![]() I hear Americans saying loudly and clearly: enough is enough When we declare, "Enough is enough," we are demanding a country and a future that meets the needs of the vast majority of Americans: a country and a future where it is hard to buy elections and easy to vote in them a country and a future where tax dollars are invested in jobs and infrastructure instead of jails and incarceration a country and a future where we have he best educated workforce and the widest range of opportunities for every child and every adult a country and future where we take the steps necessary to ending systemic racism a country and a future where we assure once and for all that no one who works forty hours a week will live in poverty When we stand together there is nothing, nothing, nothing we cannot accomplish.The arrows have never flown so fast, Robin of Loxley has never dodged his enemies so cleverly, and the Sherriff of Nottingham has never before been so awful or inhuman. The 2018 reboot of Robin Hood is shooting for a younger audience, one which may well be more accustomed to the gaming console than a cinema screen. I believe that Americans, battered by job losses and wage stagnation, angered by inequality and injustice, have come to this understanding. It is a shared sense of necessity, an understanding that we must act. The point of beginning is not political strategy. I believe we can recognize the overwhelming odds against us and forge coalitions that overcome the odds. “I believe we can be serious and optimistic. It has put together a very powerful description of what media concentration means.” is one of the best media watchdog organizations in the country, and has been opposed to the kind of media consolidation that we have seen in recent years. In a recent article in Forbes magazine discussing media ownership, the headline appropriately read: “These 15 Billionaires Own America’s News Media Companies.” Exploding technology is transforming the media world, and mergers and takeovers are changing the nature of ownership. In 2010, the total revenue of these six corporations was $275 billion. Those six corporations are Comcast, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. This is outrageous, and a real threat to our democracy. Today, as a result of massive mergers and takeovers, six corporations control 90 percent of what we see, hear, and read. In 1983 the largest fifty corporations controlled 90 percent of the media. ![]() In fact, I suspect that when people look at the hundreds of channels they receive on their cable system, or the many hundreds of magazines they can choose from in a good bookstore, they assume that there is a wide diversity of ownership. “WHO OWNS THE MEDIA? Most Americans have very little understanding of the degree to which media ownership in America-what we see, hear, and read-is concentrated in the hands of a few giant corporations. You cannot take advantage of all the benefits of America if you refuse to accept your responsibilities as Americans.” You can’t hide your profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens, while there are massive unmet needs in every corner of this nation. You can’t continue sending our jobs to China while millions are looking for work. You can’t get huge tax breaks while children in this country go hungry. The change begins when we say to the billionaire class: “You can’t have it all. This has got to change, and together we will change it. This type of immoral, unsustainable economy is not what America is supposed to be about. There is something profoundly wrong when one family owns more wealth than the bottom 130 million Americans. There is something profoundly wrong when the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much as the bottom 90 percent, and when 99 percent of all new income goes to the top 1 percent. “We live in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, but that reality means little because almost all of that wealth is controlled by a tiny handful of individuals.
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