Non-violent grass roots reform and Democracy: Is the truth for sale on commercial media?

Commercial media is owned by six corporations controlling well over 90% of national media, they cover expenses by selling ads, and are owned by a fraction of one percent of the wealthiest people in the country; I don't see how there could be any doubt that money is corrupting the vast majority of the media. Wealthy people control virtually all powerful institutions, and they've demonstrated with their actions that they're not above using propaganda to indoctrinate everyone they can, if they can get away with it, to rig everything in their favor. They do this even though they already have more money and political power than they need and increased amount of money or political power will do nothing to increase their own quality of life, although it may cause a serious deterioration for society, which is already underway in many so-called "sacrifice zones," which will eventually backfire even on them.

Are they so insane that they'll distort the truth even when it comes to environmental destruction and Climate Change, which will inevitably destroy even them eventually?

The closer you look at the evidence the more obvious that it appears they've already answered with their actions, and the answer is yes!

The Republicans don't even pretend they want to solve this problem at all, often claiming that Climate Change is a hoax; even if some of the claims surrounding Climate Change are flawed, there's little doubt among credible scientists that most of it is real, and even if that weren't true, there's much more to pollution related problems than Climate Change, and the evidence is much stronger for a lot of it. The vast majority of environmental destruction is in third world countries, or in the poorest part of our country, often where minorities live, and there's overwhelming evidence to prove this, assuming the establishment is willing to look at that evidence, which they're usually not. One good source, Which Countries Destroy the Environment the Most (and Least)? 05/01/2017 says that we started using natural resources faster than the planet could produce them back in 1970, and that it's been getting steadily worse sine then; several other sources including The World Is Using Natural Resources Faster Than Ever Before 07/30/2019 claim that we used natural resources 75% faster than the planet can replenish them in 2019, and previous reports, including We’re Depleting Natural Resources Twice As Fast As Nature Can Recover. Here’s The Good News. 07/31/2018, indicate it was only 70% in 2018, which may indicate it's growing by about 5% per year, which would mean we may be using resources 90% faster than the earth can replenish them this year, although that's subject to confirmation. And yet the biggest corporations causing environmental damage are constatly coming up with propaganda to downplay their faults and promote an economic system based on constant growth selling people things they don't need including How Walmart convinced critics it can sell more stuff and save the world 10/13/2022 which is a long rambling article trying to explain how Walmart has dealt with all their critics, implying their bad reputation was behind them; yet it can't change the fact that constant growth is incompatible with reversing environmental damage, and shows some of the green-washing described by Christine MacDonald reported on in Green Inc.

Despite claims by the Democrats that they want to address this problem, like campaign promises from the squad during the 20128 campaign and President Biden's recent claims that "good environmental policies are good economic policies," which sounds very good, and it is true, but they're doing little or nothing to make the major changes that are needed to reverse this process. and there's still a massive amount of propaganda to deny Climate Change is real funded by the oil companies, even if there isn't quite as much as there used to be. Furthermore, commercial media sells and enormous amount of propaganda ads, which they often deceptively refer to as public relations ads about many other subjects giving wealthy, for profit organizations, a massive advantage over more honest grassroots organizations that aren't making a lot of money to deceive the public and pay for the ads. This includes massive amount of ads for insurance, or to prevent Medicare for All, which a large majority of the public supports, other pooled risk financial services like after market warranties, which are just as inefficient, ads about how corporations are giving benefits to their employees, often even when they have major protests or lawsuits based on labor practices, and when the benefits are a small fraction of what they pretend to offer, investment firms claiming to help the poor while rigging the economy doing far more damage than their small charity donations, and many more deceptive ads that are extremely biased, if not outright lying.

However, unlike pollution and epidemic environmental destruction including Climate Change, most of these other issues don't literally involve ecocide or destruction of the planets ability to support life. You would think that no one would be stupid enough to create a massive amount of propaganda to guarantee they can increase profits in the short term by eventually destroying the environment and everyone else, including themselves. You would be wrong. The most powerful people in the world are being led by oil and financial companies, with the help of other major Wall Street corporations, the media, and the vast majority of the political establishment to create an ideology that will eventually destroy us, although I can't be certain when, or which warnings from researchers are the most accurate.

However, although there should be no doubt that we're destroying the planet, even though, at best it could be deacades before it gets much worse for people living in wealthy areas, or we conclusively pass the point of no return, the oil companies and their Wall Street allies have been buying up propaganda, corrupting politicians and the media, and funding inaccurate science to prevent the solutions that we need, which should have started decades ago. It seems to me like there were much more of their propaganda ads about five years ago; however, I've still seen a few ads from Chevron or think tanks portraying domestic oil, like the keystone pipe line as the most effective solution to our energy problems. And even when there are ads promoting clean energy, they often exaggerate how much is being produced, and some of it may be green-washing for the oil companies; or when real environmental groups really do buy ads to protect the environment, they only have a minuscule fraction of the advertising budget. Some of this is explained in the following article from Grist, which explains when or why they increase their spending in some cases, among other things:

Big Oil spent $3.6 billion to clean up its image, and it’s working 12/24/2019

“You want to know one of the reasons we’re not acting on climate change? $3.6 billion spent on corporate propaganda might have something to do it.”

If you’ve ever seen an ad featuring ExxonMobil scientists handling beakers of green goo, the algae that will supposedly fuel the future, you’ve been the target of an oil company’s advertisement. Exxon isn’t trying to sell you a product, exactly — but it is hoping to sell you on the idea that it’s committed to a greener future.

Over the past 30 years, the world’s five biggest oil companies have forked over more than $3.6 billion for reputation-building ads like this one. “When we looked at the dollar amounts, we were sort of blown away,” said Robert Brulle, a visiting professor of environment and society at Brown University.

Promotional ad spending from Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips has fluctuated a lot over the years, so Brulle’s research team decided to figure out why. The results, published in the journal Climatic Change this month, suggest that oil companies pour money into promotional campaigns for two main reasons: to boost their reputation when they’re getting negative media coverage, and to influence policymakers when Congress is considering climate legislation.

Consider the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, when BP’s oil rig exploded, filling the Gulf of Mexico with nearly 5 billion gallons of oil. Unsurprisingly, the news coverage was not exactly favorable. BP’s spending on promotions ads jumped from just $10,000 the year before the spill to a whopping $168 million in 2010, adjusted for inflation.

“If you want to make your case in a legal court, you gotta go get a lawyer,” Brulle said. “If you want to make your case in the court of public opinion, you gotta go get a public relations agent.” Complete article

Even if the oil industry isn't spending quite as much as they did about five years ago this clearly indicates that it may only be temporary, and that if action against Climate Change is taken it could increase much more. There is still plenty of ads promoting domestic energy, which often means either the Keystone Pipeline or Fracking, among other traditional fossil fuels that are destroying the environment, which they occasionally try to claim is much cleaner that it was previously, and with supposedly progressive politicians, like John Fetterman, who now says he supports fracking they may not feel as much need to spend as much on propaganda to convince us that Fracking is safe, for now. Furthermore, traditional oil companies have often tried to convince us they're promoting more clean energy like wind or solar often greatly over estimate what they're doing for clean energy as part of a green-washing propaganda campaign designed to clean up their reputations more than the environment, one of the greatest examples of this is British Petroleum's efforts to convince consumers that BP now stands for "Beyond Petroleum," even though they're only providing a token amount of investment in clean energy with much more spent on propaganda.

These propaganda ads obviously have no credibility, although many complacent people that don't things through will fall for it if it's repeated often enough; more important, the commercial media that makes massive amounts of money selling deceptive propaganda ads also has serious credibility, especially when they don't provide nearly as much coverage on issues exposing their own advertisers. This isn't limited to ads about environmental destruction or energy; it also includes ads about insurance or aftermarket warranties, which obviously make any industry involving pooled risk less efficient, since the more they spend on ads the less they have available for legitimate claims, worker relations, since, once again the more they spend on propaganda the less they can spend on employees safety or other employment issues, health care, or anything else! When it comes to the environment organizations like Grist and a few more I listed below are far more credible than traditional media, although caution should be taken to ensure that we don't rely on organizations that might gradually turn into green-washing organizations for Wall Street as Christine C. MacDonald pointed out in her book Green, Inc.: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad 2008. This should be kept in mind when searching for good environmental news outlets, for example, when I Googled some of the best sources, one of the news sources recommended was Bloomberg Environmental, which I would be highly skeptical of, considering their ties to Wall Street corporations profiting off the destruction of the environment, and some news outlets might not be quite so obvious.

Even though some of the grassroots environmental organizations are among the best, there are also some satirical sites that are far better than traditional news, assuming you use reasonable discretion, which isn't always that hard, including The Yes Men on Climate Change which creates a lot of spoofs, some that make very good points and even exposes corporate hypocrisy. One excellent example of this is an article about how "BlackRock Does the Right Thing" 01/16/2019 which turns out to be a satire based on a BlackRock Hoax letter addressed to CEOs 01/16/2019 which actually gives very good advice, and if you think about it, in the long run it's also good economic advice, although they didn't see it that way. The following is an excerpt from the hoax letter, which they were forced to deny:

... But we find that the biggest contributor to uncertainty is also the greatest threat to the long-term stability of our economy and our investors’ assets: climate change. Companies must address climate risk factors or fail in their fiduciary duty.

.... With our partners in the Investment Stewardship Group, we criticized the Trump administration for pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change. We see the Paris Agreement as an important framework for long-term sustainability. Despite denouncing the short-term thinking that pervades management, BlackRock’s voting record has not aligned sufficiently with our own ideals. That’s going to change. Moving forward, we will demand more accountability. We will require all companies we hold stakes in to align their business models with the goals of the Paris Agreement. We have made strides in this direction, but the urgency of the threat demands that we increase our focus.

Purpose In Action, or Purposeful Inaction?

After extensively analyzing our role in driving market trends, and acting out of a need to protect our clients’ long-term returns, we have identified two pivots that we have the ability to make this year—a structural adjustment to our exclusionary-screen indices, and a cultural adjustment to our shareholder action:

First, we are expanding a screen of non-Paris compliant companies to now apply by default to all ETFs, mutual and other broad indexed funds we offer, except when investors opt out and explicitly ask for these stocks. It is not enough to simply create exclusionary funds that screen out certain companies, because we offer thousands of products and most investors are passive. To make good on the threat I issued last year, we will begin this work by divesting from coal companies in our actively managed funds. Within 5 years, more than 90% of our 1000+ investment products will be converted to screen out non-Paris compliant companies such as coal, oil, and gas, which we see as declining and endangered. As a result, an increased percentage of our assets under management will align with our ESG values while sustaining high returns. This approach keeps responsibility in the hands of our clients, who will always have the choice to opt-out of our vision of a stable future and back into coal, oil, and gas.

Second, BlackRock will shift its approach to engagement. We have always supported management, but our clients have become impatient with companies that tout ESG values but do not align their planning to a Paris-compliant model. Beginning in 2019, BlackRock resolves to use our considerable stake in energy and related sectors to vote in favor of management only when we find them to be working toward net zero carbon emissions by 2050. We will use our shareholder position to keep companies accountable to resolutions that align with these values, and aggressively vote down those that do not. In cases where companies consistently fail to value long-term viability, we will vote out obstructionist boards and vote in members who are more forward-thinking.

This adds to the evidence that they must understand how much damage they're doing to the environment, assuming they actually want to know the truth, but they insist on trying to maximize short term profits, even though they know it will backfire on everyone, including themselves. Prior to this spoof letter BlackRock had been putting out statements to indicate they were concerned with Climate Change, and they continue to do so to this day; however, when this letter came out and some investors thought it was real they expressed outrage, and BlackRock was forced to admit that they didn't intend to do any of the things in the letter and that it was a spoof, which showed the real intentions of wealthy investors. While the spoof letter was forgotten within months, if not sooner, by MSM the deceptive propaganda was repeated over and over again, which is the way propaganda works. The lies are repeated over and over, while the truth falls down the memory hole, on the rare occasions where it comes out at all.

Now, in addition to making false propaganda claims about protecting the environment, BlackRock is producing ads about how they're handling pensions for working people, in the New England area highlighting a local fire department union that they're managing funds for. However, once again, it doesn't take much research to find out that they've previously been sued for looting pension funds, and more recently have been accused of funding Russia's war in Ukraine. Ironically, even though their propaganda to make themselves look environmentally friendly or socially responsible in other ways is almost all false, conservative groups are accusing them of being too "woke," which, intentionally or not, plays into their hands making it look like their propaganda is true even though it's not.

The bottom line is, if we continue to allow the wealthy elites with fanatical ideologies to control the propaganda we use to make important decisions, not only will they rig the economy in their favor turning most of us into virtual slaves, but they'll eventually destroy the planet as well, although I don't exactly how long it will take!

The decision has already been made, as demonstrated by the actions of powerful corporations, politicians, the media, and other in a position of power to resolve this problem; they're going to maximize short term profit even though they know, or should know, that it will destroy our planet and eventually themselves. There are plenty of environmentalists that recognize this, and are trying to change this; but they're not in a position to reverse it without help from wealthy elites, or a massive percentage of the public that currently remains complacent, and is going along with the program of the oligarchs. The majority of the public has indicated with their actions as well, they're not going to help unless the damage impacts them. So unless something changes soon things will get much worse before they get better, assuming they ever get better, even though we have the technology and ability to greatly reduce this problem, if not solve it.