March 25, 2003

Channels of Influence
By PAUL KRUGMAN

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry — with close links to the Bush administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and increasingly dominates the airwaves.

The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations. But this is unlikely: according to Eric Boehlert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear Channel in Salon, the company is notorious — and widely hated — for its iron-fisted centralized control.

Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and artists and contributes to the growing blandness of broadcast music. But now the company appears to be using its clout to help one side in a political dispute that deeply divides the nation.

Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way? It could, of course, simply be a matter of personal conviction on the part of management. But there are also good reasons for Clear Channel — which became a giant only in the last few years, after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed many restrictions on media ownership — to curry favor with the ruling party. On one side, Clear Channel is feeling some heat: it is being sued over allegations that it threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour with its concert division, and there are even some politicians who want to roll back the deregulation that made the company's growth possible. On the other side, the Federal Communications Commission is considering further deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even further, particularly into television.

Or perhaps the quid pro quo is more narrowly focused. Experienced Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have melded into one big `us.' " On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees . . . now oversee industries for which they once worked." We should have realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians — by, for example, organizing "grass roots" rallies on their behalf?

What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective watchdogs. In the Clinton years the merest hint of impropriety quickly blew up into a huge scandal; these days, the scandalmongers are more likely to go after journalists who raise questions. Anyway, don't you know there's a war on?   


Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

...Clear Channel Stations and Advertisers. And let them know why.

Boycottclearchannel.com (not a live link - paste it.)

Yeah... that's it! It must be! Because the reverse is too horrible to admit...

...disinformation specialist tactic. If an article or piece of information hits too close to the truth then label it a ooooohh, booga, booga, booga, "CONSPIRACY THEORY" thay way we know it can't possibly be true because the government says so.

And we all know that Government Trolls don't lie. Do they?

Krugman Goes Around the Bend

By Hindrocket

I never read left-wing columnist Paul Krugman, mostly because he is a bore. His obsessive hatred of President Bush has driven out all other topics from his columns. His logic is so twisted and his grasp of the facts so tenuous that it just isn't worth my time to read him.

Now, however, Krugman's anti-Bush mania and conspiracy-theory bent seem to have pushed him beyond partisanship and into the realm of mental disturbance. Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs--points out a remarkable example of Krugman's mental imbalance. His most recent column, published in today's New York Times, began as follows:

"By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with 20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent of Kristallnacht. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here."

This is simply crazy. To compare people expressing their opinion by voluntarily destroying their own CDs to Kristallnacht, when Jews were viciously beaten by roving gangs of thugs, and their shops were systematically looted and destroyed--is not the act of a mentally well person. Someone at the Times must have realized that Krugman had embarrassed himself and the newspaper, because when Johnson returned to the Times's web site, he found that the word "Kristallnacht" had been deleted. Which rendered the sentence meaningless, but less patently offensive.

Moreover, the Kristallnacht reference is not the only sign in today's column that Krugman has gone off the deep end. The point of his column is to allege that the recent pro-war rallies were organized by radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications. This claim would, I think, be innocuous even if true, but Krugman offers no support for it.

Most of the "Rallies for America" were organized by talk radio host Glenn Beck, who appears on over 100 Clear Channel stations. Other rallies were organized by local radio stations, while still others (like the one last weekend in St. Paul) had no connection to any radio station at all. Krugman's belief that, notwithstanding appearances, Clear Channel was behind the demonstrations is supported only by his assertion that "the company is notorious — and widely hated — for its iron-fisted centralized control." Well, I don't suppose Clear Channel--which, by the way, Fortune Magazine recently named as the third most admired company in America--exercises "iron-fisted control" over Glenn Beck. Krugman seems entirely unable to appreciate the reality that America is full of people who don't hate President Bush and who support the war on terror, many of whom listen to conservative talk radio personalities who, on occasion, organize pro-war rallies for the simple reason that they are pro-war.

Amazingly, Krugman's logic gets loonier yet. He continues:

"Experienced Bushologists let out a collective 'Aha!' when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire."

Wow. Now it all makes sense. Actually, Hicks was appointed Chairman of Utimco by the University of Texas Board of Regents, not Governor Bush. Utimco was established in 1996 and had to invest its $13 billion endowment with someone, so the fact that "much" of the endowment was entrusted to investment companies with "Republican Party ties" is hardly surprising--Republicans in Texas not being a rare species, unlike Manhattan. And note the seamless transition from Utimco to Hicks's purchase of the Texas Rangers. Krugman seems to imply that Hicks bought the Rangers for the purpose of enriching George Bush and his partners--an odd motivation in a buyer. And it does raise the question why Hicks bought the Dallas Stars hockey team in 1996. Just doing a favor for the Stars' prior owner, I guess.

One might wonder where Krugman is going with all of this twisted logic. "There's something happening here," he says. "What it is ain't exactly clear." No kidding. (For our younger readers, that's a song lyric from the 1960's.) But somehow it all comes around to the need for more government regulation:

"In the Bush administration government and business have melded into one big 'us.' On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule....What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective watchdogs. In the Clinton years the merest hint of impropriety quickly blew up into a huge scandal [yes, that's how I remember it]; these days, the scandalmongers are more likely to go after journalists who raise questions." Note the personal grievance creeping in at the end: the "scandalmongers" are those who ridiculed Krugman for trying to pin the Enron collapse on President Bush, who had no particular connection to the company, without disclosing that he himself was a former Enron adviser.

I'm still trying to figure out where those "effective watchdogs" come in. Maybe they're supposed to make sure that people don't express their dissatisfaction with the Dixie Chicks by destroying their CDs. It ain't exactly clear. What is clear, however, is that Krugman's obsessive hatred for the Republican Party and President bush has driven him more or less crazy.

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Open your eyes to the liberal bias and check out powerlineblog.com!

Corporations using their power to influence people is
not a conspiracy theory, its their regular business
operations. Bush, like Reagan before him, has
gone off the deep end by turning the US into a big
whore for big business.

Its no conspiracy, its just the designs of capitalism.

When so-called political commentators start throwing
around generalizing labels like "liberals" and whatever,
its a giveaway of their partisanship.

Bashing bush isn't the same thing, its an expression of
dissent. The gullible and uninformed of this nation need
to learn that.

Hi Troll,

You really made yourself a lot of work.

You could have stopped writing after a few lines because your just wrong !

Nobody is talking of the kristallnacht , except you !

What is ment is the burning of books and all other non-conform literature by the nazis.
Well not only by the nazis , the people brought their books on free will....

I dont see a big difference between burning books and cds , just a different kind of media.

So go home and suck your thumb :)

I'm a useful idiot with an ususually small penis. I will mock you all into submission.

Wow! You know how to copy and paste the same message over and over on multiple threads? I was never able to master that. It is beyond my mental capablilities. Wait a second. I'll get my third grade buddy to show me how. After that, I'll screw his tight little butthole.

WAHHHHHH........


TAKEN YOU DOWN TO CHINA TOWN!

Would you take me down the Hershey Highway?