Corporate Influence on the Media and Perception of History

by Greg Wells

This is a speech I wrote as a sort of fleshed-out outline for a lecture I gave on the dangers of a corporate-influenced media. The hour-long lecture was a moderate success. If you're interested in an other lectures I've done since then (The Prestigious Political Career of LSD, The CIA and Student Activism, etc.) send me an e-mail. [[email protected]]

Today I'd like to inform anyone who will listen, mainly you guys, considering you have to to get a good grade, of what I, and a precious few others, believe to be a dangerous and largely imperceptible disorder forced upon all Americans, or anyone, in fact, living in a so-called free society.

This disorder takes many forms, many guises, many trojan horses, if you will, to sneak itself into your brain and influence your free will and your actions, thus robbing you of both.I'll start with a few questions. How many of you here have heard of Abe Lincoln? Quite a bit, no? Now tell me, how many of you know who killed Abe Lincoln, and don't say the doctors who attempted to trephinate his brain, we all know that. That's right, John Wilkes Booth.

Now here's a toughie. How many of you have heard of Huey Long? A few, that's to be expected. For those of you hav never heard of him, Huey Long was the senator of Louisiana in the early 1930's. He was a self-proclaimed socialist, and supported many radical programs, focusing on aiding the disenfranchised and those whom society had failed. The landmarks of his policies were several "Share Our Wealth" programs that proposed an income limit and the reduction of the income gap between classes. Obviously he had support, he was runnng for president. He was assassinated, though, unsurprisingly. One finds that fresh thinkers often end up dead before their times. I cite JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon as perfect examples. But that is not the point of my speech. I've yet more questions for you.

Who killed Huey Long? The official story is that an enraged son-in-law of a competitor gunned Huey Long down with a .38 special Colt revolver, whilst Long was campaigning. For those of you who don't know a .38 special is a medium-sized pistol that holds 6 to 8 bullets. Huey Long's body was riddled with up to sixty-seven bullet impacts, with as little as forty-eight actually found inside his body. The official explanation for this little bit of overkill? Long was caught in the crossfire between his assailant and his body guards. However, for that to be true, Long's bodyguards, who used pistols similar to the assailant's, would have had to reload their pistols twice each. Surely, within the time it takes to reload a revolver, a trained bodyguard would notice that his charge has fallen, within his own gunsights, no less.

But I digress, I did not come here to indict Long's bodyguards. However, I would like to direct attention to the fact that near none of you have ever heard any of this information. Why not? Several reasons. Perhaps, there simply wasn't time to cover this event in any history classes you've taken. It seems unlikely to me, though, that an event as important as the murder of a presidential candidate who could have changed the face of United States domestic policies would go completely overlooked. Perhaps you're just a moron, and didn't decide to remember this little tidbit. Many people choose to ignore the obvious, because it is too painful to believe. The media supports this type of thinking, and so does mainstream entertainment. I think that people are oppressed by a specific, concerted effort to keep this knowledge away from them. Perhaps the official story isn't the full one, or the true one. I'm going to ask a few more questions.

When was the last time you saw the functions and actions of the Republican Party on television, in the news, or elsewhere? How about the Democrats? Here comes the point-maker. How many times, in the last week, have you seen balanced news reporting displaying the goals and views of the Green party? Or socialists? Or left-wing libertarians? Or right-wing libertarians? What about laissez-faire capitalists? Or Marxists? Or technocrats? What about anarchists? Or anarcho-socialists?

Your television networks are lying to you, every hour, of every day, by leaving out information that anyone in a true democracy should never live without. This doesn't just apply to the news, however. The lessons you're taught in school are riddled with lies and half-truths, because those lies and half-truths serve someone. Be it business, or government, or someone's religious considerations, you are constantly bombarded by PROPAGANDA.

There. I said it. Propaganda. How can one expect fair and direct reporting of the news through a medium that can make money? How can situations which causes go back centuries, be summed up in a four minute audio segment, a sound bite and a frightening image? It is obvious, if one watches network television with a critical mind, that liberties are taken with the truth to make it more marketable, or more beneficial.

For the past thirty-eight years, the function of the news has been to make you feel and think whatever is most beneficial for multi-national corporations and the goverment, as if there was even any delineation left between them. I don't intend to convert you. I don't want you to believe me. Don't believe a single one of my crackpot theories, unless you've actually considered it. All I want you to do is to leave this room with a freer, more open mind. A mind that is critical of the news, and examines information and makes conclusions from it, not just remembers it.

Understand, that for every bit of news you hear and see on television there is a world of truth they've left out. Also understand, that the possibility exists that material on the news is not only truncated, left-out information, but wholly false. Don't allow your world views, your lifestyle, your mind itself, be made up by a twelve-second soundbite.