DKos: "It Wasn't Until I Left America I Realized How Badly American Plutocrat Owned Media Lies..."

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/story/149010/why_europeans_think_we%27re_insane

Daily Kos / By Democrats Ramshield

Why Europeans Think We're Insane

"It wasn't until I left America that I started to realize how badly the American plutocrat owned media lies to the American people through its disinformation campaign."

December 1, 2010 |

(Written by an American expat living in the European Union).

It wasn't until I left America that I started to realize how badly the American plutocrat owned media lies to the American people through its disinformation campaign.

Well today for a span of at least this one Daily Kos diary, you will get to see what the American plutocrat owned media never wants you to see, and that is how Europe in particular and the world in general has come to see America as a country in decline, whose people are so badly misinformed by the media, they actually don't realize that America is the only major industrialized nation in the world that by right of law does not offer universal medical access, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave and paid annual leave. It just seems almost impossible to get that word out to the American people. Even diaries on that subject at the Kos top out at just over 2,000 views. Let's please remember the purpose of the plutocrat owned commercial media isn't so much to inform us but rather to sell commercial advertising space.

Therefore this diary today will try to do something different. It will show you what the European media is saying about the American dream and you will be shocked!

MORE

[TexasObserver]

1. Our corrupt for-profit health care system is run by doctors for doctors.

Its purpose is to make money for hospitals and the doctors who control them. Treating people is secondary to making a big profit.

We will never have universal health care as long as our health care system is designed to make a small group of people more wealthy.

Americans don't know the truth, but many don't want to know it, anyway.

[Hannah Bell]

3. it's run by financiers, insurance corps, & pharma corps.

doctors come after the big three in the power structure.

[TexasObserver]

4. The Frist family of doctors and their ilk created this mess.

Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) is the largest of the bunch, and it's their creation.

Doctors created this mess when they decided to own their hospitals. THAT is when hospitals became profit factories first.

Certainly the doctors are aided and abetted by Big Pharm and Big Insurance, but the problem is the greed of so many doctors. The greed of many doctors is the reason our health care costs are the highest in the world, and also the reason our health care fails to provide services for so many citizens. They have been extremely political and pushed for legislation to help them make money in every state in the nation.

Greedy doctors are the root cause.

[Hannah Bell]

6. that's finance capital at work. rest assured, the frists didn't do it on their lonesome.

and neither did "doctors" as a group.

& "doctors" as a group aren't the prime beneficiaries, far from it. in fact, it;s degraded the power of doctors as a group & turned many of them into wage workers instead of independent professionals.

[TexasObserver]

8. Thanks, but I'm comfortable with my knowledge base.

Mine comes from having lived it, as opposed to your reading random articles from dubious sources.

As I said, the root cause is greed by doctors who want to make more money.

You're free to believe otherwise, but you're in error.

I know you've got your standard spiel, but I have reality.

[Hannah Bell]

10. right, it's the doctors, not the money men. i work in a hospital too, & i know who runs it.

and the chain it belongs too. and it isn't the docs.

and it wasn't docs as a group that instigated the privatization & financialization of us medicine.

[TexasObserver]

11. I've represented hospitals and dealt with their owners.

I'm not sure what access you have to the board that runs the hospital, but I suspect it's zero.

Do they include you in any of their decision making?

[Hannah Bell]

12. more than you think. it's a small town, but a big hospital chain.

people talk.

but i'm sure you're ever so much more of an important person than i & know all about the secret doctors' cabal.

the financiers just couldn't resist giving them money to pay for their acquisitions.

[Mojorabbit]

52. When I was working as a nurse in the 70s and 80s

the best care was to be found in small doctor owned hospitals. It was when the big corporate groups bought them all out that staffing was cut to the bone and they became a nightmare to work in.

[TexasObserver]

59. When I was defending doctors and hospitals sued for malpractice in the 70s & 80s ...

I found the opposite to be true.

Most of the malpractice was done by doctors who were greedy, and many couldn't even practice at the big hospitals. They typically worked at crappy, three to five story hospitals owned and run by doctors.

The most difficult civil case in America to make is a medical malpractice case, because doctors have more protections than any other trade group in America. They have those privileges because they spend a huge amount of money on political action committees.

[inna]

5. sorry, it's not "run by doctors", unfortunately.

[TexasObserver]

9. Yes, it is.

I invite you to study the history of this movement, and its roots in the Frist family.

GREED by many doctors is what fuels our uncontrolled health care costs.

[Hannah Bell]

14. greed by finance capital. sorry you got the story wrong.

[TexasObserver]

15. You keep believing that. I don't get my info from specious sources.

You shouldn't either.

[Hannah Bell]

16. what specious sources are those, TO?

yeah, you talk to the important people. listen to TO, it's all about evil doctors.

who financed hca's acquisitions, TO?

Jack Massey: also financed colonel sanders & the corrections corporation of america (CCA, private prisons)

[TexasObserver]

17. The sources you typically cite.

My point of view is grounded in the actual history of the for-profit health care system. You try to make things all fit into a paradigm in your head which works for you but often isn't right. There's more than socialist workers party slogans at work here.

[Hannah Bell]

18. jack massey: financier of hca. financier of corrections corporation of america, kentucky fried

chicken, etc.

money trumps all.


As Tennessee's governor, when Lamar Alexander endorsed CCA’s 1985 failed bid to take over the state's entire prison system, it was revealed that his wife, Honey, owned stock in CCA. To avoid a conflict of interest Honey Alexander traded her CCA stock for shares in an insurance holding company with the Massey-Burch Investment Group. Her initial $8,900 investment in CCA grew to $142,000 when she sold the insurance company stock.

The Massey-Burch Group was headed by Jack Massey, a good friend of Lamar Alexander. The Massey-Burch Investment Group provided venture capital start-up money to CCA co-founder Tom Beasley, and assisted CCA when the company proposed to privatize Tennessee's entire prison system in 1985. After leaving the governor's office, Alexander and his wife were paid $44,000 for consulting and serving on the board of the Massey-Burch Investment Group.

Tom Beasley, who co-founded CCA in 1983 and served as the company’s chairman from 1987 to 1994, is a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. Beasley is a long-time friend of Lamar Alexander; he once lived in an apartment at Alexander's home, and he helped manage Alexander's 1978 gubernatorial campaign.

http://www.againstpuryear.org/Alexander_connections.pdf


HCA was founded in Nashville, Tenn. more than 40 years ago when Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Jr., his father Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Sr., local businessman Henry Hooker and entrepreneur Jack Massey set out to provide communities with better quality healthcare.

http://www.emoryeastside.com/CustomPage.asp?guidCustomContentID=%7B9C506281-A4C4-42DC-BFBB-091581335DDF%7D.


Jack Carroll Massey (1904-1990), Venture capitalist and entrepreneur, born 1904 in Tennille, Georgia. In 1964, after a career in the medical supply industry, he bought Kentucky Fried Chicken from its founder, Harland Sanders, for $2 million. Seven years later he sold it for $239 million.

His Hospital Corporation of America (founded 1968) became the nation's largest chain of for-profit hospitals. After 1978, he transformed Winners Corporation into a major fast-food franchise operation. Finally, he listed Volunteer Capital Corporation (a holding company of Wendy's Restaurant fast food franchises) on the New York Stock Exchange. He is the only person to ever have taken three companies public. The Jack C. Massey Graduate School of Business at Belmont University is named in his honor.

http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2004/9/7/100th_anniversary_of_the_birth_of_nashvilles_most_accomplished_entrepreneur_


In 1969 and 1970 HCA was not the nation's only proprietary hospital chain...what set HCA apart was its ability to secure permanent financing from groups of insurance companies....

http://books.google.com/books?id=sRzlr2LMtDEC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=Henry+Hooker+hca&source=bl&ots=Zzwx8S8zdM&sig=E8_xHUOYP1RgVM0qQ8y6i3eJvXY&hl=en&ei=vy_2TImOE5C2sAPq28WcDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=hca%20groups%20of%20insurance%20companies&f=false


"just a couple of chicken stands"

http://books.google.com/books?id=sRzlr2LMtDEC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=Henry+Hooker+hca&source=bl&ots=Zzwx8S8zdM&sig=E8_xHUOYP1RgVM0qQ8y6i3eJvXY&hl=en&ei=vy_2TImOE5C2sAPq28WcDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBQ#v=snippet&q=kentucky%20fried%20chicken&f=false



but that's just another of those "dubious sources" i use....

you know all the important people.

[HillbillyBob]

7. and if you try to explain to the most you get called fancy names like

socialist, nazi, pinko commie f g, a&&hat..and that was the nice ones.

As others know I had to lose home, job , car, clothes etc when I got hurt on the job, was denied work comp/ ins co dumped me after collecting premiums for years. I am I admit a bit bitter, but my more immediate goal is that what happened to me does not have to happen to others. I was sort of lucky in that I did not have others depending on my financial support.
On the other hand do you know how homeless people are treated day in and day out, how hard it is to get a meal, or get clean?

[TexasObserver]

19. If you don't have insurance, they don't want you.

Our health care system is designed to provide services to the highest bidder.

There's a reason the overwhelming majority of doctors are Republicans who use their lobbying power to get laws which protect their pocket books and bank accounts from those they harm.

[Hannah Bell]

24. it;s because they;'re run by finance capital for the benefit of the stockholders.

not for the patients, and not for the doctors.

but you just keep beating that drum about greedy docs & ignoring the posts about the financier & insurance companies who financed hca.

[bbgrunt]

40. well, aside from the dead-certainess of certain points of

view, you both are right....however, I would not label all doctors as the source of the health care for profit fiasco. The doctors who are involved with greed and extracting profit from people's woes such as the Frist family, are the handmaidens of the financial forces. Many have learned to profit handsomely.

And while I have tried my best to find doctors with progressive or democratic ideals, it is not easy. But I have found a few and it is obvious that the changes made in the 70's towards HMOs and such now have them practically punching the clock like piece-meal workers.

[Mojorabbit]

53. My husband is a family doctor

and all the doctors we know are Dems. Shrug

[TexasObserver]

57. Your husband is the exception, not the rule.

Good for him. We need more doctors who are.

[reggie the dog]

42. run by private insurance for private insurance

the doctors have huge malpractice insurance bills to pay, over here in france that is just not the case. plus doctors do a shitload of school, even here in france our doctors have high salaries.

[TexasObserver]

50. Malpractice insurance is a tiny part of their costs.

The high rates are for a handful of specialties, such as OB/GYN.

A major cause of malpractice cases is failure to diagnose. The two main causes of that?

1. Running patients through like cattle (for high financial return), and

2. Failing to order tests which would have revealed the problem correctly.

The entire cost of malpractice insurance and all it compels is a tiny, tiny fraction of the massive costs of our health care system. We're spending one of every six dollars in America on health care, and that is at least 30% too much for the care we get. It's because there are no economic limits placed on what doctors and hospitals charge. Whatever they choose to charge is what they can get.

[Mojorabbit]

54. Our malpractice bill is enormous

and that is for family practice. It is a major expense for us.

[TexasObserver]

56. What percentage of your gross revenues is it?

$100,000 on $2 million of annual revenues, for example, is still only 5% of the gross.

[Mojorabbit]

61. 2 million! LOL

My hubby is a family doctor, solo practice. Lowest paid on the totem pole.
Malpractice is about a fifth of our income.

[TexasObserver]

64. Are you talking about your income or your gross revenues?

Income is a vastly lower number than gross revenues.

Gross revenues is the operative number.

If your husband is a solo practitioner with a family practice, he's probably being reasonable in his charges and not part of the problem to which I refer. If he's not charging too much and serving patients who can't always pay, good for him.

[reggie the dog]

78. ah, our hospitals are public

and the doctors offices are private but with price controls.

[TexasObserver]

73. Malpractice costs in their entirety are less than 1/2 of a percent of health care costs.

2008 Comparison

2,300,000,000,000 USA health care costs
---11,000,000,000 USA total medical malpractice premiums paid

That's less than one half of one percent to pay all the malpractice premiums - which includes every dollar paid out on malpractice claims, every dollar paid to lawyers defending such claims, and every dollar of administrative cost and profit to the medical malpractice insurers.

It's less than .5% of the total health care budget, or $1 out of every $200.

It's a tiny number compared to the costs of health care. Obscene profiteering is the problem, not making them pay for their harmful acts of negligent. The primary component of malpractice damages is the cost of health care due to the mistake made. If we had universal health care, those damages would go away.

[Divernan]

82. Not according to Michael Moore's documentary, Sicko.

France's doctors are well paid, and live comfortable lives, but their incomes are a fraction of US medical specialists. Moore rode with the "SOS Medecins", a 24 hour French medical service which provides house calls by physicians. And of course, the French govt. provides many social services, such as health care, public education (including universities), vacation and day care for $1 an hour, and neonatal support that includes cooking, cleaning, and laundry service for new mothers.

As to the malpractice insurance premiums, I worked with professional licensure in Pennsylvania, and I can tell you that a very small percentage of doctors (around 3%) were responsible for nearly all the med mal claims. However, the
medical licensure committee (majority of whom were doctors) never took these quacks' licenses away. These docs' reasoning was that there but for the grace of God go I, and everyone makes mistakes. If they enforced a third strike/conviction, you're out, the malpractice insurance premiums would plummet.

[reggie the dog]

85. i live here in france

doctors do make less money than they do in the usa, but they also invest no where near as much in their education as university tuition averages around 200 euros a year.

[MrScorpio]

2. Europe is quite the eye opener when it comes to how America actually is

Let's say, I was quite shocked when I returned... And THAT was in 1998.

[Solly Mack]

13. Living abroad is an eye-opener.

[TexasObserver]

21. Civilized countries can't believe our system.

And they shouldn't. GREED built this mess and GREED keeps it going the wrong direction.

If we are ever to reduce the financial load health care takes on the country, we have to regulate costs.

[Solly Mack]

33. Mostly people don't understand why Americans just accept things

and they really don't 'get' people actively denying themselves things that other people see as a given as citizens (health care, job protections, educational opportunities etc..)

[TexasObserver]

58. Because Americans believe advertising slogans.

The health care industry has engaged in a three decades long propaganda campaign, coupled with beating down the rights of patients through manipulating easily bought state legislatures.

[Karenina]

23. Ain't THAT the TRUTH! n/t

:hi:

[Solly Mack]

34. I'm a better person for it.

:)

:hi:

[Ichingcarpenter]

31. Yes it is and the US media has gotten worse

Since I left 2 years ago. I notice an even more right wing slant on US TV news than before.

In Radio News,
I listen to the BBC, NPR, CBS and CNN newsfeeds on the top of the hour
and let me say NPR is even more right wing.

Its like someone who is observing an accident from a safe distance vs one that is in the accident
The one in the accident doesn't see the big picture.

[Solly Mack]

35. TV was the first thing I noticed...the kinds of ads/commercials, news etc.

I know I'll experience cultural shock upon returning to the states.

[Ichingcarpenter]

37. At least over here we get reporting on how corrupt

the financial system really is. The US is now the base and world leader for crony capitalism
Its pulling out all the stops to at least keep the American people on their side.

Like I said ...... its like observing a car accident from a distance....... meanwhile the passenger in the car doesn't even realize
he has a big gash in his head and the person in back is dead.

[Solly Mack]

38. I went back to the states for a month a few years back

..and TVs were playing in various places...house I was staying in/businesses, etc....and a few times I honestly thought a commercial was playing...took a closer look and saw that it was news.

[Karenina]

41. The last time I was back was a decade ago.

Ich fuhlte mich wie eine Ausländerin. I won't repeat the experience. "You can't go home again" because your "home" no longer exists and what has replaced it is frightening.

[reggie the dog]

44. i disagree with this

"You can't go home again" because your "home" no longer exists and what has replaced it is frightening."

it was frightening when i left, it is worse now....

[Karenina]

87. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

:spray::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Thanx, I needed that! :toast:

[reggie the dog]

43. i left the usa in 2003, the year i completed grad school

and each time i come back to the usa on holiday i feel more and more out of phase with it, i live in france now and could never imagine living in the usa again.... plus they dont drug test you for jobs here in france.....

[Kievan Rus]

48. I truly envy you

I can't wait to leave this country, and will do so at the first opportunity.

[Ichingcarpenter]

49. Being an X=Patriot .... I love that term BTW

WTH does that mean? ...... Not according to the principles this nation founded.

THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL AND ENDOWED WITH ALIENATE RIGHTS......

Oh well I'm not a patriot.


Nationalism is a huge problem with this planet.

The whole planet ecosystems a stake and the capitulate system
knows it and we know it..


There is a struggle going on and its not just in Amerika.

Their is the soul of humanity at stake.

[reggie the dog]

79. i am an ex patriot

i used to love the usa and i thought it was a great nation, now, having lived abroad, i realize what a shithole it is...so i no longer love the usa nor think it is great.

[gateley]

63. GREAT analogy! nt

[HCE SuiGeneris]

65. Our contrived accident is killing us.

One would think that we would do everything in our power to avoid a fatal outcome.

[steve2470]

20. Doctors, in general, feel entitled to very high incomes

Note I said in general. There are some who do a lot of pro bono work and some who work for not so great salaries in rural areas, etc. I used to work for a doctors' group. I've never worked so hard in my life to give them profits. TexasObserver has a good point, although I think non-doctors, investors and medical equipment makers are into this also.

[TexasObserver]

22. You're right about those who profit.

At the core of this business, however, it is the greed by so many doctors which creates the demand for the other services. Financiers don't care what the venture is, as long as it makes money. Insurance companies are the same way. Medical equipment providers want to sell equipment. Pharmaceutical companies want to push their products, and do very successfully. Doctors are their sales representatives, in essence.

The reason so many are dying every month due to infections they got while in the hospital is the sloppy handling of soiled or exposed items. Why? Because they cut costs on things like workers who keep things clean, or who provide basic nursing services. By overworking and underpaying such workers, they assure that poor hygiene protocol is present too often. But those Porsches in the parking lot won't pay for themselves.

[Hannah Bell]

25. yeah, it's the docs pushing for poor sanitation practices.

you are so full of it.

jack massey, venture capitalist, & insurance corps financed hca.

not doctors.

here, you must have missed it the first time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=9662901&mesg_id=9663053

[nannah]

67. do you remember the article written by man MD and PHD in public health

i think it was in the New Yorker magazine. It compared medical care under medicare to use a somewhat homogenous population for comparison. They were assessing a cost benefit analyasis. They concluded that the most expensive care was in a town in texas where the "entrepreneurial doctors" owned the imaging, rehabilitation, labs, and other medical facilities in the area. they tended to overuse their own businesses for referrals which created a downside of over exposure to diagnostic testing which had a negative affect on patients health.

the best and least expensive care was delivered through group collaborative medical systems like the mayo clinics.

it supports the idea that a doctor's desire to accumulate wealth is a driving force in setting the costs of their medical care; and the business alliances to which they gravitate

[Dappleganger]

46. Specialists in particular.

[Lorien]

71. My GP works very hard and makes 60K a year. Is that "very high" then? nt

[TexasObserver]

74. No, of course not. Does he or she own a hospital?

Does he or she overcharge to fatten their bottom line?

I think I've been pretty clear that it is the conduct of those doctors who are greedy. Yeah, some doctors aren't greedy. Unfortunately, their impact on the health care system is negligible. By and large, it's a system designed to charge to the hilt, give patients little time with their doctor, and maximize profit at all levels.

[steve2470]

80. It might be to some DU'ers but no, not compared to most physicians

I'm glad he or she is more concerned with patient care than dollars. I totally understand physicians 1) needing to pay off debt incurred because of their educations (which is a major fault of our system), and 2) wanting to be reimbursed fairly for their work and years of education. The whole debate centers around the word "fair". Is $500,000 a year fair to pay a talented cardiac surgeon ? Some say yes, some may say no. What should a competent general practitioner/family practice/generalist physician make ? $60,000, $100,000, $150,000 ? Fair is the debatable term.

[MrModerate]

26. I've lived half my life outside the US, and it's not just the Europeans who think we're crazy.

At least we used to be envied for our wealth (if not for our toxic popular culture). Now we're pitied not only for our dire financial situation but also because our politicians are unprofessional and inept loons, because we die early because our mis-spent healthcare dollars don't deliver better outcomes than sane countries' systems, and because our populace is stupid and fat.

It goes on and on.

When pressed by my non-American friends about how whacked-out the country's become, I generally reply, "why do you think I'm over here?"

[ejpoeta]

27. sometimes i would love to go somewhere else. it feels like we can't stop it.

and people refuse to listen. they will bitch about their insurance but refuse to make that connection. because it's about them. they don't care about anyone else. they bitch about lazy welfare people and medicaid but refuse to see how if we had universal healthcare then EVERYONE would have the same healthcare. because they aren't pissed so much that some poor person has medicaid, but that a poor person has better health insurance than they do. so instead of thinking about how we could ALL have that insurance, they think they need to take it from the other person if they want it. but we are paying for both. separately. and when you pay into your insurance diligently not thinking about the fact that if you get sick and can't work you will LOSE that insurance and end up on the medicaid.... after you paid all that money into the for profit insurance company they will get to keep it and you will be out on your ear with nothing. and they are increasingly making it so they don't have to pay into anything. higher copay and deductibles before they every have to pitch in a dime. i know the going deductible at my husbands work is like 10k. per person. before they pay a dime!!

well at thanksgiving my brother and his wife stopped by and they were talking about the eye and dental which are of course separate. my husband and my brother work together. jenny was saying how the dental and eye went way up (which ended up not being true not sure where she got that from) but she was saying how she wanted to go on that obamacare!! wtf are you talking about. you can't go on obamacare. the health care law does not have an insurance plan thanks to you loons and your lack of fucking facts. there is no public option. you want to tell them that they got what they wanted. fucking deal with it. but i don't. i just let it go because it was thanksgiving and i refuse to discuss anything political with my family who get their 'facts' from glen beck and faux news. i have tried to talk to them but they have some sort of wall up to keep actual facts out.

[MrModerate]

68. I actually think that people in similar westernized countries . . .

Probably have roughly equal engagement with the nuts and bolts of the political process -- which is to say, not much. What's "special" about the States these days is the profusion of ignorant but assertive commentators who the disengaged use to stuff their brains with non-facts so they have something to talk about with their friends.

One thing the wingnut media has done very effectively is supplant ignorant jabber about sports with ignorant jabber about politics around the family dinner table (or more precisely, the family TV).

[whathehell]

28. I'd have to take exception

their supposed disdair for "our toxic popular culture"

Please...They've adopted LOTS of it.

..Or as one DUer put it: "They're so immersed in it, they no longer recognize the fact."

[MrModerate]

69. Oh they love it, they just slag it in conversation whenever they want to show their superiority.

Just like Americans.

[whathehell]

76. "Just like Americans"?

Do Tell....I've yet to hear an American, especially on this board, boast about our "cultural superiority".

[MrModerate]

77. I was referring to slagging "popular culture" which is one of the great . . .

all-amateur sports around the world.

[whathehell]

81. I get you.

[Bragi]

39. No democracy can survive an ignorant and stupid electorate

An informed electorate is a precondition for meaningful democracy.

The American electorate, however, is getting stupider and stupider, and the country poorer and poorer in all respects, due to its corrupted political, social, religious and media culture.

No democracy can survive if it cultivates an ignorant, stupidified electorate, and that's exactly what's happening in America.

And yes, the rest of the world can see this happening. I'm one of those rest of the world people (a Canadian) with friends and relatives in the U.S, and it makes me incredibly sad to see what's happening there.

[MrModerate]

70. You're well within the blast radius. Take care. n/t

[Bragi]

83. True, however

I've never been so happy to have a border between us.

That said, we are already in the glue with a neocon Tea Pot Prime Minister.

[City Lights]

29. K&R. nt

[Iterate]

30. Read the whole diary: It's about more than just healthcare

FYI, for the whole dkos diary see:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/29/72039/900

[Juche]

32. What they don't mention is third world nations are kicking our ass now

Nations which were military dictatorships just a few decades ago and which don't have the level of wealth the US does are building more stable middle class societies. Costa rica, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, etc. The social safety nets and interest in the well being of citizens is starting to trounce our own. Consindering that they are middle income nations (GDP of 5-10k per person vs the 50k per person in the US) which just emerged from military dictatorships, that isn't good.

[flyarm]

36. Just go across the border to Canada and you will see real news!! Read their papers..

you will see a world of difference!
I alaways watch the news when I am out of the country..even CNN International is wayyyyyyyyyyyy better than the shit we are being fed!

Read Internationnal Tribune..much of which comes from NYTimes..it is like reading a whole other paper! Because it is.

We stateside, are fed nothing but Horseshit!

[Swamp Rat]

45. k&r

[Kievan Rus]

47. To quote George Carlin: It's called the American dream, 'cause you've got to be asleep to believe it

[Cali_Democrat]

60. LOL

Classic

[mmonk]

51. I have the book mentioned titled

"The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy" by T.R. Reid.

[Shanti Mama]

55. Living in South Asia, I get my news from all kinds of places

I check the CNN site and DU is my home, but I watch Al Jaz and read foreign editions of many mags. Americans are kept so in the dark, and contracts are never made. For example, the fact that 100s of thousands protested in various European countries made the news but was not contrasted with the US. The protests were against CUTS in government support systems. Did any American news outlet talk about this? I think not.
I miss many, MANY creature comforts of "home" but am happy to observe from afar for what has now been over 12 years.

[nadinbrzezinski]

66. Foreigner editions of Time and Newsweek are always fun

As well as CNN-I

[defendandprotect]

62. k&r ---

[Hissyspit]

72. kick nt

[MindandSoul]

75. So glad someone finally realizes this! I was raised in Europe, and many members

of my family still live there (in several countries). I also lived in several countries in Europe and several states in the U.S.

I go back to Europe every years for several weeks, even a couple of months or more. . .and I have experienced the difference in accessing the media. . . just the fact that every country has several channels and that ALL channels from EVERY country is available everywhere keeps the media honest!
Here, we can't even get a REAL Canadian channel or a REAL Mexican channel!. . .It's all "American made" Spanish speaking channels!

Talk about being "dumbed down by the media!"

[axollot]

84. Lived it for over a decade in Australia so am very aware of how

insidious the media in the US really is - most Americans do not know a thing about the world or their own country because they are not curious enough to go beyond their own borders.

Cheers
Sandy
a PROUD Aussie/American!
(tho Australia has done some shady shite hand in hand with the US)
*sigh*

[annabanana]

86. Help us, World!

(I want Greater Scandanavia to invade and impose their systems on us)