Media consolidation that’s happened since the Reagan Revolution makes our overall media landscape much easier to seize, control, and manipulate should our government ever flip fully fascist...
All true and there are no coincidences. Today, on the Catholic Liturgical Calendar, two Saints are honored; one Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria, priest who double-downed against the Reformation in the 1500's and made the Catholic Church ever more restrictive and controlling. The other; Saint Elizabeth of Portugal (c. 1200) who, while married to a King, negotiated several peace treaties and during a famine, fed the poor, paid dowries for poor women, set up hospitals for the poor.... She served and was a beautiful example of a leader who served her people. I would put DeSantis in the Zaccaria camp and Elizabeth with the press protectors. Portugal has a history of peace-making and kindness that goes back 100's of years. DeSantis is dangerous; just like a pedophile Catholic priest. DeSantis will do anything to protect and perpetuate his sick predilections; remember what he did at Guantanamo.
" Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed. "
The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich
By William L. Shirer pg.194
February 28, 1933 Hitler prevailed then President Hindenburg to sign a decree ( above ), " for the Protection of the People and the State " which would suspend the seven sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties.
The inevitability and despair that permeates this narrative describing how both Republican and Democratic bought legislators and presidents have allowed the media in the US to be bough up and left to the guidance of its corporate owners is palpable. Generationally it sends a message from the 'last of the baby-boomer' elite liberals to their successors that no amount of skills, perseverance and small scale industrial effort will be able to de-fang the +50% corporate ownership of US media.
This could, instead, serve as a lightening clarion call to young 2023 entrepreneurs to re-locate to smaller communities and create local news, with a focus on keeping voters abreast of the individual and aggregate politics of the politicians they have re-elected year after year. Voters really are not un-smart, they are mostly busy and overwhelmed with life styles where parents have little time to raise their own children and Elders are struggling with messed up medical care and small, or no pensions.
With approximately 160 million voters in Americahttps://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/ , a bottoms up effort to stop re-electing the very politicians that keep allowing and empowering the political drift away from a US Center, a massive number of small local news outlets could, perhaps, let some air out of the mega balloons. Perhaps, the young generation's 'Like' signals will find us another Walter Cronkite to bring rational, balanced and 'adult' news again; instead of propaganda from corporate sponsors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite. As he famously always said: That's the way it is ....
The simple reality, known well to the Framers of our Constitution, is that a free, open, and independent press is essential to a functioning democracy. To ensure this in America, in addition to our First Amendment, we had for much of the last century specific laws and rules enhancing press independence, keeping news as news rather than infotainment, and ensuring a broad spectrum of perspectives and ideas were available to the public.
The Fairness Doctrine, for example, which Reagan suspended the enforcement of in 1987 and Barack Obama took off the books in 2011, mandated that when representatives of radio or TV station ownership or management presented opinions on controversial subjects there be equal time given to opposing views.
Reporters Without Borders ranks America 45th in press freedom, far below every other advanced democracy in the world. Other countries with freer and more open news organizations and systems include Tonga, the Dominican Republic, Croatia, Montenegro, Andorra, Cabo Verde, Jamaica, Moldova, South Africa, Costa Rica, Namibia, Samoa, and pretty much every “western” European nation.
The Boomer generation is a mixed bag, when teens or in their twenties, they were anti establishment and hippies singing protest songs and going to Haight Ashbury or Woodstock, exceptions of course, but as the aged , got married and had children they became middle class, and conservative and are the base and foundation of the Trump cult, dragging along their children, and grandchildren..
With luck and hopefully critical reasoning skills, of women, students and POC, enough people will turn out to vote to kick the fascists out of office, local, state and federal, but Republicans are aware of the threat and have been proactive, enacting legislation in the states, that will restrict the ability of their foes to vote or to nullify their votes.
I give SCOTUS props for one thing, and that is ruling in favor of Harper (Rebecca Harper) in Moore v. Harper, despite my fears and kvetching . SCOTUS upheld Harper and thus Upheld her fist suit against the North Carolina legislature of Harper v Hall, and the ISLt went down the drain, for now. I suspect that even now forces are aligned to press the ISLt again, using a different rational and different plaintiffs (even fictional ones as they have done twice recently.
Like I don't know that, however Trumps base is the boomers, and their children. BTW. I am 84 years old, a member of the Silent Generation, and (thankfully most are gone) and they are more conservative than the Boomers, exceptions of course, like with the Boomers. We were teens and preteens and subject to the constant drum beat of fear the commies. fortunately we didn't suffer the propaganda exercise of duck and cover, to hide under school desks, but the Boomers sure did, and that made for an huge imprint on young minds, which followed into adult as political proclivities, leading inevitably to anti-feminism, anti gay and racism (well racism and classism has always been there, especially with my generation, that's the generation that put a halt to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
Arizona's Dem AG announced she will enforce AZ civil rights laws regardless of Supreme Court decisions. How far will Blue States go to protect their citizens from a fascist federal government?
It is hard to say this but I agree with your thoughts on the freedom of the press but in reality most Americans get their news from social media at this time and we have no control over that for sure. The vote is the last open weapon that we have left and we must exercise it far better than ever before in '24.
Another much needed public service announcement. So much that I knew about but never linked.
I do have a question though. I always thought that it was Bill Clinton that formally abandoned the Fairness Doctrine, when he agitated for and signed the Telecommunications act of 1996.
Now I learn it was Obama in 2011. I would like to know the legislation, and more importantly the why's
As distance is put between his administration and today, more and more revelations are showing that he was, himself, a token, and his eight years of governance were disappointing, he was conciliatory towards the right, just as Biden is, he didn't nothing to protect or advance equality for people of color
Instead of having justice investigate and indict that cop that harassed and arrest Henry Louis Gates Jr, he sat down for beers with them, and that had the effect of emboldening racists, especially racist LEO's, of which , IMO, includes almost all of them from city, to county, to federal . especially the FBI.
Which incidentally is another case in which Trump was like a broken clock.
The other was when he called the Media the enemy of the people and your connective tissue is evidence of that. I refuse to be a sucker for reverse psychology and defend something which Trump and his cult attack.
If it weren't for the media, giving Trump millions of free air time, even to positioning a camera on an empty podium for 20 minutes, Trump would never have gotten elected. He is a media creation.
The FBI and DOJ were reluctant to investigate him and his and the Republican involvement in Jan 6th, because they are both staffed and still staffed by Trump humpers, most of which Biden could have replaced had he not revoked Trumps EO 13975, with EO 140003.
Biden keeps DeJoy as PMG, and he had a chance to change the structure of the Board of Governors , but chose instead to maintain the status quote, by appointing one Republican to the board, there are still two vacancies which opened up in Dec 2022, and there Biden sits like a stone wall, doing nothing
He wouldn't use his constitutional authority to raise the debt ceiling, meaning that he had to back track on social programs, and decrease yet more taxes for the plutocrats.
He refuses to discipline the Supreme Court,at least by expanding it. And expansion, as well as firing the justices does not require the approval of the Republican house, that is an excuse generated by apologists.
He who given can taketh away. Federal Judges are appointed by the Senate, not the House, and the appointing authority has the right to change its mind, and hold an in chambers hearing of the malfeasance of the corrupt, racists, misogynistic, authoritarians, not just at level of SCOTUS but down the ladder.
Here again we have cowardice or complicity and we keep trudging the road to fascism, two steps forward, one step back, and with the present court three steps back. And there he sits like a stone wall, with his apologists ready to come up with all kinds of rationale and excuses, which are bolstered by our right wing media (which is essentially all of it including MSNBC, even though that have some "liberal" hosts on their night time shows. People with earbuds, taking orders from producers who are tuned into the wants and needs of their corporate masters, CEO's and Board of Directors who hire, fire and pay CEO's.
I recently renewed my passport. I have a passport ID Card, and a regular passport, cost me $160, all it took was filling out an application on line, printing it out, paying a few books for a passport photo,, signing it and mailing it in, if you want priority service you can pay extra
Thank you Thom for helping me add another post to my FB "Oligarchs ARE the Problem" thread:
=============
Oligarchs Suppress Free Press to Protect and Empower Themselves and Their Fascist Political Lackeys
“I think we’re on a terribly dire course right now. All the threats to journalism today are honestly to me so much greater than when I was a journalist. … That’s what the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was all about.” — Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House and a former editor and White House correspondent for The Washington Post.
Obama and Biden continue the tradition of prosecuting and demonizing whistleblowers, further chilling the journalistic integrity and investigation that brought us the progressive movement. You yourself Thom censor and berate callers who try to offer historical context and truth about our part and NATO's in the escalation towards the current Russia/Ukraine conflict. You are part of a media complex so bent on divisiveness and bias that I have to offer a disclaimer after citing historical context and truth that I am against Putin's invasion of Ukraine just as I have been against our countless invasions, regime change schemes, droning and bombings of sovereign nations over the past 50 years. The fact that somehow you think we are going to get it right in Russia, and replace Putin with a leader who will cooperate with the west economically, shows you haven't learned from the incompetence and lies of our military industrial complex. Trump got a lot of that free media coverage due to the DNC's "Pied Piper" strategy, which directed their media outlets to promote Trump to the top of the Republican pack as he was the most extreme and unelectable (just as they said, and you suggested as well, about Bernie Sanders). Isn't it interesting that such a cache of information regarding the awful things Democrats have done has come from whistleblowers like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, those very same journalists who were persecuted by the Obama administration (and currently the Biden administration).
Here we go again, single issue Barry, the Putnik. Inevitably all of his comments lead to one thing, Ukraine and cover for the murdering, war criminal Putin. you claim to be against Putins invasion of Ukraine, but you never cite historical context and truth about the criminal organization that is the Kremlin and its mass murderer Putin.
And only a fool will bite for your depiction of American wanting to replace Putin with a leader who will cooperate with the west economically. That is called paltering, or shilling. No one but you and other Putniks drag in the military industrial complex and business into the discussion.
When the historical facts are that Russia is very censored country, with a history of armed aggression against iit's neighbors (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine and even the Stans. Putin murders critics and oppositions (if an person Putin has called an enemy, don't live above the second floor or in a room or suite with windows.
The man is a thief, he has stolen the wealth of Russia to build large and expensive Dachas, for himself and his mistresses. He is a misogynistic, homophobe and an enemy to world peace.
And you would have us lay down and surrrender. Because you are "against militarism, other than Russia and China, against capitalism other than that practiced in Russia and China.
The nation is fast becoming even MORE of a Madhouse. And w/out the slow-drip, laxative-IV of good journalism, America shall clog up to its eyeballs w/ Un-Democratic Fudge, whilst Donald Duck and Mini-Me Duh-Santis continue to be the nation's . . .
I do not think that the right wing, transphobic, gay man Andrew Sullivan (a hypocrite if ever their was one) would appreciate being called a fudge packer.
All true and there are no coincidences. Today, on the Catholic Liturgical Calendar, two Saints are honored; one Saint Anthony Mary Zaccaria, priest who double-downed against the Reformation in the 1500's and made the Catholic Church ever more restrictive and controlling. The other; Saint Elizabeth of Portugal (c. 1200) who, while married to a King, negotiated several peace treaties and during a famine, fed the poor, paid dowries for poor women, set up hospitals for the poor.... She served and was a beautiful example of a leader who served her people. I would put DeSantis in the Zaccaria camp and Elizabeth with the press protectors. Portugal has a history of peace-making and kindness that goes back 100's of years. DeSantis is dangerous; just like a pedophile Catholic priest. DeSantis will do anything to protect and perpetuate his sick predilections; remember what he did at Guantanamo.
" Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed. "
The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich
By William L. Shirer pg.194
February 28, 1933 Hitler prevailed then President Hindenburg to sign a decree ( above ), " for the Protection of the People and the State " which would suspend the seven sections of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties.
How soon we forget until they come for us.......
The inevitability and despair that permeates this narrative describing how both Republican and Democratic bought legislators and presidents have allowed the media in the US to be bough up and left to the guidance of its corporate owners is palpable. Generationally it sends a message from the 'last of the baby-boomer' elite liberals to their successors that no amount of skills, perseverance and small scale industrial effort will be able to de-fang the +50% corporate ownership of US media.
This could, instead, serve as a lightening clarion call to young 2023 entrepreneurs to re-locate to smaller communities and create local news, with a focus on keeping voters abreast of the individual and aggregate politics of the politicians they have re-elected year after year. Voters really are not un-smart, they are mostly busy and overwhelmed with life styles where parents have little time to raise their own children and Elders are struggling with messed up medical care and small, or no pensions.
With approximately 160 million voters in Americahttps://www.statista.com/statistics/273743/number-of-registered-voters-in-the-united-states/ , a bottoms up effort to stop re-electing the very politicians that keep allowing and empowering the political drift away from a US Center, a massive number of small local news outlets could, perhaps, let some air out of the mega balloons. Perhaps, the young generation's 'Like' signals will find us another Walter Cronkite to bring rational, balanced and 'adult' news again; instead of propaganda from corporate sponsors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Cronkite. As he famously always said: That's the way it is ....
The young people at www.commondreams.org and the people at https://thefulcrum.us/american-ways-of-life-are-many along with the people at Brave Angels https://braverangels.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braver_Angels have not given up on all our behalf. Running away to Portugal should not be an option for the next generation; the American Republic is too precious a system to give up on. Please.
Mr. Hartman citations:
The simple reality, known well to the Framers of our Constitution, is that a free, open, and independent press is essential to a functioning democracy. To ensure this in America, in addition to our First Amendment, we had for much of the last century specific laws and rules enhancing press independence, keeping news as news rather than infotainment, and ensuring a broad spectrum of perspectives and ideas were available to the public.
The Fairness Doctrine, for example, which Reagan suspended the enforcement of in 1987 and Barack Obama took off the books in 2011, mandated that when representatives of radio or TV station ownership or management presented opinions on controversial subjects there be equal time given to opposing views.
Reporters Without Borders ranks America 45th in press freedom, far below every other advanced democracy in the world. Other countries with freer and more open news organizations and systems include Tonga, the Dominican Republic, Croatia, Montenegro, Andorra, Cabo Verde, Jamaica, Moldova, South Africa, Costa Rica, Namibia, Samoa, and pretty much every “western” European nation.
The Boomer generation is a mixed bag, when teens or in their twenties, they were anti establishment and hippies singing protest songs and going to Haight Ashbury or Woodstock, exceptions of course, but as the aged , got married and had children they became middle class, and conservative and are the base and foundation of the Trump cult, dragging along their children, and grandchildren..
With luck and hopefully critical reasoning skills, of women, students and POC, enough people will turn out to vote to kick the fascists out of office, local, state and federal, but Republicans are aware of the threat and have been proactive, enacting legislation in the states, that will restrict the ability of their foes to vote or to nullify their votes.
I give SCOTUS props for one thing, and that is ruling in favor of Harper (Rebecca Harper) in Moore v. Harper, despite my fears and kvetching . SCOTUS upheld Harper and thus Upheld her fist suit against the North Carolina legislature of Harper v Hall, and the ISLt went down the drain, for now. I suspect that even now forces are aligned to press the ISLt again, using a different rational and different plaintiffs (even fictional ones as they have done twice recently.
Stop with the boomer crap. There are just as many of us in that category that have been supporting the left and Democrats our entire life.
Like I don't know that, however Trumps base is the boomers, and their children. BTW. I am 84 years old, a member of the Silent Generation, and (thankfully most are gone) and they are more conservative than the Boomers, exceptions of course, like with the Boomers. We were teens and preteens and subject to the constant drum beat of fear the commies. fortunately we didn't suffer the propaganda exercise of duck and cover, to hide under school desks, but the Boomers sure did, and that made for an huge imprint on young minds, which followed into adult as political proclivities, leading inevitably to anti-feminism, anti gay and racism (well racism and classism has always been there, especially with my generation, that's the generation that put a halt to the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
Arizona's Dem AG announced she will enforce AZ civil rights laws regardless of Supreme Court decisions. How far will Blue States go to protect their citizens from a fascist federal government?
It is hard to say this but I agree with your thoughts on the freedom of the press but in reality most Americans get their news from social media at this time and we have no control over that for sure. The vote is the last open weapon that we have left and we must exercise it far better than ever before in '24.
Another much needed public service announcement. So much that I knew about but never linked.
I do have a question though. I always thought that it was Bill Clinton that formally abandoned the Fairness Doctrine, when he agitated for and signed the Telecommunications act of 1996.
Now I learn it was Obama in 2011. I would like to know the legislation, and more importantly the why's
As distance is put between his administration and today, more and more revelations are showing that he was, himself, a token, and his eight years of governance were disappointing, he was conciliatory towards the right, just as Biden is, he didn't nothing to protect or advance equality for people of color
Instead of having justice investigate and indict that cop that harassed and arrest Henry Louis Gates Jr, he sat down for beers with them, and that had the effect of emboldening racists, especially racist LEO's, of which , IMO, includes almost all of them from city, to county, to federal . especially the FBI.
Which incidentally is another case in which Trump was like a broken clock.
The other was when he called the Media the enemy of the people and your connective tissue is evidence of that. I refuse to be a sucker for reverse psychology and defend something which Trump and his cult attack.
If it weren't for the media, giving Trump millions of free air time, even to positioning a camera on an empty podium for 20 minutes, Trump would never have gotten elected. He is a media creation.
The FBI and DOJ were reluctant to investigate him and his and the Republican involvement in Jan 6th, because they are both staffed and still staffed by Trump humpers, most of which Biden could have replaced had he not revoked Trumps EO 13975, with EO 140003.
He appointed a proven right winger, and obvious Trump humper as AG, who is adverse to investigating and indicting much less prosecuting the treasonous bastards in Congress and the previous (and present administration, because Biden hasn't used his authority to fire them, and has allowed Garland to keep acting like Trump's attorney. (DOJ https://www.npr.org/2021/06/08/1004340386/biden-doj-plans-to-continue-to-defend-trump-in-e-jean-carrolls-defamation-lawsui
Biden keeps DeJoy as PMG, and he had a chance to change the structure of the Board of Governors , but chose instead to maintain the status quote, by appointing one Republican to the board, there are still two vacancies which opened up in Dec 2022, and there Biden sits like a stone wall, doing nothing
He wouldn't use his constitutional authority to raise the debt ceiling, meaning that he had to back track on social programs, and decrease yet more taxes for the plutocrats.
He refuses to discipline the Supreme Court,at least by expanding it. And expansion, as well as firing the justices does not require the approval of the Republican house, that is an excuse generated by apologists.
He who given can taketh away. Federal Judges are appointed by the Senate, not the House, and the appointing authority has the right to change its mind, and hold an in chambers hearing of the malfeasance of the corrupt, racists, misogynistic, authoritarians, not just at level of SCOTUS but down the ladder.
Here again we have cowardice or complicity and we keep trudging the road to fascism, two steps forward, one step back, and with the present court three steps back. And there he sits like a stone wall, with his apologists ready to come up with all kinds of rationale and excuses, which are bolstered by our right wing media (which is essentially all of it including MSNBC, even though that have some "liberal" hosts on their night time shows. People with earbuds, taking orders from producers who are tuned into the wants and needs of their corporate masters, CEO's and Board of Directors who hire, fire and pay CEO's.
If I were younger & healthier, I would seriously work to establish some connections in more Democratic nations, and update my passport.
I recently renewed my passport. I have a passport ID Card, and a regular passport, cost me $160, all it took was filling out an application on line, printing it out, paying a few books for a passport photo,, signing it and mailing it in, if you want priority service you can pay extra
Thank you Thom for helping me add another post to my FB "Oligarchs ARE the Problem" thread:
=============
Oligarchs Suppress Free Press to Protect and Empower Themselves and Their Fascist Political Lackeys
“I think we’re on a terribly dire course right now. All the threats to journalism today are honestly to me so much greater than when I was a journalist. … That’s what the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was all about.” — Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House and a former editor and White House correspondent for The Washington Post.
Obama and Biden continue the tradition of prosecuting and demonizing whistleblowers, further chilling the journalistic integrity and investigation that brought us the progressive movement. You yourself Thom censor and berate callers who try to offer historical context and truth about our part and NATO's in the escalation towards the current Russia/Ukraine conflict. You are part of a media complex so bent on divisiveness and bias that I have to offer a disclaimer after citing historical context and truth that I am against Putin's invasion of Ukraine just as I have been against our countless invasions, regime change schemes, droning and bombings of sovereign nations over the past 50 years. The fact that somehow you think we are going to get it right in Russia, and replace Putin with a leader who will cooperate with the west economically, shows you haven't learned from the incompetence and lies of our military industrial complex. Trump got a lot of that free media coverage due to the DNC's "Pied Piper" strategy, which directed their media outlets to promote Trump to the top of the Republican pack as he was the most extreme and unelectable (just as they said, and you suggested as well, about Bernie Sanders). Isn't it interesting that such a cache of information regarding the awful things Democrats have done has come from whistleblowers like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, those very same journalists who were persecuted by the Obama administration (and currently the Biden administration).
Here we go again, single issue Barry, the Putnik. Inevitably all of his comments lead to one thing, Ukraine and cover for the murdering, war criminal Putin. you claim to be against Putins invasion of Ukraine, but you never cite historical context and truth about the criminal organization that is the Kremlin and its mass murderer Putin.
And only a fool will bite for your depiction of American wanting to replace Putin with a leader who will cooperate with the west economically. That is called paltering, or shilling. No one but you and other Putniks drag in the military industrial complex and business into the discussion.
When the historical facts are that Russia is very censored country, with a history of armed aggression against iit's neighbors (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine and even the Stans. Putin murders critics and oppositions (if an person Putin has called an enemy, don't live above the second floor or in a room or suite with windows.
The man is a thief, he has stolen the wealth of Russia to build large and expensive Dachas, for himself and his mistresses. He is a misogynistic, homophobe and an enemy to world peace.
And you would have us lay down and surrrender. Because you are "against militarism, other than Russia and China, against capitalism other than that practiced in Russia and China.
Pretty transparent, you are.
The nation is fast becoming even MORE of a Madhouse. And w/out the slow-drip, laxative-IV of good journalism, America shall clog up to its eyeballs w/ Un-Democratic Fudge, whilst Donald Duck and Mini-Me Duh-Santis continue to be the nation's . . .
A-#1 Fudge-Packers.
So you resort to homphobic slurs. You just put yourself in company with Rhonda Santis
https://twitter.com/TrumpluvsObama/status/1636391146342735873?lang=en and the rest of the homophobic, misogynistic right.
I do not think that the right wing, transphobic, gay man Andrew Sullivan (a hypocrite if ever their was one) would appreciate being called a fudge packer.
Terrifying. 46th in the world.