michael perelman wrote: > > I recall that some GE stories were canned immediately after ownership > changed. Maybe they would have been canned anyway. > > ABC is an easier defense, since the Disney angle has become even stronger. Michael, I don't think GE or Disney's use of NBC/ABC for the specific advantage of GE/Disney is wholly relevant to the debate here. There is the historical question of whether "the media" of 1998 are either more or less tied to the class interests of Capital than the media of 1900 or 1950. And if there has been (as I argue) in fact no change (the media of 1904 were to the capitalism of 1904 as the media of 1998 are to the capitalism of 1998), then focusing on "the media" in the abstract is obstructionism. We (Doug, I, other disparagers of *Nation* focus on corporations rather than on capital and capitalists) are concerned with the relationship of the collective capitalist media (a phrase which applies as well to 1698 as to 1998) to the general interests of "the people" -- i.e., the working class. I would find it easy to dislike Nader & Associates, and his politics are very possibly worse than vanden Heuven's. But the bad fundamental politics of *The Multinational Monitor* do not continually block that periodical (or various maillists associated with "Naderism") from offering tremendously valuable material of the kind that those interested in mass mobilization could *use*. Even *The Progressive*, probably with basic politics not too different from those of the *Nation*, provides material that is *usable*. The Nation (and Miller in these posts) seem to have given up even the kind of first rate left-liberal journalism that the Nation in the 80s did provide. The current (September) issue of *The Progressive* is a jewel. It really is hard to see any point to focusing on "the media" in the abstract or "the corporation" in the abstract other than to provide cover for joining on the narrowing of allowable political debate in the United States. I do not believe (if there are exceptions I would love to have them called to my attention) a single article or paragraph appeared in the *Nation* in the last 12 months to suggest that given the present position of the "two parties" (the Single Party with two Right Wings someone called it--perhaps Gore writing in the Nation) the rational route to even minimal political and economic reform is mobilization for mass struggle. What good is handwringing over Gore or elaborate and ostentatiously "objective" studies of that asshole in the House who is perhaps thinking of running for President. Even some recent articles speculating on third-party possibilities are so vapid as to make it difficult to believe they are aimed at any other goal than to keep mass mobilization a non-subject, to keep the focus on electoral politics, only admitting for the possibility that just perhaps "protest votes" for a third party are a possibility. Carrol
