“il nous faut de l’audace, et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace” ~ George Danton
By Catherine Austin Fitts.
In 1998, the leading Washington newspaper pulled a story on the targeting of my company by dark forces the night before it was to publish. One of their lead investors and board members was a major power behind the scenes in the mortgage and investment world. The family that owned them was investing in real estate in the areas in Washington being gentrified. The consequences to me were dire – even life threatening.
This was not the first experience I had with the politics of corporate media. During the Bush Administration, a very capable investigative reporter wrote a profile of me for the leading New York newspaper. As it was going to print, she got a call from the printers that the Washington bureau chief was changing it – fabrications were being added. She appealed to editors in New York. The story was pulled and she resigned.
My frustration with corporate media was more than personal. For many years in Washington, I had worked with the detailed budgets of federal money and credit that controlled the US mortgage markets. I watched the real policy decisions being hardwired in the budgets. What the political and financial press described was an entirely different reality. I watched the fraudulent inducement of the American people in another housing bubble – engineered with the help of media. I watched the devastation of people around the world. I also watched honest, courageous reporters who tried to do something about it targeted, pushed out, even killed.
That experience in 1998 was the last straw. A great deal of corporate media was no longer relevant – it would waste too much time of busy people who needed to understand the world around them. I would speak with people directly. I would answer questions I got by e-mail or letter or on talk shows. As I did, independent reporters and publishers started coming to me with questions about the financial system. As I answered, publishers asked me if they could publish my e-mails. The audience grew. I needed professional support. So in December 2008 I started the Solari Report.
You might say that the Solari team and I backed into the media business. I was networking to live apart from the growing corruption, understand what was happening to responsible, hardworking people and to serve those who asked for our help to navigate and build wealth in the world as it really is.
During the years since 2008, as Internet activity exploded, the US corporate news media has lost credibility and market share and the global news flow has fractured and evolved with online video and social media.
Assessing where the US media landscape has emerged through this period, most media falls into one of three categories.
BREAD AND CIRCUS:
Most corporate network news falls into this category. The producer challenge is attracting viewers without addressing anything outside of the approved lines of official reality and promoting stories that serve leadership political and business agendas. It is a combination of entertainment, human interest and propaganda with some occasional serious, hard-hitting coverage of the obvious. Ultimately, the goal is to build and maintain support for command and control centralization – whether by garnering support or creating an uninformed, apathetic population. They throw a lot of money and talent at doing this.
GLOOM AND DOOM
As the corporate news failed to provide the news that the audience needed while there was still time for them to act (for example, warn you about predatory lending or the housing bubble before it had popped and you were in foreclosure), thousands of blogs and websites grew up to help address these very real needs.
Many evolved into a group of sources and audiences that were angry and promoted a very dire view of the world. While there is much to be angry about and there is certainly plenty of risk, becoming marginalized in a victim mentality or hopelessness can result in more dire consequences that staying ignorant in Bread and Circus mode. Dwelling in anger, in particular, can make us sick or even kill us.
One of the challenges facing the Gloom & Doom players was dealing with uncertainty. Too often, producers and writers got stuck in a particular analysis of what is happening and why, or proposal of what we needed to do about it, or a prediction of the future.
Trying to offer certainty in an uncertain world has ultimately failed and that has resulted in even more anger and shrieking.
Nevertheless, numerous writers, websites and YouTube channels have emerged that provide very significant coverage and analysis of our world. The best have learned and broadened their initial scope. If you can pick and choose carefully between the best of global and US corporate news and the wealth of websites that grew up in Gloom and Doom, what emerges is a far richer media than we had ten years ago.
If you have a good filter, the media result for the consumer is superior – or at least would be if everything we did online or through a TV or other device was not being compiled in the NSA’s databases and applied to “manage” us.
FREE & INSPIRED
Which brings me to the “space” in which the Solari Report is growing.
Our reader and subscriber want more than entertainment – you want to understand reality. However, you also want to enjoy your life and be successful as you define that to be. Hence, fear, anger and depression are best in modest doses. You are prepared to deal with uncertainty – so you want to hear from a diverse number of authentic, intelligent people. You will listen to many sides and decide for yourself. You would like to find other like-minded people – it helps to share your journey with others. And you want to be able to navigate the economy – to be financially independent.
Most of all you want media sources that do not insult your intelligence or prey on your emotions and fears.
Which is to say our goal is to help you lead a free and inspired life – we are doing this because that is what we are trying to do. We figure the more of us collaborating on doing this, the closer we can move to a free and inspired world.
I am thinking about these things as we work on our new blog.
I was hoping it would launch in the 1st Quarter, but now it looks like the 2nd Quarter. One of the reasons for the delay is that our systems and blog team has spent a great deal of time dealing with hack attacks this year. It would not surprise me if the funding for these attacks are coming from our friends in Bread & Circus. They have very big overheads and the Internet is re-engineering their cash flows out from under them. They are not allowed to provide the coverage that could win back their market share. So my guess is that hacking those with rising brands is part of the solution – if they can not win back our readers, they can try to wipe out our profits and exhaust our teams. Numerous successful media Internet sites in the Gloom & Doom and Free & Inspired Space are reporting similar hack attack problems
When we do launch, it will part of moving to a new phase. One in which we can handle the increased activity and volume with ease and, hopefully, enjoy the fruits of our labor – the opportunity to work with and serve an audience of people we like and respect.
I am intensely curious to see what we cook up together!