1. 06 October 2005

    1189 days ago

    Text of Gore Speech at Media Conference

    I came here today because I believe that American democracy is in grave danger. It is no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse . I know that I am not the only one who feels that something has gone basically and badly wrong in the way America’s fabled “marketplace of ideas” now functions.

    Gore alludes our age to that of the founding fathers – then it was the printing press, now it’s the internet. Before media stagnated due to the strong hand of the ruling elite, now it’s strangled by corporations. What could our situation lead to, if theirs led to such great things?

    But some extremely important elements of American Democracy have been pushed to the sidelines . And the most prominent casualty has been the “marketplace of ideas” that was so beloved and so carefully protected by our Founders. It effectively no longer exists.

    I have sworn upon the alter of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Thomas Jefferson

    Television brought on the “refeudalism of the public sphere” (??Jurgen Habermas??), reducing average citizens to the level of peasants and serfs, manipulated to serve interests not of their own. One way street.

    I don’t like the direction in which America is headed. Hate it, even. To the point that I’m becoming ashamed of being American.

    It seriously embarrasses me that my peers watch four and a half hours of TV a day. People don’t think! People hate reading! And I can’t ignore the educated demographic – but without encouraging the entire population to be privy to it more and more people just don’t care.

    Our democracy has been hallowed out. The opinions of the voters are, in effect, purchased, just as demand for new products is artificially created. Decades ago Walter Lippman wrote, “the manufacture of consent…was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy…but it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique…under the impact of propaganda, it is no longer plausible to believe in the original dogma of democracy.”

    via Kjell Olsen1189 days ago

  2. Also somewhat recently

      |