I have had this thread in mind for some time.
But thought it could wait, let others start one.
Yesterday changed my mind.
ABC Radio National and TV bough it in to the spotlight.
Opinion makers can be ,often are presenters or commentators with little or no understanding of issues.
Bias and uninformed comment has an impact on some who are exposed to it.
I have several things to table that seemingly show ABC bias once ALP has shifted to the greens.
But yesterday.
Radio national had an informative go at the tragic events at Christmas Island.
Even an expert who gave very good reasons why that boat may have not been seen on radar.
Even put the blame on weather, far worse than we think of as stormy.
He told a believable seemingly independent story, one most Australians would hope is true.
At night the ABC got its sleeves rolled up and told a different tale.
Interviewing folk who wrote books about a previous event no one not one,did not appear to want only a negative view of the policy the handling and the truth behind this tragic event.
A thousand storys are in my head about lack of expertise in opinion makers lets see if we get a run.

its commentary..[opinion]...
not science..[fact]

how goes the saying..believe half of what you see
nothing of what you hear..

people lost the abilitry to reason
thery get told..you dont get pensions..anymore
you need work choices

so we will take 3 percent of ya wages..for supper..then raise it..[next it jumps up to 13 percent..but where is the protest]

put you on a fixed contract...
no overtime..no holiday leave loading

next we get the banker scam...yes the bailouts
where govt issued govt bonds..[the bankers buy]..
to raise cash..to bail out the broke banks...[hey its so clever]

there is so much opinion[commentary]..that we never hear the fact
like global cooling/warming/change..where we hear about its cheaper to do it now[but then find the science..presented by the econimists..was flawed

now they only want a carbon tax..[so the carbon traders can trade their carbon credits]..and people fail to see the cash grab

recall when they tried to tax tea..[in usa]
or tried to tax salt..in india
people hit the streets

but we can tax smokers..nuthing
tax wage earners...nuthing..[income isnt wage]
we can tax road users for going too fast or too slow
even tax them toll...and rego..and compulsory insurances

its all about money
and who does the media serve?
business..selling product..with an adgenda..reaping in cash flow
[and govt gift...the latest scam .is subsidizing nicoteen..[in gum]

a life time subsidy..for a poisen..[its addictive..folks]
get it?

its a clever scam...create guilt..
then tax it to death...[its for your own good]

not convinced..turn on ya tv
or ya radio..or read a magazine..
or news paper..or a blog..or read ya inbox

opinions are like buttholes
we all got one..

what makes..hannadies opinion
worth more than yours..is his paycheck..

some do it..[do anything]..for money
others think..professional opinion..must be true

thus repeat it..till they swallow it

god bless the media...eh
but for them we wouldnt hear a human-voice

..populist uprising are historically led by people who have individual self-respect,..something very much lacking in today’s society,..as well as collective confidence and trust in one another.

“When you’re living in a society that breaks people’s self-respect and breaks their bonds of trust with one another,..it makes it very difficult to have any kind of democratic revolutionary movement,” remarks Levine.

Levine identifies the process..of “learned helplessness” as one of the primary factors..that has led to society feeling broken,..demoralized, hopeless and defeated.

He cites an experiment involving dogs where both groups of animals were subjected to electro-shocks, wherein one group of dogs was able to stop the electro-shocks and the other was not.

The dogs not able to stop the shocks moved into passivity and depression, and even when presented with the opportunity to escape did not even try to take it because they had learned helplessness.

Levine compares this to national elections, where people vote for either Democrats or Republicans but still end up with the same consequences, or don’t vote whatsoever but still end up with the same consequences. “That’s learned helplessness,” explains Levine,

“No matter what you do
you’re going to get that same degree of pain.”

Levine compares the apathy and the lack of demonstrations against the 2000 election fraud controversy in the U.S. to similar examples in Mexico in Iran, where millions of people protest even though in doing so they are risking their lives.

He identifies debt as a central contributor to people’s apathy and how populations are broken. Unlike previous generations, every young person who leaves education is now saddled with an average of $20,000 of debt, and so are petrified of losing their job or having their benefits taken away, thus are far less likely to go out and protest against the system that holds them in bondage.



Three other major factors that have broken an entire generation of young people are the influence of television, the education system, and the mental health profession

Because kids spend all their spare time watching TV and playing video games, they are losing their interest in reading, points out Levine, the perfect cocktail for an authoritarian regime that needs helpless, dumbed-down victims who will tolerate any amount of intellectual and political disengagement.

In turn, by forcing children to read books they are not interested in, schools discourage kids from becoming individual readers and restrict their capacity for critical thinking.

School is an authoritarian pacifier, states Levine, while television also teaches young people that the only way to get entertained is through some authority.

Meanwhile, kids who rebel become victims of the mental health industry, an inter-personal police force where the pacifying weapons are medication and drugging.

Any form of individualistic behavior is increasingly being characterized as aberrant, warns Levine, as part of the process of suppressing a general rebellion against the status quo, as the list of mental disorders listed by the American Psychiatric Association grows and grows with each re-issue of the DSM Manual, which is the bible for the mental health industry.

Levine explains how prior to 1980, there was no “oppositional defiance disorder” listed in the DSM Manual, and how psychiatric conditions listed in the manual are for the most part added for cultural and political reasons, not for genuine health concerns.

As we have documented, the process of identifying those who question authority as mentally ill is rooted in some of the most brutal authoritarian regimes in history. Critics of the state were branded mentally ill and sent to psikhushkas – mental hospitals – in the former Soviet Union.

Speaking on the subject of the most common mental illness..depression

Levine notes how the condition was very rare..as recently as 25 years ago,..but that since an industry grew up around bombarding people with medication,..over-prescription of depression became a very lucrative business,..with normal human behavior being medicalized as a form of depression.

However..the major reason for skyrocketing rates of depression is the cultural shift..towards social isolation,..lack of support..and lack of community,

with around 25 per cent of Americans..now living alone..and 25 per cent also saying that they now have no confidants*..whatsoever in their life..whom they can trust..and receive empathy from,

a figure up from just 10 per cent in 1980.

Learnt Helplessness..must be linked with low self esteem.

the whole point of the MSM and the negativity of news is to generate learnt helplessness not to mention people being conditioned to think only of themselves.

If people are individualised they are trained to think that they have no power..and cant change anything..on their own.

Its meant to make you feel disconnected
and disenfranchised and impotent and nihilistic.

It takes a certain amount of will..on the part of the individual to see past it..and a certain amount of intelligence.

Its a psychological..as well as an information war.

Unfortunatly the line should have beed drawn long ago.

There are too many terms coined “boiling frog” “Collective behavior” “Crowd theory” to describe the lack to will to be the one to say, No

There is a tipping point where one will lose.

When you are poor and have nothing to lose, you may decide “its time to fight back”..BUT..by that time you have nothing left to fight back with.

They have won.

After that? Who knows.

FEMA camp, bread line, it doesnt matter
because you can’t fight back.

When you’ve got nothing left to lose,
you’ve got nothing to fight with.

only words..and more hear THIER WORDS

Belly, I understand what you are saying. I did not bother to read the
other comments. In fact I seldom do read them.
As I said elsewhere the primary fault lies with the master as he took
the vessel to the windward side of the island.
Not one commentator took up that point.

It is obvious listening to the debate on the NBN that the commentators
and the politicians do not understand what they are talking about.
The one exception to that might be Malcolm Turnbull as he was I
believe the mover behind Ozemail.
All the others who push the NBN have a barrow load of money to push.

What concerns me is when a subject comes up on the TV that I either
have a reasonable level of knowledge or in fact have very detailed
knowledge they almost always get it very wrong indeed.
It raises the question, are they just as inaccurate on the things
that I do not know anything about ?

So your question about them being opinion formers is a real worry.