Gore attacks media consolidation ...

[welshTerrier2]

i like Al Gore ... i like "the new Al Gore" even more ... you kind of get the feeling with Gore that he finally feels like the choke collar of political consultants has been removed from around his neck ...

while i've been somewhat disappointed with Gore's vague comments about withdrawal from Iraq, i find a sort of refreshing honesty and integrity when i listen to him ... i don't feel that way about too many others ...

Gore broadened his well known environmental message on Sunday when he railed against the evils of an overly centralized media ... like many other elements of increasingly consolidated power, shrinking diversity in our MSM is eroding our democracy ... and now, there are dark clouds appearing on the horizon that the internet may be the next target of those who want to keep the public in the dark and isolated from each other ...

Gore's focus on fundamental democracy is an issue that all Democrats would be wise to address ...

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060828/ap_on_re_eu/britain_gore

Former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday ever-tighter political and economic control of the media is a major threat to democracy. <skip>

"Democracy is under attack," Gore told an audience at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. "Democracy as a system for self-governance is facing more serious challenges now than it has faced for a long time.

"Democracy is a conversation, and the most important role of the media is to facilitate that conversation of democracy. Now the conversation is more controlled, it is more centralized."

He said that in many countries, media control was being consolidated in the hands of a few businesspeople or politicians. <skip>

In the United States "the only thing that matters in American politics now is having enough money to put 30-second commercials on the air often enough to convince the voters to elect you or re-elect you," he said. "The person who has the most money to run the most ads usually wins." <skip>

[Erika]

1. Gore was also a Vietnam veteran who served

Unlike W. Our country and the world would be far better off if Gore had become president in 2000.

Instead we got some frat brat with cowboy boots and a hat who wanted to send our kids to rule the world for his big business buds.

More Americans voted for Gore than the frat brat. We should never forget that.

[eridani]

2. One reservation about Gore

He shilled pretty heavily for NAFTA, and his debate against Perot in 1993 contributed to losing ocntrol of Congress in 1994. Has he changed his mind on that?

[WCGreen]

3. We lost in 1994 because the change in political affiliation, in the

South, finally switched yellow dog democrat to republican...

Record number of democrats choose no to run for reelection that year....

And what had been rending heavily republican was realized when a powerful incumbent democrat no longer stood in the way of the republican party....

The same is happening in 2006...

Only Rockefeller republicans are now this close to joining the democratic party once and for all....

[Larkspur]

5. Perot supported NAFTA policies and Gore was calling him out on it

NAFTA was a double edged sword in the 1990's. It did contribute to the booming economy under the Clinton-Gore Admin but it also fueled the off-shoring trend. As president, Gore was going to address this and enforce the labor and environmental standards that were part of NAFTA.

[Doremus]

8. Perot didn't support NAFTA. Just the opposite. n/t

[eridani]

9. Gore praised Rush Limbaugh in that debate

--according to Greg Palast. It was Perot who warned about the "giant sucking sound" of jobs moving offshore. NAFTA helped nobody except the upper 5%. If you have evidence to the contrary, please post.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Actually Perot had his own private NAFTA

a exclusive zone set up through his corporation to import duty free and Al was calling him on his hypocrisy and stated during their debate that if was good enough for Perot, why was it not good enough for the rest of the nation. If this had been a fight they would have called it in the first round.

[Totally Committed]

4. Whatever one feels about Gore as a candidate... can we at least agree

that he's correct about the media? These threads always get bogged down with a person's past/present/future "candidacy", rather than dealing with the subject matter -- the issue -- addressed in the OP.

Media Consolidation has shown itself to be one of the most powerful tools used by the Republican Party to keep the Bush administration in power. We need to realize and acknowledge that, and do everything we can to start breaking up the monopolies, if we are ever going to see anything resembling the REAL NEWS on the media again.

TC

[KKKarl is an idiot]

6. The media

seems to be controlled by the Fox Master himself Rupert Murdoch.

[blm]

7. Good deal, now MORE Democrats need to wake up to the REAL problems

the party faces - the corporate MEDIA that will not let their message and their issues get a fair hearing with the general public.

When are the Dem STRATEGISTS gonna wake up and smell the coffee?

Dems don't have to move right, they just need a media that extends a fair microphone.

[flaminbats]

11. how did Republicans win control of Congress?

who cares if media coverage was biased against Carter, Dukakis, and Mondale?..Republicans convinced the public in 1994 that the media is entirely controlled by a small group of elitist liberals! They convinced the public that 9/11 was the media's fault..and that the media loves big government and hates the free market. :eyes:

The Democrats cannot remain silent if they want to win back Congress! The media is the heart and soul of big government, deficit spending, corporate welfare, crooked politics, and turning a blind eye to Bush's failure to stop 9/11. But who cares?

why should the taxpaying voters expect the commander-in-chief of the largest military in the world to defend us from a rogue group of terrorists, who once were funded by the Reagan adminstration?

[Vidar]

12. He's dead right on this one.

[BlueIris]

13. Strange. I was just thinking someone needed to get on this again.

Thanks, President Gore!