10.07.13
Politics and the Media
Photo by Nicolas Shayko
Summary: News about the holy trinity of corporate media, corporations, and corporate contributions which drive politics
THE next US election will most likely bring a new face to Bush-style policies, putting a woman in charge [1] to perpetuate surveillance, assassination, torture, etc. Larry Lessig does not find much “Hope” as what he considers to be inherent corruption carries on [2-5] and the ‘leftist’ media definitely carries on doing its thing [6,7]. A recent discussion about control of the media by the spies and the government apparatus helped shed light on the role that free press should play if it exists (it hardly exists in the UK and the US, where it is typically referred to as “alternative media”). When the political systems are mostly controlled by corporations, which also control the media, then there is a deadlock on influence and a massive barrier pushing progress away and selling us unnecessary wars [8] (i.e. death to millions of innocent people). Professor Lessig found that out the hard way when he pushed for copyright sanity and repeatedly failed because of lobbyists and corrupt politicians (serving corporations that bribed them). Those who try to push for standards and software freedom typically meet those same barriers. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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No Candidate, No Problem: 2016 Shadow Campaign
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On the meaning of a political “innovation”
In my view, the elements in the current game are first a grave threat (“the likely default on United States debt [which] could be catastrophic”) and second, the “forc[ing of] changes in existing law when it can’t with honesty say that it represents a majority”
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Tumblr goes to the Supreme Court
On Thursday, Senator Elizabeth Warren and I will participate in an event hosted by the Constitutional Accountability Center (livestream here) to discuss a brief I submitted in a corruption (aka “campaign finance”) case that the Supreme Court will hear on October 8: McCutcheon v. F.E.C.
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More on an “originalist” understanding of “corruption”
Ed_in_LA has a nice comment to my piece in The Beast about the original meaning of “corruption.” The basic thrust of his point is that originalism is about how judges read the Framers’ texts. And the word “corruption” (like “democracy,” or “separation of powers,” or “federalism”) doesn’t appear in any founding text (except “corruption of blood”).
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The Grenade in the McCutcheon Briefs
The question in that case is whether aggregate limits on contributions are constitutional (I.e., do you have a constitutional right to give more than ~$125k to federal candidates every year). But in deciding that question, petitioners have asked the Court to revisit the standard of review that applies to limitations on “contributions.”
Therein lies the bomb: In Buckley (1976), the Court held that while limits on expenditures had to be evaluated under “strict scrutiny,” limits on contributions got “less rigorous” scrutiny. In McCutcheon, the petitioners (and Senator McConnell, who will also be arguing in the case) are asking the Court to apply the same standard to contributions and expenditures.
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An Inside Look at How NYT’s Ownership Meddled with Coverage to Push Their Pet Projects
A study by Noam Chomsky’s nephew shows how ownership interferes in media coverage, forcing publications pursue private, greedy interests.
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New York Times Israel Correction Needs a Correction
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Riga Talk about Spies, Whistleblowers and the Media
Last week I was invited to discuss the control of the media by the spies and the government apparatus by the Centre for Media Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. Many thanks to Hans, Anders and the team for inviting me, and to Inese Voika , the Chair of Transparency International in Latvia, for setting the scene so well.
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USA Today’s Pattern of Inaccuracy on Iran
So USA Today asked two neoconservatives.
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