Bad Moon Rising: The King of America

Beyond the pure insanity of a nutty cult leader having the influence that Reverend Moon has, there are so many things so very wrong here I hardly know where to begin. But I'll force myself to start with what's been in the news recently. And I'll do it briefly because, as I've said before, this topic has been discussed to death in the corporate media. And now that I think about it, it's not that it's been discussed so much, but how it's been discussed, as an endless 20 second loop, that's the problem.

If you go back as far as I do, ask yourself when the last time was, or if you don't go back that far, ask yourself if you've ever, heard the Reverend Sun Myung Moon mentioned in the corporate media. I go back far enough to remember the John Belushi skit from the documentary when it first aired on Saturday Night Live. While Reverend Wright sound bites play on and endless loop in the corporate media, a man who has more political influence and is more dangerous than all the religious nut cases you can name combined, and I don't include Wright in that group, is rarely, if ever brought up. In fact, he's only been mentioned recently in the blogosphere from what I've seen, and I watch a lot of CNN and MSNBC. And while that might not be exhaustive coverage of what the media is reporting, googling his name for news stories on him finds only a handful. One by AlterNet, none by major media outlets.

It took a blogger to break the story of his "coronation" by congressmen in a federal building and 3 months for the corporate media to catch up. And that's the other part of this story. It's why what we have right here is so important. Without it all we would have are the sensationalist stories deemed worthy of the attention by the corporate media. The same nonsense, every day, over and over again until we are sick of it. Sandwiched between stories of She Who Must Not be Named (SWMNBN) and Britney freaking Spears.

While a multi-billionaire with the not at all secret goal of undermining democracy and Christianity, buys major influence in the party of the Christian Right and with an ex-president, the media is fixated on the racially incendiary and sensational. These are the kinds of stories and the people who expose them are the people who will have little if any exposure if net neutrality is not protected. And if giant media conglomerates are allowed to continue gobble up local and smaller media outlets as they have been by the FCC. The chances that we will know that the Reverend Sun Myung Moons of the world exist, and that we will be able to force the corporate media to cover them, will be almost nil.

The mainstream media don't deserve even courtesy of the "corporate" qualifier on their name. It gives them too much credit. They should be called, and I'll have to make an exception and name she who must not be named, the Paris Hilton Media, or the Britney Spears Media. Because it characterizes, if not all the content they cover, the style of their coverage, which is anything that can be sensationalized. When they aren't protesting that they hate the fact that they have to cover the latest Britney drama, and they wish they didn't, they are putting a dramatic spin on anything else they cover. Because their goal is to sell soap, and by soap I mean anything that advertisers will pay them to sell. And it's not the selling of soap, but that it is more important to them than informing the public, that makes them no different than a soap opera. Just because they call it news, doesn't make it so.

Yet another aspect of the documentary which touches on recent "news" is the origin of stories, complete propaganda or otherwise totally false, that start with the Moon owned Washington Post and move from there straight into the mouths of Fox News and other right-wing pundits. From there into the Paris Hilton Media (PHM) or if they are don't meet the low standards of credibility to make it that far, they end up as email forwards that at least 10% to 15% of Americans actually believe.

That is why it is important now, essential in fact, that people spread this story. Spread this documentary. That they force it into the PHM. So that we are seeing endless loops of Bush 41 endorsing the Washington Times and that people know that it is owned by Moon. People need to Digg stories about it to the front page of Digg.com, if not this one then the video itself.

They should forward it to their friends and send links to it to the PHM. Reverend Wright and the preachers who've endorsed John McCain have been held up to much public scrutiny yet are harmless in comparison to Reverend Moon. Moon is actually dangerous and people should know who he is and the power he wields.