A Letter From Your Editor on Our Day of Independence:
Dear fellow Thinker,
Most people are familiar with the traditional mass media market (which includes your daily, weekly, and monthly publications) found in almost every home, doctor’s office, and corporate break-room. These publications are printed by well established, publicly-traded corporations which own the most popular newspapers, magazines, and talk-shows. The 21st century has delivered these mechanisms to us ad-infinitum, with 24-hour news channels, specialized financial news channels, and news tickers streaming along the bottom of our screens- all telling us the latest “news”.
What do we see more often than not? Unsubstantiated “breaking news” stories, unverified Twitter updates, and irrelevant gossip rants which are never thoroughly investigated, and to wit, then are repeated ad-nauseam; not to mention the celebreality which is offered continuously, yet has no relevant impact on our reality, and in fact blocks us from receiving nutritious, empowering, and relevant information.
Certainly one could see that the “Achilles’ heel” of their business model is that their measure of wellbeing (i.e. profit) is dependent on taking direct advertising dollars from corporations who have a conflict of interest with their audience.
In short, the publicly-traded corporation has failed in every way to satisfy even the most basic of our needs for information; and in every way has undermined our ability to make logical, reasonable, and emotionally responsible decisions… instead playing at every turn on our fear, uncertainty, and emotions to drive our decision making processes. Only people who are purposely trying to manipulate your sense of choice employ such harsh tactics of persuasion; and publicly-traded corporations regularly suppress and manipulate information in order to please their advertisers’ interests (which often come into conflict with the News).
The mandate for publicly-traded corporations to profit- even at the expense of human and environmental suffering without any oversight or boundaries- is the genesis of the conflict of interest. For example, if a publication is supported by advertisers, it would be unprofitable to publish information leading the audience to realize that these advertisers were poisoning their food supply; as these advertisers would pull their money, the publications profits would drop (which would trigger a stock decline), and the publication’s stock, as well as that of the advertiser… would plummet.
Publicly-traded corporate publications regularly betray the public trust, yet they are consumed daily without a critical thought as to why you would pay to be exposed to false and purposely misleading information.
Seeing this clearly, Tragedy and Hope was designed to circumvent the tragic flaw of the publicly-traded corporation; whereby subscribers take the place of advertisers in the funding of the publication, therefore- we are serving our subscribers’ best interests when we dedicate our energy to delivering them the most nutritious information and value-added commentary juxtaposed to historical context of events.
There are 32 categories in the demo issue, let’s see how one publicly traded corporation (Monsanto) proves why Tragedy and Hope’s unique design motivations deliver what’s necessary to inspire compassionate, creative, constructive forms of change in our world:
Where publicly-traded publications would (rightfully) go bankrupt if they were to inform you that Monsanto (a chemical manufacturer) has been methodically increasing the amount of poisons in our food supply for the past several decades… Tragedy and Hope builds trust by delivering the cold, hard facts in a manner that simultaneously provides the hope necessary to constructively go about addressing the reality we all face.
“The World According to Monsanto” is presented in the demo issue of Tragedy and Hope, to help our subscribers become informed on this matter. To balance the toxicity that Monsanto brings to the table, you’ll note on the opposite page; 2 films which begin to rectify and repair what Monsanto is doing, and therein you’ll find an inspiring, logical, tried-and-tested, non-toxic and sustainable solution. Tragedy and Hope is about introducing the balance we see, that could be if only action were taken- so we’re taking it.
On the other hand, if for instance, People Magazine or Fox News were to alert you to the fact that in 2009 there are 2 bills in Congress which aim, in part, to make Organic food illegal; People Magazine and Fox News would lose millions in Monsanto advertising dollars, as well as many millions lost from other corporate advertisers who would boycott in retaliation. These corporations, and all who play in their league, simply CANNOT AFFORD TO FULFILL OUR NEED FOR ACCURATE, RELEVANT, AND OBJECTIVE INFORMATION- and as a result of doing nothing about it- we are denied our right to make informed choices, day after day.
As a result of this, Monsanto now has their representative in the Obama Administration, Tom Vilsack; the new Secretary of Agriculture. This is covered by Ronnie Cummins, president of the Organic Consumer’s Association, in the premiere issue of Tragedy and Hope. Not surprisingly, as of March 2009, Bills HR 875 and SR 475 are the House and Senate Bills (respectively) which seek to create a Food Safety Administration to prevent (any) food to reach us without first being A) grown with Monsanto poisons, and B) irradiated, which mutates the food into new substances (sometimes creating for example, benzene in vegetables). If you’re keeping score, benzene is a carcinogen (or, cancer-causing agent).
If any of this is of interest to you, I would suggest first starting with reviewing a film, available via NetFlix, titled “The Beautiful Truth”; wherein this line of thought is logically, reasonably, and non-emotionally presented in the scientific and factual form necessary to share the beautiful truth.
The Beautiful Truth (March 2009) is also introduced in the premiere issue (July 4, 2009) of Tragedy and Hope.
When you have more than one option, that's Choice. With Tragedy and Hope, the Choice is Yours.
The major risk involved in your decision would be the choice to do nothing; when in fact the situation we all face demands that a panacea-like service be explored to inspire the adoption of the solutions which exist in our world.
A Practical Application of what we’ve learned:
Tragedy and Hope is an idea, which was conceived for the specific purpose of addressing the world’s most caustic problems.
Change, after all, is not status quo. Change is not Tradition; therefore we must break traditional and established business models in order to overcome the challenges we all face as a group.
The rewards of an emotionally responsible, socially conscious, self-aware, critical thinking and respectfully engaging audience with the capacity to share their self-realized empowerment with their family, friends and strangers alike; are priceless.
The problems that Tragedy and Hope is designed to address have existed for longer than any of us care to think about… the suppression of consciousness for purposes of attaining/maintaining power is the oldest war waged against the common person.
Niccolo Machiavelli’s 3 principal works: Discourses, The Prince, and the History of Florence all refer to the fact that the primary tactic used to achieve the stratagem of power is that of Conspiracy, in all its forms. Machiavelli also mandates that counter-conspiracy be promulgated in order to maintain power at all costs.
Being that the establishment is led by Harvard MBA’s (all of whom are well schooled in Machiavelli’s works by Harvard’s MBA program), it is not likely that the current problems we face will be easily dissipated- thus ensuring the need and longevity of Tragedy and Hope’s continued presence.
Your Choice to Make: In Closing, we’d like you to thank you for investing your time and energy into helping us get a step closer to making the idea of Tragedy and Hope into a reality. Your feedback, whether favorable or unfavorable to our endeavors; is valued, invited, and necessary to our growth. If we can’t deal with the Truth, who will?
With that being read, we consider ourselves to be courageously engaging the problems that others so easily profit from ignoring; and we are seeking a few courageous investors to take a leap of well founded faith, and risk losing their fear of loss in exchange for the hope of a more prosperous future- not only for themselves, but for those who have been thus far systematically denied their rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Are you one of the courageous people we seek to help us accomplish the task(s) at hand?
Please enjoy the Sample Magazine, explore the site, register to view the Premiere Issue of Tragedy and Hope; and after you let it all marin8, subscribe and take action that will empower you for the rest of your life. Thank you!
::peace::
Richard Grove, 
Editor-in-Chief, Tragedy and Hope
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