We’re fighting to keep our democracy within an illiberal disinformation ecosystem which controls the narrative. If we don’t address this, our Republic will fail. We need a foundation endowed by American philanthropists who will donate to re-create the free press, write a constitution for the We the People media system, and then walk away. Makenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, Mark Cuban are possible philanthropists who could help us with this. The reason Harris lost the election is because so few Americans actually heard her message. The reason Trump won, was because the media sanewashed his every utterance and downplayed Project 2025 as just a nightmare for liberals.
I still say Trump did not win, he managed to steal it. It just seemed too easy, and the way he conducted his rally's ridiculous. Like Stephen Spoonamore says "prove me wrong and let's have a recount". The ball is in the Harris court, are the Dems going to roll over again with so much at stake? If the situation would be reversed the MAGA's would be jumping up and down.
Reminiscent of Eric Alterman's book, "What Liberal Media?", despite their overwhelming dominance of the messaging, they still whine about liberal bias. As they do on this issue, they turn every issue upside down; they are the rich calling us the elites, they are the insiders calling us the establishment, they are rapists calling us perverts, and so on. I'm so sick of it!
It is the same as Putin and his assets like Gabbard and Stein, and our own Dr Boris, whining about American imperialism and colonialism, which is Putin's propaganda line.
It is the schoolyard tactic of the bully, to accuse others of that which you are guilty.
Everything relating to progressive news will change if the Democrats decide that ending Neoliberalism with a nuclear bomb - - - and apologizing for taking so damned long to do so. Major news is owned by massive corporations, which are perfect examples of the problem the Dems have not corrected because tackling the criminal wealth divide, they know the will incur the wrath of those in the cat bird seat of that wealth distribution.
Sanders was 100% right in 2016. I'm suddenly hearing indication s that others are picking up on the real reason people have lost faith in the Dems. Neither party represents the 99%, and for Democrats, that is a disgusting thing to say out loud. Fixing it starts with reclaiming through action the role that was abandoned for fear that financial support FROM that big money would dry UP FAST. In so doing, they destroyed America's faith in government. One party favors the 1%, the other party follows suit instead of screaming bloody murder each and every damned day.
Sanders proved you don't need corporate support to win. HE didn't count on being upended by the party that had already anointed the neoliberal choice, even though he WOULD have won, left unimpeded. Millions of voters that went with Trump would have voted for Sanders because he WAS campaigning as a representative for the 99%.
By the way, Comcast is getting rid of those neoliberal stations MAINLY because of caution in the face of retribution from Trump. Anyone even THINKING of criticizing Trump on the air will be a casualty. If that happens with the new company, so be it.
Direct communication to individuals, as you do right here, Thom, will explode support if Democratic politicians start sounding like YOU, and others that beat the real drums of populism without the bullshit. 100% of the solution lies with the DNC. Stay at the feeding tough of the oligarchic hierarchy, or SWITCH GEARS on the dime we are sitting on and join the vast majority of people that need representation. We are absolutely in an era of crony capitalism. Control of capitalism was abandoned long ago, so much so that warped, hyper-capitalism now rules the land. The world.
THIS is where the real next civil war will be fought. Trump voters think they are voting for something that will fix what ails them. It will be shown very soon that they were misguided as they sought something that didn't exist. The entire Democratic party needs to wake up and go to war, right now, or the damage I expect to be done in these next two years will be permanent, and beyond repair in the foreseeable future.
As of right now, there is no clear leader offering the scope of leaderSHIP that Roosevelt commanded. Sean Fein sounds most like what is called for, other than Sanders and AOC. Such a progressive leader had better come to the fore soon, and start sounding militant against the horrific reality that the Republicans are feeding. The ROT is deep. But it can be fixed, and it can be fixed quickly, if there is unity.
Until then, YOU are the voice of reason personified, Mr. Hartmann. I don't need MSNBC to provide leadership, I need smart people that pull no punches and tell the truth and call for action. There are others I respect, and they, too are vocal and know how to articulate a thought that resonates with the hordes that Leo's strategy was designed to enslave. But ALL of you had better unite under a single banner. I, for one, depend on YOUR collective brains to challenge and foment real change. NOT on network TV, but directly to the people, some of which will be super-spreaders of your passion.
I was shellshocked by the election. Today, I am pissed off and flabbergasted, and yes, depressed by the lack of clearsighted intelligence in the political world in the face of the greatest threat we have ever negotiated. I'm a 70 year old man trying to run a small family business. THIS is my form of activism. Younger people need to pick up this gauntlet and behave as if their lives depend on it.
To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, “Money isn’t everything. It’s the only thing”. You can always sell fear, and America’s money manipulators can’t resist an easy sell, no matter the consequences. Who else could turn our greatest asset, the First Amendment, into a liability?
Instead of wringing our collective hands about the disappearance of the world of Edward R. Murrow and the local newspaper, why not focus upon capturing the American peoples' attention with innovative ways to deliver accurate, forward looking -- NOT leftt leaning, but real problem solving -- information and news that can pay its own bills.
Perhaps older money and experience supporting younger, tech savvy, people that can leap-frog over the current social media circus.
Donald. I like your idea, but a day late and a dollar short. There just aren't any liberal billionaires, not even George Soros. And Mark Cuban is a conservative, an anti Trump conservative and I expect him to kneel on the hassock before Trump.
I know I am a cynic, a pessimist, and I think the only thing that is going to save us, if any of us survive, is that the new world order of Christian fascism will disintegrate from within, an internal collapse, because they have killed the goose that lays the golden egg, a Pyrrhic victory.
Except for the 48% of the deplorable, hateful and vapid Trump humpers, America is a productive country of well fed, free thinking, joyful and productive people.
All that will change on Jan 21st as we become a fearful, uptight, rigid and demoralized country.
Who will slaughter and dress our pigs, our cows, our chickens, pick our fruit and vegetables. drive our taxis,Ubers, Lyfts, roof our houses, perform all those jobs that Americans won't do.
The only way that will get done is if performed by impressed gangs, or people so desperate that they can't even live in tents and cardboard boxes.
After the Great Patriotic War, Stalin was embarrassed by the large number of amputees and disabled vets on the streets of Moscow, and overnight they all disappeared.
Come to think of it, the war had to produce a lot of amputees and walking wounded in Germany, but we know what became of the disabled in Germany. There is no room for non productive resources.
If you don't work, you don't eat is a libertarian commandment, and the Trump regime will be, if nothing else, libertarian it is also Art 12 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution
It does not require billionaires. It can start where it is most needed... Smaller communities, in important states, AND BY THE YOUNGER CITIZENS, FOR THE YOUNGER CITIZENS!
Ignore the Boomers, they are lost to reason, and will all be gone, soon, from the stage. Being one, I hate to admit it, but we have been such a disappointment after a great start.
Donald I totally agree with you about the Boomers. I am of the Silent generation I was a beatnik in uniform. at the tail end of the movement. Much later when I was a butter bar sporting a beret I ran into an E-8 who had been an E-4 when I was an E-3, he was dumbstruck, he said you are the last person I would think to see in uniform, much less a 2d Lt in a beret. My generation were the Manson family, hippies living on communes, protesting everything from civil rights to the war, then one day they woke up and realized, hew I have to eat, I want a nice car,not a VW van and my own house and not live in a commune, and the boomers became conservative, not just conservative but Reagan conservative, compassionate conservatives and some of them joined the Tea Party, and their children, instead of rebelling, became MAGAts.
I assume you are familiar with the Lewis Powell memo. The one he wrote to the pesident of the Chamber of Commerce, who was appointed to SCOTUS months by Nixon,months after he wrote the memo.
This was the blueprint for the degeneracy of this country into a third world shithole.
The downward spiral started with the Powell Memo.
According to Powell the reason that the young were out on the streets, causing so much trouble for civil rights and against the war, was because they were too well fed and indolent, because their parents had too much discretionary income and were not hanging on by their teeth and nails. That the standard of living had to be reduced. Paul Volker said the same in 1974. The Bank for International Settlements the same in 1983, but this time in reference to the world (i.e. 1st World member banks, the B.I.S. is the central bank of central banks,including our Fed.
Yes, they turned off the tap that watered America's education and dumbed down the country. And by reducing what was available, created competition among working people for their share of the pie.
The sad part is that Americans are participants in their own destruction.
They have weaved the rope that will hang them.
Ir is just not capitalists that sell the rope that will hang them, but we are of the same mentality.
People choose to live in cancer alley, people choose to crawl into the earth and risk black lung, people choose to live next to a plant that spews toxins and carcinogens into the air,ground and water, and even when their family dies off,one by one, as happened in my family, they still will not move
And now a despotic regime awaits us, we know what is coming, we have been told loud and clear, and yet we hang on, some of us waiting till the last train leaves the station, our enemy is hope. The same hope that impels a person to climb into a 55 gallon drum or to dig their own grave, or walk up the scaffold for the hang man's noose, in the end we are all cattle walking the ramp in the abattoir to receive the blow on the forehead.
Here's an inconvenient truth: access to truthful accounts of going's on isn't free. As a society it seems we expect imperative need-to-know's to seek us out and inform us, rather than the reality which demands the exact opposite. If the information we hold as truth just shows up at our door - with no effort on our part in procuring or funding - than it is not truth. This "news" is simply solicitation of someone else's version of reality that solely benefits them.
Subscribe to independent, fact-driven media - and pay for it if you're able. It's the most important life staple second only to food and shelter.
MSNBC is hardly leftist . Rather it is engaged in what is called Market Segmenation.
Fox and CNN have the right wing market tied up, the center right market is CBS, ABC, NBC
That left the liberal market, a declining share, mostly old farts like myself, and MSNBC grabbed it, as it is pretty much impotent in national politics. You can tell who the market is by It’s advertising.
Medicare Advantage, Insurance and PhRMA.
MSNBC is owned by NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast, and the largest individual shareholder of Comast, it’s Chairman of the Board and CEO is Brian L. Roberts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Roberts
Bluesky is being touted as a liberal alternative to Shitter, but not so fast
Bluesky, an app which closely models Twitter but portrays itself as a place where liberals can feel safe, has accumulated 20 million users, most of them since the election. Without going into the gory details, Bluesky was founded, like Twitter, by Jack Dorsey, an ally of Elon Musk, and then apparently sold to a group of crypto bros, including the extremely problematic Brock Pierce.
I was a regular donor to Democracy Now and the Intercept until they proved to be a 21st Century version of Tankies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
In essence Putin assets, blinded perhaps by their Marxist sentiments and a romanticized affection for the old USSR, and Putin’s skillful employment of psyops, accusing America of the same thing that he is guilty of, imperialism and colonialism.
For a media to prosper, they need access to the source,if they are critical of the source, they are denied access., As a result they self censor, and criticize and bait, as they did to Kamala when she wouldn't sit down with the media, because she knew they would hit her with hostile gotcha questions.
Not that they were hostile, but that is what the editors and owners of the media want, that is what makes news and headlines.
Rachel Maddow in her first TV show, interviewed Rand Paul and hit him with legitimate questions. He couldn't and wouldn't answer. After that episode no Republican politician would sit down with her again, so she developed a different format for her show, basically story telling.
Agree with Thom that it seems there is a dearth of progressive information on MSM programming. For example, in regards to the progress of the Biden administration to advance American lives with his warp speed projects and initiatives, the MSM rarely reported on any of his administration’s accomplishments. The MSM has failed us massively. In their right-leaning click bait propaganda “news “ and “both sides “ do it BS, they avoid factual reporting, and have guaranteed America’s greatest con man access to our treasury and DOJ. Many Americans don’t have time or desire to fact check or search for credible news sources so use their TV as background noise, catching only basic “news”. Being retired I now have time to search for many sources of information. I have cancelled subscriptions to WaPo and others that catered to “both sides “ and rarely watch legacy media shows anymore. There are only a handful left on MSNBC that I watch occasionally and I have moved to Substack, Bluesky, MTN which has a variety of commentators. Until some progressive or serious news outlets are more accessible, Americans will continue to remain ignorant and sucked into the conspiracy wacky world of right leaning idiocy.
The irony is Kathy, that the journalists and editors and corporations have slit their own throats.
"if it bleeds, it leads" is the mantra. Tension, conflict the horse race sells, and the right sells conflict, hate, fear, tension.
So the media gravitates towards what sells, it is their careers, livelihoods and who knows a Peabody or Pulitzer award.
However they have been too successful, the dog caught the car, and there is no room in the new regime for them.
In 1933 there were over 4,000 newspapers in Germany, by 1938 there were only1,0000 and all of them were parrots of the party line, following the lead of the Volkischer Beobachter, which became the official NAZI party organ.
To answer your question, yes. When Newt Gingrich (NOT Ronald Reagan who wouldn't know tax code from turnip greens) lowered the tax rate for corporations and the already extremely rich it made money, not people, the true power in this country. We have been living in an oligarchy for some time and it is now devolving to dictatorship. Unfortunately our dictator is certifiably crazy which will lead to anarchy which is far worse than either of the first two.
This topic is mind blowing on many levels. I simply cannot understand how Kamala Harris (similar to other candidates from either duopoly) can have a fundraiser in Los Angeles at $1,000 per plate (for a hot dog outside...basically) to $1,000,000 (yep, ONE MILLION). However, for the poorer among us, that have only $100,000 we could get a photo with the candidate! Yet, no one can seem to buy radio/television for the cause of which they are so passionate.
Are you effing kidding me? OR, am I missing something? Because, it appears to me, that there is a priority issue at the very least. And, consider this "tough love," Democrats seem to be plagued with mixed priorities instead of FIXED priorities and incapable of honing in on logic.
I read this post and was SHOCKED but not surprised. All this fits perfectly into Timothy Snyder's "autocratic formula." Anne Applebaum tells the same story. I read On Tyranny in 2017 and have experienced today's shock many times since. The absence of VIRTUE in our culture runs from stem to stern. Our gods are things you can touch, OBJECTS! Our self-worth is measured with OBJECTS. We have become inanimate! We live in a world with no need for abstraction. Everything is reduced to an OBJECT!
Thanks, this is a critically important issue going forward. And yes I’m wringing my hands, because hoping for ‘innovative…NOT left leaning.. information and news’ options described by Donald L. are pie in the sky (imo). Neutrality and sanewashing by legacy media sure didn’t get good information out in 2024, and it won’t be viable in downmarket media that magically leapfrogs over social media as a viable counter to big right money. Readers (listeners?) are attracted by quality critiques, and if these are purged because they are deemed ‘left’ by Elon, MTG and the extreme-right intelligentsia, the resulting pablum issued by ‘neutral’ media stripped of critiques will not be viable. Good luck with that, investors, but I believe that points of view, critiques, and yes aggressive research, are the path forward for non-fascist media. If elements of ‘the right’ can brazenly issue both literal and metaphorical calls to arms without being pilloried by responsible media, acquiescence is not a real option.
Tom I share your concerns, but I consider human nature. Bias inevitably is reflected in journalism, in the form of what is not reported as much in what is reported, and how it is reported, in other words using emotionally laden words in the reporting.
Let me give an example:
Depending on the source there are X number of casualites in Gaza as reported by
a. The HAMAS ministry of health or
b. The Palestinian ministry of health
The reports do not differentiate by civilian deaths and combatant deaths, so we are left with the impression that all the deaths are civilians
The same is going on in Lebanon. Israel is targeting Hezbollah missile, observation and storage sites. Practically all those killed are Hezbollah fighters, perhaps there is some collateral damage,but the report is always X number of Lebanese killed, again leaving the impression of Israel killing Lebanese civilians, exclusively
Whereas in Ukraine the casualty reports differentiate, in fact military deaths are called casualties, and when a Russian missile or rocket or drone kills civilians it is reported as a civilian death.
Ukraine is missing a propaganda opportunity by not including military deaths with civilian deaths
The news anymore just seems stupid to me. They ask stupid questions like, “can Trump legally use the military to round up immigrants for deportation”. He doesn’t care if it’s legal, and neither do the people who voted for him. Obviously, he would just have any laws changed that get in his way. He’s also got the Supreme Court. They are pretending that America didn’t just hand him the country.
We’re fighting to keep our democracy within an illiberal disinformation ecosystem which controls the narrative. If we don’t address this, our Republic will fail. We need a foundation endowed by American philanthropists who will donate to re-create the free press, write a constitution for the We the People media system, and then walk away. Makenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, Mark Cuban are possible philanthropists who could help us with this. The reason Harris lost the election is because so few Americans actually heard her message. The reason Trump won, was because the media sanewashed his every utterance and downplayed Project 2025 as just a nightmare for liberals.
I still say Trump did not win, he managed to steal it. It just seemed too easy, and the way he conducted his rally's ridiculous. Like Stephen Spoonamore says "prove me wrong and let's have a recount". The ball is in the Harris court, are the Dems going to roll over again with so much at stake? If the situation would be reversed the MAGA's would be jumping up and down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJR5uQpweko
Reminiscent of Eric Alterman's book, "What Liberal Media?", despite their overwhelming dominance of the messaging, they still whine about liberal bias. As they do on this issue, they turn every issue upside down; they are the rich calling us the elites, they are the insiders calling us the establishment, they are rapists calling us perverts, and so on. I'm so sick of it!
It is the same as Putin and his assets like Gabbard and Stein, and our own Dr Boris, whining about American imperialism and colonialism, which is Putin's propaganda line.
It is the schoolyard tactic of the bully, to accuse others of that which you are guilty.
Everything relating to progressive news will change if the Democrats decide that ending Neoliberalism with a nuclear bomb - - - and apologizing for taking so damned long to do so. Major news is owned by massive corporations, which are perfect examples of the problem the Dems have not corrected because tackling the criminal wealth divide, they know the will incur the wrath of those in the cat bird seat of that wealth distribution.
Sanders was 100% right in 2016. I'm suddenly hearing indication s that others are picking up on the real reason people have lost faith in the Dems. Neither party represents the 99%, and for Democrats, that is a disgusting thing to say out loud. Fixing it starts with reclaiming through action the role that was abandoned for fear that financial support FROM that big money would dry UP FAST. In so doing, they destroyed America's faith in government. One party favors the 1%, the other party follows suit instead of screaming bloody murder each and every damned day.
Sanders proved you don't need corporate support to win. HE didn't count on being upended by the party that had already anointed the neoliberal choice, even though he WOULD have won, left unimpeded. Millions of voters that went with Trump would have voted for Sanders because he WAS campaigning as a representative for the 99%.
By the way, Comcast is getting rid of those neoliberal stations MAINLY because of caution in the face of retribution from Trump. Anyone even THINKING of criticizing Trump on the air will be a casualty. If that happens with the new company, so be it.
Direct communication to individuals, as you do right here, Thom, will explode support if Democratic politicians start sounding like YOU, and others that beat the real drums of populism without the bullshit. 100% of the solution lies with the DNC. Stay at the feeding tough of the oligarchic hierarchy, or SWITCH GEARS on the dime we are sitting on and join the vast majority of people that need representation. We are absolutely in an era of crony capitalism. Control of capitalism was abandoned long ago, so much so that warped, hyper-capitalism now rules the land. The world.
THIS is where the real next civil war will be fought. Trump voters think they are voting for something that will fix what ails them. It will be shown very soon that they were misguided as they sought something that didn't exist. The entire Democratic party needs to wake up and go to war, right now, or the damage I expect to be done in these next two years will be permanent, and beyond repair in the foreseeable future.
As of right now, there is no clear leader offering the scope of leaderSHIP that Roosevelt commanded. Sean Fein sounds most like what is called for, other than Sanders and AOC. Such a progressive leader had better come to the fore soon, and start sounding militant against the horrific reality that the Republicans are feeding. The ROT is deep. But it can be fixed, and it can be fixed quickly, if there is unity.
Until then, YOU are the voice of reason personified, Mr. Hartmann. I don't need MSNBC to provide leadership, I need smart people that pull no punches and tell the truth and call for action. There are others I respect, and they, too are vocal and know how to articulate a thought that resonates with the hordes that Leo's strategy was designed to enslave. But ALL of you had better unite under a single banner. I, for one, depend on YOUR collective brains to challenge and foment real change. NOT on network TV, but directly to the people, some of which will be super-spreaders of your passion.
I was shellshocked by the election. Today, I am pissed off and flabbergasted, and yes, depressed by the lack of clearsighted intelligence in the political world in the face of the greatest threat we have ever negotiated. I'm a 70 year old man trying to run a small family business. THIS is my form of activism. Younger people need to pick up this gauntlet and behave as if their lives depend on it.
To paraphrase Vince Lombardi, “Money isn’t everything. It’s the only thing”. You can always sell fear, and America’s money manipulators can’t resist an easy sell, no matter the consequences. Who else could turn our greatest asset, the First Amendment, into a liability?
An idea...
Instead of wringing our collective hands about the disappearance of the world of Edward R. Murrow and the local newspaper, why not focus upon capturing the American peoples' attention with innovative ways to deliver accurate, forward looking -- NOT leftt leaning, but real problem solving -- information and news that can pay its own bills.
Perhaps older money and experience supporting younger, tech savvy, people that can leap-frog over the current social media circus.
Any thoughts?
D.
Why not left-leaning to balance the overwhelming right-leaning content?
There is no balance in an authoritarian regime, Gloria
You would be repeating the mistake that helped get us where we are now.
Focus upon problem solving, not positions and policies with a label. Too much ammunition for the bad guys.
Truth be told, fixing America will be "left" leaning action, anyway. But avoid the preaching like the plague.
D.
Donald. I like your idea, but a day late and a dollar short. There just aren't any liberal billionaires, not even George Soros. And Mark Cuban is a conservative, an anti Trump conservative and I expect him to kneel on the hassock before Trump.
I know I am a cynic, a pessimist, and I think the only thing that is going to save us, if any of us survive, is that the new world order of Christian fascism will disintegrate from within, an internal collapse, because they have killed the goose that lays the golden egg, a Pyrrhic victory.
Except for the 48% of the deplorable, hateful and vapid Trump humpers, America is a productive country of well fed, free thinking, joyful and productive people.
All that will change on Jan 21st as we become a fearful, uptight, rigid and demoralized country.
Who will slaughter and dress our pigs, our cows, our chickens, pick our fruit and vegetables. drive our taxis,Ubers, Lyfts, roof our houses, perform all those jobs that Americans won't do.
The only way that will get done is if performed by impressed gangs, or people so desperate that they can't even live in tents and cardboard boxes.
After the Great Patriotic War, Stalin was embarrassed by the large number of amputees and disabled vets on the streets of Moscow, and overnight they all disappeared.
Come to think of it, the war had to produce a lot of amputees and walking wounded in Germany, but we know what became of the disabled in Germany. There is no room for non productive resources.
There is an interesting discussion on Reddit. The NAZIs had a Euthanisia Program which did claim some WWI vets and apparently severely wounded eastern front soldiers were "euthanized" https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sgnjyp/would_the_nazis_have_killed_disabled_veterans/
If you don't work, you don't eat is a libertarian commandment, and the Trump regime will be, if nothing else, libertarian it is also Art 12 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution
Thanks for your note...
It does not require billionaires. It can start where it is most needed... Smaller communities, in important states, AND BY THE YOUNGER CITIZENS, FOR THE YOUNGER CITIZENS!
Ignore the Boomers, they are lost to reason, and will all be gone, soon, from the stage. Being one, I hate to admit it, but we have been such a disappointment after a great start.
Donald I totally agree with you about the Boomers. I am of the Silent generation I was a beatnik in uniform. at the tail end of the movement. Much later when I was a butter bar sporting a beret I ran into an E-8 who had been an E-4 when I was an E-3, he was dumbstruck, he said you are the last person I would think to see in uniform, much less a 2d Lt in a beret. My generation were the Manson family, hippies living on communes, protesting everything from civil rights to the war, then one day they woke up and realized, hew I have to eat, I want a nice car,not a VW van and my own house and not live in a commune, and the boomers became conservative, not just conservative but Reagan conservative, compassionate conservatives and some of them joined the Tea Party, and their children, instead of rebelling, became MAGAts.
I assume you are familiar with the Lewis Powell memo. The one he wrote to the pesident of the Chamber of Commerce, who was appointed to SCOTUS months by Nixon,months after he wrote the memo.
This was the blueprint for the degeneracy of this country into a third world shithole.
The downward spiral started with the Powell Memo.
According to Powell the reason that the young were out on the streets, causing so much trouble for civil rights and against the war, was because they were too well fed and indolent, because their parents had too much discretionary income and were not hanging on by their teeth and nails. That the standard of living had to be reduced. Paul Volker said the same in 1974. The Bank for International Settlements the same in 1983, but this time in reference to the world (i.e. 1st World member banks, the B.I.S. is the central bank of central banks,including our Fed.
Yes, they turned off the tap that watered America's education and dumbed down the country. And by reducing what was available, created competition among working people for their share of the pie.
The sad part is that Americans are participants in their own destruction.
They have weaved the rope that will hang them.
Ir is just not capitalists that sell the rope that will hang them, but we are of the same mentality.
People choose to live in cancer alley, people choose to crawl into the earth and risk black lung, people choose to live next to a plant that spews toxins and carcinogens into the air,ground and water, and even when their family dies off,one by one, as happened in my family, they still will not move
And now a despotic regime awaits us, we know what is coming, we have been told loud and clear, and yet we hang on, some of us waiting till the last train leaves the station, our enemy is hope. The same hope that impels a person to climb into a 55 gallon drum or to dig their own grave, or walk up the scaffold for the hang man's noose, in the end we are all cattle walking the ramp in the abattoir to receive the blow on the forehead.
Here's an inconvenient truth: access to truthful accounts of going's on isn't free. As a society it seems we expect imperative need-to-know's to seek us out and inform us, rather than the reality which demands the exact opposite. If the information we hold as truth just shows up at our door - with no effort on our part in procuring or funding - than it is not truth. This "news" is simply solicitation of someone else's version of reality that solely benefits them.
Subscribe to independent, fact-driven media - and pay for it if you're able. It's the most important life staple second only to food and shelter.
I fear it is going the way of all fascist states. Muzzle free speech. Hide the truth. Crush the middle class. Steal baby steal. Fuck trump
MSNBC is hardly leftist . Rather it is engaged in what is called Market Segmenation.
Fox and CNN have the right wing market tied up, the center right market is CBS, ABC, NBC
That left the liberal market, a declining share, mostly old farts like myself, and MSNBC grabbed it, as it is pretty much impotent in national politics. You can tell who the market is by It’s advertising.
Medicare Advantage, Insurance and PhRMA.
MSNBC is owned by NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast, and the largest individual shareholder of Comast, it’s Chairman of the Board and CEO is Brian L. Roberts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_L._Roberts
Bluesky is being touted as a liberal alternative to Shitter, but not so fast
Bluesky, an app which closely models Twitter but portrays itself as a place where liberals can feel safe, has accumulated 20 million users, most of them since the election. Without going into the gory details, Bluesky was founded, like Twitter, by Jack Dorsey, an ally of Elon Musk, and then apparently sold to a group of crypto bros, including the extremely problematic Brock Pierce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brock_Pierce
I was a regular donor to Democracy Now and the Intercept until they proved to be a 21st Century version of Tankies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
In essence Putin assets, blinded perhaps by their Marxist sentiments and a romanticized affection for the old USSR, and Putin’s skillful employment of psyops, accusing America of the same thing that he is guilty of, imperialism and colonialism.
So similar to what happened to newspapers in the 19th Century!
For a media to prosper, they need access to the source,if they are critical of the source, they are denied access., As a result they self censor, and criticize and bait, as they did to Kamala when she wouldn't sit down with the media, because she knew they would hit her with hostile gotcha questions.
Not that they were hostile, but that is what the editors and owners of the media want, that is what makes news and headlines.
Rachel Maddow in her first TV show, interviewed Rand Paul and hit him with legitimate questions. He couldn't and wouldn't answer. After that episode no Republican politician would sit down with her again, so she developed a different format for her show, basically story telling.
Add the Progressive Populist to your list of liberal newspapers. It’s how I found your reporting.
Agree with Thom that it seems there is a dearth of progressive information on MSM programming. For example, in regards to the progress of the Biden administration to advance American lives with his warp speed projects and initiatives, the MSM rarely reported on any of his administration’s accomplishments. The MSM has failed us massively. In their right-leaning click bait propaganda “news “ and “both sides “ do it BS, they avoid factual reporting, and have guaranteed America’s greatest con man access to our treasury and DOJ. Many Americans don’t have time or desire to fact check or search for credible news sources so use their TV as background noise, catching only basic “news”. Being retired I now have time to search for many sources of information. I have cancelled subscriptions to WaPo and others that catered to “both sides “ and rarely watch legacy media shows anymore. There are only a handful left on MSNBC that I watch occasionally and I have moved to Substack, Bluesky, MTN which has a variety of commentators. Until some progressive or serious news outlets are more accessible, Americans will continue to remain ignorant and sucked into the conspiracy wacky world of right leaning idiocy.
The irony is Kathy, that the journalists and editors and corporations have slit their own throats.
"if it bleeds, it leads" is the mantra. Tension, conflict the horse race sells, and the right sells conflict, hate, fear, tension.
So the media gravitates towards what sells, it is their careers, livelihoods and who knows a Peabody or Pulitzer award.
However they have been too successful, the dog caught the car, and there is no room in the new regime for them.
In 1933 there were over 4,000 newspapers in Germany, by 1938 there were only1,0000 and all of them were parrots of the party line, following the lead of the Volkischer Beobachter, which became the official NAZI party organ.
To answer your question, yes. When Newt Gingrich (NOT Ronald Reagan who wouldn't know tax code from turnip greens) lowered the tax rate for corporations and the already extremely rich it made money, not people, the true power in this country. We have been living in an oligarchy for some time and it is now devolving to dictatorship. Unfortunately our dictator is certifiably crazy which will lead to anarchy which is far worse than either of the first two.
This topic is mind blowing on many levels. I simply cannot understand how Kamala Harris (similar to other candidates from either duopoly) can have a fundraiser in Los Angeles at $1,000 per plate (for a hot dog outside...basically) to $1,000,000 (yep, ONE MILLION). However, for the poorer among us, that have only $100,000 we could get a photo with the candidate! Yet, no one can seem to buy radio/television for the cause of which they are so passionate.
Are you effing kidding me? OR, am I missing something? Because, it appears to me, that there is a priority issue at the very least. And, consider this "tough love," Democrats seem to be plagued with mixed priorities instead of FIXED priorities and incapable of honing in on logic.
But what do I know.
I read this post and was SHOCKED but not surprised. All this fits perfectly into Timothy Snyder's "autocratic formula." Anne Applebaum tells the same story. I read On Tyranny in 2017 and have experienced today's shock many times since. The absence of VIRTUE in our culture runs from stem to stern. Our gods are things you can touch, OBJECTS! Our self-worth is measured with OBJECTS. We have become inanimate! We live in a world with no need for abstraction. Everything is reduced to an OBJECT!
Thanks, this is a critically important issue going forward. And yes I’m wringing my hands, because hoping for ‘innovative…NOT left leaning.. information and news’ options described by Donald L. are pie in the sky (imo). Neutrality and sanewashing by legacy media sure didn’t get good information out in 2024, and it won’t be viable in downmarket media that magically leapfrogs over social media as a viable counter to big right money. Readers (listeners?) are attracted by quality critiques, and if these are purged because they are deemed ‘left’ by Elon, MTG and the extreme-right intelligentsia, the resulting pablum issued by ‘neutral’ media stripped of critiques will not be viable. Good luck with that, investors, but I believe that points of view, critiques, and yes aggressive research, are the path forward for non-fascist media. If elements of ‘the right’ can brazenly issue both literal and metaphorical calls to arms without being pilloried by responsible media, acquiescence is not a real option.
Tom I share your concerns, but I consider human nature. Bias inevitably is reflected in journalism, in the form of what is not reported as much in what is reported, and how it is reported, in other words using emotionally laden words in the reporting.
Let me give an example:
Depending on the source there are X number of casualites in Gaza as reported by
a. The HAMAS ministry of health or
b. The Palestinian ministry of health
The reports do not differentiate by civilian deaths and combatant deaths, so we are left with the impression that all the deaths are civilians
The same is going on in Lebanon. Israel is targeting Hezbollah missile, observation and storage sites. Practically all those killed are Hezbollah fighters, perhaps there is some collateral damage,but the report is always X number of Lebanese killed, again leaving the impression of Israel killing Lebanese civilians, exclusively
Whereas in Ukraine the casualty reports differentiate, in fact military deaths are called casualties, and when a Russian missile or rocket or drone kills civilians it is reported as a civilian death.
Ukraine is missing a propaganda opportunity by not including military deaths with civilian deaths
The news anymore just seems stupid to me. They ask stupid questions like, “can Trump legally use the military to round up immigrants for deportation”. He doesn’t care if it’s legal, and neither do the people who voted for him. Obviously, he would just have any laws changed that get in his way. He’s also got the Supreme Court. They are pretending that America didn’t just hand him the country.
Just one of many examples of money in politics - provided by right wing billionaires - ending democracy.