The real political conflict in America is not liberal versus conservative, but rich versus poor, power versus powerlessness. A lot of ink has been spilled on liberal or conservative bias in the media, all of it ignoring the real discrepancy. On social issues, liberal bias often exists - as long as it does not involve federal programs that spend tax dollars. The same programs that will never criticize feminism and will censor stories because they are racially sensitive will elate at stories exposing welfare mothers buying microwave pizzas and saying that doing so is cheaper than ordering them for delivery. On strict political issues, conservative bias often exists. You won’t see many stories on the starving or dead civilians in Panama, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Al Gore got hammered when, in the 2000 Presidential debates, for relatively minor slips about the people with whom he had worked in particular places, but Bush almost never got hammed on how his tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy, about which he lied - though Gore got hammered for such criticism because he was driving wedges between people. Nevermind that Gore spectacularly, again and again, exposed Bush’s ignorance of domestic issues like affirmative action and foreign issues like whether the Russians should be used to mediate a dispute in which they did not recognize the government that needed mediation. The media, again and again, gave Bush a pass for his obvious ignorance and hammered Gore for changing styles and for being too cerebral or too stiff. But let us not confuse any of these instances for a simple liberal or conservative bias.

I saw a presentation as an undergraduate of a man who had footage of U.S. troops shooting civilians, hardly a unique claim. I watched this footage. I was proud of being a member of the organization that had brought this man to campus. This man had been given a deal to produce a television series, much to his shock, and he had done so. Then the network spontaneously killed the project. He asked if this was because of the cursing in much of his footage. The answer was no. He asked if this was because the footage showed brutal murders. The network representatives laughed at such a concern. He asked if this was because ratings might not be high enough. Hardly, came the response. The reason was that, put simply, it was hard to sell cars after footage of gunmen killing screaming civilians, the bullets ripping through children. And booking advertisements is, after all, what television is designed to do -- advertisements placed, of course, by corporations.

What we have to come to terms with here is that the set of issues known as liberal and the set of issues known as conservative are contradictory. Conservatives are in favor of smaller and unobtrusive government, except when it comes to abortion and encouraging marriage -- or sponsoring religious groups through government grants or solidifying the power of the rich through tax breaks. Liberals are in favor of using government to solve problems, except when it comes to abortion or the crisis of family in violent inner cities. Under a dichotomous party system, each party solidifies certain policies and interest groups, creating a set of policies that contradict each other.

The U.S. media is run by corporations, corporations that have grown and merged increasingly over the last twenty years, corporations that since at least William Randolf Hearst have had sprawling power. And you have to sell cars. Good, clean war footage is good for that. Corporations buy ad time from other corporations. Is it any wonder that independent film gets little coverage on the mainstream media? Yes, most media people are themselves liberal, but they are told what to say. They are employed lips and tits, looking good to draw in viewers, reading off a teleprompter. Even those stories they initiate have to go through approval processes, and corporations are notoriously paranoid about lawsuits from other corporations. Even Comedy Central censored the word Subway in a parody of the sandwich chain’s advertising on South Park. The bias of the U.S. media is entirely corporate in nature.

As such, feminism is great. Getting women into the workplace? Corporations love it. Abortion? Great! It keeps women working. Immigration? Cheap labor. Tolerance of religions and ethnicities? Great! Then they all can work together. Such liberal issues are corporate issues too. On the other hand, supply-side economics is also obviously good for corporations. On financial issues, corporate media endorses the Republicans.

The question to ask, as one analyses the media, is not whether any coverage or tone of that coverage benefits one or the other political party, but whether any coverage or tone of that coverage benefits corporations.

A black woman in L.A. arrested in 2002 for stealing three pairs of very expensive pants got sentenced in the first few days of 2003 to life in prison. Meanwhile, the head rats at Enron, who engineered the biggest bankruptcy in American history and left thousands without retirements, who sold millions in stock while encouraging others to buy, are living as multi-millionaires with little concern of jail time. And Bush’s new economic plan, to fix a still-sagging economy, is to end the capital gains tax on dividend payments on stocks -- perhaps not a bad idea by itself, but certainly a horror while half of the children in the U.S. go without so much as health insurance and while any serious illness in the family would bankrupt all but the richest families even when they have incredible health insurance. This would be ironic if it weren’t so horrible. Our kids don’t know how to read, don’t know what Byzantium or where Europe is, but they’ve been trained perfectly to become fast food drones. And we’ve got kids in Nepal who can’t afford Nike sneakers buying T-shirts with the Nike swoosh.

So talk to me about bias, baby.

YOUR WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT

Go to a comic book store and buy Alan Moore's seminal Supreme, now collected into trade paperback by Checker. If they don't have it, order it.

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