Leveson Inquiry

[Socialist Party Head Office]

A former member who is still a Socialist has submitted the following as evidence to the Leveson Inquiry on Press Standards.

Quote:

That all the “mainstream media”, to which the printed press or newspapers form a significant part, is owned and controlled by the minority class, the capitalist class, who use their “mainstream media” as more or less political journals in both hardcopy and electronic formats in which to control human society for their selfish interest.

That “out-and-out” or the politically unrestrained capitalism of the late Victorian and early 20th century periods, once thought to have perished from the general psyche and kept at bay by the hand of Keynes, well in Europe anyway, and considered nasty, self-defeating and risky, has returned to occupy the “mainstream” and is again doing its worst for humanity.

That within this “mainstream media” there is a virtual monopoly of coverage from a “mainstream capitalist” perspective with none or very little opposition allowed.

Further, the narrowing of content has in the last 25 years now almost excluded even the light oppositions to “fully-free” and “fully bonkers” capitalism now practiced almost everywhere, from both the general and particular discussions of society never mind opposition to capitalism in any form.

Those from the liberal, the green to the “hard left” persuasions of whom it might be said that they champion varying “namby-pamby” versions of capitalism (with Keynes), themselves, while perhaps successful in controlling the excesses of the capitalists have too failed with the “mainstream capitalists” to herald a world any better and freer for workers, who make up the majority of humanity.

That this restriction of coverage is certainly more true of TV and radio and the “toilet papers” (tabloids), than of the other printed press, as “out-and-out” capitalism has been portrayed, by the whole “mainstream media” its fanatical supporters in near monopoly, not just as the ideological victor, but as a socially superior method of running society as well as the irrefutable provider of wealth and well-being, this despite their own constant news headlines to the contrary, and here these headlines, which to save the face of their masters, are almost always abstracted from their place in the scheme of things, isolated and cast as almost solely the work of a demon.

And of those left connected, as it were, they are blatantly credited to the unalterable and usually laudable universal truths of existence.  That today “mainstream capitalists” with the aid of their puppets, toadies and creepy-crawlers are given a free run all over their “mainstream media”.

Thus, from news reporting and comment on events and issues and the following discussions with recommendations; for ideas, insights, visions and, for accommodations in society to the ever-changing practices in line with new technologies and conditions impacting on capitalist business requirements and as a consequence on society are biased; and finally, with the continuing promotions of capitalist ideology encompassing, culture, leisure, social practices and expectations, all of these have been worked into a sustained enfilade of pro-capitalist propaganda across the entire “mainstream media”, mobilising into the ranks of the marching righteous: politicians, journalists, business people, the famous and most regrettably indeed most workers the later whose interest is not well served by this propaganda nor by the actual requirements and conditions of capitalist society.

That with none or little opposition allowed Editors and journalists need to be evermore inventive to fill the vast media space and time which they control and it is here with this “fill-in” content that both journalistic and broadcasting standards and integrities have fallen.

Further, a second downside of this atmosphere of capitalist absolutism with no opposition is that the capitalists are free to dictate and to impose on the whole world their injurious values and ideas unchallenged, except in instances of the most starkly sinful of policy which, the latter’s arising is so clearly a sign of confidence in autonomy among capitalists, and third, all workers (indeed, the whole planet) have been left exposed to the cruel and harsh reality imposed by capitalist supporting governments and “official sweetheart oppositions” and businesses whose priorities are the insidious trade, growth and profit, inducing a cockiness of a class strident where workers are insulted, overworked, bullied and murdered in between being cheated left, right and centre by both “reputable businesses” and illegal scammers as well as by governments supposedly theirs, and forth, the creation of first an apathy towards fairness, justice and democracy among most reflected with an unresponsive attitude to complaints expressing angst with new reality which, when nothing is proposed publically to the contrary, eventually, and even too among many of those with reservations and questions, leads to full-blown capitulation and support for these injurious capitalist values and ideas which more and more shake out the little good in human relations in human society leading to a cruel and harsh climate with unrelenting selfishness, suspicion bad feeling and violence, both within and across the classes, in a world really unsuitable for decent human living.

[HollyHead]

It could have done with a judicious use of blue pencil. More rant than reasoned argument in my opinion.

[stuartw2112]

My own and the National Union of Journalists’ take on Leveson:http://bigchieftablets.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/leveso/

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