big conspiracy shutting down communist web sites

[fire_mat99]

There seems to be a big conspiracy going around that some high up people are shutting down communist web sites or any left web sites and starting up Nazi web sites .

So I did some web searching and I'm finding more and more Nazi web sites and almost no  communist web sites or any left web sites .

The only communist web sites or any left web sites I know are this site and redleft or left.net whatever it is called.All the MSN and yahoo sites has gone to spam and inactive.

I'm scared they will go to redleft or left.net whatever it is called and this site and shut it down and there will be no web site on the internet on it.

And I know of no talk-radio that talks about communist or left at all!! And most of the talk-radio are very anti-left never mind almost hostile to any communist .

[caesarscook]

Comrade, calm down, I'm confident that no one is rampaging around shutting down communist websites and replacing them with nazi ones.  There are plenty of left groups out there, most having a membership of 2 men and a dog in a basement somewhere, that all have their own websites.  Go to www.broadleft.org and look at the myriad of groups with names like: Popular People's United Socialist Workers' Party for Liberation and Justice or the International Bolshevik-Leninist Group Organizing for the Principled Political Rejuvenation of the Fourty-Eighth International, all with their own websites.  There is certainly no shortage of "left" websites. 

As for the point about talk radio, that's because capitalists own radio stations and it is not really in their interest to put on Marxists or class conscious workers generally.  I would caution against jumping to conspiratorial conclusion, comrade.  The thing about a proper Marxist analysis, comrade, is that we can explain the domination of the working class by the capitalist class through the mechanations of the capitalist economy without recourse to conspiracy theories.  Not to say that capitalists never conspire, of course they do, but generally speaking the dynamics of wage labor and capitalist ideology are going to oppress working people under normal conditions of the system's operation, regardless of whether suited men are behind closed doors smoking cigars planning assassinations and so on and so forth.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  I would also note comrade that this appears to be the wrong thread for this point as this discussion would seem to have nothing to do with getting involved.  This portion of the forum is reserved for discussion of strikes, demos, and other actions for the comrades to get involved with.

[fire_mat99]

Comrade, calm down, I'm confident that no one is rampaging around shutting down communist websites and replacing them with nazi ones.  There are plenty of left groups out there, most having a membership of 2 men and a dog in a basement somewhere, that all have their own websites.  Go to www.broadleft.org and look at the myriad of groups with names like: Popular People's United Socialist Workers' Party for Liberation and Justice or the International Bolshevik-Leninist Group Organizing for the Principled Political Rejuvenation of the Fourty-Eighth International, all with their own websites.  There is certainly no shortage of "left" websites. 

Yes there is lots of web sites but I'm finding less and less groups,message boards or chat groups.

As for the point about talk radio, that's because capitalists own radio stations and it is not really in their interest to put on Marxists or class conscious workers generally

I thought talk hosts or guests do not own the radio station but talk hosts buy station time?

[caesarscook]

I thought talk hosts or guests do not own the radio station but talk hosts buy station time?

This is true, comrade, but an oversimplification.  Yes, the airwaves are "public", but the FCC in the U.S. determines who does and does not get a license.  The FCC is a department of the bourgeois state apparatus and as such generally speaking act in the interests of their class. 

Aside from the rental factor, television and radio stations (that is to say, institutions that rent this public air time) are, with the possible exception of "public" or "community radio/TV, owned by capitalists, for example Rupert Murdoch (Fox), Ted Turner (AOLTimeWarner), Bill Gates (MSNBC), etc.  Through their ownership of the means of communication these capitalists can determine who gets airtime and they are not going to put a Marxist or class conscious worker on the air.  They needn't conspire, per se. 

Thus, decisions about what is and is not fit to print/hear/watch are determined entirely by capitalists, through their ownership of media or the appropriation of the use of this media via their state.  The only alternative, in the last analysis, is the seizure of the means of communication, along with the rest of industry, by the working class to be administered democratically.  Trotsky describes an alternative way to administer print media via proportionally representation through the soviets/councils in "If America Should Go Communist", which is equally applicable to television or radio:

While Soviet America would nationalize all printing plants, paper mills and means of distribution, this would be a purely negative measure. It would simply mean that private capital will no longer be allowed to decide what publications should be established, whether they should be progressive or reactionary, "wet" or "dry," puritanical or pornographic. Soviet America will have to find a new solution for the question of how the power of the press is to function in a socialist regime. It might be done on the basis of proportional representation for the votes in each soviet election.

Thus the right of each group of citizens to use the power of the press would depend on their numerical strength -- the same principle being applied to the use of meeting halls, allotment of time on the air and so forth.

[fire_mat99]

This is true, comrade, but an oversimplification.  Yes, the airwaves are "public", but the FCC in the U.S. determines who does and does not get a license.  The FCC is a department of the bourgeois state apparatus and as such generally speaking act in the interests of their class. 

The FCC is run by the government  they control TV and radio they like to control violence and sexuality and also using bad words or bad jokes .And other lawd and raunchy things .

It nothing more than promoting the US into goal of god run country and crunch the godless minds and any thing that may be vice .

It is all part of the plan.


Has for talk hosts or guests they do not control the TV or radio .From my understanding here is how it works.

You a talk hosts that wants to talk about oil problem you than find guests to talk about it and than you have to find station network to air.The station network air your program and other programs and the station network is controlled by the FCC.


You can NOT just start broadcasting it is illegal you have to find a station to air it example the program ''Coast to Coast AM'' witch talk about UFO's and very spiritual and supernatural has to find station to air it .And there are 2 station in Nagra Falls /Buffalo and 610 being one of them .It is the station that owns the frequency like that use 7.5 MHz that is 610 .The ''Coast to Coast AM'' owns no station or any frequency they just buy air time and the station like 610 or 620 may air it.And only the station owns the frequency and all they do is air the program.

The FCC or the station do not own the program.The FCC is just the government that controls the TV or radio

The commercials just pay for the station not the program.

[fire_mat99]

Aside from the rental factor, television and radio stations (that is to say, institutions that rent this public air time) are, with the possible exception of "public" or "community radio/TV, owned by capitalists, for example Rupert Murdoch (Fox), Ted Turner (AOLTimeWarner), Bill Gates (MSNBC), etc.  Through their ownership of the means of communication these capitalists can determine who gets airtime and they are not going to put a Marxist or class conscious worker on the air.  They needn't conspire, per se.

Well fox,AOLTimeWarner, MSNBC,space,sci-fi,history,Court TV, Starz!,Comedy Central,ABC,CBC,America One,MTV so on !!! THEY own the station and not the content or program.

The talk radio or talk TV hosts that has the program like ''problem with oil'' or ''Coast to Coast AM'' just buy the air time off one of the programs  above .

[caesarscook]

Aside from the rental factor, television and radio stations (that is to say, institutions that rent this public air time) are, with the possible exception of "public" or "community radio/TV, owned by capitalists, for example Rupert Murdoch (Fox), Ted Turner (AOLTimeWarner), Bill Gates (MSNBC), etc.  Through their ownership of the means of communication these capitalists can determine who gets airtime and they are not going to put a Marxist or class conscious worker on the air.  They needn't conspire, per se.

Well fox,AOLTimeWarner, MSNBC,space,sci-fi,history,Court TV, Starz!,Comedy Central,ABC,CBC,America One,MTV so on !!! THEY own the station and not the content or program.

The talk radio or talk TV hosts that has the program like ''problem with oil'' or ''Coast to Coast AM'' just buy the air time off one of the programs  above .

Most of those stations are actually owned by 5 corporations (hell it'll probably be 3 or 4 by the time you read this given the rate of concentration).  The owners of these stations decide what the will and will not air.  The "hosts" are at the behest of these corporate executives, but not only that, to the advertisers, which is the key.  Corporate media outlets "rent" (they do not "buy") airtime from the public airwaves, through the FCC.  Advertisers then buy commercial airtime which is valued at the viewership for the given program (They think of it as buying viewers actually).  Thus, the more people you get to watch a given program, the more value the advertising space for the program, which, according to the industry is how the magic invisible hand is supposed to operate to give people "what they want". 

Now, of course, we all know this is a crock and that in the realm of media, because of its role as a propagandistic agent, not all decisions are dictated strictly by economic imperatives (but I would argue that most still are).  If you look hard at the record, the factual record, you're going to find that far more decisions to air or not air progressive, left, socialist, communist, etc. material is due to corporate ownership of the main media outlets and not FCC decisions.  Your understanding of the dynamics of media operation is not correct.  It provides too much open agency for the hosts of shows on the one hand, and too great a role for the FCC (although I do not intend to minimize the pernicious role this organization plays!).  You leave out the corporate owners of the media outlets, who can pull the plug on television shows whenever they want. 

Say I am the host of a show on Comedy Central (I know I'm not that funny, but work with me here).  First, I'm am beholden to an executive director for the show that can shoot down any idea I have, and he, in turn, is beholden to the board of executives of Vivendi Universal, which owns Comedy Central, MTV, and probably several other stations on your list.  Now, in turn the board is beholden to the stock holders and are required by law to do what is best for the stock holders, which means bringing in revenue.  That means they have to sell advertisement time.  So they do.  Now, we're also all beholden to the advertisers, like say General Motors, which buy advert time on my show.  That means that I can't make any jokes about General Motors on my show, because that might cause GM to drop their ads, which would decrease revenue, which would upset the stockholders, which would upset the board, which would upset the board, which would...you get the idea. 

The only way around this at the present time is through public broadcasting outlets, community owned stations, but we all know how few people watch those.  The only ultimate solution is democratic control of the media. 

This is a rough, and honestly overly simplistic layout of the way the system operates.  The FCC is not banning communist websites and preventing communists/socialists from being on TV.  No telling whether they would, but there is no need, because the corporate owners of the major media outlets aren't going to put them on anyway.

[fire_mat99]

Well fox,AOLTimeWarner, MSNBC,space,sci-fi,history,Court TV, Starz!,Comedy Central,ABC,CBC,America One,MTV so on !!! THEY own the station and not the content or program.

Most of those stations are actually owned by 5 corporations (hell it'll probably be 3 or 4 by the time you read this given the rate of concentration).  The owners of these stations decide what the will and will not air

That is alot of station and you saying most all TV and talk radio is owded by 5 station? So those hundreds of TV stations are owned by 5 station same has those hundreds of stations on AM and FM.

There is lots of AM ad FM station and on TV most can get over  100 TV station and for all this to be owned by 5 stations  this just points to monopoly.

Say I am the host of a show on Comedy Central (I know I'm not that funny, but work with me here).  First, I'm am beholden to an executive director for the show that can shoot down any idea I have,

So each station on TV has one executive director like fox has a executive director ,AOLTimeWarner has its own  executive director ,Court TV has its own executive director and MTV has its own executive director so on.

But all those stations are own by 5 station so all those  little executive director for each station have to do what big executive director  witch is the big boss.


And why do some station have more commercials on TV than others or some have less or more commercials on some talk radio shows .

[caesarscook]

Well fox,AOLTimeWarner, MSNBC,space,sci-fi,history,Court TV, Starz!,Comedy Central,ABC,CBC,America One,MTV so on !!! THEY own the station and not the content or program.

Most of those stations are actually owned by 5 corporations (hell it'll probably be 3 or 4 by the time you read this given the rate of concentration).  The owners of these stations decide what the will and will not air

That is alot of station and you saying most all TV and talk radio is owded by 5 station? So those hundreds of TV stations are owned by 5 station same has those hundreds of stations on AM and FM.

There is lots of AM ad FM station and on TV most can get over  100 TV station and for all this to be owned by 5 stations  this just points to monopoly.

Say I am the host of a show on Comedy Central (I know I'm not that funny, but work with me here).  First, I'm am beholden to an executive director for the show that can shoot down any idea I have,

So each station on TV has one executive director like fox has a executive director ,AOLTimeWarner has its own  executive director ,Court TV has its own executive director and MTV has its own executive director so on.

But all those stations are own by 5 station so all those  little executive director for each station have to do what big executive director  witch is the big boss.


And why do some station have more commercials on TV than others or some have less or more commercials on some talk radio shows .

1)  Am I saying that all the hundreds of stations on television are owned by 6 corporation (not stations)?  Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying.  You don't have to take my word for it.  This is the ABC of media criticism.  CBS owns this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_CBS  Viacom owns this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Viacom  Vivendi owns this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Vivendi  Microsoft owns this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Microsoft_Corporation  NewsCorp (Fox, Rupert Murdoch) owns this stuff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corporation  That covers most of it.  There are a couple other enormous corporations that cover the rest, but that should be enough to make the point. 

2)Some stations have little to no commercials because they are public or community broadcasting.  Capitalists own television stations that are not publicly owned, which are few and far between.  And through their control of the state apparatus, capitalists play a significant role in limiting programming on public broadcasting, as well, which in the US, due to poor funding, is also largely funded by corporate donations.

3)Yes, each station has an executive, as does every corporation. 

[fire_mat99]

Some stations have little to no commercials because they are public or community broadcasting.  Capitalists own television stations that are not publicly owned, which are few and far between.  And through their control of the state apparatus, capitalists play a significant role in limiting programming on public broadcasting, as well, which in the US, due to poor funding, is also largely funded by corporate donations.

How does  public or community broadcasting work? And you saying each station has executive person and he or she will decide want will go on TV or radio or not ?

And if that executive person puts some thing that the 6 big executive owners will not like they close the station?

Also some people talk about cheap sci-fi shows on the sci-fi station  and pull the bigger more expensive shows like Star Wars and replace it with cheap sci-fi shows why is that? Okay is this becauses sci-fi station wants cheap shows ?

Well  because most of the sci-fi hollywood makes it not so cheesy like the cheap sci-fi shows. Well is this the executive person being controlled by the 6 big executive owners .

[caesarscook]

Some stations have little to no commercials because they are public or community broadcasting.  Capitalists own television stations that are not publicly owned, which are few and far between.  And through their control of the state apparatus, capitalists play a significant role in limiting programming on public broadcasting, as well, which in the US, due to poor funding, is also largely funded by corporate donations.

How does  public or community broadcasting work? And you saying each station has executive person and he or she will decide want will go on TV or radio or not ?

And if that executive person puts some thing that the 6 big executive owners will not like they close the station?

Also some people talk about cheap sci-fi shows on the sci-fi station  and pull the bigger more expensive shows like Star Wars and replace it with cheap sci-fi shows why is that? Okay is this becauses sci-fi station wants cheap shows ?

Well  because most of the sci-fi hollywood makes it not so cheesy like the cheap sci-fi shows. Well is this the executive person being controlled by the 6 big executive owners .

If I understand you correctly, you are asking about shows made by the Sci-Fi studio.  Sci-Fi is owned by NBC, which in turn is 80% owned by General Electric 80% with the remaining 20% owned by Vivendi SA.  If you watch Sci-Fi, you'll see that most of their programming (besides being terrible) is purchased from Universal (which is also owned by Vivendi/Universal/NBC/etc.).  The rest is assorted garbage that they buy (and on occasion produce themselves, that would probably be the most cheaply made crap you see on there) to fill up time, so that they can sell the advertising time.

In terms of community broadcasting, this can depend on the locality.  Oftentimes, a certain section of the airwaves are set aside as "public" and various methods (sometimes not the most democratic) are used to determine who gets to use the airspace.  That said, if the community station remains underfunded, which is sadly often the case, corporate donations can be used to keep the station afloat.  That makes even the public broadcasting, in these cases, dependent upon corporate money.

[fire_mat99]

I will reply to  the other part of the post the next day I have to go out.

If you watch Sci-Fi, you'll see that most of their programming (besides being terrible) is purchased from Universal (which is also owned by Vivendi/Universal/NBC/etc.).

So the Sci-Fi station wants cheap shows ?Why is that ?

Okay is it to keep production cost down so the Sci-Fi station can buy cheap shows and put on cheap shows than buy expensive shows and put expensive shows on?

, a certain section of the airwaves are set aside as "public" and various methods (sometimes not the most democratic) are used to determine who gets to use the airspace

And that would be TLC,history,discovery channel and all the money has to come by donation and cannot be businesses or corporation but donation and schools have to run the station not businesses or corporation.

And what about advertising?

[caesarscook]

And that would be TLC,history,discovery channel and all the money has to come by donation and cannot be businesses or corporation but donation and schools have to run the station not businesses or corporation.

No, TLC, History, and the Discovery Channel are DEFINITELY not public broadcasting.  They are corporately owned to the core, and you can often tell by the way that they spin (lie about) history.  Take the way the History Channel talks about any US president.  Or the way that they obsess over things that don't matter (Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monsters, etc.).  Nevermind the way they treat any subject that deals with Christian mythology. 

The History Channel is owned by A&E Television Networks, which is jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company (37.5%), The Hearst Corporation (37.5%), and NBC Universal (25%).  Both Discovery and TLC are owned by Discovery Communications, which is controlled by three shareholders: (1)  the Discovery Holding Company (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB), (2) Advance/Newhouse Communications, which is affiliated with Advance Publications, and (3) John S. Hendricks, the company's founder and chairman.

No, public broadcasting is limited to PBS nationally and usually 1 or 2 networks in each local market.  These are usually underfunded and tend to have low viewing audiences.

And what about advertising?

What about it?  I've basically done my best to explain how it operates.  I'm not quite clear about what you want here.