or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
•
"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
December 07, 2007
Consortium News Fundraiser
Robert Parry's Consortium News is starting a $50,000 fundraiser. Parry is one of the greatest investigative journalists in the United States, and I encourage you to donate.
Parry explains the need for the fundraiser and Consortium News generally here. There are so many possibilities now to fund and create better media ourselves that it's a self-indulgent waste of time to complain about the corporate media. (Certainly few are more guilty of this than me. Indeed, if complaining about the corporate media is a crime, then I'm getting the death penalty. But as of today, I resolve to do better.) Go give Robert Parry money.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at December 7, 2007 11:30 AMAs an advocate of Social Democracy (if any) and a declared opponent of the MICFiC*, I wish MORE people would complain about the Corporate Media. But not only complain - take practical steps - like stop giving money to the Washington Post or whatever by cancelling one's subscription (been there, done that), and giving money to those who speak truth about power, like Consortium News (been there, done that - well, sort of done that - I sent them money, they sent me books - more like an exchange than a gift - but I'm going to give some of the books to someone else as a gift, so it kind of counts, maybe).
*MICFiC - an acronym for
M ilitary
I ndustrial
C ongressional
Fi nancial
C orporate Media Complex -
a wide-ranging conspiracy to use, abuse and confuse the people - figuratively speaking, to milk, shear and slaughter the sheeple (that is, the "milking" and "shearing" are metaphorical - the "slaughtering" results in actual human corpses - we can call it "excess mortality" or even "collateral damage" if you prefer.)
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. at December 7, 2007 06:35 PMWe know your acronym now, so you don't need to do the footnotes anymore.
The problem is that they only care if you complain if you're going to stop giving money, and once you stop giving money, they have no reason to appease you. You need a large group of people credibly threatening to cancel subscriptions or boycott or something. I mean, surely it feels good to not have your money go to something you hate, but irate customers trickling away one by one is not something a large business will notice. Hopefully this is somewhat coherent.
Posted by: StO at December 7, 2007 07:34 PM
