[ScottSolomon]

No one is arguing that revolution would be a good idea. I don;t necessarily think that communism is bad. China is not a Marxist communist society anyway - Mao chose his own brand of socialism.

The government needs to control the media and the press because it makes shaping history to one's advantage easy. It allows government to mold the public's opinion and it contributes to broad initiatives led by a tiny faction of insiders. Every government does this to some degree. China, and the Soviet Union/Eastern Bloc countries went over the top with their desires to censor dissent and manipulate the public. The U.S. took a more subtle approach- relying on advertising techniques and public fear in order to create the desired political atmosphere.

The U.S. tolerates fringe movements, but since they are weakly funded they can be relegated to the margins by the mass media. Most people know a nice fiction about AMerican history that was taught in high school - but few actually learn the real history of the U.S.. Our news media is partially responsible for this. We have a media system that ceaselessly bombards viewers with junk news filler in order to maintain a steady rate of fear among the credulous. This did not start out as a methood of public manipulation, this system naturally arose through the growth of corporate media and their desire to curry favor with the people in power.