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Home > The New Hollywood: Producers Struggle to Adjust to Life Off the Studio Lot

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The New Hollywood: Producers Struggle to Adjust to Life Off the Studio Lot

Published: January 29, 2013 @ 6:55 pm

First in a series on Hollywood's new landscape.
For 25 years, larger-than-life producer Joel Silver had a sweetheart deal with Warner Bros., which among other perks granted him two lavish bungalows on the lot, paid for his staff of 20 and helped fund production on movies like "Sherlock Holmes" and "Lethal Weapon."
After decades of hits, but also some costly flops like "Speed Racer" and "The Invasion," that all ended for Silver with a $30 million buyout [4]last September. Less than a month later, Silver was left holding court inside the shell of the former Venice post office -- presenting his plans to move his film operations into this historic structure, far off the beaten studio track.

Welcome to the New Hollywood.
There are currently 151 production deals at the major studios, according to Variety's [5] Facts on Pacts. That's a 13 percent improvement over 2009, the historic low point for these contracts -- but it's also roughly half of the nearly 300 deals that the Hollywood trade documented about a decade ago.
With studios on a belt-tightening binge, producers who have managed to stay afloat have been forced to become scrappier and to make do with less.
Also read: Joel Silver Unveils Grand Plans to Move Hollywood to Venice [6]
Some are embracing the changes. They argue that all the cost-cutting is resulting in better films. But even if the economizing is encouraging creativity, it has also ended a way of life in which studios served as a protective cushion when a movie failed to deliver or took a long time to develop.
(Story continues after chart.)

"The bottom line is, producers are on their own," David Friendly (below right) , the producer a long string of films from "Doctor Dolittle" to "Little Miss Sunshine," told TheWrap. "There used to be someone taking care of us in good times and bad. That’s over."
In Friendly's case, that has meant cutting down on his overhead and expenditures now that he's footing the bill. A year ago, he had offices in Beverly Hills, with an assistant and a development executive. Today, he's working out of his house with only a  part-time assistant to help him out.

So he's finding new ways of paying the bills. He has diversified by moving into television production, and he has acquired the English rights to the Telemundo show "La Reina del Sur," which he hopes to set up at Fox. He's also developing a comedy pilot with Jim Herzfeld, the writer of "Meet the Parents" and has signed a deal to develop content for IMAX.
"I was forced to find a way to expand my brand. If you don’t do that, you’re done," Friendly told TheWrap. "Producers who are not taking steps to expand their business are cooked."
And in an industry that used to live and day on creativity, inspiration is no longer king.
"Years ago, you would just go in with a good idea," Michael Shamberg, producer of such films as "Django Unchained" and "Erin Brockovich," told TheWrap. "Now you effectively have to have a business plan."
That means fostering projects that will play in Beijing as well as Boise. As Shamberg points out, when he started in the movie trade 30 years ago, the domestic box office accounted for more than 80 percent of revenue. Today that percentage has been dramatically reduced, with foreign receipts comprising nearly 70 percent of the overall pie.
This in turn has led to an ever greater appetite for branded properties like "Batman" or "Harry Potter" that are well-known to audiences around the world. It also means that there is less interest in the kind of adult fare that initially attracted many producers to the movie business.
It has become nearly impossible to get a movie made in the $10 million range, producers tell TheWrap. Don't ask studios to finance the films, either, producers say, because they are primarily only interested in distributing films that are developed off the lot.
That's required industry players like Shamberg (pictured left) to devote a larger chunk of their time to lining up stars who can guarantee foreign pre-sales and hustling to secure equity financing.
"I still make as many movies, there are just more steps in getting movies made," said Shamberg, who makes roughly three films a year.
"It's more time-intensive." He added: "There are days where my job has nothing to do with making a good movie."
It also means convincing talent that under the new economic paradigm, they have to do more with less -- lower budgets, fewer shooting days and a salary that is tied to a film's performance rather than a star's past hits.
But new limitations on budgets and shooting days can pay off artistically. Many critics hailed the intimacy of  2010's  "The Kids Are All Right." Yet that intimacy was borne out of necessity, producer Celine Rattray (pictured right) told TheWrap.
The film went into production in June 2009 in the wake of the global financial meltdown, leaving it without a distributor and several financiers. Despite the fact that the shooting schedule was pared down to 23 days, the picture grossed more than $30 million on a $4.5 million budget and received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.
"So much of the job of a producer is convincing very established filmmakers who are used to shooting for 40 or 50 days that they can do the same thing in 25 to 30 days," said Rattray, who is now co-president of Maven Films.
The good news, some producers say, is that stars and actors are beginning to recognize the need to be flexible when it comes to their own salaries and schedules.
"Filmmakers want to work and agencies have become more open to encouraging their clients to take deals that have a big part of their pay coming from the back end," Rattray told TheWrap. "It took them a while to catch up, but I'd say that the majority of the industry now recognizes that there's a new reality when it comes to financing."
That kind of compensation doesn't always pay off, but Rattray says said the cast and talent on Maven films like the Richard Linklater comedy "Bernie" or the Kristen Wiig comedy "Girl Most Likely" will likely make a profit thanks to backend deals.
Despite the struggles, Rattray said she wouldn't have it any other way. She still gets a thrill from seeing all those months of haggling and juggling pay off when a film hits the big screen. She acknowledged, however, that other friends and acquaintances in the industry are starting to grow frustrated.
"I hear from a lot of indie producers who find it incredibly tough and want to find other means to make a living," she said. "They're exploring other ways to make money, and they're going into television or commercial production."
Matthew Rhodes, president of Mandalay Vision and a longtime independent producer, told TheWrap that he frequently takes phone calls with fellow producers only to find out halfway through a conversation that they also have an animation company, a visual-effects company, a post-production house or some other side business that is contributing to their revenue.
"They're finding other ways to make money, and they're still making movies because they're deeply passionate," he said.
Unfortunately, for some industry players, the rewards may no longer justify the sacrifice.
Friendly said that many of his fellow producers have thrown in the towel on the entertainment industry and have gone into academia or to work for film-related nonprofits. "You have to adapt," Friendly said. "You can either adapt or you can get out."
Adapting is just what Joel Silver (pictured left) hopes to do. Since leaving Warner Bros., he has set up a distribution deal at Universal, as well as various projects at a number of studios, including Paramount, but he made it clear at his show-and-tell with reporters in Venice that a chapter has closed -- perhaps permanently -- on an old way of doing business.
“When I came here in the 1970s, they still made films like they did at the beginning of Hollywood, apart from the advent of sound,” Silver said. “We used to shoot on the lot, finish on a stage at the studio and use other rooms at the studios and then release the film.
"We don’t work that way anymore. We develop them elsewhere, shoot them elsewhere and go back and forth.”
Thursday: Movie Writers Find Less Pay But More, Better Jobs on the Small Screen
Sharon Waxman and Lucas Shaw contributed to this report

Why I Support Creative Commons Licenses

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Jonathan Bailey  http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/01/28/why-i-support-creative-commons-licenses/

I am pro-copyright. I make no secret of that.
I believe that artists and other content creators, who invest the time, money, expertise and creativity into a work of expression deserve, within reason, the right to control it. While there are good debates to be had about how far that protection should go, how long it should last, etc. I always put the creator, in particular the individual creator, at the forefront of my mind.
However, many people who are also pro-copyright have criticized me, often unfairly, for being a supporter of Creative Commons. I have used Creative Commons licenses on my works for over nine years (shortly after their launch) and I continue to use one today. I also routinely use Creative Commons-licensed content, including the intro/outro to the Copyright 2.0 Show and various images on this site.
Many see a contradiction there. Creative Commons has become a rallying cry for either anti-copyrights or those who would seek drastic copyright reform and scale back. Some claim to want to see Creative Commons replace copyright law, a clear misunderstanding of what Creative Commons does, while others see the “Remix Culture” that Creative Commons helped launch to be the antithesis to copyright itself.
But while I may not agree with or participate in everything that Creative Commons has done or helped create, I still believe the core vision of Creative Commons, its licenses, are valuable and useful.
The reason is simple: It’s all about choice.

Making a Choice

Believing that every artist and content creator should have control over their work does not mean that they should all choose to follow the same path to exploiting or commercializing it.
Many will likely feel that the best route is a traditional one, seeking a regular commercial publication and selling copies of their work. Others, however, my find that their best path lies in giving their work away for free and making money from their time. Others may not want to commercialize it at all and, instead, choose not to earn anything at all.
I agree with each of these choices because they are the choices of the content creator. However, the execution of those choices can be difficult. Copyright law is permission-based, which I believe it should be, and the drawback to such a system is that giving away rights can be difficult. Creative Commons helps address that by making licenses that are in sound legalese and are human-readable as well.
This gives content creators more choices for how to take advantage of their work. Want to encourage distribution of your ebook, make a video available for remixing or make a song available for podcasting? A CC license adds a layer of legal certainty.
If you don’t want these things, you don’t have to do anything. You can continue to use the existing “ask first” copyright rules that exist by default. Creative Commons is NOT for everyone and it doesn’t attempt to be.
For all of the hatred some seem to throw at it, Creative Commons is not trying to force copyright holders to do anything and, for those who do choose to use it, it’s not particularly revolutionary.

Not Particularly Revolutionary

While it is true that many of the people who are or who have been associated with Creative Commons have also been associated with other organizations that are seen as anti-copyright (though most such groups are really advocates for major copyright reform), the truth is that Creative Commons itself isn’t that revolutionary as far as the law.
Creative Commons, basically, creates a licensing structure within the law itself. If the law were to change drastically tomorrow, the licensing structure would, most likely, fall apart.
Creative Commons actually relies upon the law itself to function. Abolish copyright or drastically change it, there’s no Creative Commons, just as there is no GPL or other open licenses.
Creative Commons highlights this on their about page saying that:

“The infrastructure we provide consists of a set of copyright licenses and tools that create a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates.”

But beyond copyright law reform, Creative Commons is not particularly revolutionary in practical application either. For the most part, people use the licenses to do what they were doing before they had the license, allowing others to use the work with attribution. For most, using a CC license is less about a radical change in policy and more about a careful expression of an existing one.
In short, Creative Commons isn’t trying to rewrite the law, it’s not crafting a replacement for copyright law (which it couldn’t do anyway) and it’s not trying to strip rights from those who don’t want to give them up.
Creative Commons licenses are about creating new options and tools that can help creators better use/share their work. Nothing else.

Bottom Line

To be clear, I’m not claiming that I agree with everyone who has ever worked with Creative Commons in all of its history or even everything that the organization itself has said or done. I’m also not going to say that the Creative Commons hasn’t disappointed me in some ways nor am I going to say that there aren’t legitimate criticisms and concerns.
What I am saying is simple: Fundamentally, Creative Commons is about giving creators choices in how to license their works and users easy access to legitimate works. If done right, content creators get more choices in how to exploit their works and users have increased access to creators that want their works to be used.
In short, it can enable new business opportunities for artists and reduce infringement (or at least the temptation thereof) by offering a legitimate path to the desired use.
For many, Creative Commons is not the right approach and that’s fine. Creative Commons, instead, is there for the people who would benefit from it, giving them ways to experiment with new approaches with relative legal certainty.
Is it ideal? No. But it’s much better than the alternative.

Nanotechnology: Will it kill us all?

• By Jason Kennedy on January 26, 2012 at 12:37 pm
• http://www.extremetech.com/computing/115717-nanotechnology-will-it-kill-us-all

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You can’t look at internet news lately without seeing the latest and greatest in nanotechnology developments. Everything these days is being manufactured smaller, faster, more durable, and under more and more human control with the help of science. Nanotechnology is a giant rising star in business, already cresting $225 billion dollars in product sales as of 2009 with exponential growth continuing. It’s the cure-all, the golden egg, or the philosopher’s stone, if you will, of the modern world of science. As such, every other industry wants a piece of this new revenue pie and is developing nanotech faster than we can think about it.
What’s not understood, however, is the effects that nanomaterial will have on humans and the environment. More than anything else, that’s a cause for concern that everyone should pause and take note of.
Chances are you have been using products that contain nanomaterials for a couple years now, from clothing to cosmetics to even paint. Building objects from the atomic level adds a layer of customization and refinement that we’re not able to find in nature, not to mention many substances are shown to have abnormal and useful qualities when shaped in such a form, like self-cleaning t-shirts and plaque-fighting silver in toothpaste.
But nanomaterial’s strength in its size is also its weakness. They can be easily ingested or absorbed through the skin and can bleed into the environment at any point between manufacturing and use. This behavior and its effects are not entirely understood by science at this point, and the gap is only going to get wider as more and more industries delve into nanotech to enhance and build their products.
Lack of funds for research that evaluates risk is the main culprit of this, as well as the fact that companies that are tasked with researching that risk are also the companies whose livelihoods depend upon promotion of nanotechnology, creating a hand in the cookie jar scenario that we’ve all seen before.
An advisory panel of the National Academy of Sciences is calling for a four-part research push in the the areas of identifying sources of nanomaterial releases, processes that affect exposure and hazards, nanomaterial interactions at subcellular to ecosystem-wide levels, and ways to accelerate research progress.
To ask for such a wide array of topics to be diligently looked into should be some cause for alarm to any consumer, because the assumption then is that there is no hard data on these topics at all. According to Nano.gov, over 800 everyday commercial products already rely on nanomaterials, from baseball bats to anti-wrinkle clothing to sunscreen and — get this — nanocomposites in food containers.
It’s probably safe to say that we’re ingesting these products already, and science has no clear indication if that’s a bad thing or not.
It gets worse, as well. Future applications of nanomaterials include purifying drinking water and the very air we breathe, among other things. Is this a situation where the cure is worse than the malady? How do we know?
Hopefully in the coming months a plan will be devised to explore the potential effects that nanomaterials have on us and our environment. Hopefully it won’t be too late, but on the bright side, maybe we can use nanotechnology to clean out nanomaterials some day.
It’s a chilling thought, isn’t it?

22 Signs That Barack Obama Is Transforming America Into A Larger Version Of North Korea

By Michael, on January 28th, 2013

If there is one country in the world that you would not want to live in, it would be North Korea.  Unfortunately, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea with each passing day.  North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole where the state rules supreme, the “leader” is lavishly worshipped, no dissent is tolerated, and the government micromanages everything.  America is supposed to be the opposite of that, but now Barack Obama is implementing his version of “change” and he has promised to engage in the “remaking” of this nation and to transform it “brick by brick“.  A tremendous “cult of personality” has been built up around Obama, and under his leadership the U.S. government has become larger and more repressive than ever before.  But do we really want to “change” America so that it more closely resembles totalitarian regimes such as North Korea, communist China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany?  After all, all of those regimes have a nightmarish history of brutality and death.  Even today, there are starving North Koreans that are eating their own children.  Is that really where we want to end up as a nation?
The truth is that we desperately need to take America in the opposite direction of where Barack Obama is trying to take us.  We need a much smaller federal government, a much greater emphasis on freedom and liberty, a return to true free market capitalism, and politicians that are willing to take a low profile and that are actually there to serve the American people.
But what we need and what we are getting are two very different things.
The following are 22 signs that Barack Obama is transforming America into a larger version of North Korea…
#1 Obama has appointed numerous socialists and communists to important positions in his administration.  The following are just a few examples that were highlighted in a recent article by John Perazzo…

• Obama named Van Jones, a longtime revolutionary communist who famously declared that “we [are] gonna change the whole [economic] system,” as his “green jobs czar” in 2009;
• he appointed Carol Browner, a former “commissioner” of the Socialist International, as his “environment czar”;
• he appointed John Holdren, who not only views capitalism as a system that is inherently destructive of the environment, but strongly favors the redistribution of wealth, both within the U.S. and across international borders, as his “science czar”;
• he named Hilda Solis, a former officer of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (the socialist wing of the House of Representatives), as his labor secretary;
• and he chose Anita Dunn, a woman who has cited Mao Zedong as one of her “favorite political philosophers,” to serve as White House communications director.

#2 As Paul Roderick Gregory demonstrated in an outstanding article for Forbes, Barack Obama’s economic agenda matches the November 2011 Declaration of Principles of the Party of European Socialists almost point for point.
#3 If a totalitarian regime is going to be successful, it needs a massive government bureaucracy to run things.  Today, the number of employees of the federal government is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United States in 1776.
#4 In North Korea, dissent is brutally repressed.  In the United States, we have continued to move rapidly in that direction under Barack Obama.  In a recent article entitled “Obama’s War On Whistleblowers“, author Stephen Lendman wrote the following…

He said one thing. He did another. As president, he usurped diktat powers. He wages war on truth. He targets whistleblowers. He prioritizes surveillance powers.
They include warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking emails, Internet and cell phone use. It’s done lawlessly to gather secret evidence for prosecutions.
In his book “Necessary Secrets,” Gabriel Schoenfeld said he “presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history – even more so than Nixon.”
Rhetorically he supports civil liberties and transparency. “Such acts of courage and patriotism….should be encouraged rather than stifled,” he said.
At the same time, he betrayed the public trust. He targets free expression and dissent. He pursues police state prosecutions and intimidation.
He claims Justice Department immunity from illegal spying suits. He exceeds the worst of all previous administrations.
His national security state targets activists, political dissidents, anti-war protestors, Muslims, Latino immigrants, lawyers who defend them, whistleblowers, and investigative journalists.
Law Professor Jack Balkin expressed alarm, saying:
“We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimation of a national surveillance state.” Obama exceeded the worst of George Bush.

#5 Under Obama, the United States has been developing “Big Brother” surveillance technologies that dictators of the past never even dreamed were possible.  For example, a very highly sophisticated surveillance grid known as “Trapwire” is being installed in major cities and at “high value targets” all over the country.  Sadly, the mainstream media has not covered this at all, and most Americans still do not even realize that it exists.
#6 Under Obama, unmanned aerial vehicles are not just used for war anymore.  Police departments are now starting to deploy surveillance drones in the skies over their cities all over the nation.  In fact, this is something that the federal government is greatly encouraging.
#7 It was the Obama administration that came up with the “See Something, Say Something” campaign.  Now the federal government has even created an iPhone app that is designed to encourage all of us to take photos of “suspicious activity” and report our neighbors to the authorities.
#8 It was the Obama administration that first instituted “enhanced pat-downs” by TSA thugs at our airports.  As a result, countless numbers of men, women and children have had horrific experiences that they will remember for the rest of their lives.  You can read some of their horror stories right here.
#9 The U.S. military now has the authority to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial.  The Obama administration has no problem with this horrible abuse of power.
#10 A key Obama ally in the U.S House of Representatives, Congressman José Serrano of New York, has introduced a measure that would repeal the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution so that Barack Obama can continue to run for additional terms as president after his second term ends.
#11 The “cult of personality” that has built up around Barack Obama is getting quite ridiculous.  Shortly after he won the recent election, actor Jamie Foxx referred to Barack Obama as “our Lord and Savior Barack Obama” during a television broadcast of the 2012 Soul Train Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Such “leader worship” would fit in very well in North Korea.
#12 Since Obama won in November, there has been an increasing number of incidences in which Obama has been referred to in religious terms.  For example, a recent Newsweek article referred to Barack Obama’s second term as “The Second Coming“.
#13 A painting by artist Michael D’Antuono that is now on display at Boston’s Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery recently made headlines all over the United States.  In the painting, Barack Obama is wearing a crown of thorns on his head and his arms are stretched out as if he was being crucified.  In the background of the painting is the presidential seal…

#14 Relentless praise from the mainstream media played a huge role in each of Obama’s election victories.  The mainstream media is supposed to be objective, but there have been reports of members of the media “swooning” in his presence, and most mainstream news broadcasts leave little doubt that Obama is the “good guy” and anyone opposed to him is the “bad guy”.
#15 The Obama organization has tirelessly gathered data on potential voters.  At this point, the amount of information that the Obama campaign has compiled on the American people is absolutely frightening…

If you voted this election season, President Obama almost certainly has a file on you. His vast campaign database includes information on voters’ magazine subscriptions, car registrations, housing values and hunting licenses, along with scores estimating how likely they were to cast ballots for his reelection.

#16 The Communist Party USA is cheering on Barack Obama’s efforts to disarm the American people.  According to one of their official publications, “the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.”
#17 Under Obama, the federal government is intruding in our personal lives like never before.  The following example is from a recent RT article…

Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.
The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called “Obamacare”, could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.
A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker’s penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.

#18 Just as in North Korea, our lives are being increasingly micromanaged by a government that is packed with control freaks.  At this point they even are telling us what kind of light bulbs we are allowed to buy.
#19 Federal agencies have become increasingly brutal under Obama.  For example, if you milk your cow and sell some of that milk to your neighbor next door, you could end up having your home raided by federal agents.
#20 Obama has gone to great lengths to demonize his opposition.  Since he has been president, numerous government papers, studies and reports have been released that identify groups of people that are opposed to Obama as “potential terrorists”.  Some of the groups targeted as “potential terrorists” include those that “revere individual liberty”, “conspiracy theorists”, “returning veterans”, anti-abortion activists, those that visit “extremist websites”, those that are “fiercely nationalistic”, those that “believe in the right to bear arms”, anyone that is opposed to illegal immigration, anyone that is anti-UN, and anyone that is “suspicious of centralized federal authority”.  For much more on this, please see this article.
#21 Obama’s abuse of power is not just limited to the United States.  The truth is that he has increasingly been acting like some type of imperial ruler that gets to tell everyone else in the world what they are supposed to do.  For example, according to a recent WND article Obama has actually promised to give eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians even though Israel has already said that they will agree to no such thing…

Now that he has secured his second term, President Barack Obama has already secretly pledged to the Palestinians he will press Israel into a new round of so-called land-for-peace negotiations, a top Palestinian Authority negotiator told WND.
The negotiator said top members of the Obama administration told the Palestinians the U.S. president will renew talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state in the so-called 1967 borders – meaning in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and, notably, eastern Jerusalem.

#22 Many Obama supporters are becoming enamored with the idea that we should either start ignoring the Constitution or that we should get rid of it entirely.  For example, Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman recently appeared on CBS and said the following to the American people…

“I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not.”

Hey, if we got rid of the pesky Constitution, we could have a dictatorship just like North Korea does!
Barack Obama could be our king, our lord and our savior for decades!
Of course I am being sarcastic, but this is the kind of dangerous thinking that leads to tyranny.
Let us learn the hard lessons that history has tried to teach us.  We don’t want to go down the same path that North Korea, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and communist China have traveled.
There is an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary that shows what life is like inside North Korea.  You can view it on YouTube right here.  We don’t want our children and our grandchildren to someday live in a nation like that.
Freedom and liberty are precious things.  They are very hard to win, and they are very easy to lose.
Let us not be the generation that loses everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build.

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Patriots And Christians Have Been Repeatedly Labeled As Potential Terrorists Since Obama Became President

By Michael, on October 4th, 2012

 

Since the beginning of 2009, there has been a significant shift in the focus of the "war on terror".  Right after 9/11, the American people were told that the terrorists were Islamic radicals and that we needed to go fight them in the Middle East so that they would not come attack us here at home.  But now many anti-terrorism reports put out by the government barely mention Islam at all.  Instead, many of them are primarily focused on "domestic right-wing extremists".  You may not think of yourself as a "domestic right-wing extremist", and I certainly do not, but the truth is that patriotic Americans and conservative Christians have been repeatedly labeled as "potential terrorists" since Barack Obama became president.  If this had just happened one time, it would be easy to dismiss.  Sadly, there has been a steady pattern of this happening over the past several years.  Large groups of people that are the heart and soul of this country have been systematically demonized over the past four years.  When you consider what history has taught us, it is absolutely chilling to think about what this could eventually lead to.
Just this week another example of this phenomenon surfaced.  Wired Magazine was able to obtain a leaked U.S. Army document that contained a chart entitled "Radicalization into Violent Extremism".  This chart identifies the following as characteristics of potential terrorists....
-"Complains about bias"
-"Believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia"
-"Is frustrated with mainstream ideologies"
-"Visits extremist websites/blogs"
-"Establishes website/blog to display extremist views"
-"Attends rallies for extremist causes"
-"Exhibits extreme religious intolerance"
-"Is personally connected with a grievance"
-"Suddenly acquires weapons"
-"Organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology"
Do any of the above apply to you?
You might think not, but if you complain about the bias of the mainstream media, if you refuse to identify with either major political party, if you visit websites such as this one, or if you believe that your religion is true and that some religions are false then you probably fall into at least one of the categories above.
Let's look at another example.
The following characteristics of potential terrorists are from a presentation entitled "Terrorism Training For Law Enforcement" which was produced by the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program.  The SLATT program is funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance.  Do any of the following characteristics describe you?....
-"Militia or unorganized militia"
-"General right-wing extremist"
-Has "bumper stickers" that are patriotic or anti-U.N.
-those that refer to an "Army of God"
More examples of this demonization of patriots and Christians can be found in a DHS report that was released early in 2012 entitled "Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008".  That report identified characteristics of those that have committed terrorist attacks in the past and of those that are likely to do so in the future.
Once again, as you are reading this list see if any of these characteristics apply to you....
-"fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)"
-"anti-global"
-"suspicious of centralized federal authority"
-"reverent of individual liberty"
-"believe in conspiracy theories"
-"a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack"
-"a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism"
-"impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)"
-"insert religion into the political sphere"
-"those who seek to politicize religion"
-"supported political movements for autonomy"
-"anti-abortion"
-"anti-Catholic"
-"anti-nuclear"
Most Americans would fall into at least one of those categories.  That is one of the reasons why these reports are so frightening.  Once they identify most of us as "potential terrorists", they can use all of the "anti-terrorism laws" that have been implemented in recent years against us whenever they want.
Another example of this trend is a Department of Homeland Security report that was published shortly after Barack Obama became president in 2009 entitled "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment".  Among other things, that report claims that a belief in Bible prophecy "could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition and weapons."
The following are some of the other things that particular report was extremely concerned about....
-"rightwing extremists"
-"returning veterans"
-those concerned about "illegal immigration"
-those that "believe in the right to bear arms"
-"ammunition stockpiling"
-"fear of communist regimes and related conspiracy theories"
Once upon a time, it was "anti-American" not to be concerned about the "red menace".
Now it is "anti-American" if you are concerned about communism.
What a strange world we live in today.
Let's examine yet another example of this phenomenon.
Shortly after Barack Obama took office, the State of Missouri issued a report entitled "MIAC Strategic Report: The Modern Militia Movement".  That report warned that the following types of people may be potential terrorists....
-anti-abortion activists
-those that are against illegal immigration
-those that talk about "the New World Order" in a "derogatory" manner
-those that have a negative view of the United Nations
-those that are opposed "to the collection of federal income taxes"
-those that display the Gadsden Flag ("Don't Tread On Me")
-those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr
Perhaps the most disturbing element of that report was that it identified support of particular political candidates as a threat to national security.
Sadly, the truth is that our most basic freedoms are under attack.  Our country is slowly being transformed into a giant prison camp, but most Americans don't even realize what is happening.
It is like the story of the frog in the kettle.  The heat is being turned up so slowly that most people don't even feel it, but eventually that water will be boiling.
The federal government is pouring billions upon billions of dollars into "anti-terrorism" efforts, but much of that money is being wasted and much of it is being spent on monitoring innocent Americans.  The following is from a recent article posted on the Blaze....

A multibillion-dollar information-sharing program created in the aftermath of 9/11 has improperly collected information about innocent Americans and produced little valuable intelligence on terrorism, a Senate report concludes. It portrays an effort that ballooned far beyond anyone’s ability to control.
What began as an attempt to put local, state and federal officials in the same room analyzing the same intelligence has instead cost huge amounts of money for data-mining software, flat screen televisions and, in Arizona, two fully equipped Chevrolet Tahoes that are used for commuting, investigators found.

Instead of focusing on real threats to national security, our government has become absolutely obsessed with watching all of us.
This is supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but instead America is being turned into an Orwellian police state.
So what do you think about all of this?
Please feel free to express your opinion by leaving a comment below....

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Classified Report: Germany Withdrew 1000 Tons of Gold from London in 2000-01

October 25, 2012 By The Doc http://www.silverdoctors.com/classified-report-germany-withdrew-1000-tons-of-gold-from-london-in-2000-01/

On Monday, we reported that the German Financial Accountability Office had mandated the Bundesbank repatriate 150 tons of German gold from the NY Fed over the next 3 years.   While this was to be expected and even inevitable in the wake of Venezuela’s gold repatriation in 2011 as well as global rehypothecation concerns, a previously classified report leaked today has revealed a much larger German gold repatriation has already occurred- from 2000-01!!
The previously classified report reveals that the Bundesbank withdrew nearly 1,000 tons of physical gold from the Bank of England in 2000-2001, decreasing Germany’s gold holdings in London from 1,440 tons to 500 tons.
Let that sink in for a moment.  Germany withdrew 1,000 tons of physical gold from the Bank of England at the EXACT TIME that gold bottomed and began its decade long bull run.   Did Germany pull the carpet out from under the cartel gold leasing party and ignite gold’s secular bull market in 2000?
A full 25% of Germany’s gold reserves were repatriated over a decade ago- talk about being ahead of the game!
From the Telegraph:

The revelation came as Germany’s budget watchdog demanded an on-site probe of the country’s remaining gold reserves in London, Paris, and New York to verify whether the metal really exists.
The country has 3,396 tons of gold worth €143bn (£116bn), the world’s second-largest holding after the US. Nearly all of it was shifted to vaults abroad during the Cold War in case of a Soviet attack.
Roughly 66pc is held at the New York Federal Reserve, 21pc at the Bank of England, and 8pc at the Bank of France. The German Court of Auditors told legislators in a redacted report that the gold had “never been verified physically” and ordered the Bundesbank to secure access to the storage sites.
It called for repatriation of 150 tons over the next three years to test the quality and weight of the gold bars. It said Frankfurt has no register of numbered gold bars.
The report also claimed that the Bundesbank had slashed its holdings in London from 1,440 tons to 500 tons in 2000 and 2001, allegedly because storage costs were too high. The metal was flown to Frankfurt by air freight.

Finally, the $1 Trillion question- how much longer until the Bundesbank requests the repatriation of its remaining 2200 tons of gold supposedly held at the NY Federal Reserve, and in doing so takes down the entire global banking system?

The refrain has been picked up by German legislators. “All the gold must come home: it is precisely in this crisis that we need certainty over our gold reserves,” said Heinz-Peter Haustein from the Free Democrats (FDP).

The jig is apparently up- unallocated gold is essentially paper:

Peter Hambro, chair of the UK-listed gold miner Petropavlovsk, said the Bundesbank may have withdrawn its bullion in self-protection since it did not, apparently, have its own specifically allocated bars in London. “They may have decided that the Bank of England had lent out too much gold, and decided it was safer to bring theirs home. This is about the identification. Can you identify your own allocated gold, or are you just a general creditor with a metal account?“

Got PHYZZ??

Check out these similar articles:

1. GERMANY TO REPATRIATE & AUDIT 150 TONS OF GOLD RESERVES FROM NY FED!!!
2. Bank of Mexico Admits 96% of Gold Reserves Held in US & London
3. Germany Now Holds 109.194 Million Ounces of Gold
4. South Korea Increases Gold Reserves to 70.4 Tons
5. Bank of Korea Buys 15 Tons of Gold for 2nd Time in 2011

Gold Bank Run Accelerating…Now the Swiss Want Their Gold Back- All 1040 Tons of It!

January 25, 2013 By The Doc http://www.silverdoctors.com/gold-bank-run-accelerating-now-the-swiss-want-their-gold-back-all-1040-tons-of-it/

With last week’s announcement by the Bundesbank of the repatriation of 674 tons of German gold from Paris and NY over the next 7 years, we predicted that an avalanche of gold repatriation requests would soon be made to the BOE and the NYFed. 
It appears that Switzerland may be next to the game, much to the dismay of the SNB.  The Swiss gold initiative, an initiative to Secure the Swiss National Bank’s Gold Reserves, launched in March 2012 by four members of the Swiss parliament, has grown to 90,000 supporters. 
Once 100,000 supporters are achieved, the Swiss Parliament must take up the referendum. 
The initiative asserts that the Swiss people should have a right to vote on 3 things, none of which will please the banking cartel:

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1. To keep Swiss gold physically in Switzerland (ie repatriate Switzerland’s gold)
2. Preventing/forbidding the SNB from selling any more of its gold reserves
3.  Requiring the SNB to massively increase their gold holdings to a minimum of 20% of its reserves within 5 years, held within Switzerland.
Not surprisingly, the Swiss National Bank doesn’t wish to disclose where it’s physical gold is held, but it may soon be forced to once the initiative achieves 100,000 supporters. 
674 tons repatriated here, 1040 tons repatriated there, pretty soon we’re talking real money! 

From the Post Finance, via google translate:

Gold initiative prepares the SNB headache
by Lukas Hässig – home to Switzerland must get their gold from abroad? The SVP initiative calling for the missing, only 10,000 signatures. The SNB could get into trouble.
“Already in March 2013 is the deadline for the submission of Gold initiative,” wrote the St. Gallen SVP National and co-founder Lukas ReimannAlthough it was with some 90,000 signatures on its way. “But to crack the necessary 100’000, now the use of all is needed.”
Where are the 1,040 tonnes of gold the Swiss National Bank? The question is now being seriously discussed with us. The response of the SNB remains nebulous. Most of it is here, but some lie abroad, said the central bank. “We do not want to be precise,” says SNB spokeswoman Silvia Oppliger. “Maybe we will express more precisely, should the gold initiative come about.”
German gold repatriation provides in USA for red heads
The German Bundesbank initially thought that she needed to accept the emotional issue any further. But so are a growing number of applied citizens and politicians were not satisfied. They put the central bank so long under pressure until it gave way recently. Now bring the Germans back 674 tonnes of gold from the U.S. and from France to England. This corresponds to a value of 27 billion euros currently.
The large gold repatriation of our northern neighbor provides worldwide headlines. «Germany Moving Its Gold Back Home To Satisfy The Paranoid”, headlines the U.S. Internet newspaper Huffington Post; pure populism to appease a population that is seeing ghosts. In Germany, had previously taken hold doubt the actual existence of the gold that is stored in the gold vaults of the Americans. The bars may indeed be covered with a thin layer of gold and otherwise consist of inexpensive iron was feared.
SNB would have to buy up to 100 billion gold
Interestingly, Switzerland has been a long time before the Germans and taken without public vertebral the topic. Circles from the People’s Party launched 16 months ago, the gold initiative. Because the project in parliament remained chance would just started as the last remaining means an initiative, the initiators said then. By referendum, they want to force the SNB to store all the gold in Switzerland and sell no single ton more. In addition to the SNB within 5 years after voting to increase their gold holdings massively so that it accounts for a fifth of the minimum in the whole balance.
At current prices, the rest would go into the money. Currently, the share of gold in all the assets of the National Bank is only at 10 percent. If the SNB reduced its balance sheet is not strong, then it remains a possible adoption of the initiative no other choice than double its gold reserves to 2000 tonnes.
A ton of gold currently costs about $ 55 million. Now can be expected: 2000 tons came to 110 billion dollars, equivalent to about 100 billion francs. By comparison, the SNB now has a capital of 62 billion francs. This does not include higher gold prices that could arise due to the demand of the SNB.
Headache at the guardian of the currency
Where did all that money to come for gold purchases is not clear. It would be nice to reduce the mountain of about 170 billion euros in order to buy gold bars. Only it would take for the many Euros first buyer, and the single currency would yet remain so stable that billion-sales of the SNB would not immediately strengthen the franc against the euro again. This consideration alone makes it clear that the gold initiative although many Swiss arrives, but whose implementation the responsible persons would cause big headaches.

Axiom 3: Back to the Articles of Confederation as America's Central Government

By Ron Holland

Ron Holland

Americans demanding a return to limited government, a balanced budget and an end to spiraling sovereign debt have been voting for the GOP for decades and the result has been total failure on all counts. To accomplish these goals we really must turn the government structure back to our first government model, the Articles of Confederation, so the centers of real power are at the state rather than the federal level. Since 1913, it has been very easy, between maintaining the two-party monopoly and buying off Congress, for the power elite to control leviathan from the top down. This would be far more difficult if power, authority and programs were decentralized and returned to control of the individual states.
Changing the government does not mean voting in another president or changing whether the Democrats or GOP control the House or Senate. Both parties are equally guilty and responsible for the downfall of America. Yes, I would certainly prefer Rand Paul to another Democrat president following the second term of Barak Obama. And of course more liberty-oriented state house representatives as well as senators and congress members at the federal level would help to get the liberty message out.
But national politics today is like "window dressing" on the Titanic and electing a "few more good politicians" will never create a majority on most important issues. The political leadership knows we are sinking and have reserved the lifeboats for themselves. All of the electioneering and mindless political chatter is about as relevant as deciding who would pay the final bar tab on the Titanic. Politics is just a subterfuge to keep you in the bar while the elites rush aboard the lifeboats.
A Short History of the Articles
If we really want to restore the original republic of our founding fathers and a modern day version of liberty and limited government back to these united States, the current all powerful federal government must be relegated to the trash heap of failed ideals of history – and soon. The formerly sovereign states of the US must return again to our first federal government, the one our founding fathers created and our patriot armies shed their treasure, blood and lives to establish, the Articles of Confederation.
Before the Constitution was drafted, the nearly 2.5 million citizens of the 13 sovereign states were governed under the Articles of Confederation, established by the Second Continental Congress. The limited confederation government formed by the Articles began on May 10, 1775 and lasted until September 15, 1787. Please note the population statistics at the time did not include Africans or Indians, according to the US Bureau of the Census, so the real population was substantially higher than the official figures.
According to US Office of Personnel Management, the 2011 civilian federal workforce, excluding postal service employees, was 2.15 million. Adding in the 500,000 postal workers means there are more civilian parasites employed by the federal government living off of productive taxpayers in the private sector than there were citizens back in 1776. I believe the Constitution and Bill of Rights have failed our nation because of the actions of a few.
The Constitutional or Philadelphia Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 through September 17, 1787 supposedly to address problems with the Articles of Confederation. Slow methods of communication had made it difficult to govern a decentralized confederation of sovereign states, both at the executive and legislative levels, one of the reasons a more centralized government structure was suggested.
So although the announced public intention was to revise the Articles, powerful interests represented by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton conspired to create a new government instead of improving the lawful and legitimate government of the Articles of Confederation. The result was the Constitution that America operated under for better and sometimes for worse until the coup of Lincoln in 1861 and the total overthrow by Money Power in 1913. Note most of the participants supported the Constitution because of communication inadequacies of the Articles and had the best of intentions but there was a hidden element consisting of those out to emulate the powerful central governments of Europe.
The extreme opposition to the Constitution has been covered up and downplayed in the establishment's directed history propaganda about the period but, in fact, men like Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee (great uncle to Robert E. Lee) and many others strongly opposed ratification. The Anti-Federalist opposition was strong and existed across the nation. For instance, in North Carolina and Rhode Island, the new government was not ratified until forced to do so. In Rhode Island, resistance was so strong that civil war almost took place but with the passage of the Bill of Rights, the opposition collapsed, the Articles of Confederation was ended and the new, more powerful government structure took over the federal government.
A Sampling of Coup D'états and Black-Flag Operations In US History
"Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship." – William Blum
Of course, the truth of many such actions was effectively covered up until historical accuracy was revealed through the Internet Reformation. This is why the history books and public school texts teach only the authorized propaganda version.
The first was the Whiskey Rebellion in 1791 in which armed resistance by citizens against a new whiskey tax took place in opposition to Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton's federalist program to increase central government power and revenue. George Washington and an army were used to successfully quell the rebellion.
Second was the Fort Sumter incident in Charleston harbor in which a horse was killed but the "battle" was used to coerce Northern newspapers to begin to oppose Southern independence as strongly as they had earlier urged a peaceful solution to state secession. The real reason for the about-face was that the Southern states generated most of the government revenue at the time because of import duties and the Union could not survive without the Southern revenues.
The third was Lincoln's call for troops from the different states to invade and conquer the seceding Southern states. This demand for troops and states to wage war on other states caused the states in the upper South to vote in secession conventions to withdraw from the union. Southerners rightly considered their actions a second American Revolution against tyranny.
Fourth was the secretive and deliberate aid to support both the communist takeover of the Soviet Union as well as later support for the Nazi regime in Germany by Wall Street interests.
Fifth was Roosevelt's prior knowledge of a certain Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor after the US had cut off all oil and steel imports to Japan. Many in Washington felt this was necessary to stop Hitler and aid our communist Soviet ally against the will of a majority of US citizens.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Lyndon Johnson, based on a falsified incident, was introduced to get the US into a ground war in Vietnam. This harkened back to both the Charleston Harbor incident as well as the 1898 sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor, starting the Spanish American War.
Then there were the political assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy as well as Dr. Martin Luther King and the attempted assassination of George C. Wallace. During those days the elites didn't fear truth because without the Internet Reformation and alternative media of today there really were few outlets available to circumvent the establishment news and opinion monopoly. Therefore, political leaders could say and even act often without restraint as long as they didn't have the mass popularity to threaten the monopoly control. When this happened, there was usually a warning first that some heeded, like Ross Perot. Others were eliminated or badly wounded, like Wallace.
Looking Back
In hindsight now, 220-plus years later, it is clear that the concerns expressed by the Anti-Federalists were correct. They strongly opposed the central government having more power than the state governments, were concerned about the federal judiciary and rightly feared the presidency could morph into a monarchy.
Actually, the recent presidential election, inauguration and the related entertainment provided proof we have the presidential trappings of monarchy, the centralized power structure of fascism and the immorality of Rome's Caligula. America has come a long way DOWN from the original government established by our founding fathers, The Articles of Confederation.
Next, Axiom 4 will show how to organize and structure the restoration of our individual states back to the Articles.

Ron Holland's introductory article in this series, "How to Restore the West," is here, Axiom 1 here and Axiom 2 here.            http://www.thedailybell.com/28632/Ron-Holland-Axiom-3-Back-to-the-Articles-of-Confederation-As-Americas-Central-Government

Hacked Emails Reveal ‘Washington-Approved’ Plan to Stage Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria

truther January 29, 2013 http://www.pakalertpress.com/2013/01/29/hacked-emails-reveal-washington-approved-plan-to-stage-chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/

Obama administration complicit in war crime?

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars

Alleged hacked emails from defense contractor Britam reveal a plan “approved by Washington” and funded by Qatar to stage a chemical weapons attack in Syria and blame it on the Assad regime, fulfilling what the Obama administration has made clear is a “red line” that would mandate US military intervention.

The leaked emails, obtained by a hacker in Malaysia, feature an exchange (click here for screenshot) between Britam Defence’s Business Development Director David Goulding and the company’s founder Philip Doughty;

Phil

We’ve got a new offer. It’s about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington.

We’ll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have. They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record.

Frankly, I don’t think it’s a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?
Kind regards
David

The fact that the plan involves delivering a CW (chemical weapon) that is “similar to those Assad should have,” clearly suggests that the idea is to stage a false flag chemical weapons attack that could be blamed on Assad by Gulf states like Qatar and NATO powers.

If the claim that such as plot was “approved by Washington” can be verified, then the Obama administration is complicit in a war crime.

According to Cyber War News, which details the process of how the emails were hacked and includes screenshots of the leaked documents, the hack also uncovered, “extremely personal information,” including copies of passports of Britam employees, some of whom appeared to be mercenaries.

A full list of all the hacked documents can be found here. One software systems administrator who analyzed the ‘header’ details from the email in question concluded, “I have to admit that the email does indeed look genuine….all these facts check out. So with Mythbusters objectivity I have to call this one plausible.”

Online business profiles confirm that both David Goulding and Philip Doughty work for Britam Defence.

Last year, reports began to circulate that that US-backed rebel fighters in Syria had been given gas masks and were willing to stage a chemical weapons attack which would then be blamed on the Assad regime to grease the skids for NATO military intervention.

Soon after in August, President Barack Obama warned that the use or even transportation of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would represent a “red line” that would precipitate military intervention. French President Francois Hollande followed suit, stating that the use of such weapons “Would be a legitimate reason for direct intervention.”

At around the same time, a source told Syrian news channel Addounia that a Saudi company had fitted 1400 ambulance vehicles with anti-gas & anti-chemical filtering systems at a cost of $97,000 dollars each, in preparation for a chemical weapons attack carried out by FSA rebels using mortar rounds. A further 400 vehicles were prepared as troop carriers.

The attack would be blamed on the Syrian Army and exploited as an excuse for a military assault. A March 2012 Brookings Institution report entitled Saving Syria: Assessing Options For Regime Change outlined this very scenario – where a manufactured humanitarian crisis would be cited as justification for an attack.

Yesterday, Israel’s vice premier Silvan Shalom told reporters that if Syrian rebels obtained chemical weapons from stockpiles belonging to the Assad regime, such a development would force Israel to resort to “preventive operations,” in other words – a military strike on Syria.

In December, a shocking video emerged of Syrian rebels testing what appeared to be a form of nerve gas on rabbits, bolstering claims that the rebels had already obtained chemical weapons.

As Tony Cartalucci also highlights, “Mention of acquiring chemical weapons from Libya is particularly troubling. Libya’s arsenal had fallen into the hands of sectarian extremists with NATO assistance in 2011 in the culmination of efforts to overthrow the North African nation . Since then, Libya’s militants led by commanders of Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) have armed sectarian extremists across the Arab World, from as far West as Mali, to as far East as Syria.”

Last month, 29 different US-backed Syrian opposition groups pledged their allegiance to Al Nusra, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group which, as the New York Times reported, “killed numerous American troops in Iraq.

Numerous reports confirm that Al Nusra is the leading front line fighting force in Syria and is commanding other rebel groups. Given their prominent role, allied with the fact that the terror group has been responsible for numerous bloody attacks in Syria, the notion that the Obama administration would approve a plot that could see chemical weapons fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda terrorists could represent a foreign policy scandal even bigger than Benghazi-Gate.

In a related story, the Syrian Electronic Army, a separate hacktivist group, continues to release hacked files and emails from numerous sensitive foreign ministry and military websites belonging to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, including emails sent between these countries.

Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read

By Michael, on October 4th, 2010

 

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.     
The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the "big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.  But even those areas of the media that the "big six" do not completely control are becoming increasingly concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States.  Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.
But it is the "big six" that are the biggest concerns.  When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think.  They don't call it "programming" for nothing.
Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media.  But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people....
In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].
--Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi
Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest.  Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com.  The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own....
Time Warner
Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine
Walt Disney
ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books
Viacom
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1
News Corporation
Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBooks
Sky Italia
Sky Radio Denmark
Sky Radio Germany
Sky Radio Netherlands
STAR
Zondervan
CBS Corporation
CBS News
CBS Sports
CBS Television Network
CNET
Showtime
TV.com
CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
CBS Consumer Products
CBS Outdoor
CW Network (50% ownership)
Infinity Broadcasting
Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
Westwood One Radio Network
NBC Universal
Bravo
CNBC
NBC News
MSNBC
NBC Sports
NBC Television Network
Oxygen
SciFi Magazine
Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
Telemundo
USA Network
Weather Channel
Focus Features
NBC Universal Television Distribution
NBC Universal Television Studio
Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
Trio
Universal Parks & Resorts
Universal Pictures
Universal Studio Home Video
These gigantic media corporations do not exist to objectively tell the truth to the American people.  Rather, the primary purpose of their existence is to make money.
These gigantic media corporations are not going to do anything to threaten their relationships with their biggest advertisers (such as the largest pharmaceutical companies that literally spend billions on advertising), and one way or another these gigantic media corporations are always going to express the ideological viewpoints of their owners.
Fortunately, an increasing number of Americans are starting to wake up and are realizing that the mainstream media should not be trusted.  According to a new poll just released by Gallup, the number of Americans that have little to no trust in the mainstream media (57%) is at an all-time high.
That is one reason why we have seen the alternative media experience such rapid growth over the past few years.  The mainstream media has been losing credibility at a staggering rate, and Americans are starting to look elsewhere for the truth about what is really going on.
Do you think that anyone in the mainstream news would actually tell you that the Federal Reserve is bad for America or that we are facing a horrific derivatives bubble that could destroy the entire world financial system?  Do you think that anyone in the mainstream media would actually tell you the truth about the deindustrialization of America or the truth about the voracious greed of Goldman Sachs?
Sure there are a few courageous reporters in the mainstream media that manage to slip a few stories past their corporate bosses from time to time, but in general there is a very clear understanding that there are simply certain things that you just do not say in the mainstream news.
But Americans are becoming increasingly hungry for the truth, and they are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the dumbed down pablum that is passing as "hard hitting news" these days.
So what do you think about the state of the mainstream media?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below....

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