivated by personal gain?” --- Rupert Murdock, 1961 --- Reviving The Fourth Estate