Into the void steps the “pink slime journalism” newspapers and websites, funded by multiple rightwing billionaires, peddling lies and hate to get rightwing Republicans elected to office…
A superb column stating what is obvious to those of us with brains, common sense and who care about our country and the world, and will never be seen or, if seen, believed by those who should be reading it. While not poor, I am not rich either. I am in that upper middle class group TFG and the GQP are killing. Because we are too intelligent and too moral. Many of us are what would have been the liberal Republicans of the Sixties. Now, we are regarded as little better than Communists.
Why? Because in this country and the world, there is now only one real god--money. And only one worthwhile activity--getting as much as possible, by any means fair or foul, though preferably foul, to rip off fools like me. My late father-in-law, a Greek immigrant, star football player at Michigan, corpsman with Patton from North Africa to the end of WWII and a gifted, successful general surgeon afterward, shared with me a loathing for the morbidly rich. And he knew them. The island he came from also birthed Onassis and Niarchos.
The plutocracy is killing us, literally, morally, and spiritually. Since Citizens United, it has run utterly wild, dark money destroying everything good or that could be good. It may well be that only a cataclysm of the sort Marx envisioned will stand a chance of rectifying things. But that will entail a hideous and terrible cost, with no assurance something better will emerge.
I became one of your subscribers even though each time I read you my bleakness grows. Because facts not only have a liberal bias, but they are utterly glum in the stories they tell about us. I fear the problem isn’t the plutocrats, the GQP, or TFG and his cult. It is our species, a plague on ourselves and the planet. I mourn for my adorable grandson, the center and light of my life, whom I have co-parented with my wife and his Mom since the day he was born. Despite all the joy he has brought us, I wish he had never been born, because while I will be dead very soon, he faces a dystopian future from which no amount of help or preparation on our part will save him. Because I think we have reached peak humanity, and when our species stumbles into self-immolation, as I expect it will during his likely to be short life, the planet and any surviving life forms will be the better for it. That belief is what your columns reinforce for me each time I read one. We are beyond salvation, and the tragedy is that it need not have been that way.
Please keep fighting. I am too feeble and incapacitated to do more than write comments like these, send small checks to help those unable to help themselves, and vote. As a Californian, that last one matters very little. In a swing state it would mean something. But I always vote anyway, and always will.
Maybe one of our progressive billionaires (oxymoron?) will take a hint from you, and fund a network of “local” news media in swing states providing honest, real news to people to counter the pink slime. Somehow I doubt it. Because short of a nuclear holocaust, they will survive whatever our election produces, and they know that. Regardless, we must continue the struggle, because doing otherwise is not, cannot be an option.
I love that. Facts have a liberal bias. I've heard that before, but thanks for the reminder.
There are no liberal billionaires. If there were the bete noire of the right, by the name of Soros, would have long ago been a competitor with Murdoch.
I am a retired journalist. Starting in the 1980s, I worked for a small group of community newspapers in the Boston suburbs. We were bought up by Fidelity Investment Group, along with a slew of small papers that ringed Boston — the aim {stated to me outright by someone who was involved in the enterprise} was to create a group-buy opportunity for large and national advertisers, allowing them to reach the Boston suburbs without paying for expensive ads in the Globe {or the Herald, I guess, but the person who talked to me about it specified the Globe}. The group bought papers from Cape Cod to Cape Ann and remade the community newspaper landscape in that part of Massachusetts.
As a personal note, I was never asked to skew my reporting, but changes made to the office environment and policies did drive a good number of us out of the group {I had to challenge them for unemployment benefits, and won my challenge, on those grounds}.
BUT, during an election season soon after the papers were purchased, the publishers penned an editorial in the local Sharon Advocate endorsing someone OTHER than the local {and somewhat liberal} Favorite Son, and other media picked up that the man’s “own hometown newspaper” had come out against him. I had moved away by then, but people I knew in town were enraged that such a thing happened, as the whole town had long been staunchly supportive of this activist and locally-supportive individual. The publishers even moved the paper’s offices away from the center of town and effectively lost touch with the populace…
The person who engineered this “ring the city” enterprise outside of Boston later came to Vermont to pretty much do the same thing — buy up {as they stated in Mass}, small local papers, create a group, and re-do in Vermont what they’d done around Boston. I don’t think it worked. I wrote for a group of local business journals at the time, and did not want to work for her AT ALL in any capacity, so I went on to write elsewhere. I don’t think those business journals are even publishing any more. I hope that is because the people of Vermont, living in very small and close communities, were not as easy to bamboozle, but that is just my perspective…. What you write here, Mr. Hartmann, rings SO true. I have been really careful on this note to say things I can back up with data and fact. The papers I talk about were not out there peddling lies and calumny, nor were they “pink slime.” But they were bought up and effectively changed the editorial landscape of the region to suit the new corporate publishers, no longer reflecting the voice of the towns in which they published. {OH, one of the incidents that drove ME away occurred when the over-arching Editor in Chief of our group tried to publish a letter to the editor that she’d cut down, leaving in praise of the new ownership, but excising criticism. It skewed the intentions of the letter writer, and as managing editor of the paper, I removed the letter and placed a house ad on the page. The Executive Editor was pretty angry, but I wrote a note to the publisher that Fidelity had put in place, telling her I could not countenance such behavior in my newspaper, not even from their Editor in Chief — it was the beginning of the end for me, even though the publisher asked me over and over to stay.}
What you say here, sir, is part and parcel of how our media has been devalued and nearly destroyed.
It’s even scary to write this factual and defensible note of clear and unambiguous truth in one little corner of the world.
We need to help people understand what they are dealing with — finding ways to VALIDATE good journalism is going to be harder, when it is surrounded by so much of this ….
A small local paper got away with ruining my reputation and went out of business soon after. I was elected to two terms on out local school board. A minister's wife from a large local church who was on the school board totaled her new Volkswagen bug and received a drunk driving ticket. Another member had just received his third DUI. I have always been an advocate for Democratic candidates in a Republican county. We were to have two local Republican elected officials at our school board meeting.
I was followed and stopped by police on my way to the meeting and given a DUI. I refused to do the walk a straight line exercise because they stopped me on a highway overpass on a windy night with traffic moving all around me. I didn't trust what was happening so I also refused the breathalyzer because as an RN who worked in an ER, I had learned they aren't accurate and didn't trust what these officers were doing. They locked me up until the meeting was over.
Nobody ever found out about the other school board members (I found out a year later), but the small newspaper did a front page story about me and the many students who showed up with signs demanding I resign. I was innocent and the charges were dropped, but that wasn't published. The charge was a long made up story. A large picture appeared on the front page of the paper.
I found several millions of dollars missing from the education fund. Eventually that number was over ten million dollars. When the board tried to pass a motion to destroy financial records, I went to court and got an order to prevent it. I called the FBI but was told that they don't do forensic audits of small school districts.
I lost the next school board election. I went through such a difficult time the whole eight years for just doing what I was elected to do. The corruption was hidden because the newspapers wouldn't do the stories. Without a free press, democracy can't work. The wealthy own the news. I learned my lesson. I keep to myself except for participating in the substacks.
That’s horrible, and should never have happened … Lazy and sloppy reporting is too dangerous, given what you clearly experienced is the power of even a small-town news source. Your perspective should have been given proper coverage, as well as the dropping of charges.
The wealthy don’t own all the news. But they do control enough of it to cause a hell of a lot of trouble.
I wasn’t always perfect as a journalist, but I tried my damnedest to be fair and accurate, and fought editors and publishers when I thought they weren't.
But there’s a great deal of power out there, and it’s sadly not all good.
I forgot to say the officers cuffed my hands behind my back and my ankles together. Then two women jailers threw me around like a sack of potatoes. I was around 60 at the time.
It is going to be interesting how this "California Forever " scam plays out on fringe of Travis Air Force Base in California. Big Silicon Valley players with lots of cumshaw on hand. Me, I think the role model is Headwaters Forest and the brilliant payout of taxpayer $ under "eminent domain." Just look at the Delta "sloughs" and wildlife preserve and notorious bottleneck highway and right under take off path of super busy military runway. They are going to run out the bluff to where permits start getting denied, and squeal "government taking without just compensation!" and they don't have to build a thing: just hire lawyers and own that sensitive piece of red estate. They'll go into court all about, they were going to make billions! Billions!
ps I forgot to mention the panoramic view of the new Emerald City on one side, giant wind farm, on other, massive walls and hangars and lights of the Air force Base! Not to mention WIND! Hello, why is there a wind farm next door? Forgive typo, that's "real estate."
I agree that these media outlets are bad noise that people need to sort through, and mostly don't. I do not consider any of the publications you named as on the left as being on the left. Workers World, that is a leftist publication, not NPR. I think that the dichotomy set up with the Democrats as the Left, is taking on a Republican moniker. Dems are centrist. I know what leftist is, not only did we have Spartacist League, Workers World, are true leftist publications. I also am given these sorts of publications by a childhood friend of my mom's in Germany, who belongs to Die Linke, the German leftist party. So, what Democrats represent is fairly mainstream center, perhaps some are left of center, and what Republicans currently represent is not center right, but extreme right. I agree that Reagan and Clinton did destroy our media with their allowing it to be owned by just anyone, who can publish just anything. Here is an American ex-pat living in Germany who is discussing the difference in media in Germany and the USA. It helps to keep Germany democratic that there is still belief in the media. https://youtu.be/jphacgBLrc0?si=fLxumoDld1uACs2W
It also gives the German public less of an incentive to believe wild conspiracy theories. I also want to give a shout out to a good newspaper in Ohio, the Ohio Capital Journal, that writes fact checked and accurate stories about our gerrymandered Republican government. The Capital Journal covers many issues that the legislative and executive branches of our state government would prefer that they didn’t cover.
Amen Linda. In America anything to the left of the NAZIs and KKK is called left. Like MSNBC being called liberal. What a joke. You will never find any "liberal" host on MSNBC talking of the fossil fuel industry causing global warming, fires, droughts , floods, or any expose of PhRMA, or the Health Insurance racket, especially Medicare (dis) Advantage ripping us off and responsible for the death of millions. What you will find is Right Wing billionaire funded political ads, but you want find Democratic ads on Fox.
Even so called Indy Media sources like Democracy Now and the Nation, the Intercept, are skewed and corrupted by Saudi and Emirate financed propaganda. I use to contribute handsomely to the Intercept and Democracy Now, but once I figured out what they really were, I redirect my charity locally.
Bill, thanks for pointing that out about the Intercept and Democracy Now. My nephew and I recently had an argument by text, about him feeling that the Democrats are the left. I was asking him what "the left" is, and what democracy and other terms mean, because these are gaps in his education. He told me that I was disrespecting him because he is in Chef school, and his parents don't discuss politics at home. I just said, he was disrespecting me because I am much better read, he does not like to read, he wants videos, and that since I am several times his age why should he know as much as me. Still, we get along well and agree to disagree, and disagree, and disagree, but we do not stop talking about politics and ideas. I am trying to disabuse him of the idea that Democrats are "the Left." I have a former colleague that I have had to say this to as well.
Bill, it seems to all boil down to the reality that all media-generated information must be viewed with one's BS-detector switched on. Sometimes the most-trusted sources get it wrong. In my view the larger problem is that way too many Americans seem to have very limited critical reasoning ability. Public K-12 schools just do not teach that - nor, sadly, is that skill a requisite for most BA degrees. The staggering size of the average household debt also attests epidemic bad judgment.
Yes. Even though I also watch German news, though I tend to watch ZDF instead of ARD, the most watched German station, I feel critical of their interviews with politicians, even though they really pursue them. No lobbing easy questions. However, often they let up without getting a real answer, but they at least pursue it. Where I taught, people were afraid of critical thinking, and that was at an elite private school.
Household debt at these interest rates has to be alarming! I just cleared out the fourth family house-full of even nice vintage cabinets, etc. and even with efforts made, overwhelmingly went to landfill. What is the mania, that ten minutes old is garbage?
That's so weird. The main way I know about "...the fossil fuel industry causing global warming, fires, droughts , floods, or any expose of PhRMA, or the Health Insurance racket, especially Medicare (dis) Advantage ripping us off and responsible for the death of millions. " is by way of MSNBC. What are you listening to?
I watch MSNBC as well, but they only touch lightly on those subjects, and never in depth reporting about the cause of them,like fossil fuels, have you ever heard any host delve into fossil fuels? I recall them covering the Deep Horizon spill, how Obama appointed BP to fix it, how BP sprayed a chemical to make it sink to the bottom and how the Coast guard was supposedly placed in charge of the spill, but did not connect the dots, or do any investigative reporting especially when the commandant of the Coast Guard retired and became an executive for BP, sure they report and then move on. Never saw Chris Hayes or Rachel dwell on the subject. As far as an expose of PhRMA and the Health Insurance Racket. I never saw such a thing. Their advertisers wouldn't like, and PhRMA and the Insurance racket (health and life) are their main revenue source and they aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them, a dog might do that, not a corporation.
Do you know how I know about these? From Thom Hartmann, not MSNBC? I need to look under the MSNBC hood and see who is actually financing it, and BTW Comcast owns MSNBC and Comcast is a right wing corporation, that in great part is responsible for Trump being 45.
In 1984 there was a reference book in University and large public libraries, Who Owns Who.
I don't have access today, but using google and asking the right questions I find the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) has investments: as follows:
F largest investments in the US?
Public Investment Funds top holdings are Lucid Group, Inc. (US:LCID) , Activision Blizzard Inc (US:ATVI) , Uber Technologies, Inc. (US:UBER) , Electronic Arts Inc. (US:EA) , and The Select Sector SPDR Trust - The Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (US:XLU) .
PIF disclosed a $713.7 million stake in Boeing, around $522 million in Citigroup, a $522 million stake in Facebook, a $495.8 million stake in Disney and a $487.6 million stake in Bank of America. It also disclosed a small stake in Berkshire Hathaway. PIF also disclosed an $827.7 million stake in oil company BP.
And it doesn't take much to drill down through who owns who to find their investement in Comcast.
Comcast is described as a family business. Brian L. Roberts, its chairman and CEO, is the son of founder Ralph J. Roberts (1920–2015). Roberts owns or controls about 1% of all Comcast shares but all of the Class B supervoting shares, giving him an "undilutable 33% voting power over the company". however other shareholders are The Vanguard Group, Inc. BlackRock Fund AdvisorsSSgA Funds Management, Capital Research & Management Co....
SSgaA is the world's fourth largest corporation and is owned by Largest shareholders include Vanguard Group Inc, BlackRock Inc., Dodge & Cox, DODGX - Dodge & Cox Stock Fund, State Street Corp, Invesco Ltd., VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares, Longview Partners (Guernsey) LTD, VFINX - Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares, and Geode Capital Management, ...
One has to continuously drill down through each and every one of these corporations to get to the people and sovereign funds like the Saudi's PIF to find the real owners. As you can see ownership and control are hidden behind shells and interlocking boards of directors.
Are you exhausted I am and that was only 30 minutes of google search.
I get most of my news from emails like that, as a result I don't watch much of MSNBC anymore,and it is only show after show with each host bounding the same stone into sand.
The hour is basically the same three subjects with so called "analysts" saying the same thing over and over again.
For instance there is the military "analysts" Col Jacobs a Vietnam medal of honor winner, who has been retired as long as I, he is no more a military expert than I. My expertise, as it were, is 40 years old, and well past the sell by date.
I do watch PBS and Christiane Armapour and BBC, to get another point of view, but I also happen to know that Christiane has a bias towards Muslims, her father is Iranian and her mother is British, so I take that into account.. There are very few people without a bias, if only a bias to their paycheck.
So watch and read what you wish, but do so with discernment, critical reasoning and questioning, take nibbles, eat a slice, but don't swallow the whole damn thing,leave that to the MAGAts, the students, and extreme left.
Myself I have no religion or ideology. And like George Bernard Shaw am able to hold two opposing ideas and still function. And I am not a joiner, a herd animal.
"The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) or What !?!
Where are people's heads, that they permit themselves to be suckered and gaslit by billionaires and con-persons into, becoming the planet's biggest losers.
Electing the proffered Republican bimbos, dimwits, and bozos (i.e., orange Jesus & Co.) is not unlike putting curdled milk in the fridge overnight, then chugging a pint of this now "dangerously" sour, beyond lumpy milk next morning on the engendered belief that it's magically become fresh.
Fresh? How, you ask. . . . Because "The Pink Slime Intelligencer-Bee-Post" says so, is how, dad-gummit !!!
Sir Okie. Peoples heads are ruled by the lizard brain. Most folk are so caught up in the day to day humdrum of our meaningless lives (yes meaningless and I include moi), that they only pay attention to bright shiny objects waved in front of them, and that bright shiny object is fear.
Fear. manufactured or real, grabs ones attention, fixates them, and one becomes a cult, Would there be any religion without fear? Victory goes to he or she that who most effectively manifests fear and wields it as a weapon to control thoughts and behaviors.
Republicans use fear, especially fear of the future, and cast themselves as victims and martyrs, they take the low road.
Democrats use hope, and past achievement, they take the high road.
As the song says. "you take he high road, and I will take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you"
The confluence of cognitive bias and heuristics in forming a worldview has long fascinated me. When I was a young political “science” major the go to axiom on how and why people vote was summed up as it was what your parents did. But was this about voting or again a world view, and if so, how did they arrive at their set of beliefs?
The best generalization I’ve found for why “Republicans” (which have evolved from stingy to full blown Fascists) is the endless 40 years of intensive propaganda that iterates through their fear mechanism and need for stability. It just intensifies as the “grifters” push the fear accelerator.
The big question for me is at what point will the fear convert to violence in order to restore “order.”
Hi Cracker. I whole heartedly agree with you, Excellent analysis as compared to my long winded rants. Kudo's
As regards the big question. As I see it, if by fluke Trump loses violence will break out, as the fascists attack the source of their pain.
If Trump wins, Trump will initiate violence as he overthrows the constitution and seeks retribution on his "enemies", to be gleefully joined by his minions in his cult.
Remember he gave them license on J6, with a call and a response. Funny using that phrase, I was a military training instructor of basics, and call and response was an funny but innocent marching cadence.
This time they will have license and will follow their master by seeking vengeance on the enemies that threaten the dominance of white males, or just plain males. The major threat to the insecure male personality, which liberals don't have, are liberals and self validating females.
I hope I am wrong, the first prognostication will result in limited violence, mostly directed at the government. If he wins it is all bets are off. And don't look to LEO and the Military for help. LEO is conservative to right wing extremist Trump Humpers, they have a siege mentality, they against society. Cops are among the lowest social class, and have a hard on for those above them, traffic cops get their jollies pulling over expensive cars and having the driver sir or ma'am them, it is the only time they get any respect, and if the driver doesn't show respect, he or she is likely to get killed.
I worry about the military, most Marines and Grunts are recruited from red states, and bring their prejudices with them. And the officer corps, those that were academy grads, are infected by Dominion-ism, (Christian Reconstruction) and Trump will fire any Generals who aren't lick spittle lackeys, and replace hem with lackeys, and the military follows orders. I can't count the missions that I went on in 26 years, without knowing the purpose, or even asking, and I knew better than to ask, for one thing I wouldn't get an answer.
I received an expedition medal for my part in the 2nd Korean War (1966-1969), but never knew there was a 2nd Korean war, until a few years ago, and then from Wikipedia.
Se what I meant about long winded rants. Can't help myself, the teacher preacher gene.
"Apparently, there’s something about conservatives the world over that makes them believe the only way they can win elections or sway public opinion is by lying to people and deceiving them..."
This is the crux of all of our political problems and has been for some time now. The constant lying and misinformation given to people on the right by their "leaders" may be one of the worst "features" about them. I STILL find it difficult to believe that there were/are people out there who believe that Hillary Clinton, in some black dominatrix pants-suit, I assume, was running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor in DC that has no basement. People TRULY believed this! The idea was so ridiculous on its face, without ANY research at all, that I thought it was a story that would just slide off into the ether, until that guy with a gun showed up to "save the children." And go ahead and make the bet that there are still some people IN CONGRESS that believe this story, in addition to the many other conspiracy theories, lies, misinformation, and whatever else the right-wing can push out to get votes. Ugh!
Most MAGAts, don't really believe that stuff, but they don't care about the truth, for them it is jusst another artillery round to hurl at the enemy. A handful of the mentally challenged do, and by mentally challenged I don't mean mentally disabled. I mean low IQ cockroaches, who are credulous, gullible and do not have a cerebral conductor.
A friend of mine, a mental health professional, explained it this way. We have a bicameral mind, but we "normies" have a conductor, schizophrenics don't.
Also read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind is a 1976 book by the Princeton psychologist, psychohistorian and consciousness theorist Julian Jaynes (1920-1997). It explores the nature of consciousness – particularly "the ability to introspect" – and its evolution in ancient human history.
Right on Daniel, and shame on the DNC and the Biden Campaign for not using those tools, they also make great bumper stickers, at which the Republicans are adept and Democrats Inept.
It would not surprise me if most of that right-wing gaslight is rarely read by anyone. Unsolicited news flyers that pop into my mailbox are tossed into the garbage with all the other junk mail I get. Unknown is how much of this noise gets read by gullible people with limited critical reasoning abilities - aka MAGAs. My impression from chatting with MAGAs and watching interviews with them is that they do not read - they watch. Their news comes from Fox News, Musk-X, Alex Jones, Gateway Pundit, the Drudge Report - if even that. For them the news is choir practice. It is not learning what is going on outside the city limits of Trythatinasmalltown. If I am correct, the billionaires are wasting their money. Sure hope so.
I've run across a few of these agitprop papers and they're exactly as reported. I look at one and ask myself, "does anybody actually believe this crap?", and the answer is, yes they do. Now, I've met some dumb-bunny leftists in my time, but the gullibility of Average Jane & Joe conservatives is amazing! I can't believe some of the horse-dung they will buy into. Makes the guy who sold the Brooklyn Bridge look like a piker. And a lot of it is that the Right is focussed exclusively on getting money and power, while the Left & Centrists are trying to do the right thing (as they see it) rather than money grubbing. It makes a BIG DIFFERENCE!!!
Jesus put it out best that lies come from the father of all lies. The glee that right wing conservatives are happy to use lies for their false purposes should make any honest person understand the horrors coming from this house and the damage it continues to do to society. As in the past the Church is not working against this evil but ignorant and or even part of the problem themselves.
Clayton:This Jesus meant the devil, which is a Zoroastrian creation. The father of lies in modern times is best understood, IMO, as that part of the brain that is the source of greed, need,fear and addiction.,primitive impulses that rule some, but which we all have.
Ideology, and religion is such, is self selected power, that uses human fear, need, greed and addiction to obtain power and control.
I am not a psychiatrist/neurologist but I heard expert testimony and attended seminars and according to most, the effects vary with sex and maturation levels. Adolescent males usually have no inhibitions and are susceptible to what experts call "bullshit."
Some adult males do not mature until their 30's. Some have an adolescent emotional age for life.
But prefrontal cortex is where info is processed, analyzed and where critical thinking is centered, is it not? Daniel. Please correct me, if I am wrong.
The Republican brain is the lizard brain.
The Democrat brain is ...............what? It sure isn't the amygdala, but it should be if we are to save what is left of our democratic republic.
I thought the frontal lobe was the buffer, short term memory, where recent facts are stored, RAM or Random Access Memory and they don't get stored in the brain, unless there is something emotional that hits the "save" key and sends it to at the "hard drive", the cerebal cortex. That was the whole idea behind lobotomies, cut the connection of the frontal cortex with the cerebral cortex, severing access to long term memory and emotions.
In the 20th Century they found drugs that could do the job, but did not do permanent and irreparable damage
Because I have that angel on one shoulder and devil on the other thing, I am still smirking about this Report.
First of all, the facts in it are right out of the GOP's Bannon/Stone dirty-tricks-bag that never ceases to amaze. Angel's take: these perpetrators are the ones that will rot in hell, if there is a hell.
Devil's take: people on the right hate us so much they have chosen the biggest liars of all time to represent them. Do they not deserve to be ripped-off? Trump keeps reciting his personalized version of "The Snake" poem, then he and HIS politicians just keep biting them.
Should we tell them who is stealing from them and how the money goes for pricey lifestyles? At least it isn't being used for ads.
Please share this with all democratic campaigns. Democrats have to get the word out about the corruption of the republican party. While at the same time, sticking to topics of concerns in peoples lives! Democrats get slammed by the media. When The truth about who is really lying and cheating is not getting out!
This comment says it all. If left-leaning billionaires really meant what they claim to believe they would rival the right wing billionaires with thir own truth speaking publications and get them to the people who need to hear it.
I inherited bales and bales of "Spotlight." I think I have burned a lot of them, but sometimes I wonder, are they valuable cultural artifacts? Any Hartmann folks review writing "Mid Century Modern" authoritarian panic literature?
A superb column stating what is obvious to those of us with brains, common sense and who care about our country and the world, and will never be seen or, if seen, believed by those who should be reading it. While not poor, I am not rich either. I am in that upper middle class group TFG and the GQP are killing. Because we are too intelligent and too moral. Many of us are what would have been the liberal Republicans of the Sixties. Now, we are regarded as little better than Communists.
Why? Because in this country and the world, there is now only one real god--money. And only one worthwhile activity--getting as much as possible, by any means fair or foul, though preferably foul, to rip off fools like me. My late father-in-law, a Greek immigrant, star football player at Michigan, corpsman with Patton from North Africa to the end of WWII and a gifted, successful general surgeon afterward, shared with me a loathing for the morbidly rich. And he knew them. The island he came from also birthed Onassis and Niarchos.
The plutocracy is killing us, literally, morally, and spiritually. Since Citizens United, it has run utterly wild, dark money destroying everything good or that could be good. It may well be that only a cataclysm of the sort Marx envisioned will stand a chance of rectifying things. But that will entail a hideous and terrible cost, with no assurance something better will emerge.
I became one of your subscribers even though each time I read you my bleakness grows. Because facts not only have a liberal bias, but they are utterly glum in the stories they tell about us. I fear the problem isn’t the plutocrats, the GQP, or TFG and his cult. It is our species, a plague on ourselves and the planet. I mourn for my adorable grandson, the center and light of my life, whom I have co-parented with my wife and his Mom since the day he was born. Despite all the joy he has brought us, I wish he had never been born, because while I will be dead very soon, he faces a dystopian future from which no amount of help or preparation on our part will save him. Because I think we have reached peak humanity, and when our species stumbles into self-immolation, as I expect it will during his likely to be short life, the planet and any surviving life forms will be the better for it. That belief is what your columns reinforce for me each time I read one. We are beyond salvation, and the tragedy is that it need not have been that way.
Please keep fighting. I am too feeble and incapacitated to do more than write comments like these, send small checks to help those unable to help themselves, and vote. As a Californian, that last one matters very little. In a swing state it would mean something. But I always vote anyway, and always will.
Maybe one of our progressive billionaires (oxymoron?) will take a hint from you, and fund a network of “local” news media in swing states providing honest, real news to people to counter the pink slime. Somehow I doubt it. Because short of a nuclear holocaust, they will survive whatever our election produces, and they know that. Regardless, we must continue the struggle, because doing otherwise is not, cannot be an option.
I love that. Facts have a liberal bias. I've heard that before, but thanks for the reminder.
There are no liberal billionaires. If there were the bete noire of the right, by the name of Soros, would have long ago been a competitor with Murdoch.
“The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.”
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/10/21/arc-moral-universe-long-it-bends-toward-justice
I am a retired journalist. Starting in the 1980s, I worked for a small group of community newspapers in the Boston suburbs. We were bought up by Fidelity Investment Group, along with a slew of small papers that ringed Boston — the aim {stated to me outright by someone who was involved in the enterprise} was to create a group-buy opportunity for large and national advertisers, allowing them to reach the Boston suburbs without paying for expensive ads in the Globe {or the Herald, I guess, but the person who talked to me about it specified the Globe}. The group bought papers from Cape Cod to Cape Ann and remade the community newspaper landscape in that part of Massachusetts.
As a personal note, I was never asked to skew my reporting, but changes made to the office environment and policies did drive a good number of us out of the group {I had to challenge them for unemployment benefits, and won my challenge, on those grounds}.
BUT, during an election season soon after the papers were purchased, the publishers penned an editorial in the local Sharon Advocate endorsing someone OTHER than the local {and somewhat liberal} Favorite Son, and other media picked up that the man’s “own hometown newspaper” had come out against him. I had moved away by then, but people I knew in town were enraged that such a thing happened, as the whole town had long been staunchly supportive of this activist and locally-supportive individual. The publishers even moved the paper’s offices away from the center of town and effectively lost touch with the populace…
The person who engineered this “ring the city” enterprise outside of Boston later came to Vermont to pretty much do the same thing — buy up {as they stated in Mass}, small local papers, create a group, and re-do in Vermont what they’d done around Boston. I don’t think it worked. I wrote for a group of local business journals at the time, and did not want to work for her AT ALL in any capacity, so I went on to write elsewhere. I don’t think those business journals are even publishing any more. I hope that is because the people of Vermont, living in very small and close communities, were not as easy to bamboozle, but that is just my perspective…. What you write here, Mr. Hartmann, rings SO true. I have been really careful on this note to say things I can back up with data and fact. The papers I talk about were not out there peddling lies and calumny, nor were they “pink slime.” But they were bought up and effectively changed the editorial landscape of the region to suit the new corporate publishers, no longer reflecting the voice of the towns in which they published. {OH, one of the incidents that drove ME away occurred when the over-arching Editor in Chief of our group tried to publish a letter to the editor that she’d cut down, leaving in praise of the new ownership, but excising criticism. It skewed the intentions of the letter writer, and as managing editor of the paper, I removed the letter and placed a house ad on the page. The Executive Editor was pretty angry, but I wrote a note to the publisher that Fidelity had put in place, telling her I could not countenance such behavior in my newspaper, not even from their Editor in Chief — it was the beginning of the end for me, even though the publisher asked me over and over to stay.}
What you say here, sir, is part and parcel of how our media has been devalued and nearly destroyed.
It’s even scary to write this factual and defensible note of clear and unambiguous truth in one little corner of the world.
We need to help people understand what they are dealing with — finding ways to VALIDATE good journalism is going to be harder, when it is surrounded by so much of this ….
A small local paper got away with ruining my reputation and went out of business soon after. I was elected to two terms on out local school board. A minister's wife from a large local church who was on the school board totaled her new Volkswagen bug and received a drunk driving ticket. Another member had just received his third DUI. I have always been an advocate for Democratic candidates in a Republican county. We were to have two local Republican elected officials at our school board meeting.
I was followed and stopped by police on my way to the meeting and given a DUI. I refused to do the walk a straight line exercise because they stopped me on a highway overpass on a windy night with traffic moving all around me. I didn't trust what was happening so I also refused the breathalyzer because as an RN who worked in an ER, I had learned they aren't accurate and didn't trust what these officers were doing. They locked me up until the meeting was over.
Nobody ever found out about the other school board members (I found out a year later), but the small newspaper did a front page story about me and the many students who showed up with signs demanding I resign. I was innocent and the charges were dropped, but that wasn't published. The charge was a long made up story. A large picture appeared on the front page of the paper.
I found several millions of dollars missing from the education fund. Eventually that number was over ten million dollars. When the board tried to pass a motion to destroy financial records, I went to court and got an order to prevent it. I called the FBI but was told that they don't do forensic audits of small school districts.
I lost the next school board election. I went through such a difficult time the whole eight years for just doing what I was elected to do. The corruption was hidden because the newspapers wouldn't do the stories. Without a free press, democracy can't work. The wealthy own the news. I learned my lesson. I keep to myself except for participating in the substacks.
That’s horrible, and should never have happened … Lazy and sloppy reporting is too dangerous, given what you clearly experienced is the power of even a small-town news source. Your perspective should have been given proper coverage, as well as the dropping of charges.
The wealthy don’t own all the news. But they do control enough of it to cause a hell of a lot of trouble.
I wasn’t always perfect as a journalist, but I tried my damnedest to be fair and accurate, and fought editors and publishers when I thought they weren't.
But there’s a great deal of power out there, and it’s sadly not all good.
I forgot to say the officers cuffed my hands behind my back and my ankles together. Then two women jailers threw me around like a sack of potatoes. I was around 60 at the time.
That is a truly horrendous abuse of power!!!
It is going to be interesting how this "California Forever " scam plays out on fringe of Travis Air Force Base in California. Big Silicon Valley players with lots of cumshaw on hand. Me, I think the role model is Headwaters Forest and the brilliant payout of taxpayer $ under "eminent domain." Just look at the Delta "sloughs" and wildlife preserve and notorious bottleneck highway and right under take off path of super busy military runway. They are going to run out the bluff to where permits start getting denied, and squeal "government taking without just compensation!" and they don't have to build a thing: just hire lawyers and own that sensitive piece of red estate. They'll go into court all about, they were going to make billions! Billions!
ps I forgot to mention the panoramic view of the new Emerald City on one side, giant wind farm, on other, massive walls and hangars and lights of the Air force Base! Not to mention WIND! Hello, why is there a wind farm next door? Forgive typo, that's "real estate."
I agree that these media outlets are bad noise that people need to sort through, and mostly don't. I do not consider any of the publications you named as on the left as being on the left. Workers World, that is a leftist publication, not NPR. I think that the dichotomy set up with the Democrats as the Left, is taking on a Republican moniker. Dems are centrist. I know what leftist is, not only did we have Spartacist League, Workers World, are true leftist publications. I also am given these sorts of publications by a childhood friend of my mom's in Germany, who belongs to Die Linke, the German leftist party. So, what Democrats represent is fairly mainstream center, perhaps some are left of center, and what Republicans currently represent is not center right, but extreme right. I agree that Reagan and Clinton did destroy our media with their allowing it to be owned by just anyone, who can publish just anything. Here is an American ex-pat living in Germany who is discussing the difference in media in Germany and the USA. It helps to keep Germany democratic that there is still belief in the media. https://youtu.be/jphacgBLrc0?si=fLxumoDld1uACs2W
It also gives the German public less of an incentive to believe wild conspiracy theories. I also want to give a shout out to a good newspaper in Ohio, the Ohio Capital Journal, that writes fact checked and accurate stories about our gerrymandered Republican government. The Capital Journal covers many issues that the legislative and executive branches of our state government would prefer that they didn’t cover.
Yes. I am grateful for the Substack communities I belong to like this one, and for independent media like The Guardian, ProPublica etc...
Amen Linda. In America anything to the left of the NAZIs and KKK is called left. Like MSNBC being called liberal. What a joke. You will never find any "liberal" host on MSNBC talking of the fossil fuel industry causing global warming, fires, droughts , floods, or any expose of PhRMA, or the Health Insurance racket, especially Medicare (dis) Advantage ripping us off and responsible for the death of millions. What you will find is Right Wing billionaire funded political ads, but you want find Democratic ads on Fox.
Even so called Indy Media sources like Democracy Now and the Nation, the Intercept, are skewed and corrupted by Saudi and Emirate financed propaganda. I use to contribute handsomely to the Intercept and Democracy Now, but once I figured out what they really were, I redirect my charity locally.
Bill, thanks for pointing that out about the Intercept and Democracy Now. My nephew and I recently had an argument by text, about him feeling that the Democrats are the left. I was asking him what "the left" is, and what democracy and other terms mean, because these are gaps in his education. He told me that I was disrespecting him because he is in Chef school, and his parents don't discuss politics at home. I just said, he was disrespecting me because I am much better read, he does not like to read, he wants videos, and that since I am several times his age why should he know as much as me. Still, we get along well and agree to disagree, and disagree, and disagree, but we do not stop talking about politics and ideas. I am trying to disabuse him of the idea that Democrats are "the Left." I have a former colleague that I have had to say this to as well.
Bill, it seems to all boil down to the reality that all media-generated information must be viewed with one's BS-detector switched on. Sometimes the most-trusted sources get it wrong. In my view the larger problem is that way too many Americans seem to have very limited critical reasoning ability. Public K-12 schools just do not teach that - nor, sadly, is that skill a requisite for most BA degrees. The staggering size of the average household debt also attests epidemic bad judgment.
Yes. Even though I also watch German news, though I tend to watch ZDF instead of ARD, the most watched German station, I feel critical of their interviews with politicians, even though they really pursue them. No lobbing easy questions. However, often they let up without getting a real answer, but they at least pursue it. Where I taught, people were afraid of critical thinking, and that was at an elite private school.
Household debt at these interest rates has to be alarming! I just cleared out the fourth family house-full of even nice vintage cabinets, etc. and even with efforts made, overwhelmingly went to landfill. What is the mania, that ten minutes old is garbage?
That's so weird. The main way I know about "...the fossil fuel industry causing global warming, fires, droughts , floods, or any expose of PhRMA, or the Health Insurance racket, especially Medicare (dis) Advantage ripping us off and responsible for the death of millions. " is by way of MSNBC. What are you listening to?
I watch MSNBC as well, but they only touch lightly on those subjects, and never in depth reporting about the cause of them,like fossil fuels, have you ever heard any host delve into fossil fuels? I recall them covering the Deep Horizon spill, how Obama appointed BP to fix it, how BP sprayed a chemical to make it sink to the bottom and how the Coast guard was supposedly placed in charge of the spill, but did not connect the dots, or do any investigative reporting especially when the commandant of the Coast Guard retired and became an executive for BP, sure they report and then move on. Never saw Chris Hayes or Rachel dwell on the subject. As far as an expose of PhRMA and the Health Insurance Racket. I never saw such a thing. Their advertisers wouldn't like, and PhRMA and the Insurance racket (health and life) are their main revenue source and they aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them, a dog might do that, not a corporation.
By the way, have you seen any host on MSNBC do a full throated expose on subjects such as
on today's Thom Report https://hartmannreport.com/p/saturday-report-1624-new-evidence?utm_campaign=email-post&r=9q8rt&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Do you know how I know about these? From Thom Hartmann, not MSNBC? I need to look under the MSNBC hood and see who is actually financing it, and BTW Comcast owns MSNBC and Comcast is a right wing corporation, that in great part is responsible for Trump being 45.
Comcast Cable, ever heard of it, they own Xfinity and MNVO of Verizon., NBCUniversal which NBC and owns MSNBC and most Cable channels https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/your-complete-guide-everything-owned-comcast-2017-10-12
In 1984 there was a reference book in University and large public libraries, Who Owns Who.
I don't have access today, but using google and asking the right questions I find the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) has investments: as follows:
F largest investments in the US?
Public Investment Funds top holdings are Lucid Group, Inc. (US:LCID) , Activision Blizzard Inc (US:ATVI) , Uber Technologies, Inc. (US:UBER) , Electronic Arts Inc. (US:EA) , and The Select Sector SPDR Trust - The Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund (US:XLU) .
PIF disclosed a $713.7 million stake in Boeing, around $522 million in Citigroup, a $522 million stake in Facebook, a $495.8 million stake in Disney and a $487.6 million stake in Bank of America. It also disclosed a small stake in Berkshire Hathaway. PIF also disclosed an $827.7 million stake in oil company BP.
They also sponsor and have investments in over 300 sports organizations https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/saudi-arabia-sport-sponsorship-study-pif-aramco-newcastle-liv-golf-world-cup/?zephr_sso_ott=sRyzqk#:~:text=Al%2DRumayyan%20serves%20as%20governor,soccer%2C%20golf%20and%20Formula%20One.
And it doesn't take much to drill down through who owns who to find their investement in Comcast.
Comcast is described as a family business. Brian L. Roberts, its chairman and CEO, is the son of founder Ralph J. Roberts (1920–2015). Roberts owns or controls about 1% of all Comcast shares but all of the Class B supervoting shares, giving him an "undilutable 33% voting power over the company". however other shareholders are The Vanguard Group, Inc. BlackRock Fund AdvisorsSSgA Funds Management, Capital Research & Management Co....
The above four private equity funds, manage the investments for their shareholders. Which are here: https://money.cnn.com/quote/shareholders/shareholders.html?symb=AVD&subView=institutional Notice that they are institutions and among the institutional investers in Vanguard are the four private equity firms listed above, Black Rock, AdvisorsSSgA.
SSgaA is the world's fourth largest corporation and is owned by Largest shareholders include Vanguard Group Inc, BlackRock Inc., Dodge & Cox, DODGX - Dodge & Cox Stock Fund, State Street Corp, Invesco Ltd., VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares, Longview Partners (Guernsey) LTD, VFINX - Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares, and Geode Capital Management, ...
One has to continuously drill down through each and every one of these corporations to get to the people and sovereign funds like the Saudi's PIF to find the real owners. As you can see ownership and control are hidden behind shells and interlocking boards of directors.
Are you exhausted I am and that was only 30 minutes of google search.
Main investors in Black Rock are
Vanguard Group.
BlackRock Fund Advisors. ...
State Street Global Advisors. ...
Temasek Holdings. ...
Charles Schwab Investment Management. ...
So, Hartmann is all I have left: everybody is just an actor, like "Doug" with LiMu, and is there no truth, no beauty, just cover my head and farewell.
There is robertreich.substack.com and <heathercoxrichardson@substack.com
I get most of my news from emails like that, as a result I don't watch much of MSNBC anymore,and it is only show after show with each host bounding the same stone into sand.
The hour is basically the same three subjects with so called "analysts" saying the same thing over and over again.
For instance there is the military "analysts" Col Jacobs a Vietnam medal of honor winner, who has been retired as long as I, he is no more a military expert than I. My expertise, as it were, is 40 years old, and well past the sell by date.
I do watch PBS and Christiane Armapour and BBC, to get another point of view, but I also happen to know that Christiane has a bias towards Muslims, her father is Iranian and her mother is British, so I take that into account.. There are very few people without a bias, if only a bias to their paycheck.
So watch and read what you wish, but do so with discernment, critical reasoning and questioning, take nibbles, eat a slice, but don't swallow the whole damn thing,leave that to the MAGAts, the students, and extreme left.
Myself I have no religion or ideology. And like George Bernard Shaw am able to hold two opposing ideas and still function. And I am not a joiner, a herd animal.
"The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956) or What !?!
Where are people's heads, that they permit themselves to be suckered and gaslit by billionaires and con-persons into, becoming the planet's biggest losers.
Electing the proffered Republican bimbos, dimwits, and bozos (i.e., orange Jesus & Co.) is not unlike putting curdled milk in the fridge overnight, then chugging a pint of this now "dangerously" sour, beyond lumpy milk next morning on the engendered belief that it's magically become fresh.
Fresh? How, you ask. . . . Because "The Pink Slime Intelligencer-Bee-Post" says so, is how, dad-gummit !!!
Bloody zombies.
Sir Okie. Peoples heads are ruled by the lizard brain. Most folk are so caught up in the day to day humdrum of our meaningless lives (yes meaningless and I include moi), that they only pay attention to bright shiny objects waved in front of them, and that bright shiny object is fear.
Fear. manufactured or real, grabs ones attention, fixates them, and one becomes a cult, Would there be any religion without fear? Victory goes to he or she that who most effectively manifests fear and wields it as a weapon to control thoughts and behaviors.
Republicans use fear, especially fear of the future, and cast themselves as victims and martyrs, they take the low road.
Democrats use hope, and past achievement, they take the high road.
As the song says. "you take he high road, and I will take the low road, and I'll be in Scotland before you"
The confluence of cognitive bias and heuristics in forming a worldview has long fascinated me. When I was a young political “science” major the go to axiom on how and why people vote was summed up as it was what your parents did. But was this about voting or again a world view, and if so, how did they arrive at their set of beliefs?
The best generalization I’ve found for why “Republicans” (which have evolved from stingy to full blown Fascists) is the endless 40 years of intensive propaganda that iterates through their fear mechanism and need for stability. It just intensifies as the “grifters” push the fear accelerator.
The big question for me is at what point will the fear convert to violence in order to restore “order.”
Scary
Hi Cracker. I whole heartedly agree with you, Excellent analysis as compared to my long winded rants. Kudo's
As regards the big question. As I see it, if by fluke Trump loses violence will break out, as the fascists attack the source of their pain.
If Trump wins, Trump will initiate violence as he overthrows the constitution and seeks retribution on his "enemies", to be gleefully joined by his minions in his cult.
Remember he gave them license on J6, with a call and a response. Funny using that phrase, I was a military training instructor of basics, and call and response was an funny but innocent marching cadence.
This time they will have license and will follow their master by seeking vengeance on the enemies that threaten the dominance of white males, or just plain males. The major threat to the insecure male personality, which liberals don't have, are liberals and self validating females.
I hope I am wrong, the first prognostication will result in limited violence, mostly directed at the government. If he wins it is all bets are off. And don't look to LEO and the Military for help. LEO is conservative to right wing extremist Trump Humpers, they have a siege mentality, they against society. Cops are among the lowest social class, and have a hard on for those above them, traffic cops get their jollies pulling over expensive cars and having the driver sir or ma'am them, it is the only time they get any respect, and if the driver doesn't show respect, he or she is likely to get killed.
I worry about the military, most Marines and Grunts are recruited from red states, and bring their prejudices with them. And the officer corps, those that were academy grads, are infected by Dominion-ism, (Christian Reconstruction) and Trump will fire any Generals who aren't lick spittle lackeys, and replace hem with lackeys, and the military follows orders. I can't count the missions that I went on in 26 years, without knowing the purpose, or even asking, and I knew better than to ask, for one thing I wouldn't get an answer.
I received an expedition medal for my part in the 2nd Korean War (1966-1969), but never knew there was a 2nd Korean war, until a few years ago, and then from Wikipedia.
Se what I meant about long winded rants. Can't help myself, the teacher preacher gene.
"Apparently, there’s something about conservatives the world over that makes them believe the only way they can win elections or sway public opinion is by lying to people and deceiving them..."
This is the crux of all of our political problems and has been for some time now. The constant lying and misinformation given to people on the right by their "leaders" may be one of the worst "features" about them. I STILL find it difficult to believe that there were/are people out there who believe that Hillary Clinton, in some black dominatrix pants-suit, I assume, was running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor in DC that has no basement. People TRULY believed this! The idea was so ridiculous on its face, without ANY research at all, that I thought it was a story that would just slide off into the ether, until that guy with a gun showed up to "save the children." And go ahead and make the bet that there are still some people IN CONGRESS that believe this story, in addition to the many other conspiracy theories, lies, misinformation, and whatever else the right-wing can push out to get votes. Ugh!
Most MAGAts, don't really believe that stuff, but they don't care about the truth, for them it is jusst another artillery round to hurl at the enemy. A handful of the mentally challenged do, and by mentally challenged I don't mean mentally disabled. I mean low IQ cockroaches, who are credulous, gullible and do not have a cerebral conductor.
A friend of mine, a mental health professional, explained it this way. We have a bicameral mind, but we "normies" have a conductor, schizophrenics don't.
Also read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind is a 1976 book by the Princeton psychologist, psychohistorian and consciousness theorist Julian Jaynes (1920-1997). It explores the nature of consciousness – particularly "the ability to introspect" – and its evolution in ancient human history.
IMHO 80% are visceral.
That's why "Trump hates dogs" and "Trump stole from kids with cancer and disabled war veterans" is far more effective than politics.
Right on Daniel, and shame on the DNC and the Biden Campaign for not using those tools, they also make great bumper stickers, at which the Republicans are adept and Democrats Inept.
I was told over the holidays that there is more evidence the pizza gate is true. I didn't respond.
Since their destruction of the definition of the word "evidence" after the 2020 election, I'm not surprised.
It would not surprise me if most of that right-wing gaslight is rarely read by anyone. Unsolicited news flyers that pop into my mailbox are tossed into the garbage with all the other junk mail I get. Unknown is how much of this noise gets read by gullible people with limited critical reasoning abilities - aka MAGAs. My impression from chatting with MAGAs and watching interviews with them is that they do not read - they watch. Their news comes from Fox News, Musk-X, Alex Jones, Gateway Pundit, the Drudge Report - if even that. For them the news is choir practice. It is not learning what is going on outside the city limits of Trythatinasmalltown. If I am correct, the billionaires are wasting their money. Sure hope so.
I've run across a few of these agitprop papers and they're exactly as reported. I look at one and ask myself, "does anybody actually believe this crap?", and the answer is, yes they do. Now, I've met some dumb-bunny leftists in my time, but the gullibility of Average Jane & Joe conservatives is amazing! I can't believe some of the horse-dung they will buy into. Makes the guy who sold the Brooklyn Bridge look like a piker. And a lot of it is that the Right is focussed exclusively on getting money and power, while the Left & Centrists are trying to do the right thing (as they see it) rather than money grubbing. It makes a BIG DIFFERENCE!!!
Jesus put it out best that lies come from the father of all lies. The glee that right wing conservatives are happy to use lies for their false purposes should make any honest person understand the horrors coming from this house and the damage it continues to do to society. As in the past the Church is not working against this evil but ignorant and or even part of the problem themselves.
Clayton:This Jesus meant the devil, which is a Zoroastrian creation. The father of lies in modern times is best understood, IMO, as that part of the brain that is the source of greed, need,fear and addiction.,primitive impulses that rule some, but which we all have.
Ideology, and religion is such, is self selected power, that uses human fear, need, greed and addiction to obtain power and control.
Amygdala -- Fight or flight.
Prefrontal cortex --greed
Mesolimbic dopamine pathway -- addiction.
I am not a psychiatrist/neurologist but I heard expert testimony and attended seminars and according to most, the effects vary with sex and maturation levels. Adolescent males usually have no inhibitions and are susceptible to what experts call "bullshit."
Some adult males do not mature until their 30's. Some have an adolescent emotional age for life.
LOL.
But prefrontal cortex is where info is processed, analyzed and where critical thinking is centered, is it not? Daniel. Please correct me, if I am wrong.
The Republican brain is the lizard brain.
The Democrat brain is ...............what? It sure isn't the amygdala, but it should be if we are to save what is left of our democratic republic.
Frontal lobe.
I thought the frontal lobe was the buffer, short term memory, where recent facts are stored, RAM or Random Access Memory and they don't get stored in the brain, unless there is something emotional that hits the "save" key and sends it to at the "hard drive", the cerebal cortex. That was the whole idea behind lobotomies, cut the connection of the frontal cortex with the cerebral cortex, severing access to long term memory and emotions.
In the 20th Century they found drugs that could do the job, but did not do permanent and irreparable damage
Is there no sleazy, corrupt , ghastly act these Magas won’t stoop to . Uh, No.
Because I have that angel on one shoulder and devil on the other thing, I am still smirking about this Report.
First of all, the facts in it are right out of the GOP's Bannon/Stone dirty-tricks-bag that never ceases to amaze. Angel's take: these perpetrators are the ones that will rot in hell, if there is a hell.
Devil's take: people on the right hate us so much they have chosen the biggest liars of all time to represent them. Do they not deserve to be ripped-off? Trump keeps reciting his personalized version of "The Snake" poem, then he and HIS politicians just keep biting them.
Should we tell them who is stealing from them and how the money goes for pricey lifestyles? At least it isn't being used for ads.
Fabulous fabulist Report, Thom.
Please share this with all democratic campaigns. Democrats have to get the word out about the corruption of the republican party. While at the same time, sticking to topics of concerns in peoples lives! Democrats get slammed by the media. When The truth about who is really lying and cheating is not getting out!
This comment says it all. If left-leaning billionaires really meant what they claim to believe they would rival the right wing billionaires with thir own truth speaking publications and get them to the people who need to hear it.
I inherited bales and bales of "Spotlight." I think I have burned a lot of them, but sometimes I wonder, are they valuable cultural artifacts? Any Hartmann folks review writing "Mid Century Modern" authoritarian panic literature?