Control

Media and the freedom of media is something I think we take for granted in North America. What I mean by take for granted is that many North Americans believe that main stream media is giving them "real coverage" and fail to connect the dots of who owns and controls the media outlets and basically the message being put out by mainstream corporate media coverage. First and foremost is the fact that our mainstream media outlets are owned by large corporations who own many other businesses that we may not find the most environmental or customer friendly. This is dangerous because having corporate interests control the flow of what is being covered and how its being covered does not promote "Truth in media".
Every journalist will put their own spin on a story, that's why many of us follow journalist whom "style" we enjoy. This is great, writing style has alot to do with captivating an audience, I'm not talking about spins but what I am talking about is the gag orders put on press, the failure to show popular opinions in media and the tendency to use "fear mongering" in the stories that are covered. It is due to these tendencies in mainstream media , the untruths, that have brought about the "free press or open sourced media". The independent media coverage so many of us have found here on the Internet and the power it has brought back to the people is unmeasurable in my opinion. Not to say that you should believe everything you read on paper or on the internet, but if you can go to 4 or 5 independent media sources and see similar coverage you can start to put some weight into what they are covering. Always do your own research and don't take Wikipedia entries as the gods truth. The beauty in doing our own research is that it causes us to form our OWN opinions and not the ones being pushed into our minds by the 6 o'clock news. Sometimes you have to go to page 4 or 5 of google to get to the truth, don't be afraid to push past page one or two.

Egypt is erupting and their government is attempting to control press that is not under the control of corporate interests. I don't know how many of you out there read Al Jazeera but I find them to be a credible sources of news and often they offer a different opinion on world issues than the North American mainstream outlets. Egypt has revoked their licenses meaning coverage for millions of Arabs was disrupted (although still available on alternative feeds) China has blocked the ability to search the word Egypt from micro blogs similar to twitter. Facebook and twitter have both been blocked access from Egypt.
Does anyone else see the trend? Big business Governments don't want this political unrest to spill over to their countries. Egypt's unrest started because of Tunisia's unrest and Jordan followed because of Egypt's. Social networking sites give us the ability to become the press ourselves, to broadcast the real message of what is going on in the streets. This is a scary thing for the New World Order, or the Corporate interests that are represented in each of our governments (lobbyist in North America's case) Its a clog in the wheel.  They cannot continue to push their agenda when we are involved and actively stopping it by ousting them for the slime they really are. Its a beautiful thing! So next time you log onto facebook or twitter to tell the world the color of your underwear or what you are having for dinner, try bringing forward an issue that is going on in your community that isn't getting the coverage from the mainstream media. "The people united will never be defeated" is a true saying, and we need to unite, the "Open Internet " and social networking sites give us this power of unity.

Hopefully in the case of Egypt the people are successful in their fight. The U.S. has now cut ties with Mubarak (who they put into power back in the 80's) and are now threatening to pull the U.S. aid that basically funds the military. Mubarak is finding out much like Bin Laden and Noriega did, that when the U.S. is done with you they throw you to the wolves. Not that I think any of them don't deserve it, I just wish justice would extend to all those involved and not just the "Fall guy". I think we will see in the coming days the Military decide to back U.S. funding Corporate interests over backing Mubarak and the current government of Egypt will fall. I hope the people do not stop at that Victory, they must also be vigilant that another American Corporate backed criminal doesn't move into office.



POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!