Mainstream Media Fail: The Issues the MSM Should Be Covering Daily

By Rob Kall/ OpEd News/ October 13, 2013

I’m watching Bill Maher. It’s a great example of how the media ignores the big problems and wastes its attention on details. Yes, we need to spend some time on current events, like the shutdown, but it is ESSENTIAL that we keep the important issues in the foreground. 

 The big problems are: 

–an intentionally broken election system that is not designed to maximize democracy. And the five corporate whores in the supreme court are going to make it worse, very soon. Those five will end up going down in history as turncoat traitors to democracy. 

 –laws that give corporations powers and influence they should not have, which should be erased. Start with corporate personhood, corporate welfare and attacks on reasonable regulations, like Glass-Steagall– which Democrat Bill Clinton helped to kill. 

 –a system that creates dynasties and individuals who are dangerously, destructively rich and powerful. We need to pass laws that make it illegal to accumulate such wealth, in excess of half a billion dollars. No person needs to privately own a work of art or a home or a yacht  that costs over $100 million. 

 –an economy that worships big, top-down powers, creating a system that is destructive, parasitic and unsustainable. We need a science of small, that develops business models that prevent companies from getting too big, while exploiting the power of shared use of resources. 

 –Fixing and protecting government. Government is a necessary part of any large, civilized “state.”  It creates and maintains regulations that protects the people from predators– corporations and sociopaths– though they often overlap. Government also protects and maintains the health of the commons. But some aspects of government are broken and out of control, particularly the military, intelligence/security, the FDA, the food safety and regulation systems.

 –Shifting from a Top-down system of operating this country, including massively destructive programs like globalization enabling trade agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP,) centralized economic approaches, even centrallized, top-down charitable approaches like Microsoft founder, Bill Gates has implemented. There are bottom-up approaches which  support local communities and get the money spread in a fare smarter, fairer, more effective way. 

 –Strengthening and protecting the fourth estate– the media– and threats also come from people like Diane Feinstein, who would only treat mainstream media employees as legitimate journalists. We need to come  up with new financial models that provide pay for investigative journalists. I think crowd funding could help AND government funding with crowd designation of use of funds could work. 

 These issues may not have the sexy sizzle that Miley Cyrus and the Ted Cruz sponsored shutdown have, but THEY are the battlelines where the future of American justice and democracy are being fought.