Another very good point, Alexey. From my culture here, we inherited a tradition from Western Europe that the press is the 'Fourth Estate'. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century. Thomas Macaulay used it in 1828. Also in the US Constitution, Amendment 1, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The founders of this country recognized the importance that the People get the correct information to make informed decisions that matter to us all as Americans. Unfortunately, beginning about the year 2000, the press in this country has been used as a mouthpiece and convenience of government to alter opinion and sway votes toward governmental policy in far less than a 'fair and balanced' presentation of the facts and issues concerned. There is a real danger, in my opinion, that our 'Fourth Estate' may become a 'Fifth Column' of misinformation ...

Media always will be the mouthpiece of the ruling regimes. They control media by licensing and that does not matter whether the media are private or not.

We are kept in a state of blissful ignorance so that they can continue to milk us. They are very good at it.

Now that's a great article Alexey! I mean those who pay attention likely already know this fact, it is good to say it. Press is a power and it was even obvious in the Georgian War with South Ossetia, how the Western journalists were pulled in to help Sashkashvili. He went on TV endlessly from that point on. Another example is in the US they are talking about Obama's bow, but what really is news is the fact every employment report has on average 200,000 job losses. That's big news. What does the news just mention as a side note? Recovery! They mention the stock market going up as a sign. It did that too during the Great Depression. The News is definitely a tool to direct public attention, no doubt about that. You can tell what nationality someone is by their opinions and you know their news is responsible.

Corporate monopoly capitalism works on 3 (three) main pillars only. I don't understand about any forth? 1. Control of the issuance of all or most monetary entities (legal tender) 2. Control of information (in this case one way TV(and other) mainstream ) 3. Control of the Political system. And it evolved almost in that order, though ingenuity and luck, control of credit was obtained. Then with that 'wealth' acquisition of information systems was obtained. Then those to prongs (Credit) and (information control) are easily used to control the political system, the elections are real and can be, you are choosing the Bank each time. the 2nd 'pillar' and maybe the most important is hurt by two way information, any free flow information causes people to become 'Aware' of the 'Gap' that has been created between actually reality and the apperance of reality, (The matrix was a comedy to me when i first saw it, I felt like the writers and I were sharing an inside joke) the only defence mechanism against free information are psychological aspects, disinformation, will breakers, etc. now for example people may say that The Russian federation got a bad deal as far as representation goes with regard to the recent attack by Georgia on South Ossetia, of course in the one way system Russia did not exist except as the Aggressor, but trust me , i saw the free information bulletin boards light up with the closest version of the even flow truth that could be obtained at that time, all the (one way)fear was not fear at all, the (one way) anger towards Russia was (two way) anger towards the hypocrisy of other states policies. Plus the right to self defence. The important point is this ; If one were trying to measure affect, Russia was always going to be misrepresented by the one way information system , (what?, if you were in a boxing match would you never expect to get hit by your adversary?) ,so in that case nothing has changed you have 0, but lets look at what changed. What is different, what was different this time? Measure that and you will get the measurable effect of free flow information on a one way system. Plus another interesting by product occurs, like with the ‘Ron Paul affect’ at a point, a critical mass if you like , As the information flows around and behind the one way mainstream system, the one way system as to address the issue just because of pure popularity, this is interesting, and there were many examples in which one could study in the recent US Presidential election. Basically how this closed system ‘dealt’ with the ‘Ron Paul affect’.