The Last Days of Democracy

Book excerpt: Elliot Cohen has political x-ray vision that cuts right through the turgid bullshit of corporate media ca-ca. Buy several copies and hand them out on street corners: This book could save America.-GREG PALAST, author of Armed MadhouseThe Last Days of Democracy is a compelling and alarming last call to awaken the slumbering promise of our Constitution - or to watch our freedom slither away forever. Corporate media has enabled tyranny to prevail over the truth, because they value profits over patriotism. This book is a wake-up call to save us from the final descent into an Orwellian world from which we will not be able to return.-MARK KARLIN, Editor and Publisher of BuzzFlash.comHow can America survive in the information age without any information? For too long, and at far too great a cost to the country's way of life, America's mainstream media have grasped at higher profits by sinking to disgraceful lows in standards and performance....Cohen and Fraser reveal the caustically unprincipled impostors of our industry, the owners and managers they shill for - and the damage they have done. Read this book. Get mad as hell and let's make certain we don't take it any more.-ARTHUR KENT, SkyReporter.comIn this chilling account of an America in political and cultural decline, media critics Elliot D. Cohen and Bruce W. Fraser show how mainstream media corporations like CNN, Fox, and NBC (General Electric) together with giant telecoms like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T have become administration pawns in a well-organized effort to hijack America. Cohen and Fraser show in blunt terms how incredible power, control, and wealth have been amassed in the hands of an elite few while the rest of us have been systematically manipulated, deceived, and divested of our freedom. Calling attention to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a carefully devised plan for international dominion launched by high officials in the Bush administration, this book tells the story of an America quietly being stripped of its democratic way of life on its way to becoming a full-blown authoritarian state.The authors detail how mainstream media have failed us in covering issues crucial to the survival of American democracy - the Bush administration's domestic spying program; the facts about the September 11 attacks; presidential election fraud; the events leading up to the Iraq war; and the selling out of Internet freedom, to name just some. They reveal how corporate media have systematically attempted to dumb down and distract us from reality with sex and violence; how government has used corporate media to shock and awe Americans into surrendering their constitutional rights in the name of the War on Terrorism; and how media personalities have been complicit in the mass deception.The final chapter points out important ways in which Americans can counter the erosion of democracy by relying less on mainstream media and more on independent news sources, through grassroots activism, peaceful assembly, and exercising their free speech, and by using critical thinking to expose the dangers we face.Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D. (Port St. Lucie, FL), is the director of the Institute of Critical Thinking, the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Applied Philosophy, ethics editor for Free Inquiry magazine, and the author or editor of many books in journalism, professional ethics, and philosophical counseling, including News Incorporated: Corporate Media Ownership and Its Threat to Democracy, Journalistic Ethics (with Deni Elliot), Philosophical Issues in Journalism, and What Would Aristotle Do? Self-Control through the Power of Reason.Bruce W. Fraser, Ph.D. (Vero Beach, FL), is founder and president of Americans for Moral Government, a political action committee devoted to the preservation and promotion of democratic values.