May 25, 2009 – The New Dark Age

22 May, 2009 – venezuelanalysis.com

In their classic 1988 book Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demonstrated how corporate media select topics, place emphasis, set boundaries, ask questions and shape content in accordance with broad capitalist imperatives. It’s a largely unconscious process driven by conformist human beings, and infinitely more effective than the heavy-handed methods of past communist regimes.

During the 20th century, ballooning marketing budgets played a crucial role in the marginalization, and ultimate extinction of influential labor-based/progressive media. Today’s mass media subservience to elite power structures is an inevitable consequence of the pursuit of profit. Advertising revenues continue to flow to any given publication, radio or TV station on the condition that its reporting and general content supports a business-friendly status quo.

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24 May, 2009 – Bolivia Rising

Bolivian President Evo Morales called a special press conference in New York on April 22. The UN general assembly had passed a motion put by Bolivia’s radical, pro-poor government to make that day ‘International Mother Earth Day’.

Morales said the 21st century must be dedicated to stopping environmental destruction and climate change, because ‘we are strangling the planet — strangling ourselves’.

Since his election in December 2005, Morales has stood out as one of the few world leaders prepared to argue for serious action towards a carbon-neutral economy. This is an essential move to prevent runaway climate change.

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