To the Editor:

The recent FCC ruling to ease the limits on media ownership was another step

in corporate concentration in America. However, our media problems go much

deeper than which particular corporation owns which television stations, radio

stations or newspapers. The national corporate media have been in virtual lockstep

behind Bush and especially supportive of his recent imperial adventure in Iraq.

To remedy the obvious lack of effective freedom of speech and true democracy

in this country, we need to institute a random lottery method of picking news

broadcasters and political commentators. Let everyone, in rotation, have her

or his say on the issues of the day, and we would not be faced with hearing from

the same tired corporate apologists every evening.

In fact, having our political representatives picked by a random lottery would

create a situation much closer to true democracy. Democracy that is bought and

sold to the highest bidder is not democracy at all: it is much closer to traditional rule

by kings. After all, the king was the wealthiest person in his country.

We obviously need non-commercial media, especially in television, the most

powerful form of mass communication. This is the only industrialized country

in the world that does not have universal health care. It is also the only

industrialized country in the world that allows the wealthy and the corporations to

try to buy control of the country every two years. See the connection? To

paraphrase the brilliant English satirist, Jonathan Swift, "This is the best of all

possible corporate worlds."

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

3 June 2003