Is Democracy Dead?

Recently there have been some attempts by Congress to bailout newspapers which are currently struggling financially.

Recently there is some thought that General Electric (GE), the parent company of MSNBC news, has effectively sold out and is using biased reporting on MSNBC to support a political view. If this view gains support, General Electric will profit significantly with increased Federal spending on GE goods and services.

There should be serious concern here. If journalism is paid for and rewarded by the government we have lost the battle. An Army of David, small, independent reporters have trouble competing with global news organizations which parrot the will of the government.

This seems to be one more step toward the path of centralization and Big Brother. Perhaps the first warning was issued by President Eisenhower who warned of the vast military industrial complex was gaining a foothold in government policy.

Then we have this unfortunate idea of public employee unions actively supporting a party or candidate who was most likely to return this support by overly compensating the employees with public money. This seems so galling and inherently wrong. An individual is allowed to voice his views. However, when he publicly identifies himself with his union in a partisian issue, he has crossed the ethical line. I have had the pleasure of working for two public organization that understood this problem and prohibited employees from publically identifying the organization with any partisian issue.