What is the difference between government-controlled media and corporate-controlled media?

I am curious to find out as to how many people think that there is true freedom of speech in the US major media and as to how many people think that they cannot be easily brainwashed.
When you hear people saying things that are totally against their self-interest, I cannot think of any logical reason why a person would say such things unless the person is brainwashed. In a smaller scale, a person who applauds any state action that is against his or her self-interest is similar to a suicide bomber who kills himself to please a leader. They both are committing an action that is against their interest.

I grew up in the Third World where the government controls the press. The good thing about a system like that is almost every citizen, save the dumbest, knows that the press is full of lies. They just read the news for entertainment. But in America things are way sophisticated. The government has no hand in controlling the press except a government that gives welfare to the corporations that control the press; in that situation such a government controls the press indirectly. And under a condition like that only the very insightful people would recognize the bias in the US major media to help out a handful of people in the country at the expense of the whole society.

You don’t have to go too far to see that. Take a look at the US budget. Tax rates at the top are coming down decreasing the revenue of the country. Social security tax, a flat tax that all people pay, is going up. Also such social security taxes that should be kept in a trust account is not kept accordingly. But they are also used to balance the budget. And that’s why the social security system will go bankrupt sooner or later; they are also being spent as part of the welfare scheme.
Then look at where these taxes are being spent. About $400 billion of such dollars go to defense contractors (with a small percentage of that going to brave soldiers who defend the country). Another huge percentage goes to pharmaceutical companies. Very little goes to education or to help out the have-nots. Also let’s not forget that when government cannot tax enough people to get money to give away to this handful of people they borrow the rest. Do you hear any outrage in the major media about these issues? Media gets its advertising revenue as these giveaways trickle down to them so the media owners can get their huge bonuses. They all add up to only one thing. It is not possible to have freedom of speech in the major media.

There was a time in America people enjoyed true freedom of press. But starting the 1980s it slowly stared decaying. This is disturbing since every corrupt and fascist regime in history first terminated freedom of speech as the first step towards their climb to fascism. This never happens in one swing but in gradual but steady steps. This has to be a concern not only of American citizens but also of all people. The USA has the power to blow up any part of the world in a matter of seconds with almost no opposition. Therefore, it is essential that the USA will continue to have sane and rational leaders who are not easily corruptible. One of the best ways to assure this is to have transparency and that comes only from a full and free press. So long live Internet journalists.

How did the attack on freedom of press begin in the USA? It began with slogans that were easy to remember and could be repeated till one gets brainwashed and starts believing in what one repeats. First the true freedom of press, that spoke of the problems of the working man and woman, began to be defined as liberal bias. Every where you turned you could read this new term being coined. Many books were written on the subject complete with reckless facts and lies. The next phrase to be coined was Blame America First syndrome.

Any time the press questioned the motives of a politician who gives away the wealth of the country to a handful of groups such acts of investigative journalism were called unpatriotic and such criticism was equated with attacking the country itself. This is history repeating itself, in Germany when fascism was rising any attack on Hitler was considered unpatriotic and branded as Blame Germany First.

Once people are brainwashed with slogans they seem to go along with anything press wants people to believe. So when giving welfare to the corporations by taxing hardworking people, people would justify that by saying that as practical policy because corporations create jobs. When pointed out that such corporations send jobs out of the country they would say that it is as sign of times and that is fine too. When pointed out, that due to huge government contracts the CEO s of these companies make mega-million bonuses people would say that is okay too since that is capitalism. People who live out of their salary from month to month with no idea as to how to retire would defend the right of a CEO to take a huge bonus because of a government contract paid by the salary man’s taxes!

Let’s take the issue of healthcare. There is huge population in the country with no health insurance. Still the US government spends more money than any other country in healthcare. So the media would point out that as evidence of government kindness, but won’t point out that such expenditure is actually welfare for the healthcare corporations where profits are huge so that CEO s in that industry also could make mega-million bonuses.

If you want to know how brainwashed some people are, check this out: look for people with no health insurance and you will find a huge percentage still think that socialized medicine is bad. Sure it is bad for people who make huge profits off the misery of people, but for those who have nothing it is better. Yet the very people who have no health insurance will disagree with you.

This is the power of brainwashing. And that is the difference between the government-controlled press and the corporate-controlled press. The corporate-controlled media knows how to brainwash people. The government cannot even do that right.