On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:36:13 -0600, USA  wrote:

>On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:11:35 -0600, "HombreVIII"

>wrote:
>
>>
>> wrote in message
>>news:l1cb419i6fr0eh7b8oufeu55btepsu0q9t{at}4ax.com...
>>> All media is left leaning
>>
>>
>>Which explains why the terms "monopoly" and
"anti-competitive" haven't been
>>uttered in a sentence together on television in decades.
>>
>>Hint: The media telling us how extremely left wing it is and that as
>>reasonable people we should always hold a view more right wing than whatever
>>it says does not make it true.
>>
>>http://www.bartcop.com/libmedia.htm
>>
>What a lame site.    
>
>Other favorite liberal arguments go something like:
>
>"GE is a huge evil corporation and it owns NBC so obviously
>conservatives (the big corporation) are in control of the media."  
>
>If that were true there would be no fag shows or fag anything on Bravo
>(a cable channel owned and run by NBC). But there are plenty of such
>trashy crap shows in evidence.  For example, ever hear of "Queer Eye
>for the Straight Guy"?  Or how about the NBC show "Will and
Grace"?
>These days a homo is inserted into every TV show almost as if every
>family has one of their own which is far from accurate.  
>
>If conservatives were doing the hands on running of either the
>entertainment or news departments of the alphabet networks and their
>cable clones, you wouldn't hear the words gay, lesbian, or homosexual
>and you certainly wouldn't see any.
>
>Why does GE let liberals run NBC news and entertainment divisions?
>Because they are still making big money.  When that ceases to be true
>we might see a change.  In light of what happened with idiot Dan
>Rather, it seems Viacom is starting to pay attention to how costly CBS
>News is to run because it has virtually no ratings.  Even so they
>won't become a conservative run news division but rather CBS News will
>probably pretty much cease to exist.  Hopefully NBC and ABC will
>follow shortly there after.  


People get mixed up when they operate from the paradigm that "Big
Business" = conservative or conservatism.

Big Business is NOT conservative.  As an institution, it may not be
particularly liberal either, but Big Business is NOT conservative.

Some libertarian/free market types will use conservative arguments to
justify the actions of Big Business, and the Big Businessmen
themselves might ape those arguments when they feel it is in their
best interest to do so, but that's not the same thing as saying that
Big Business = conservative.

Anyone who thinks that Big Business = conservative needs to channel
Russell Kirk and ask him about that - because the First Conservative
of the 20th century must turn over in his grave every time someone
identifies conservatism with "Big Business".

Big Business is all about what will maximize stock prices, market
share, and the compensation received by the CEO's who run it.  It's
not about ideology at all.

So, for example, if drilling in the Arctic (I favor that by the way,
I'm fed up with high prices at the gas pump) will maximize all of
those things, and if drilling in the Arctic is regarded as
"conservative", then Big Oil appears to be
"conservative" given the
requirements of the moment.

But plenty of businessmen traded with and made profits from trade with
the Worker's Paradises that were the old Soviet Union and Eastern bloc
states.  Funding communism doesn't sound like a particularly
"conservative" thing to do but that was what was necessary given the
requirements of THAT moment.

A large number of cultural conservatives decry the McDonaldsization or
the Starbuckization or the Wal-Martization of the country.  When a
part of a large chain makes its presence known in a small town, local
businesses are very often threatened and very unconservative
population upheavals and economic dislocations result.

Big Business tends to support the unconservative policy of affirmative
action.  There are costs associated with affirmative action that Big
Business - with the advantages of large market share - can pass onto
their consumers with relative impunity.  This has the desired effect
of squeezing out smaller competitors who can't afford to absorb those
costs OR pass them onto consumers.

Regardless of election results, the overwhelmingly dominant cultural
motifs are liberal (often nihilistically so), feminist, activist,
pro-gay rights, etc.  That's what Big Business sees when it surveys
the marketing landscape.

Obviously, people who are NOT liberals or feminists or activists or
pro-gay rights represent a significant share of the population and
obviously those people are consumers too - but those people don't
purchase consumer goods as a bloc.

They don't organize in the same hive; they don't take cues from one
another on what is and is not politically correct.  Liberals,
activists, feminists, etc DO organize and DO act as a bloc and are the
most readily identifiable consumer group that Big Business sees when
it surveys the marketing landscape.

So Big Business largely caters to these people.  It doesn't somehow
suppress conservative distaste by making money from these people
because it has no conservative distaste to suppress.  Big Business
again is all about profit and market share.

So yeah, people who argue that the news media and the entertainment
media can't possibly be liberal because they are owned by Big Business
are indeed missing the point entirely.



------------------------------------

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"Ladies and gentlemen - let's have a round of applause for tonight's
player of the game - FRAN-CIS-CO SAN-N-N-N-TOS!
    - Brian Anthony (P.A. announcer at Grizzlie Stadium), June 11, 2004


"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their
disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as
their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their
soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and
presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the
counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. 
Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be
placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must
be without.  It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men
of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forge their
fetters."
     
     - Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)


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