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US Plummets On World Press Freedom Ranking
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Reporters Without Borders released its 2011-2012 global Press Freedom Index. The indicators for press freedom in the U.S. are dramatic, with a downward movement from 27th to 47th in the global ranking, from the previous year. Much of this is correlated directly to the arrest and incarceration of American journalists covering the 'Occupy' protest movements in New York and across the country. 'This is especially troubling as we head into an election year which is sure to spark new conflicts between police and press covering rallies, protests and political events.' Only Chile, who dropped from 33 to 80, joined the U.S. in falling over 100% of their previous ranking. Similarly, Chile was downgraded for 'freedom of information violations committed by the security forces during student protests.'"
The American government should shut down this website before the news gets out.
I'm surprised the US isn't lower.
I don't think they'd rate a Brave New World-esque media as "free".
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html
Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes
"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power. "
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
-- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, CIA Director
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Seven of the nations that rank "more free" than the United States are former Soviet bloc states.
Pretend there is some witty statement here.
Does falling from 27 to 47 in ranking qualify for your test of significant metrics?
Either way, it's Springtime for Hitler!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
In other news, US dropped 110% in world math rankings...
Either way, it's Springtime for Hitler!
Godwin in 13 minutes. Not bad for a Thursday evening.
Godwin does NOT apply to Mel Brooks references!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I hope this indicates that Reporters Without Borders is moving towards some independence and partisan neutrality, unlike their past performance.
You can either take money from Otto Reich, or you can be an impartial, credible advocate of press freedom. You can't do both.
Reporters Without Borders has chosen to take money from Otto Reich.
As this Wikipedia article explains, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_Without_Borders#Controversies Reich was engaging in propaganda to support military campaigns against left-wing governments governments in Latin America, and he was on the board of the School of the Americas, which trained people in torture and executions.
They accused the Aristide government in Haiti of attacks on the opposition press, but they ignored attacks on journalists under the Latortue government.
You mean the oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic? Seems he's one of the few who took it seriously.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
To quote Brother George Carlin:
The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.
But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club.
This country is finished.
~X~
If they consider direct media ownership by government officials as impinging on freedom of information. For example, Italy's Berlusconi owned controlling interest in much of Italy's media. He received quite a bit more consideration than any other politician would in the modern era. For any other politician a sex scandal would have been a blow to their career, while Berlusconi was only sank by Italy's near bankruptcy. As another example, on the same note, there is very little negative coverage of mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg. While he does not technically run the company, he does own Bloomberg LP which owns Bloomberg TV and US News. He is an unmarried man and most people don't even know the name of his girlfriend(girlfriends?). This is quite a fit for a politician of such high visibility. Clearly, the more media a politician owns, the less negative or controversial coverage they get.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
This is just another in a succession of stories on ./ today that has deeply shaken my faith in democracy and liberty in the civilized world. Earlier today (or maybe last night) there was a story posted about proposed legislation that would require ISPs to log all internet activity of customers in HI for 2 years, which would be accessible to law enforcement (or just about anyone) without a warrant or court order. Add to this the articles about DMCA exemptions for jailbreaking of devices, which are about to expire, and ACTA being signed by 22 European countries. Today, ./ also brought news of the demise of the market for used console games (thanks to Microsoft), the NASDAQ delisting a broadcasting company under pressure from the Chinese government, and a new law that would provide for indefinite logging and retention of online activity of Australian citizens.
SOPA may be on hold, but I fear that we might be losing the war against big content providers and others who want to restrict our rights for financial or political gain. While I appreciate being made aware of these troubling developments, I find today's news to be incredibly distressing and depressing. While the war isn't over, I feel the balance is beginning to shift against us. What else can we do to tip the scales?
Facts have a liberal bias.
Totally agree, man. As long as the rape of the Constitution isn't too widespread, it's ok. It's just a little rape.
...and incorrectly applied in any case; 47 is less than twice 27.
Actually, the incorrect part is the summary.. the US fell 27 places... from #20 to #47.
And while I will admit there is still a long way we can still fall, perhaps some of us should reflect for a moment about the countries ranked higher than we are, and how they got there, considering where they were (in general, not absolutely speaking in terms of this particular metric) not too long ago... Some of these places were the places I I heard about in school when they talked about repression and how "those commies" were trying to take over the world... Phrases like "Papers, please.... Your papers..." were practically ingrained into our social consciousness, asked of poor innocents in every movie with a scene set in one of these places... I'm extremely glad to hear they are doing so well (and that the stereotypes "may" have been exaggerated ;-) ) But I still have to ask; What the hell is happening to us? Aren't we supposed to be the shining light? Aren't we supposed to be the beacon of hope, the pinnacle of freedom? More importantly, why do so few people seem to care?
Things don't rise, they skyrocket, they don't drop, they plummet. Cuts are always draconian, oil spews, smoke belches. Now, make sure you keep your notes for the next semester Political Science 101. Class dismissed
"...and yet, I blame society" Duke - Repo Man
If you haven't, read some of Thomas Jefferson's writings. It's shameful how far we've turned from our original ideal, embodied in the Constitution - I know, "just a god damned piece of paper!" - but he warned about just such a possibility. 200+ years can dull the senses and purpose of a country. Seems like it might be time to learn our lesson all over again.
perhaps some of us should reflect for a moment about the countries ranked higher than we are, and how they got there, considering where they were (in general, not absolutely speaking in terms of this particular metric) not too long ago... Some of these places were the places I I heard about in school when they talked about repression and how "those commies" were trying to take over the world... Phrases like "Papers, please.... Your papers..." were practically ingrained into our social consciousness, asked of poor innocents in every movie with a scene set in one of these places...
Curiously, Finland remains one of those countries where there's no general legal requirement to carry identification papers or indeed even to have any - and some people actually don't. (There's presidential election going on here right now, and every now and then people come to vote without papers, and there are a number of ways they can, including bringing along someone who can testify they're who they say they are.)
>What the hell is happening to us? Aren't we supposed to be the shining light? Aren't we supposed to be the beacon of hope, the pinnacle of freedom? More importantly, why do so few people seem to care?
Only two people types of people have ever said that: American politicians and American schoolteachers. Nobody else in the world has EVER thought of you that way, and frankly when us people in the rest of the world think of nations that are the epitomy of civil liberty and freedom - America hasn't even been in the top 10 in decades. The most liberal constitution in the world belongs to an African country for crying out loud.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Who promise wam fuzzies of one type or another.
It isn't left vs right. It's authoritarian vs autarchic.
There are a couple of ironies which are missed in American politics. It's rather bewildering to watch from the outside.
1. On the liberal side: How can liberal ideals, which are literally those which pertain to being free, possibly be accomplished by handing more authority to a centralised bureaucracy?
2. On the conservative side: How can conservative ideals, such as lower taxation possibly be accomplished by increasing legislation, rules, regulations on social issues like abortion, drugs or increasing spending on military or law enforcement?
Both points of view, liberal and conservative are logically inconsistent with the methods being used to achieve them.
It seems to me that you are voting along the wrong axes. The true axis is authoritarian vs autarchic (I won't use the word "liberal" because the meaning has been perverted) and both sides; republican and democrat are authoritarian.
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