Muncie, Indiana NEWS – While everybody is focused on Donald Trump’s disgusting comments about women, I’d like to take a step back and explore not just the timing of the videos released by Billy Bush, but the owner of the video – NBC, MGM or NBC Universal, or Comcast. Americans and global citizens are aghast my Trump’s comments, and rightfully so. They reflect a man who uses his power and position (privilege) to assault women. But, if we truly want to support women to prevent this kind of behavior, we have to explore the culture which allows it – it takes a village to conceal it.
This continued behavior requires women who won’t hold men accountable and bosses who also allow it. In the case of the Trump video – MGM and Trump Media, LLC might own the rights to The Apprentice production, but NBC bought the license. When the video surfaced last Friday, the most important question in my mind was, “Why did it take 12 years for this video to surface?”
The other question was, “Once NBC learned of Trump’s lewd behaviors, what actions did they take to protect female contestants on the show?” Or, “Was The Apprentice just a front to allow Trump to fondle women and use his power and title to force himself on female contestants?
Or, maybe NBC executives stood by Donald Trump, covering up his sexual assault against female contestants because the reality show was a profit maker for the television company. Maybe a little of both. As I said, it takes a village to perpetuate this behavior.
This is not another article to pile on Trump, because I’ve written plenty about the GOP and Trump’s rise within the Republican Party. My sadness is the damage which has already been done to the United States of America and our fragile ‘democracy’. My anger is Trump was used by the American media to drown out the political revolution supporting Senator Bernie Sanders.
And, according to Wikileaks, the Clinton strategy was to “exploit marginalized GOP candidates whose extremism could be used against them in the general election”. Hillary’s campaign strategy would require the help from the American media, and it seems as though she received it.
The video/recording was revealed by Billy Bush (cousin of Jeb Bush, a GOP presidential hopeful), an employee with NBC. Once the video was released before the second national debate, the focus has been on Trump’s disgusting comments. On Twitter, famous director/producer Ron Howard claimed Trump has always been this way:
Trumps says “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” Sorry but i know people who do know him -it is exactly who he is
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) October 8, 2016
Of course he was…anybody with a rational mind knew this of Trump before he announced his candidacy, but we still had to endure day after day, month after month of American media headlines. The media was chasing profits. Chief Executive Officer for CBS, Les Moonves, famously boasted, “Trump may be bad for America, but he’s great for CBS.”
Was it just profits, or were they also helping drown out Bernie Sanders messages about the corruption within our rigged economy and political elites? Bernie has been pointing out the corrupt media for decades in this country. As a result, Bernie’s run for president was met with a “media blackout”.
Maybe the media conglomerates wanted to keep Bernie’s messages on the margins, not allowing it to go mainstream.
So, despite the vulgarity, my burning question is, “Why didn’t NBC release the videos once Trump offered up his candidacy to run for president?”
Why didn’t the US Media, with the help of NBC News and MSNBC (liberal news), vet the candidate by interviewing female contestants on The Apprentice and destroy his chances before the republican primary debates? They were quiet. Why?
The GOP had 15 other candidates who saw and complained about the free media exposure Trump was receiving. There was no mention of Donald Trump’s behavior on The Apprentice even though there are many archived recordings. When Donald was making his crass remarks toward women, black Americans, and immigrants, why didn’t MSNBC show a snippet of The Apprentice videos, or interview former contestants like the AP just did?
In his years as a reality TV boss on “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump repeatedly demeaned women with sexist language, according to show insiders who said he rated female contestants by the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex with.
The Associated Press interviewed more than 20 people — former crew members, editors and contestants — who described crass behavior by Trump behind the scenes of the long-running hit show, in which aspiring capitalists were given tasks to perform as they competed for jobs working for him.
What say MGM executives? What say NBC executives? What say MSNBC executives? What say Comcast executives?
Well, NBC suspended Billy Bush for his involvement in releasing the damaging video. Yet, why didn’t they investigate all the “demeaning sex talk”? Why was Donald allowed to go ahead with harassing female contestants? Did they protect a sexual abuser for over a decade because of profits?
Apparently, Gloria Allred also wants to know too. Gloria is a well-respected feminist lawyer, who has already been contacted by past contestants of The Apprentice. She sought the videos from executive producer of The Apprentice, Mark Burnett:
Burnett issued a statement on Monday in which he said that he “does not have the ability nor the right to release footage or other material from ‘The Apprentice.’ Various contractual and legal requirements also restrict MGM’s ability to release such material.”
But Allred said that she was sending a letter to Burnett proposing that she meet with him to discuss the legal prohibitions, or that he disclose those restrictions to a panel of three retired judges who could determine if the footage can be released. Although the judges would be bound to confidentiality in their review of the restrictions, their conclusions should be made public, she said.
Well, instead of sending the letter, Gloria decided to deliver the letter in person. Guess how well a shaking executive handled that visit:
Pressure continues to mount on Mark Burnett to release potentially embarrassing outtakes of Donald Trump from his 11 years as the star of NBC’s The Apprentice. Today, attorney Gloria Allred and representatives from several women’s advocacy groups tried to deliver an open letter to Burnett at MGM’s offices in Beverly Hills, but security guards wouldn’t let them in the building.
Not sure if I’d use the phrase, “embarrassing outtakes” to describe sexual assault and lewd behavior toward women. Gloria said she’ll send the letter via Federal Express.
While we wait on MGM and NBC executives to do the right thing, Americans are learning that both presidential candidates are unfit to be president, but not from our Mainstream Media. In fact, the Mainstream Media is not only quiet on meaningful issues, they are complicit with presidential candidates and their donors. We keep fighting over which candidate is the ‘lesser evil of the two’. If we actually had a Fourth Estate and a functioning democracy, we might be choosing between Bernie Sanders and John Kasich for president. We also wouldn’t be an embarrassment to our global neighbors.
Instead, we have an Oligarchy who controls both the media and political candidates to keep the profits churning for their companies. This is not the democracy our Founders envisioned. As long as we have a corrupted system, we will continue seeing horrible public servants creating policies which benefit their handlers at the expense of “We the people”.
