Bill Moyers new show "Moyers & Company" is usually interesting and sometimes in surprising ways. His recent show pegged to an old Eddie Murphy movie was one of those. You can read the transcript here.... Moyers & Co. Marty Kaplan Big Money's Effect on Big Media. This is probably more interesting than viewing the movie.
Marty Kaplan is associated with the Norman Lear Media Center.
The Eddie Murphy Movie by Kaplan "The Distinguished Gentleman" at Wikipedia was made about 20 years ago, but the Citizens United case opening the floodgates of big money and drowning the political process of democracy has made the movie more relevant again...apparently. Reviews were mixed. You can probably view it free.
Throw enough money at an issue and Democracy is irrelevant. Big money requires big government to control it. That is the irony of the GOP support of the plutocracy combined with their rhetoric against "big government". "Toxic Media" poisons reason and rationality. TV news becomes focused on mind-numbing entertainment and celebrity rather than hard issues which might aggravate their advertising clients. I can only wonder about the impact of BP's ads about the wonderful gulf coast and its miraculous recovery from the toxic oil spill on news coverage on all media. The impact of big money on advertising is readily apparent in those ads. No other region of the country has ever been "blessed" with such quality and such intensity of coverage. Fish mongers and family hospitality could never put this deluge together and hit the Sabbath gasbag shows again and again. Couple that with a good-looking blonde waxing enthusiasm over all the good things the fossil fuel industry is doing to save the environment, and we get sleek misinformation embedded in our brains without even knowing the real and full poisonous impact.
*** Stay tuned even if staying too tuned might drive you irrelevant--- Doug Wiken
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