Can we revoke the corporate ownership of OUR media? If so, how?

[The Judged]

Please! This is a serious question. <FCC/Print media/etc.>

Can activists somehow get this done without it being by control of either the executive, congressional, or judicial branches of our federal government?

Or is the solution to counter the MSM with a multifaceted common folks media, and to get common folks to understand that the MSM is not allowed by their corporate ownership to be on the people's side?

Perhaps, this won't be achievable until most Americans agree with us that this country is out of control?

I believe that this day has come!

IMO Most Americans know this, based on 57,000,000 successful votes for Kerry in spite of an all-out political assault on the electoral process topped off with unverifiable electronic voting and tabulating machines, preselected recount precincts, and unlawful access to the voting process for staff and subcontractors of the companies that own these machines.

I am ready to understand, if you are knowledgeable and have a good plan.

[Freddie Stubbs]

1. Absolutely

Just pool together enough money from like mined people. Then buy these corporations and dissolve them.

[mattclearing]

14. Or...get a like-minded chief executive who will redistribute licenses...

...via the FCC. Howard Dean springs to mind.

[MSgt213]

2. Stop watching and reading their programs and papers once there is no buck

in it they will go away.

[ixion]

3. by simply upholding the constitution... coporations (technically) don't

control the airwaves. We, the people, do. It's simply a matter of asserting that ownership.

But since the corporations have hijacked the show, that's more difficult than it sounds.

[The Judged]

6. This sounds good. Can it be Done? We are willing but lack direction.

[Chimpanzee]

10. Corporations are people too, that's the problem!

[ixion]

12. actually, as the constitution defines them, they are specifically NOT

individuals. They were suffering from the same problem that we are suffering from today. British corporations were running their lives, and they got sick of it. In our case, we already have the power, it's just that no one is standing up for We, the people. Certainly, the politicians won't. They're too concerned about their cushy jobs to actually try and do some good. :eyes:

[The Judged]

16. As a percentile, since 1980 what has been the increase for our ...

Executive Branch leadership, Congresspeople, and federal judiciary?

Obviously, their pay has risen more like that of the medical industry than that of common folks.

I bet they are enjoying a much higher than inflation appreciation of wages, unlike MOST Americans, despite meaningless statistical averages that would have one believe that a minimum wage worker on Wall Street enjoys a weekly wage above $5,000.00, which is the average wage earned on Wall Street.

[Chimpanzee]

17. It's not in the constitution, it's in federal law.

Corporations gained personhood through aggressive court maneuvers culminating in an 1886 Supreme Court case called Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific. Until then, only We the People were protected by the Bill of Rights, and the governments the people elected could regulate corporations as they wished. But with personhood, corporations steadily gained ways to weaken government restraints on their behavior—and on their growth. After steady progress over the decades, they made huge strides in the 1970s through Supreme Court rulings that awarded them Fourth Amendment safeguards against warrantless regulatory searches, Fifth Amendment double jeopardy protection, and the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. These blunted the impact of the Clean Air Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act, and the Consumer Product Safety Act, which were enacted to protect workers, consumers, and the environment.

They also won court battles that awarded them First Amendment guarantees of political speech, commercial speech, and the negative free speech right not to be associated with the speech of others. On the surface, when the big corporations and We the People have the same rights, they are equal, and the playing field is level. But disparities of scale tip the field toward the corporations at a steep pitch. If a nation-sized corporation with its huge treasury and squadrons of lawyers wants to exercise its free speech rights in a shouting match with a citizen who is exercising her or his free speech rights, can this be a fair fight?

[The Judged]

19. Of course the new SCOTUS strict reading of the Constitution won't ...

see this and fix it, because they are bought and paid for by the corporations, who hide behind false prophets and crowd pleasers such as Dominionism.

[wiggs]

4. Massive, worldwide, focused boycott of fox and nbc for two months. nt

[The Judged]

5. We need to start designing and implementing our own comm. apparatus

We currently enjoy the INTERNET, but if it were to be taken away, we would be left without a strategic and well thought out communications apparatus for communicating amongst ourselves the truths that we need to know in order to advance our goal of having a true Democracy.

I ask, if the INTERNET was shut down in the name of national defense, then how would people far apart work together?

There will be TV, there will be movies, and there will be newspapers and magazines, but they will only advance the corporate propaganda.

[Career Prole]

7. We can control the corporations by controlling our consumerism.

All it takes is group will and we can force the corporate media back to serving the public.

We are the largest part of the economy.
We can control it. We can crash it if it has to come to that.
There will no doubt be concerns raised about "Mom and Pop" businesses but we can control damage there to an extent, but this corporate threat to democracy is much more far-reaching than present-day Moms and Pops.

It's time we stopped fretting about Mom, Pop, and ourselves and started showing a little concern for great-granddaughters and great-great-grandsons.

Friggin' ants perform better as a self-preserving group than people do.

[The Judged]

8. When most people finally "wake up" will they have enough $ to do this?

We need to organize and to start acting as a coalition just as corporations act as "partners."

[Chimpanzee]

9. The problem started when corporations were given 'citizen'

status. They haven't been very good citizens. If we can revoke their citizenship status they would eventually collapse under their own weight.

[The Judged]

13. Agreed, but we are now, despite our protests, willing victims ...

we must change our ways.

Democrats have money still.

The Re-uglicans haven't stolen all of it yet. Democrats are the savers, the investors, the prudent and responsible ones.

So, why can't the democrats start their own economic coalitions that support their ideology as the corporations have created their "partners" that operate in this way?

We can. They already have.

What is holding us back.

We are the true majority, but I fear that our own are selling us out and that they are the ones with the money to help us start such a coalition, economic and political block.

What shall we do? Continue to remain at a disadvantage?

Continue to let the competition steals from us and hold us down?

Nothing?

Please, some pragmatic answers ans perhaps even some long term dedication to the subject. Please!

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

21. Here is one:

We each at our own locales contract with local Kinko's/other copy/graphics companies or otherwise make arrangements to print/runoff a few hundred copies of a newspaper (* below) and distribute (hand-deliver) them ourselves in and around our towns.

* Newspaper:

Content: News gathered from all over the net + opinion pieces by DU/other willing contributors. Ads as we can obtain from local orgs.

Financing: Distributed management, local to each willing participant/locale. Those who have the resources can fund upfront, keep accurate accounting and collect later, if the venture is successful. We can think of the initial funding as a dollar equivalents of shares awarded in the company. Those who do not have the resources, should try to raise the funds from DU and other on-line sources.

Frequency: Initially once a week, to be delivered early on a Sunday morning or Monday as determined by DU/participant consensus. If successful, we can slowly increase.

Editorial Board: Organized on-line by those interested in participating, not to exceed 6 people to beginwith.

We can even think in terms of incorporating a company right at the beginning to give us a sense of commitment and discipline and run it exactly like a (well-run!) company.

I for one would be completely willing to get started on this; it has to be done, no question about it...

[Higans]

11. Legally.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Z.shtml

There are several important considerations you should be aware of with respect to this matter. First, this course of conduct would appear to violate several provisions of federal law, in addition to the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process. 42 U.S.C. §1973 provides for criminal penalties against any person who, in any election for federal office, "knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds, or attempts to defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process, by . . . the procurement, casting, or tabulation of ballots that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held." 42 U.S.C. § 1974 also requires the retention and preservation, for a period of twenty-two months from the date of a federal election, of all voting records and papers and makes it a felony for any person to "willfully steal, destroy, conceal, mutilate, or alter" any such record. Further, any tampering with ballots and/or election machinery would violate the constitutional rights of all citizens to vote and have their votes properly counted, as guaranteed by the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Second, the course of conduct would also appear to violate several provisions of Ohio law. No less than 4 provisions of the Ohio Revised Code make it a felony to tamper with or destroy election records or machines.1 Clearly, modifying election equipment in order to make sure that the hand count matches the machine count would appear to fall within these proscriptions.

Further more The Main Stream Media also with strong ties to the Republican Party refuses to cover issues like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x195180

Where the Hackers themselves say it is too easy to manipulate the vote. Not only that, but the media covers up America's Protest Movement:

http://colorado.indymedia.org/feature/display/9777/index.php

[Peace Patriot]

15. Everyone is concentrating right now on regaining our right to vote.

That is Priority #1.

Next is the BushCon news media.

1. Divestiture (as was done regarding apartheid in South Africa). Force universties, unions, public employee pension funds, and private investors to divest of the corporation's stock. (Another recent model was the Sinclair Broadcasting campaign during this election.)

2. Boycott advertisers. (Ditto Sinclair)

3. Start with the worst offender(s)--probably Fox and Clear Channel--as warning to the rest. Proceed one at a time.

4. TV and radio corporations are vulnerable because they are using public airwaves. They are licensed entities. (Big fight on this score last year with the FCC, and expanding their conglomerate power even more.) (We won!)

5. Corporations in general are chartered by individual states, and their charters CAN be rescinded. (Originally, they were NOT meant to be permanent entities, gobbling up all our resources and living forever. They were limited in time and were formed for the common good. But since then, they've gotten control of the courts and political system, which protects them, and has greatly extended their power. Project: Find the corporate charters of each of the BushCon media corps, what state?, who is Attorney General?, how to elect or preserve a good AG who will fight them? Consult lawyers on how they can be de-chartered, and how laws can be beefed up to enforce public good and time limits.)

I don't have time to find all the urls for these actions right now. But there is a lot of info on the Web.

I think shutdown of the Web is a real concern. Needs some heavy, long term thinking and planning.

[The Judged]

18. Excellent points! We do need to make back-up plans for the INTERNET.

Divide and conquer. This is the Modus Operandi of Corporate America.

Today we have the INTERNET and complete availability to communicate in a fast paced and precise way, whereas tomorrow what will we have?

Already we have heard of issues with the INTERNET being a problem for national security, so how long before they pull the plug?

The back up plan needs to be addressed now, by acknowledgment, and thoroughly following January 20th, 2005, unless some substantial and historical progress on voting rights and election protection takes place by then.

If we enter the new year without an effective communications process and tools, we are risking a lot more than we can afford to.

Also, you can be certain that whatever remnants of the INTERNET or high speed communications remains that the feds will dedicate manpower to total surveillance of those communications outlets in order to maintain their tight grip on both political power and any and all resources.

IMO Their presence in INTERNET forums has already begun, and has resulted in the announcements that the INTERNET is a potential national security risk that must be addressed. Again, IMO.

Devising and implementing an economic coalition on behalf of a political movement will become impossible IMO if another year slips past without this opportunity being acted on and finally implemented.

We are way. way behind these corporations and their movement to join forces.

Additionally, the pilferers are on the verge of stealing the last remaining assets available to truly independent progressives, and when communications is restored to the media available to our founding fathers, carrying out such an ambitious act of solidarity via an economic coalition will become unlikely at best.

Real income is steadily declining, while real debt is steadily growing. Soon only the elites will have the availability to make such bold economic decisions such as joining or economically backing a coalition of companies that are responsive to our political ends.

I ask you, if they were interested, wouldn't they have already reacted to the corporate partnerships and started the process of human self defense? I dare say yes! They are too comfortable and have not bought into the notion that our fledgling Democracy is about to have its spirit killed off here in the United States of America.

What have the progressive elites done to counter the corporate personification and entitlement to human status under the law?

What is the progressive elites game plan?

Maybe I just am too ignorant to know, or I am too much of an outsider to the elites, but concentrating on the integrity of elections and voter rights is a long term goal deserving of massive attention throughout, but, IMO, sooner or later these other goals must be addressed and failure to make it sooner will result in further damage control reactions and movements such as what we're engaged in at the moment in Ohio and nationwide with respect to election theft and the "no Constitutional right to vote exists" anti-voter movement.

I hope there are far smarter people than myself that are already devoted to solving problems with the other issues that are OUR only hope in defending ourselves from Corporate America.

If not, we may already be doomed.

If a economic partnerships started to appear tomorrow and demonstrate their devotion to our common political, economic, and social goals for Democracy, then I WOULD immediately start to embrace it and put my remaining money where my mouth is.

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

20. I've got a very simple solution -- legislate mandatory subscriptions for

all media oubliettes outlets.

No, no, not mandatory for us to subscribe to them (though i bet they wish they _could_ have that!! lol)

To make it a right for consumers to pay the full price of their media rather than the "free" media that comes from the advertisers who pay the consumer's way.

When you pay direct, YOU are the person who signs the media's paycheck! Not the advertiser. Whoever pays you is your daddy last time I heard from that talking invisible hand!

It would seem the "free market" is not for us consumers, it's a situation where, like in all jesus-annointed-free-marketer's wet dreams, POWER GOES TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER

-- and we ain't bidding...