Religiosity and the “just world” hypothesis

Over at Daylight Atheism, Ebonmuse discusses the "just world" hypothesis: [P]eople are uncomfortable believing that suffering is random, that sometimes bad things happen for no reason at all. Instead, we prefer to believe that people must have done something to deserve what they get. This is obviously a reassuring and…

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Money talks

During a recent conversation with a friend, I found myself wondering whether I had sufficient evidence for my claim. My claim was that most corporate newspapers and electronic media are reluctant publish stories that make big corporations look bad, the motivation being that big corporations by expensive ads. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. My friend reminded me that her husband works for a newspaper and he's never seen the "smoking gun memo" that substantiates the that corporations are telling the news media what stories to avoid covering. She says that the problem is that the media is understaffed and lazy, not that they are biased. I responded that I don't think that there actually NEEDS to be a memo. As long as the media picks on little targets and celebrity news, there isn't much blow-back. But if they were to take on a big target in a big way, the reporters and editors already KNOW that the switchboard would light up and email will come pouring in from big shots affiliated with corporations, making them wish they they had just stuck with the tried and true (e.g., celebrity news, sports, shootings and accidents). There is a substitute for a smoking gun memo, and it's the overall lack of reporting critical of corporations that is not simply reporting on an ongoing legal dispute or where one corporation criticizes another. Many people think that circumstantial cases are necessarily weak, but this is not true. Criminals are sent to prison based on circumstantial evidence. I'll be on the lookout for a good study that demonstrates the problem, and I'm certainly open to evidence to the contrary. In the meantime, I've just noticed two recent stories that exemplify the political power of money. Example 1: The New Yorker has just published a detailed article explaining how concentrated money is buying elections in North Carolina. Example 2: Contrary to strong studies to the contrary, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization is claiming that the common chemical bisphenol A (BPA) presents no risk of cancer. Here's an excerpt from a recent Mother Jones article, "Is Susan G. Komen Denying the BPA-Breast Cancer Link?":

In April 2010 Komen posted an online statement saying that BPA had been "deemed safe." And a more recent statement on Komen's website about BPA, from February 2011, begins, "Links between plastics and cancer are often reported by the media and in email hoaxes." Komen acknowledges in its older statement that the Food and Drug Administration is doing more studies on BPA, but also says that there is currently "no evidence to suggest a link between BPA and risk of breast cancer."

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Quotes about the news media

A DI reader named Mike Baker offered to let me publish his collection of quotes. Today, I'm publishing his quotes concerning the news media: The American mass media have achieved what American political might could not: World domination. -- Akbar S. Ahmed The safest way to ensure diversity of opinion is diverse ownership. But this ideal has been sacrificed by our government... -- Ben Bagdikian "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." --George W. Bush, 43rd President, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 “Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home.” -- Stephen Colbert I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that. -- Walter Cronkite I certainly think we have an emergency in media, and we gotta fix it. -- Phil Donahue Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty. ~Anne Louise Germaine de Stael Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We're supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We're not supposed to be their megaphone. That's what the corporate media have become. -- Amy Goodman "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it" --Adolph Hitler, Chancellor of Germany 1933-1945 Since an informed citizenry is the basis for a healthy democracy, independent, non-corporate media are more crucial today than ever before -- Dahr Jamail "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." -Thomas Jefferson, "Letter to Col. Edward Carrington", January 16, 1787 Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. ~ Thomas Jefferson The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--diliberate, contrived, and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. -John F. Kennedy "The news and truth are not the same thing." --Walter Lippmann, 1889-1974, American journalist "Disinformation is a large part of its[CIA] covert action responsibility, and the American people are the primary target of its lies." --Ralph McGehee, former CIA intelligence analyst, author of Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA "The result has been that an increasingly authoritarian agenda has been sold to the American people by a massive, multi-tentacled media machine that has become, for all intents and purposes, a propaganda organ of the state." David McGowan By the end of the millenium five men controlled the world's media. And the people rejoiced, because their TVs told them to. -- Michael Moore The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined. -- Bill Moyers An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too. -- Bill Moyers "Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light." ~ Joseph Pulitzer "The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread...We are tools and vassals for rich men behind the scenes...We are intellectual prostitutes." --John Swinton, New York Times editor in a speech before the New York Press Club, 1953 The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. -- Gore Vidal

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Dylan Ratigan offers a coherent message to the Wall Street occupiers

Dylan Ratigan holds that all of our representatives are trapped by the money coursing through the political system and that we need to free them all at once with a Constitutional Amendment. He discusses the Wall Street occupation with Bernie Sanders, who expands the conversation to include more than Wall Street, noting the problems with the military-industrial complex and other well-monied industries. Sanders sums up his aim: To allow "ordinary people to have power to determine what happens."

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