In 1983 there were at least 50 media houses in
the US of A, all competing to offer that massive market their daily
entertainment. Today, with the ongoing merger and acquisitions frenzy, six
remain. They control what we see, hear and read. They make billions in profits
while using the public airwaves for free. Adding salt to the wound, now they
own the supporting print media.[i] Nearly all an American can
watch, read or hear is under the control of 232 executives.[ii]
Their influence extends far beyond America’s
borders because the US is in charge, no? Every academic voicing logical
opposition - Bill
Nye, Noam Chomsky, Burton
Mack, Michael Parenti,
William
Blum, Naomi Klein,
Ellen
Brown, Richard Wolff, Zizek
et al - has been forced into the
wilderness of the alternate press, a place you have to know to find, because
six corporations control 90% of the media.
But while those at the top push their one agenda
another phenomenon has been brewing, the rising of a new breed of heroes.
For me as a young boy it was the ageless Charlie Chaplin
who was first. Then, when I was old enough to choose, the big broadsides came
from the Monty Python
team and Mel Brooks.
They tore into capitalism and religion, ripping a hole in the fabric of the top-down
presented truth through which ordinary citizens slowly, as the years rolled,
began to look, and see.
Soon after the secrets came tumbling out of the
bag with, at first, the likes of Spitting Image
and Not The 9 O’Clock News.
Stand-ups George Carlin
and Richard Pryor
made waves in the minds of audiences, mounting an assault on the ridiculous
righteousness of the American dream. Later the UK’s Bill Bailey
crossed the divide with his direct criticism of the ‘give us your sweets or
I’ll smash your face in’ attitude of the USA. Mark Thomas
was nearly sued by Coca-Cola. The world’s most recognisable brand backed off,
assuming that bad press is bad press?
While the internet made the dissemination of corporate
lies easier, so it has also armed the comedians. Belly laugh attacks on the
status quo are going viral, proving the rubbish being presented could be
rubbished.
It was Jon Stewart’s exposure on the ‘Daily Show
‘with ‘The Best F#@king News Team Ever’
that allowed 200 odd million adult Americans to appreciate the pain the rest of
the entire world had suffered because of what its Federal Reserve and
to-big-to-fail banks had done with the USA housing bond collapse. His weeklong
commentary helped to dramatically expose
the bogus logic of the banks, a direct contrast to what the extraordinarily
well-placed and paid governor of the Federal Reserve forgot to mention in all
the free-to-air paid political broadcasts he made, while the voters hung on to
his every lying word.
Kate Smurthwaite
is just a child measuring a small 40 years but she has the public giggling and
thinking about women’s rights. Abortion, justice for prostitutes, personal
determination, all of these are her ammunition and her personal crusade. Where
George said he gets on with it because he has already given up on the world,
Kate says ‘I like to think I’m pretty good at channelling my anger into
activism rather than tears. But it’s not easy …’[iii]
John Oliver now brings us the ‘Last
Week Tonight’ show. Broader in scope than
most stand-ups he’s found a way to fight fire with fire with his own team of researchers
and writers. He slaps where few have dared slap before: Miss America
Scholarships, FIFA, New Year’s Eve, The Lottery.
Bill
Maher doesn’t take prisoners. I got to watching
Bill when he highlighted just how politically un-informed Americans are, his
move on the continuing education woes and, you may have noticed, his thing
about theism and a lack of tolerance for idiots (Trump, for example). He’s
rattling them. Some UC Berkeley types wanted to un-invite him to speak on
campus.[iv] Great Bill. You crack
them good and son, you’re not a joke. Your four million views is four million
more than watch the Brit parliamentary sessions where the paid to lead act out
a very poor version of the old Peter Sellers and team’s Goon show.
Russell Brand
has made a new entry point by leaping onto social networks as his stage. He
don’t care. He looks as though he has been pulled through a bush, but the shit
he exposes is deadly serious. ‘Let’s fight,’ he says with every utterance.
Pete Dominick ("think for yourself",
"check your sources"), David Pakman
(money in politics), Will Ferrell
(politics and the poorly developed Bush), Ricky Gervais
(pcness and religion), Diane Morgan
aka Philomena Cunk, Dave Allen
(sadly he’s gone). So many I’ve taken heart from and names new pop up: Sarah
Millican, Katherine Ryan,
John
Bishop, David Baddiel.
All provoke thought in the English language but there are Iranians,
Russians, Chinese
and French plus artists from the world over all with the same message; wake up.
Even my own small South Africa has produced game changers, the best for me Pieter
Dirk-Uys and now young Trevor Noah
is in the seat that Stewart vacated on the Tonight Show.
None of them read minds, talk with the dead, keep
telepathic trained aliens locked up in freezers or follow the team of voices in
their head. It’s work that brings them their material, it’s their inquiring
minds that compel them to shout ‘Yea gods, don’t you understand what we’re
allowing to be done to this world?!’
Because taking on government’s owners is a tough
job - a government that should be ours but which is run by the too big to fail
banks and corporates, a conglomerate bigger than 80% of the world’s countries.
The true genius of Robin Williams
was revealed to me when he was interviewed alongside another who is prepared to
tell it like it is, the articulate Stephen Fry.
And the few I’ve highlighted are not alone. Thank
the gods and other material making myths that you’ve your favourites. Yours no
doubt dwarf my list and every name has an illustrated and vital message – if we
want to hear it.
When is the Middle Class, that definitive influential
group, going to understand that the Greed Capitalism of today is not the way of
our grandfathers, that it’s been totally abused to make everything bright and
beautiful for the 1% and their phalanx of lackeys alone? I don’t know, but the
comedians are helping.
Think
is the operative word. We must! The real conspiracy theories (the war
on drugs) and political sideshows (Iraq
had our WMD) are being challenged daily
and blown apart regularly.
I say, take the Onion News’
opinion and decipher its message before tuning into any other conventional source.
That’s what these special men and women are saying. Dump Fox News, CNN, BBC,
Murdock, Reuters and their top men who seek to control our thoughts and
behaviour.
Just comedians? No, not at all.
Late entry: Guatemala is a tiny Central America
country that has been subject to US of A abuse since it realised there was
money in bullying. TV comic Jimmy Morales
was elected president last week on the promise of rooting out corruption. He’ll
only succeed if we the public watch his back. Zapiro to
replace Showerhead Zuma in South Africa?
