Unlike the 1890s, when there were still papers engaging in serious journalism, today’s yellow journalism is ubiquitous across media consumed by the majority of Americans…
Thom Hartmann still surprises me with his unique genius of transforming the complex into the easily understood - while providing the historical receipts to back it all up. We are damn fortunate - especially in the context of Thom's piece today - to have this exceptional resource at our finger tips.
To the piece. It appears that both "fear and favor" are guiding the profit-first yellow journalism magaphone - not truth and context. This is fatal to a democracy under siege, and perhaps one of the most significant causes of such in the first place.
Our fourth estate's adamance in averting meaningful reporting feels a bit like they're all auditioning for some hypothetical future role to be the "official" media arm of a coming fascist state - and the behemoth corporate drama peddlers are putting on quite a performance. Fear AND favor.
As Thom has said in the past, truth has a liberal bias. I believe that. And to compound the issue, truth is a nonstarter in terms of profit when in competition with the drug that is forever circles of meaningless spectacle and irrelevant drama.
Rupert Murdoch said "it is not about red or blue, but green" and I don't believe him He is misdirecting. Sure money is a motivator but he has more than enough, he is driven by a different agenda and has at least an authoritarian impulse. He has set out to destroy Democracy, first Australia, then Britain, now the U.S.A. Aussies caught on, Brits and Americans haven't.
Osama bin Laden said, We will use your democracy to destroy you, but he is not the only one. the destroyers of democracy are legion, especially Rupert. The editors, journalists and talking heads of electronic and print media, know that their paycheck and careers depend on coloring inside the lines.
And what aids in that destruction is the purposeful misintepretation of the 1st Amendment.
I received a newsletter today (,Joyce Vance from Civil Discourse) that Elon Musks hides behinds the first amendment of that she said ". But the First Amendment does not apply to decisions made by a private company, like Twitter. And Twitter released sensitive personal information about users to journalists, which they in turn published. Numerous journalists and tech experts who reviewed the files were less than impressed and Twitter’s own lawyers said their internal documents didn’t support the claims that were being made."
She is correct all the 1st Amendment says is that "Congress shall make no law, that abridges the right to speech or assembly"
Even liberals hide behind the 1st Amendment when it serves their cause, and so does Whitehouse.gov, the 1st Amendment interpretation that one can say anything so long as it isn't akin to crying fire in a theater, is exactly what Osama was referring to "when he said we will use your freedoms to destroy you" And it is succeeding, consider the thousands, tens of gthousands anti semitic professors and students who are assaulting Jews over the HAMAS initiated war. The very same people, who call themselves leftists, but defend the anti-democratic, anti semitic misogynistic and homophobic governments and people, those that are Islamic.
I abhor the word "libtard" but it does apply to the professors and students who protested and cancel the speeches and acts of people like Bill Maher, whom is a libertarian bigot, because he called the abaya, burka, chador bee keeper suits and joked about the misogynistic, anti democratic. theocratic nature of Islam.
In case anyone objects. I have studied the Quran, haddiths and the biography of Muhammad by ibn Ishaq, and a Muslim called me murtadd, an apostate, because after all that "I just had to be a Muslim, because those books are the ineffable truth.
You don't need books, take the blinders off and look at the practices in Muslim ruled, or Muslim majority countries.
I read Reich's Substack yesterday and hundreds of comments about why Trump is polling ahead of Biden in spite of Biden's achievements. Then later, I saw a Richard Wolff interview on the same topic where Wolff stated voters are going for the "clownish" candidate, Trump, and the same is happening in Argentina and other countries. Wolff believes the populations are exhausted with politics as usual which doesn't seemed to have helped them economically. Therefore, they merely want a very different type of leader in a desperate attempt to change the system to something that might be better. Your "man bites dog" theory and the corporate media using yellow journalism to increase readers and viewers through use of yellow journalism as happened during the Gilded Age, is ramping up the danger of authoritarian rule. Reich also points out that we are in a second Gilded Age in his Wealth and Poverty class. Are Reich, Hartmann, Wolff, ProPublica, HC Richardson, etc. the new muckrackers we need to save the US from falling to authoritarianism? I hope it's not too late.
The population of voters is not finite. Polls ask existing registered voters. By next year 40% of voters will be young. 70% of young voters trend Democratic and can overwhelm old, tired, exhausted a-holes, who Wolff would call the lumpen proletariat.
I don't trust the polls, because I don't trust the pollsters and those who draw up the questions.
There is only one question "Who will you vote for", and not one poll asks that question.
Instead they ask are you happy with Biden, or some such, it is skewed.
If you asked me that question I would say no. But that deserves a follow up, which is never asked: Why, aren't you happy with Biden. My answer would be the likes of he appointed a right winger as Attorney General, who has set about subverting Democracy and protecting Trump. He has not pressured Schumer to change the rules to override Tuberville
I am not familiar with the rules of the senate, but found this via google
Any rule may be suspended without notice by the unanimous consent of the Senate, except as otherwise provided by the rules.
Schumer could have called for consent, and could have called for it when Republicans went back to their states. Or as chair call for a voice vote, and called for unanimous consent.
I can't believe that the rules allow a lone wolf like Tuberville to hold up over 300 nominations.. In fact if Schumer brought up a vote all that is required is 60 votes, he has 50 (Democrats) all he needs is 10 more, and there are certainly 10 pro defense Republican Senators
So why hasn't he. I suspect that he is running cover for a couple of pro abortion Democratic senators, or at least Senators whose states are delicately balanced and have relied on voters crossing party lines. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is one, John Tester of Montana is another. and is retiring Joe Manchin, who has is own Presidential ambitions.
Good point about young voters and we can be optimistic about that. But I don't think Wolff would call "old, tired, exhausted a-holes" lumpen proletariat.
Biden has helped people economically. Maybe not all people, and maybe they are still struggling, and if they live in Red States they have no health care support or anything humane from their state government, and perhaps they are succumbing to the inhumanity of it all.
The sad truth seems to be that it's OK with the MAGA victims of no medicaid, etc, as long as those "n.........ers" and rapist, drug-dealing, diseased immigrants don't steal the tax dollars the MAGAs DON't pay (!). Twisted? Yup.
The situation with the corporate media is ipso facto proof that Trump was right, like a broken clock, that the media is the enemy of the people. By Trump saying that is enough to defend the media because Trump attacked, but like a broken clock he is often right twice a day, he only protests when the media, FBI etc "turns" against him.
He would not have been #45 were it not for the media, and the FBI. He trash talks Jack Smith, but not DOJ, for the simple reason that, aside from Smith, it is still his DOJ, staffed by his Schedule F appointees, and lawyers that are intrinsically conservative. Same with the FBI, DHS, NSA
What futility; if they want "a very different type of leader," but somehow looking to the crum-bum they already tried, and what did he ever do for them? Snatches of interviews seem to point to disinformation-generated delusion: the victims seem to be engulfed in a fantasy about how Trump actually did benefit them. It's not too late for "new muckrakers:" simply, nobody can hear them, which is the point of the article.
The billionaires attack on democracy is to keep from paying their fair share of taxes and without their fair share the masses will become unruly, crime will rise, death from poverty from lack of nutrition and medical will rise exponentially. There is only one solution for that, that I can think of, concentration camps for the poor people regardless of race. The camps can easily be changed into extermination camps. And if or the poor will be sent off to senseless wars for the rich. With no minimum wage America will look like dickinsonism revisited. Why anyone in their right mind would vote for this is beyond my comprehension. The only thing that comes to my mind is that famous phrase "forgive them for they know not what they do". It is hard for me to forgive people who cannot learn from the past and claim to be intelligent.
Keith was the only voice on MSNBC that I really trusted. He was fired for crossing the line. He was fired the day before ComCast took over from NBC Universal, and if you didn't know it ComCast is ultra conservative, and they tolerate the rather mild Maddow, Hayes, O'Donnell, new hires like Joy Reid and Al Sharpton, they know who signs their pay check and don't dare cross them. Poor Tiffany Cross didn't get the memo and she had a short lived career.
MSNBC, tolerates liberals, because they realized they couldn't compete with Fox, so they engage in something called market segmentation. There was no possibility in carving out any of Fox's readers, so they went for what is left, mostly old and middle aged liberals. You can tell that by their adds, Medicare disAdvantage and PhRMA.
Their ads are tailored to the elderly.
Fox ads are tailored towards the low IQ portion of society, the deplorables, scams like buying silver or gold clad non negotiable coins, and gold and silver scams.
If you buy gold or silver and wait a month to sell it, you have to go to a pawn shop, jeweler or broker (if you can find one) and you will discover that you get less than you paid.
The good news was Dominion v Fox, which should be an object lesson for the media, individually and collectively. $787 million. The best part is that in the discovery in that case further exposure looms. Rupert Murdoch was apparently just deposed in a $2.7 billion Smartmatic suit. His Philadelphia TV station risks losing its FCC license and among other problems, Fox faces $billions in shareholder derivative lawsuits in state court in Delaware.
Tuesday Trump called for “the government” to “come down hard” and “punish” MSNBC because of political criticism. Should be headlines in all media. IMHO every newspaper and media outlet that FAILED to cover Trump's threat to shut down MSNBC should be exposed, just like Fox.
Dominion helped itself financially, but did a real disservice to this country (and the world) by not insisting that Fox confess its lies; of course, they may have lost that gambit and received less payback. Now that's "Yellow Business-ship,' but that's the name of the game.
Much ado about nothing. Bird in hand worth 1,000,000 in bush.
The discovery admissions are public record. Murdoch fired the face of the network. I didn't list the other cases Fox has had to settle. Lachlan is now in charge.
What I don't understand is why DNC, that spent millions on Fox only to find out they were duplicitous hasn't sued? Why the victims of Jan 6 haven't sued?
Daniel. Your last question was surely rhetorical, because potential whistleblowers are hiding behind their desks, they are all too aware who signs their paychecks, and even Cassidy Hutchinson did't step forward until she was out of a job.
Whistle blowers get punished, from being fired and black listed, to being harassed, sued and even murdered or "suicided".
First, i can hear people asking, "who is Red Skelton???"? Second, I'm so disgusted with all the major "news" sources; they are handing the election to trump, just like in 2016. And it is not because they like him better than Joe, it's because his juvenile antics get readers. Trump is the Jerry Springer Show married to the Housewives of Long Island. It's pathetic, embarrassing, disheartening, and makes me very angry. It is not just the fault of the media, though; the American people have chosen this path with their addiction to tik tok and twitter and all the other flash social media. We are a very uninformed electorate, by choice.
My question is, to what extent do the addicts of Springer and Housewives know the "fun" is that the participants are pathetic and embarrassing? Trump addicts don't seem to get it that he is pathetic and embarrassing. Like the old "Emperor has no Clothes" parable. Huh.
Can't argue with Thom's history and statistics. Cause and effect? It's complicated.
The Fairness Doctrine worked for a country with ABC, NBC, and CBS; a country with a billion internet options not so much. President Obama certainly knows how to use the internet---that's how he was elected. According to an ABA article in 2009 titled "The Fairness Doctrine Redux", he favored "localism" with community advisory committees. Considering my community, oh hell no to that!
I like Thom's solution better---become a committee of one and urge your friends to do the same.
Drama is a horrible addiction, so is magical thinking. Enter the psychopath Trump and his addicted cult, things get very complicated indeed.
Help me understand this: If Ronald Reagan could end the Fairness Doctrine with the stroke of a pen, and simply direct the DOJ, FTC, and SEC to stop enforcing the anti-trust laws, why can't President Biden reinvigorate the Fairness Doctrine and direct the DOJ, FTC and SEC to start enforcing the anti-trust laws right now?
He could do the latter, and has already started the process: look at the lawsuit against Google. He can’t do the former as Obama removed the Fairness Doctrine from the FCC’s regulatory code.
Did not Clinton in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, eliminate the Fairness doctrine, not Obama.
I trust you, so apparently Obama had a (very disappointing play here) but I believe it was Clinton and the Telecommunications act that killed the fairness doctrine.. legally.
I stand enlightened. I could have sworn the TCA sunsetted the Fairness Doctrine, and again I am disappointed in Biden. I see the hand of Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers, Obama was inexperience and naive of DC power politics. Larry Summers jumped in Obama's face after he won the election, and Obama having no real history of DC politics, welcomed the help, and I am sure that Larry suggested Rahm as chief of staff and Geithner (miserable Geithner) as Secretary of the Treasury.
Biden was behind the repeal of Don't ask don't tell, and responsible for the DOJ's decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage act, the failure to defend led to Obergefell.
Rahm and Larry Summers most certainly were behind the ACA, it was a gift to AHIP, Association of Health Insurance Providers. as Regards Obama signing Dodd Frank, the bill was a populist liberal bill, and if he vetoed it, it would have angered his base as a betrayal.
There is a bureaucratic way of neutering a bill, just leave it up to regulatory capture.
In order to regulate the FCC needs to do a proposed notice, hold public hearings under the Administrative Procedure Act, to obtain a rational basis.
Even if they regulate, SCOTUS may say that Congress has not delegated authority under the language of the statute and/or find that the 1st amendment is sacrosanct.
Monday of this week, Reich did discuss these very issues in MSM reporting such as amplifying Biden's age for the least little flub while ignoring the insane daily rants that spew out of Trumps big yap that any reasonable person would attribute to mental deterioration (or rabid fascism). Sadly, the MSM is all about clickbait today because the more clicks and visits, the more they can charge advertisers. The dissolution of the NYT Sports Department is a classic example - just not making any money, I guess.
Polls suggest, GenZ and the majority of younger people get their main news from unreliable sources such as X, Instagram, etc. rather than from more reliable sources. Thus, it is not surprising that people still consider Trump as a viable presidential candidate even though he would be the equivalent of the fictional Emperor Palpatine thereby ending our constitutional democracy while he used his power to imprison/punish his enemies (business, political, and military).
Thanks to Protopage, I monitor over 50 MSM RSS feeds and another 20 not so mainstream, which makes it easier to spot real news floating in a sea of clickbait. Fortunately, there are numerous sites like Hartmann's, Engelhardt's, Heather Cox Richardson's and many others that make sense of current events and offer integrated perspectives. Sources like ProPublica, The Intercept, and Jacobin offer well-researched exposes rather than clickbait. Of course, one must pick through the noise to find more reliably fact-based analysis of current events - aka news.
One sad note that helps to validate Thom's and Bob Reich's assertions about the media is my little personal story about fascism. Back in 2018, I emailed Prof Robert Paxton author of the classic "The Anatomy of Fascism," and asked if he did not think Trump was a textbook fascist. To my surprise he responded that he doubted it. I was surprised because I used his criteria to come to that conclusion. Three years later, Paxton published an OpEd in Newsweek: "Donald Trump is a Fascist." However, the MSM did not start calling Trump and his GOP ilk fascist on a regular basis until 2023! Worse perhaps, associating Trump's rants with Nazis like Hitler (despite years of authors occasionally mentioning such things) has only appeared with any frequency in the MSM this past 4th quarter of 2023.
It has been pretty recognized that there has been a taboo about calling "fascist" or comparing to Hitler ever since the real thing. There has been in place a sort of threshold that using that comparison is automatically "over-the-top." To aim that epithet has been strongly pushed back against, as disqualifying the one employing it. Very effectively used by the right to censor criticism, but that was taking advantage of a legitimate strong "cringe effect." That the legitimacy of the observation is being recognized even now is progress.
I think that it is only progress if people wake up to the fact that here we go again, only this time it will be the USA who will be the international pariah; not Italy or Germany. That the GOP has not changed its name despite its anti-democratic hateful behavior and goals is further evidence that it knows exactly what it is doing and following Adolf's modus operandi with care. The parents of my German friends all told me a similar story - that Hitler was not taken seriously (just like Trump) until it was too late to stop him. It was, like today, a cadre of ultra rich enablers and a party of easily-conned violently-angry and racist working class citizens (Stalin's useful idiots comes to mind) that pulled off the coup. Our one hope is that the US constitutional democracy will hold. Unlike post-WWI Deutschland, our military is about the only institution that has not completely lost its sense of honor. It stopped the MAGAs Jan 6, and hopefully will do it again if the Dems wise up that Tuberville is key to neutralizing the chain of command in the hope of undermining the military's resistance to the neo-Nazi takeover.
BTW, the Deep State is real. I used to be part of it. But I am also aware of a deeper-state of angry MAGA fascist enablers waiting for the chance to enable the MAGA coup by undermining their bosses who honor their oaths. They salivate at being appointed to lead the new fascist government while their bosses are tossed into the street. Some are in law enforcement like last time, and some, like Gen Flynn are in the Pentagon.
Thank you for reaffirming that we are not misreading the tea leaves, so to speak. There is no question in my mind that the main stream media is complicit in the effort to destroy democracy. Decades ago, tv stations viewed the new shows as "loss leaders". Newspapers counted on advertisers to support investigative journalism and filled their news rooms with credentialed, ethical reporters.
Those days have gone by the wayside as most, if not all, of our main stream media outlets are now corporate owned by businesses conglomerates traded on the stock market. Hence, their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders and their corporate leaders, not to the truth.
Honest reporting has been replaced by whatever garners a "click" or a "follow". The main stream media no longer cares about bolstering democracy. They don't care about reporting the accomplishments of the Biden administration. And, most important, they no longer care about fair and just reporting at all.
what was it that prompted people to respond to either Clinton or Trump's comments? Did the research find that out?
I was at a diner the day after election in 2016. A person next to me said, "when she called me deplorable, that was it." I let that sink in and it still troubles me.
Richard it didn't matter what Hillary called them. Those that voted for Trump were deplorables and would have voted for Trump regardless. They resented being told what they were, deplorables.
These would be fascist theocratic bigots Will vote for their god head, or anyone who will serve as their avatar and dear leader.
Like the miners daughter Clementine, they are lost and gone forever, and they will only change when their horse stomps on their head.
If the Democrats are trying to capture some fascist votes, forget about it, they are wasting time and money. Life Musk said in his interview "fuck them", They are unreachable and highly motivated, more than liberals and independents to vote their druthers.
After thousands of years of using force to educate children, look what it has gotten us? The cycle of life is to play, learn, than teach. Making learning fun educates the children who naturally want to play better than force does. Force just leads to a lot of behavioral problems. They especially don't like being told what to do when they grow up. A real problem with authority. Wear that mask! Even though it's the right thing to do, the victims of negative reinforcements will object. Sesame Street did a good job of teaching the children to have fun while learning. Most adults don't know how to have fun and can't teach their children how to play or have fun. Learning should be fun and interesting, not being forced fed a bunch of bologna they are not interested in.
Bob, I can relate to that. I hated HS, only attended 90 days in three years, but was hungry for knowledge and received my education in a public library, with the help of the librarian who suggested books (gave me reading assignments) then quizzed me, those were days before cliff notes. Which I disdained and still do. I didn't use them in university either and have a Masters.
Don’t forget Rupert Murdoch’s role in this attack upon English speaking democratic states. He is a British Empire yellow press Nepo baby and learned the dirtiest of Black Propaganda tricks at his Daddy’s knee. He has been called in by far right politicians as a propaganda troubleshooter in the UK since the 1960s. He moved into the US political arena full time in the Reagan era.
In my humble opinion one of the most effective Jujitsu propaganda vehicles these past decades for those who wish to live in an enlightened democracy is The Simpsons.
One just doesn't understand why destruction is the life's work. Is forwarding any harmony really that boring/unmarketable? Now we have Elon. He's supposed to be smart, so harm to humanity must be his goal.
Overweening vanity and low emotional intelligence are a dangerous mix. Place any power in the hands of such individuals and terrible destruction of intelligentsias and creatives and deadly exploitation of cultures for their personal pride is inevitable. Musk or Murdoch or Kissinger - by their fruits we shall (unfortunately) know them.
Neil Postman published his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” about 1985 in which he predicted with impressive accuracy the state of affairs we have today with entertainment, distraction, and irrelevance substituting for valid and meaningful dialogue in our media and in our interpersonal interactions. He largely blamed the degradation of the public discourse on television and emerging technologies focused on producing income by appealing to the desire to be protected from reality. Now, we have a panoply of devices to distract us every moment of the day.
There are two sides of the equation, however. The demand side is habitually left completely out of the discussion. If we fail to take notice that the producers of “news” and programmers are responding to a certain demand and satisfying a market for irrelevance, trivia, and senseless nonsense, we will never solve the equation.
If the public has an aversion to thought, contemplation, rumination, detailed and accurate information, and confronting real problems where they are found, it is their deficiency and aversion as much as the lure of entertainment which must be understood. I will repeat my mantra. Students who are inundated with abstract and meaningless (to them) data and information and who are deluged with academic busywork, doctrinaire presentations of filtered and sanitized facts for their entire youth, are constantly denied the occasion and opportunity to simply think and sort out for themselves what is important and what knowledge is useful, relevant, and meaningful to them.
When the child is required to attend school to learn to read, reading becomes a daunting task, a duty, a bore, and something to be done for some purpose other than answering one’s personal and logical questions. When the child is fed a diet of predigested and abstract crap as part of a “common core curriculum”, and when he or she is made to perform like a lab rat and pass examinations the most sensible reaction is aversion and in many cases a fear of knowing enough to understand what one can do nothing about.
Postman was a teacher and co-wrote the book, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity”. This is where we need to start looking for how we got to where we are today. Our schools have it all bass ackwards. Our approach is counterproductive and destructive. Our laws compelling school attendance create a mindset that can only lead to foolishness and irrelevance. It isn’t rocket science. Tolstoy spelled it out for us in his essays on education in 1862! Dewey, Goodman, Holt, and many others didn't mince words. Trying to force education or mass produce it through coercion and paternalism is just plain sick.
If you want independent thinkers immune mere amusement and distraction, work with your local school board for (1) teachers who have degrees in their subject matter; they will be more confident and comfortable with the material, (2) fewer students in a class, so that discussion and intellectual play is possible, (3) fewer preps for each teacher, so that innovation and creativity are more likely. When there are 30+ kids in a class with a teacher who has only a minor, say, in history and must teach 5 courses, districts chose to use more and more corporate produced materials and assessments. With a PhD in literature, I was lucky enough to have no more than four preps and 45 students total. But parents paid $31,000 for the privilege. That’s the kind of education every child deserves, and it could happen if there was an enough political will.
When the ship’s hull is riddled with holes, for whatever reason, trying to repair the damage with tape or patches may slow the process, but the ship is doomed. It's going to sink. Or, tying to fill up the few lifeboats to save some passengers means leaving many others to go down with the ship. The brave attempts to do whatever one can to help some students or to improve some classes or schools is admirable. I would never think of discouraging anyone from doing the things they find to be helpful and a move in the right direction. However, the educational wheel has been re-invented countless times and the problems only get more urgent and devastating.
I have a lot of ideas about what should and could change. Your suggestions appear to be excellent for a thought experiment or a test program, model, or program, also. There is no shortage of fantastic schemes and designs for a more humane and inviting atmosphere and institutional arrangement. The problem is that there is and always has been a brick wall blocking change.
Innovation invariably requires different attitudes, relationships, and methodologies. It requires that power dynamics must be changed. It requires that teachers and students have much more autonomy and that they be seen as free agents and creators of knowledge, rather than recipients of pre-existing knowledge, pre-digested information, and pre-fabricated curricula. You can hope for the best and ask for miracles and you can plead and beg for more and better resources, but traditional schooling is not going to improve significantly until there is a major paradigm shift in how people think and behave, and that cannot happen as long as schooling remains compulsory as a function of unconstitutional, paternalistic, and counterproductive laws designed to place limits on independent thinking and uninhibited intellectual growth and exploration.
The degree of training and expertise of teachers and class sizes do matter, of course. The issue is that throwing money at the problems and making great sacrifices and promises has failed in the past to yield the expected results. The reactionaries and the people who do not believe in people, in democracy, in intellectual endeavors, or in science want the status quo to continue and they will resist all attempts to implement true change. They are in positions of power because of the bad laws giving the state ultimate authority over what should be in the hands of parents, teachers, and community leaders. Education is not like any other issue in that it is ineffable and a personal attribute that cannot be super-imposed from some authority or agency. Critical thinking comes from life experience, good modelling, decision-making, clear thinking, and a positive orientation about one's own capabilities and future. Coercion and conditioning under pressure and threats of failure or rejection are toxic and a constant barrier to critical thought.
Thanks for the time and effort you put into your comment. I have read every word, and agree with what you say. I tend to be more evolutionary than revolutionary. Paradigm shifts happen, at least according to Kuhn, when normal science (normal pedagogy here) keeps producing anomalies. The anomalies cause the shift in perspective and practice. I’m leery of outright revolutions insofar as they tend to ignore generations that get left on the side of the road. And pedagogical research does tend to favor normal practices, looking only for the next big fix, heading off any shift of the kind you and I are talking about. There’s a lot of prestige and power that accumulates for the person/school that articulates a new approach. And corporations are eager to produce the texts and assessments. We’re still attempting to make teacher-proof classrooms,, ones that run like clockwork, churning out obedient citizens.
I think that a lot of in-the-meantime work can be done. I’m 74 and running out of time to continue my efforts, but I am hopeful. In spite of a lot that looks patriarchal, colonializing, and white supremacist, good work is being done at the faculty level. When teachers push back in their districts, and when students push back in colleges of education, we may make some headway. Paulo Freire still has an influence with students, and I think that’s good news.
I apologize if this is a bit of a mess. I’m under the weather, so foggy headed. But, again, thanks for the respect your answer accords mine.
Cynicism is depressing. But I am unable to share what I interpret as your guarded optimism with respect to “in-the-meantime work” students, teachers, or other faculty and theorists chomping at the bit for a bloodless and painless paradigm shift will hopefully do.
My biggest problem seems to be in convincing anyone that I am also more about evolution than revolution, and that what I propose is optimal because it is not based on false hope, grandiose strategies and methodologies, or miracles brought about by rare genius. The paradigm shift I know must occur is in a wide understanding that schooling has wrongly been confused with education, and that education cannot be mass produced through force of law.
Freedom and autonomy are not revolutionary. Democracy is not novel or untested in school or elsewhere. The elimination of arbitrary authority and oppressive bureaucracy are not dangerous alternatives which risk some impending chaos or disaster.
I have made the comparison before several times between eradicating compulsory attendance and removing a malignant cancer. One does not ‘reform’ or ‘remodel’ a cancerous tumor. If it is operable, one does the necessary surgery with a scalpel. Once the cancerous tissue is removed, the immune system may protect the body and healing may take place. In the schooling example, the brilliant ideas and the simple practices which are well documented and proven in numerous free schools and even in some extraordinary traditional environments on a limited scale will no longer be impossible to implement for the long term and on a large scale. We have created innumerable convoluted problems because of false assumptions, beliefs, and mythology. We could undo what has been done without significant cost or conflict and stop the totally unnecessary pain and unforced errors. Why would anyone want to make it more complicated or difficult than it needs to be?
Ok. I see where we differ. I don’t think we can agree on everything here, and I have a hard time even with a thought experiment that might involve not making public school mandatory. I’m not being flippant when I say that perhaps young folks need to be more involved in how and where they are educated, but, and I know these are not your words, I can’t imagine what a non-bureaucratic institution would look like. Would students ultimately chose tutors for themselves and have no obligation to them to show up and complete a course of work? Even apprenticeships require some kind of covenant. I may be hopelessly dense on this score and need an imagination transplant. I’m endeavoring to look at what I see as logical consequences.
I do think you are right about “ …brilliant ideas and the simple practices which are well documented and proven in numerous free schools and even in some extraordinary traditional environments on a limited scale will no longer be impossible to implement for the long term and on a large scale.” These things do happen sometimes in well administered schools and sometimes in spite of administration. What I think would be conducive to the hope you have (qtd) is to rid public education of national “no child, etc” programs, college board, and university expectations that students who apply have taken the full panoply of standardized tests. For example, when I was a teacher/administrator, several of us talked to college admissions officers; to a person, they agreed that the most important piece in a student’s application was the recommendation from the teachers and immediate admin/counselor. Getting those personal and often powerful letters means that the teachers must have time to know each student, how they work, think, discuss … publics are overrun with obligations for creating compliant, even docile citizens.
Thanks again for the conversation. I’m a bit better, and normally, even on social media, I’d take the time to reorganize the structure, but I’m not at 100%. Thanks, too, then for your good wishes and for your willingness to work through the weeds with me.
We are allowed to disagree. Neither may be able to persuade the other on core issues. Sometimes there is just not the common ground or basis for communication necessary for one or the other to change their posture. About all I can do is recommend some literature and try to reframe once more, briefly.
We ostensibly live in a democracy. Children are born as citizens with all the rights, privileges, and protections as adults. They are a special class, however, because they are lacking in experience, discretion, various capabilities, maturity, and the physical size and strength to navigate in an adult world. The essential question is, how do we incorporate them into society and enable them to function adequately in their world?
My first observation is that it is THEIR world. But do we induct them as we induct soldiers and sailors into the military? Are we bullies who browbeat and badger them and take a “my way or the highway” posture with their indoctrination and schooling? Do we treat them as human beings and citizens, or do we treat them as inferiors and require their subservience? Can we make it clear to them from the earliest age that we will force them to attend school and that we will decide what they need to know and what they WILL know, yet somehow pretend that we are being kind, benevolent, and respectful to them as we march them through their drills and threaten them with failure if they have some problem with full compliance or tolerance for our rules, expectations, and endless restrictions?
You cannot have it both ways. If we want them to become adults, we have to be adults and recognize the reality. Children do not respond well to coercion, pressure, paternalistic domination, amelioration, or the transformation of their very being and character. Education cannot be whatever we say it is or what some ignorant and egotistical expert says it is. This is basic psychology.
Obviously, students need adult guidance and instruction. Obviously, those with training, experience, and expertise in a given discipline or field should be consulted and made available. Obviously, sometimes supervision and babysitting services are needed and in an institutional setting discipline and self-modulation is necessary. There is no reason whatsoever that all that cannot be achieved without laws which require attendance in schools. If schools truly offer what children need without repression and bureaucratic and authoritarian dominance, they will show up and ask more questions than we can ever answer. We are adults, not gods, and the state has no damn business creating curricula and dictating how students must behave to remain free and under parental protection.
I have mentioned many times the literature which is available. Goodman, Holt, Dewey, and so many others. Read Dr. Peter Gray’s essay, “School is Prison”, and reams of his other work. David Gabbard is a contemporary author and professor of education who last I knew was at Boise State. I have a bibliography a mile long but no one can be bothered to follow my leads.
Robert it is much more than demand that drives the media, though that is a factor, the demand is manipulated.
The corporate media is just that, corporate. Top down. Shareholders (often other companies and billionaires, drill down in these corporations who are shareholders of media, (Comcast, a right wing corporation) owns MSNBC, also Xfiniity cable and Frontier communications.
Corporations are overseen and managed by a board of directors who sit on other boards (interlocking BoD, they have or had a book available in a University reference libary "Who Owns Who"
The BoD, acting in the shareholders interest hires executives who are ruthless and who know that their prerogative is to not only provide shareholders with the best possible return on investment, but obey the corporate imperative, to protect shareholders, and other investments of shareholders.
So the CEO hires Editors, producers and staff that will "intuitively" toe the party line. They know who signs the pay check. The editors prime job is to ensure reporters, staff, produce news that will please and not upset the investors.
There is no independent media. Those that aren't corporate owned, are ideologically/religiously or politically "owned"
A small town paper, that doesn't toe the political line, will find itself under an existential threat, by everything from the mayor and city council to the mayor and even governor. Not to mention the threat of a hostile take over some millionaire or billionaire who doesn't want the public eye upon him
Like I said, I think that fear (of Dominion style lawsuits) can change conduct of the media. All corporations are audited and the audit reports require analysis of "contingent liabilities."
In the Delaware corporate litigation the plaintiffs allege that the Fox breached fiduciary duties by permitting the company’s news subsidiary to make false reports about the 2020 presidential election in order to avoid losing viewers. When Trump threatened MSNBC that's news.
Wow. I am sure that Dominion will settle. I understand that there other lawsuits against Murdoch, err Fox and I haven't heard about them from MSNBC.
Why hasn't MSNBC sued Fox for threats. I don't expect Garland to pick up the cudgel, not when the culprit is a Republican. He was sure eager to hand off Hunter to a Trump appointee, Weiss.
But Biden will not even ask him to step down, not even if Hunter was not under indictment.
Garland is ideologically compromised, if not assessing his post presidency options.
Not MSNBC, the DNC. Spent millions wasted at Fox 2020 and 2022.
Insurrection involves aiding, abetting and or giving comfort to insurrectionists. The police officer injured have a potential civil case for damages. Potential criminal also.
Another criticism of the DNC. Stupid beyond help. The dumbest liberal knows that advertising on Fox is a waste, and I think I read somewhere that Fox or was it Twitter was not accepting factual ads from Democrats. The ads that refute the Republican lies.
BTW I recall that Rupert ran Fox, out of his pocket for five years, as it took that long to be profitable. Another fact that refutes Ruperts claim that it is not Red or Blue but green. I distinctly remember in 1996 that Fox was wall to wall right wing and that Bill O'Reilly was his star
Thom Hartmann still surprises me with his unique genius of transforming the complex into the easily understood - while providing the historical receipts to back it all up. We are damn fortunate - especially in the context of Thom's piece today - to have this exceptional resource at our finger tips.
To the piece. It appears that both "fear and favor" are guiding the profit-first yellow journalism magaphone - not truth and context. This is fatal to a democracy under siege, and perhaps one of the most significant causes of such in the first place.
Our fourth estate's adamance in averting meaningful reporting feels a bit like they're all auditioning for some hypothetical future role to be the "official" media arm of a coming fascist state - and the behemoth corporate drama peddlers are putting on quite a performance. Fear AND favor.
As Thom has said in the past, truth has a liberal bias. I believe that. And to compound the issue, truth is a nonstarter in terms of profit when in competition with the drug that is forever circles of meaningless spectacle and irrelevant drama.
Rupert Murdoch said "it is not about red or blue, but green" and I don't believe him He is misdirecting. Sure money is a motivator but he has more than enough, he is driven by a different agenda and has at least an authoritarian impulse. He has set out to destroy Democracy, first Australia, then Britain, now the U.S.A. Aussies caught on, Brits and Americans haven't.
Osama bin Laden said, We will use your democracy to destroy you, but he is not the only one. the destroyers of democracy are legion, especially Rupert. The editors, journalists and talking heads of electronic and print media, know that their paycheck and careers depend on coloring inside the lines.
And what aids in that destruction is the purposeful misintepretation of the 1st Amendment.
I received a newsletter today (,Joyce Vance from Civil Discourse) that Elon Musks hides behinds the first amendment of that she said ". But the First Amendment does not apply to decisions made by a private company, like Twitter. And Twitter released sensitive personal information about users to journalists, which they in turn published. Numerous journalists and tech experts who reviewed the files were less than impressed and Twitter’s own lawyers said their internal documents didn’t support the claims that were being made."
She is correct all the 1st Amendment says is that "Congress shall make no law, that abridges the right to speech or assembly"
Even liberals hide behind the 1st Amendment when it serves their cause, and so does Whitehouse.gov, the 1st Amendment interpretation that one can say anything so long as it isn't akin to crying fire in a theater, is exactly what Osama was referring to "when he said we will use your freedoms to destroy you" And it is succeeding, consider the thousands, tens of gthousands anti semitic professors and students who are assaulting Jews over the HAMAS initiated war. The very same people, who call themselves leftists, but defend the anti-democratic, anti semitic misogynistic and homophobic governments and people, those that are Islamic.
I abhor the word "libtard" but it does apply to the professors and students who protested and cancel the speeches and acts of people like Bill Maher, whom is a libertarian bigot, because he called the abaya, burka, chador bee keeper suits and joked about the misogynistic, anti democratic. theocratic nature of Islam.
In case anyone objects. I have studied the Quran, haddiths and the biography of Muhammad by ibn Ishaq, and a Muslim called me murtadd, an apostate, because after all that "I just had to be a Muslim, because those books are the ineffable truth.
You don't need books, take the blinders off and look at the practices in Muslim ruled, or Muslim majority countries.
I read Reich's Substack yesterday and hundreds of comments about why Trump is polling ahead of Biden in spite of Biden's achievements. Then later, I saw a Richard Wolff interview on the same topic where Wolff stated voters are going for the "clownish" candidate, Trump, and the same is happening in Argentina and other countries. Wolff believes the populations are exhausted with politics as usual which doesn't seemed to have helped them economically. Therefore, they merely want a very different type of leader in a desperate attempt to change the system to something that might be better. Your "man bites dog" theory and the corporate media using yellow journalism to increase readers and viewers through use of yellow journalism as happened during the Gilded Age, is ramping up the danger of authoritarian rule. Reich also points out that we are in a second Gilded Age in his Wealth and Poverty class. Are Reich, Hartmann, Wolff, ProPublica, HC Richardson, etc. the new muckrackers we need to save the US from falling to authoritarianism? I hope it's not too late.
The population of voters is not finite. Polls ask existing registered voters. By next year 40% of voters will be young. 70% of young voters trend Democratic and can overwhelm old, tired, exhausted a-holes, who Wolff would call the lumpen proletariat.
Channel Taylor Swift. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10227578125173481&set=a.2177836920222
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1201183160/taylor-swift-instagram-voter-registration
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGDjbq-jhtK/?hl=en
I don't trust the polls, because I don't trust the pollsters and those who draw up the questions.
There is only one question "Who will you vote for", and not one poll asks that question.
Instead they ask are you happy with Biden, or some such, it is skewed.
If you asked me that question I would say no. But that deserves a follow up, which is never asked: Why, aren't you happy with Biden. My answer would be the likes of he appointed a right winger as Attorney General, who has set about subverting Democracy and protecting Trump. He has not pressured Schumer to change the rules to override Tuberville
I am not familiar with the rules of the senate, but found this via google
Any rule may be suspended without notice by the unanimous consent of the Senate, except as otherwise provided by the rules.
Schumer could have called for consent, and could have called for it when Republicans went back to their states. Or as chair call for a voice vote, and called for unanimous consent.
I can't believe that the rules allow a lone wolf like Tuberville to hold up over 300 nominations.. In fact if Schumer brought up a vote all that is required is 60 votes, he has 50 (Democrats) all he needs is 10 more, and there are certainly 10 pro defense Republican Senators
So why hasn't he. I suspect that he is running cover for a couple of pro abortion Democratic senators, or at least Senators whose states are delicately balanced and have relied on voters crossing party lines. Sherrod Brown of Ohio is one, John Tester of Montana is another. and is retiring Joe Manchin, who has is own Presidential ambitions.
Good point about young voters and we can be optimistic about that. But I don't think Wolff would call "old, tired, exhausted a-holes" lumpen proletariat.
Most certainly.
Biden has helped people economically. Maybe not all people, and maybe they are still struggling, and if they live in Red States they have no health care support or anything humane from their state government, and perhaps they are succumbing to the inhumanity of it all.
The sad truth seems to be that it's OK with the MAGA victims of no medicaid, etc, as long as those "n.........ers" and rapist, drug-dealing, diseased immigrants don't steal the tax dollars the MAGAs DON't pay (!). Twisted? Yup.
The situation with the corporate media is ipso facto proof that Trump was right, like a broken clock, that the media is the enemy of the people. By Trump saying that is enough to defend the media because Trump attacked, but like a broken clock he is often right twice a day, he only protests when the media, FBI etc "turns" against him.
He would not have been #45 were it not for the media, and the FBI. He trash talks Jack Smith, but not DOJ, for the simple reason that, aside from Smith, it is still his DOJ, staffed by his Schedule F appointees, and lawyers that are intrinsically conservative. Same with the FBI, DHS, NSA
What futility; if they want "a very different type of leader," but somehow looking to the crum-bum they already tried, and what did he ever do for them? Snatches of interviews seem to point to disinformation-generated delusion: the victims seem to be engulfed in a fantasy about how Trump actually did benefit them. It's not too late for "new muckrakers:" simply, nobody can hear them, which is the point of the article.
The billionaires attack on democracy is to keep from paying their fair share of taxes and without their fair share the masses will become unruly, crime will rise, death from poverty from lack of nutrition and medical will rise exponentially. There is only one solution for that, that I can think of, concentration camps for the poor people regardless of race. The camps can easily be changed into extermination camps. And if or the poor will be sent off to senseless wars for the rich. With no minimum wage America will look like dickinsonism revisited. Why anyone in their right mind would vote for this is beyond my comprehension. The only thing that comes to my mind is that famous phrase "forgive them for they know not what they do". It is hard for me to forgive people who cannot learn from the past and claim to be intelligent.
I forgot to mention Keith Olbermann and PBS. I have read several political books this year that have been recommended by comments in the stacks.
Keith was the only voice on MSNBC that I really trusted. He was fired for crossing the line. He was fired the day before ComCast took over from NBC Universal, and if you didn't know it ComCast is ultra conservative, and they tolerate the rather mild Maddow, Hayes, O'Donnell, new hires like Joy Reid and Al Sharpton, they know who signs their pay check and don't dare cross them. Poor Tiffany Cross didn't get the memo and she had a short lived career.
MSNBC, tolerates liberals, because they realized they couldn't compete with Fox, so they engage in something called market segmentation. There was no possibility in carving out any of Fox's readers, so they went for what is left, mostly old and middle aged liberals. You can tell that by their adds, Medicare disAdvantage and PhRMA.
Their ads are tailored to the elderly.
Fox ads are tailored towards the low IQ portion of society, the deplorables, scams like buying silver or gold clad non negotiable coins, and gold and silver scams.
If you buy gold or silver and wait a month to sell it, you have to go to a pawn shop, jeweler or broker (if you can find one) and you will discover that you get less than you paid.
What can be done about this?
The good news was Dominion v Fox, which should be an object lesson for the media, individually and collectively. $787 million. The best part is that in the discovery in that case further exposure looms. Rupert Murdoch was apparently just deposed in a $2.7 billion Smartmatic suit. His Philadelphia TV station risks losing its FCC license and among other problems, Fox faces $billions in shareholder derivative lawsuits in state court in Delaware.
Tuesday Trump called for “the government” to “come down hard” and “punish” MSNBC because of political criticism. Should be headlines in all media. IMHO every newspaper and media outlet that FAILED to cover Trump's threat to shut down MSNBC should be exposed, just like Fox.
Where are the whistleblowers at the other media?
BUT with Smartmatic we need a 'full blown' Court case?
Settlements are worthless in getting the facts out.
Bullshit.
Dominion helped itself financially, but did a real disservice to this country (and the world) by not insisting that Fox confess its lies; of course, they may have lost that gambit and received less payback. Now that's "Yellow Business-ship,' but that's the name of the game.
Much ado about nothing. Bird in hand worth 1,000,000 in bush.
The discovery admissions are public record. Murdoch fired the face of the network. I didn't list the other cases Fox has had to settle. Lachlan is now in charge.
What I don't understand is why DNC, that spent millions on Fox only to find out they were duplicitous hasn't sued? Why the victims of Jan 6 haven't sued?
Daniel. Your last question was surely rhetorical, because potential whistleblowers are hiding behind their desks, they are all too aware who signs their paychecks, and even Cassidy Hutchinson did't step forward until she was out of a job.
Whistle blowers get punished, from being fired and black listed, to being harassed, sued and even murdered or "suicided".
It was rhetorical.
But I heard 22 kinds of whistleblower cases. Sarbanes Oxley/Dodd Frank may apply. https://www.osha.gov/sites/default/files/publications/osha-factsheet-sox-act.pdf
I knew it was Daniel.
First, i can hear people asking, "who is Red Skelton???"? Second, I'm so disgusted with all the major "news" sources; they are handing the election to trump, just like in 2016. And it is not because they like him better than Joe, it's because his juvenile antics get readers. Trump is the Jerry Springer Show married to the Housewives of Long Island. It's pathetic, embarrassing, disheartening, and makes me very angry. It is not just the fault of the media, though; the American people have chosen this path with their addiction to tik tok and twitter and all the other flash social media. We are a very uninformed electorate, by choice.
My question is, to what extent do the addicts of Springer and Housewives know the "fun" is that the participants are pathetic and embarrassing? Trump addicts don't seem to get it that he is pathetic and embarrassing. Like the old "Emperor has no Clothes" parable. Huh.
Can't argue with Thom's history and statistics. Cause and effect? It's complicated.
The Fairness Doctrine worked for a country with ABC, NBC, and CBS; a country with a billion internet options not so much. President Obama certainly knows how to use the internet---that's how he was elected. According to an ABA article in 2009 titled "The Fairness Doctrine Redux", he favored "localism" with community advisory committees. Considering my community, oh hell no to that!
I like Thom's solution better---become a committee of one and urge your friends to do the same.
Drama is a horrible addiction, so is magical thinking. Enter the psychopath Trump and his addicted cult, things get very complicated indeed.
Help me understand this: If Ronald Reagan could end the Fairness Doctrine with the stroke of a pen, and simply direct the DOJ, FTC, and SEC to stop enforcing the anti-trust laws, why can't President Biden reinvigorate the Fairness Doctrine and direct the DOJ, FTC and SEC to start enforcing the anti-trust laws right now?
He could do the latter, and has already started the process: look at the lawsuit against Google. He can’t do the former as Obama removed the Fairness Doctrine from the FCC’s regulatory code.
Did not Clinton in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, eliminate the Fairness doctrine, not Obama.
I trust you, so apparently Obama had a (very disappointing play here) but I believe it was Clinton and the Telecommunications act that killed the fairness doctrine.. legally.
TCA was legislation and eliminated the cross-ownership rules and limits on the number of stations that one entity could own. FD was FCC reg and Obama’s FCC ended it. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/so-long-fairness-doctrine-75444/amp/
I stand enlightened. I could have sworn the TCA sunsetted the Fairness Doctrine, and again I am disappointed in Biden. I see the hand of Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers, Obama was inexperience and naive of DC power politics. Larry Summers jumped in Obama's face after he won the election, and Obama having no real history of DC politics, welcomed the help, and I am sure that Larry suggested Rahm as chief of staff and Geithner (miserable Geithner) as Secretary of the Treasury.
Biden was behind the repeal of Don't ask don't tell, and responsible for the DOJ's decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage act, the failure to defend led to Obergefell.
Rahm and Larry Summers most certainly were behind the ACA, it was a gift to AHIP, Association of Health Insurance Providers. as Regards Obama signing Dodd Frank, the bill was a populist liberal bill, and if he vetoed it, it would have angered his base as a betrayal.
There is a bureaucratic way of neutering a bill, just leave it up to regulatory capture.
In order to regulate the FCC needs to do a proposed notice, hold public hearings under the Administrative Procedure Act, to obtain a rational basis.
Even if they regulate, SCOTUS may say that Congress has not delegated authority under the language of the statute and/or find that the 1st amendment is sacrosanct.
Forgive my ignorance, but if Obama removed the Fairness Doctrine, why can't Biden put it back?
Ah...Ok...Got it. Thanks for helping me understand.
My comment was in error. Thom said it was Obama, not Clinton and I trust Thom
Thanks again.
Monday of this week, Reich did discuss these very issues in MSM reporting such as amplifying Biden's age for the least little flub while ignoring the insane daily rants that spew out of Trumps big yap that any reasonable person would attribute to mental deterioration (or rabid fascism). Sadly, the MSM is all about clickbait today because the more clicks and visits, the more they can charge advertisers. The dissolution of the NYT Sports Department is a classic example - just not making any money, I guess.
Polls suggest, GenZ and the majority of younger people get their main news from unreliable sources such as X, Instagram, etc. rather than from more reliable sources. Thus, it is not surprising that people still consider Trump as a viable presidential candidate even though he would be the equivalent of the fictional Emperor Palpatine thereby ending our constitutional democracy while he used his power to imprison/punish his enemies (business, political, and military).
Thanks to Protopage, I monitor over 50 MSM RSS feeds and another 20 not so mainstream, which makes it easier to spot real news floating in a sea of clickbait. Fortunately, there are numerous sites like Hartmann's, Engelhardt's, Heather Cox Richardson's and many others that make sense of current events and offer integrated perspectives. Sources like ProPublica, The Intercept, and Jacobin offer well-researched exposes rather than clickbait. Of course, one must pick through the noise to find more reliably fact-based analysis of current events - aka news.
One sad note that helps to validate Thom's and Bob Reich's assertions about the media is my little personal story about fascism. Back in 2018, I emailed Prof Robert Paxton author of the classic "The Anatomy of Fascism," and asked if he did not think Trump was a textbook fascist. To my surprise he responded that he doubted it. I was surprised because I used his criteria to come to that conclusion. Three years later, Paxton published an OpEd in Newsweek: "Donald Trump is a Fascist." However, the MSM did not start calling Trump and his GOP ilk fascist on a regular basis until 2023! Worse perhaps, associating Trump's rants with Nazis like Hitler (despite years of authors occasionally mentioning such things) has only appeared with any frequency in the MSM this past 4th quarter of 2023.
It has been pretty recognized that there has been a taboo about calling "fascist" or comparing to Hitler ever since the real thing. There has been in place a sort of threshold that using that comparison is automatically "over-the-top." To aim that epithet has been strongly pushed back against, as disqualifying the one employing it. Very effectively used by the right to censor criticism, but that was taking advantage of a legitimate strong "cringe effect." That the legitimacy of the observation is being recognized even now is progress.
I think that it is only progress if people wake up to the fact that here we go again, only this time it will be the USA who will be the international pariah; not Italy or Germany. That the GOP has not changed its name despite its anti-democratic hateful behavior and goals is further evidence that it knows exactly what it is doing and following Adolf's modus operandi with care. The parents of my German friends all told me a similar story - that Hitler was not taken seriously (just like Trump) until it was too late to stop him. It was, like today, a cadre of ultra rich enablers and a party of easily-conned violently-angry and racist working class citizens (Stalin's useful idiots comes to mind) that pulled off the coup. Our one hope is that the US constitutional democracy will hold. Unlike post-WWI Deutschland, our military is about the only institution that has not completely lost its sense of honor. It stopped the MAGAs Jan 6, and hopefully will do it again if the Dems wise up that Tuberville is key to neutralizing the chain of command in the hope of undermining the military's resistance to the neo-Nazi takeover.
BTW, the Deep State is real. I used to be part of it. But I am also aware of a deeper-state of angry MAGA fascist enablers waiting for the chance to enable the MAGA coup by undermining their bosses who honor their oaths. They salivate at being appointed to lead the new fascist government while their bosses are tossed into the street. Some are in law enforcement like last time, and some, like Gen Flynn are in the Pentagon.
He could, but the blowback would be massive. Maybe after the election…if he wins.
Yeah, but doesn't "massive blowback" justify the Insurrection Act? Putin has shown the way.
Thank you for reaffirming that we are not misreading the tea leaves, so to speak. There is no question in my mind that the main stream media is complicit in the effort to destroy democracy. Decades ago, tv stations viewed the new shows as "loss leaders". Newspapers counted on advertisers to support investigative journalism and filled their news rooms with credentialed, ethical reporters.
Those days have gone by the wayside as most, if not all, of our main stream media outlets are now corporate owned by businesses conglomerates traded on the stock market. Hence, their fiduciary responsibility is to their shareholders and their corporate leaders, not to the truth.
Honest reporting has been replaced by whatever garners a "click" or a "follow". The main stream media no longer cares about bolstering democracy. They don't care about reporting the accomplishments of the Biden administration. And, most important, they no longer care about fair and just reporting at all.
I can't post icons, but a standing ovation is in order Rebel
I want to scream, but don’t think many will hear me!! I hope this gets wide circulation Thom.
Post it everywhere you can! ;)
So now what? Everyone should only pay individually to subscribe to the authors we want to read or can afford? That isn’t a solution.
what was it that prompted people to respond to either Clinton or Trump's comments? Did the research find that out?
I was at a diner the day after election in 2016. A person next to me said, "when she called me deplorable, that was it." I let that sink in and it still troubles me.
Richard it didn't matter what Hillary called them. Those that voted for Trump were deplorables and would have voted for Trump regardless. They resented being told what they were, deplorables.
These would be fascist theocratic bigots Will vote for their god head, or anyone who will serve as their avatar and dear leader.
Like the miners daughter Clementine, they are lost and gone forever, and they will only change when their horse stomps on their head.
If the Democrats are trying to capture some fascist votes, forget about it, they are wasting time and money. Life Musk said in his interview "fuck them", They are unreachable and highly motivated, more than liberals and independents to vote their druthers.
After thousands of years of using force to educate children, look what it has gotten us? The cycle of life is to play, learn, than teach. Making learning fun educates the children who naturally want to play better than force does. Force just leads to a lot of behavioral problems. They especially don't like being told what to do when they grow up. A real problem with authority. Wear that mask! Even though it's the right thing to do, the victims of negative reinforcements will object. Sesame Street did a good job of teaching the children to have fun while learning. Most adults don't know how to have fun and can't teach their children how to play or have fun. Learning should be fun and interesting, not being forced fed a bunch of bologna they are not interested in.
Bob, I can relate to that. I hated HS, only attended 90 days in three years, but was hungry for knowledge and received my education in a public library, with the help of the librarian who suggested books (gave me reading assignments) then quizzed me, those were days before cliff notes. Which I disdained and still do. I didn't use them in university either and have a Masters.
Forgive my ignorance, but if Obama could remove the Fairness Doctrine, why can't Biden put it back?
Don’t forget Rupert Murdoch’s role in this attack upon English speaking democratic states. He is a British Empire yellow press Nepo baby and learned the dirtiest of Black Propaganda tricks at his Daddy’s knee. He has been called in by far right politicians as a propaganda troubleshooter in the UK since the 1960s. He moved into the US political arena full time in the Reagan era.
In my humble opinion one of the most effective Jujitsu propaganda vehicles these past decades for those who wish to live in an enlightened democracy is The Simpsons.
One just doesn't understand why destruction is the life's work. Is forwarding any harmony really that boring/unmarketable? Now we have Elon. He's supposed to be smart, so harm to humanity must be his goal.
Overweening vanity and low emotional intelligence are a dangerous mix. Place any power in the hands of such individuals and terrible destruction of intelligentsias and creatives and deadly exploitation of cultures for their personal pride is inevitable. Musk or Murdoch or Kissinger - by their fruits we shall (unfortunately) know them.
Neil Postman published his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” about 1985 in which he predicted with impressive accuracy the state of affairs we have today with entertainment, distraction, and irrelevance substituting for valid and meaningful dialogue in our media and in our interpersonal interactions. He largely blamed the degradation of the public discourse on television and emerging technologies focused on producing income by appealing to the desire to be protected from reality. Now, we have a panoply of devices to distract us every moment of the day.
There are two sides of the equation, however. The demand side is habitually left completely out of the discussion. If we fail to take notice that the producers of “news” and programmers are responding to a certain demand and satisfying a market for irrelevance, trivia, and senseless nonsense, we will never solve the equation.
If the public has an aversion to thought, contemplation, rumination, detailed and accurate information, and confronting real problems where they are found, it is their deficiency and aversion as much as the lure of entertainment which must be understood. I will repeat my mantra. Students who are inundated with abstract and meaningless (to them) data and information and who are deluged with academic busywork, doctrinaire presentations of filtered and sanitized facts for their entire youth, are constantly denied the occasion and opportunity to simply think and sort out for themselves what is important and what knowledge is useful, relevant, and meaningful to them.
When the child is required to attend school to learn to read, reading becomes a daunting task, a duty, a bore, and something to be done for some purpose other than answering one’s personal and logical questions. When the child is fed a diet of predigested and abstract crap as part of a “common core curriculum”, and when he or she is made to perform like a lab rat and pass examinations the most sensible reaction is aversion and in many cases a fear of knowing enough to understand what one can do nothing about.
Postman was a teacher and co-wrote the book, “Teaching as a Subversive Activity”. This is where we need to start looking for how we got to where we are today. Our schools have it all bass ackwards. Our approach is counterproductive and destructive. Our laws compelling school attendance create a mindset that can only lead to foolishness and irrelevance. It isn’t rocket science. Tolstoy spelled it out for us in his essays on education in 1862! Dewey, Goodman, Holt, and many others didn't mince words. Trying to force education or mass produce it through coercion and paternalism is just plain sick.
If you want independent thinkers immune mere amusement and distraction, work with your local school board for (1) teachers who have degrees in their subject matter; they will be more confident and comfortable with the material, (2) fewer students in a class, so that discussion and intellectual play is possible, (3) fewer preps for each teacher, so that innovation and creativity are more likely. When there are 30+ kids in a class with a teacher who has only a minor, say, in history and must teach 5 courses, districts chose to use more and more corporate produced materials and assessments. With a PhD in literature, I was lucky enough to have no more than four preps and 45 students total. But parents paid $31,000 for the privilege. That’s the kind of education every child deserves, and it could happen if there was an enough political will.
Cassandra,
When the ship’s hull is riddled with holes, for whatever reason, trying to repair the damage with tape or patches may slow the process, but the ship is doomed. It's going to sink. Or, tying to fill up the few lifeboats to save some passengers means leaving many others to go down with the ship. The brave attempts to do whatever one can to help some students or to improve some classes or schools is admirable. I would never think of discouraging anyone from doing the things they find to be helpful and a move in the right direction. However, the educational wheel has been re-invented countless times and the problems only get more urgent and devastating.
I have a lot of ideas about what should and could change. Your suggestions appear to be excellent for a thought experiment or a test program, model, or program, also. There is no shortage of fantastic schemes and designs for a more humane and inviting atmosphere and institutional arrangement. The problem is that there is and always has been a brick wall blocking change.
Innovation invariably requires different attitudes, relationships, and methodologies. It requires that power dynamics must be changed. It requires that teachers and students have much more autonomy and that they be seen as free agents and creators of knowledge, rather than recipients of pre-existing knowledge, pre-digested information, and pre-fabricated curricula. You can hope for the best and ask for miracles and you can plead and beg for more and better resources, but traditional schooling is not going to improve significantly until there is a major paradigm shift in how people think and behave, and that cannot happen as long as schooling remains compulsory as a function of unconstitutional, paternalistic, and counterproductive laws designed to place limits on independent thinking and uninhibited intellectual growth and exploration.
The degree of training and expertise of teachers and class sizes do matter, of course. The issue is that throwing money at the problems and making great sacrifices and promises has failed in the past to yield the expected results. The reactionaries and the people who do not believe in people, in democracy, in intellectual endeavors, or in science want the status quo to continue and they will resist all attempts to implement true change. They are in positions of power because of the bad laws giving the state ultimate authority over what should be in the hands of parents, teachers, and community leaders. Education is not like any other issue in that it is ineffable and a personal attribute that cannot be super-imposed from some authority or agency. Critical thinking comes from life experience, good modelling, decision-making, clear thinking, and a positive orientation about one's own capabilities and future. Coercion and conditioning under pressure and threats of failure or rejection are toxic and a constant barrier to critical thought.
Thanks for the time and effort you put into your comment. I have read every word, and agree with what you say. I tend to be more evolutionary than revolutionary. Paradigm shifts happen, at least according to Kuhn, when normal science (normal pedagogy here) keeps producing anomalies. The anomalies cause the shift in perspective and practice. I’m leery of outright revolutions insofar as they tend to ignore generations that get left on the side of the road. And pedagogical research does tend to favor normal practices, looking only for the next big fix, heading off any shift of the kind you and I are talking about. There’s a lot of prestige and power that accumulates for the person/school that articulates a new approach. And corporations are eager to produce the texts and assessments. We’re still attempting to make teacher-proof classrooms,, ones that run like clockwork, churning out obedient citizens.
I think that a lot of in-the-meantime work can be done. I’m 74 and running out of time to continue my efforts, but I am hopeful. In spite of a lot that looks patriarchal, colonializing, and white supremacist, good work is being done at the faculty level. When teachers push back in their districts, and when students push back in colleges of education, we may make some headway. Paulo Freire still has an influence with students, and I think that’s good news.
I apologize if this is a bit of a mess. I’m under the weather, so foggy headed. But, again, thanks for the respect your answer accords mine.
Cassandra,
Cynicism is depressing. But I am unable to share what I interpret as your guarded optimism with respect to “in-the-meantime work” students, teachers, or other faculty and theorists chomping at the bit for a bloodless and painless paradigm shift will hopefully do.
My biggest problem seems to be in convincing anyone that I am also more about evolution than revolution, and that what I propose is optimal because it is not based on false hope, grandiose strategies and methodologies, or miracles brought about by rare genius. The paradigm shift I know must occur is in a wide understanding that schooling has wrongly been confused with education, and that education cannot be mass produced through force of law.
Freedom and autonomy are not revolutionary. Democracy is not novel or untested in school or elsewhere. The elimination of arbitrary authority and oppressive bureaucracy are not dangerous alternatives which risk some impending chaos or disaster.
I have made the comparison before several times between eradicating compulsory attendance and removing a malignant cancer. One does not ‘reform’ or ‘remodel’ a cancerous tumor. If it is operable, one does the necessary surgery with a scalpel. Once the cancerous tissue is removed, the immune system may protect the body and healing may take place. In the schooling example, the brilliant ideas and the simple practices which are well documented and proven in numerous free schools and even in some extraordinary traditional environments on a limited scale will no longer be impossible to implement for the long term and on a large scale. We have created innumerable convoluted problems because of false assumptions, beliefs, and mythology. We could undo what has been done without significant cost or conflict and stop the totally unnecessary pain and unforced errors. Why would anyone want to make it more complicated or difficult than it needs to be?
I hope you are feeling better soon.
Ok. I see where we differ. I don’t think we can agree on everything here, and I have a hard time even with a thought experiment that might involve not making public school mandatory. I’m not being flippant when I say that perhaps young folks need to be more involved in how and where they are educated, but, and I know these are not your words, I can’t imagine what a non-bureaucratic institution would look like. Would students ultimately chose tutors for themselves and have no obligation to them to show up and complete a course of work? Even apprenticeships require some kind of covenant. I may be hopelessly dense on this score and need an imagination transplant. I’m endeavoring to look at what I see as logical consequences.
I do think you are right about “ …brilliant ideas and the simple practices which are well documented and proven in numerous free schools and even in some extraordinary traditional environments on a limited scale will no longer be impossible to implement for the long term and on a large scale.” These things do happen sometimes in well administered schools and sometimes in spite of administration. What I think would be conducive to the hope you have (qtd) is to rid public education of national “no child, etc” programs, college board, and university expectations that students who apply have taken the full panoply of standardized tests. For example, when I was a teacher/administrator, several of us talked to college admissions officers; to a person, they agreed that the most important piece in a student’s application was the recommendation from the teachers and immediate admin/counselor. Getting those personal and often powerful letters means that the teachers must have time to know each student, how they work, think, discuss … publics are overrun with obligations for creating compliant, even docile citizens.
Thanks again for the conversation. I’m a bit better, and normally, even on social media, I’d take the time to reorganize the structure, but I’m not at 100%. Thanks, too, then for your good wishes and for your willingness to work through the weeds with me.
We are allowed to disagree. Neither may be able to persuade the other on core issues. Sometimes there is just not the common ground or basis for communication necessary for one or the other to change their posture. About all I can do is recommend some literature and try to reframe once more, briefly.
We ostensibly live in a democracy. Children are born as citizens with all the rights, privileges, and protections as adults. They are a special class, however, because they are lacking in experience, discretion, various capabilities, maturity, and the physical size and strength to navigate in an adult world. The essential question is, how do we incorporate them into society and enable them to function adequately in their world?
My first observation is that it is THEIR world. But do we induct them as we induct soldiers and sailors into the military? Are we bullies who browbeat and badger them and take a “my way or the highway” posture with their indoctrination and schooling? Do we treat them as human beings and citizens, or do we treat them as inferiors and require their subservience? Can we make it clear to them from the earliest age that we will force them to attend school and that we will decide what they need to know and what they WILL know, yet somehow pretend that we are being kind, benevolent, and respectful to them as we march them through their drills and threaten them with failure if they have some problem with full compliance or tolerance for our rules, expectations, and endless restrictions?
You cannot have it both ways. If we want them to become adults, we have to be adults and recognize the reality. Children do not respond well to coercion, pressure, paternalistic domination, amelioration, or the transformation of their very being and character. Education cannot be whatever we say it is or what some ignorant and egotistical expert says it is. This is basic psychology.
Obviously, students need adult guidance and instruction. Obviously, those with training, experience, and expertise in a given discipline or field should be consulted and made available. Obviously, sometimes supervision and babysitting services are needed and in an institutional setting discipline and self-modulation is necessary. There is no reason whatsoever that all that cannot be achieved without laws which require attendance in schools. If schools truly offer what children need without repression and bureaucratic and authoritarian dominance, they will show up and ask more questions than we can ever answer. We are adults, not gods, and the state has no damn business creating curricula and dictating how students must behave to remain free and under parental protection.
I have mentioned many times the literature which is available. Goodman, Holt, Dewey, and so many others. Read Dr. Peter Gray’s essay, “School is Prison”, and reams of his other work. David Gabbard is a contemporary author and professor of education who last I knew was at Boise State. I have a bibliography a mile long but no one can be bothered to follow my leads.
Robert it is much more than demand that drives the media, though that is a factor, the demand is manipulated.
The corporate media is just that, corporate. Top down. Shareholders (often other companies and billionaires, drill down in these corporations who are shareholders of media, (Comcast, a right wing corporation) owns MSNBC, also Xfiniity cable and Frontier communications.
Corporations are overseen and managed by a board of directors who sit on other boards (interlocking BoD, they have or had a book available in a University reference libary "Who Owns Who"
The BoD, acting in the shareholders interest hires executives who are ruthless and who know that their prerogative is to not only provide shareholders with the best possible return on investment, but obey the corporate imperative, to protect shareholders, and other investments of shareholders.
So the CEO hires Editors, producers and staff that will "intuitively" toe the party line. They know who signs the pay check. The editors prime job is to ensure reporters, staff, produce news that will please and not upset the investors.
There is no independent media. Those that aren't corporate owned, are ideologically/religiously or politically "owned"
A small town paper, that doesn't toe the political line, will find itself under an existential threat, by everything from the mayor and city council to the mayor and even governor. Not to mention the threat of a hostile take over some millionaire or billionaire who doesn't want the public eye upon him
Like I said, I think that fear (of Dominion style lawsuits) can change conduct of the media. All corporations are audited and the audit reports require analysis of "contingent liabilities."
In the Delaware corporate litigation the plaintiffs allege that the Fox breached fiduciary duties by permitting the company’s news subsidiary to make false reports about the 2020 presidential election in order to avoid losing viewers. When Trump threatened MSNBC that's news.
Wow. I am sure that Dominion will settle. I understand that there other lawsuits against Murdoch, err Fox and I haven't heard about them from MSNBC.
Why hasn't MSNBC sued Fox for threats. I don't expect Garland to pick up the cudgel, not when the culprit is a Republican. He was sure eager to hand off Hunter to a Trump appointee, Weiss.
But Biden will not even ask him to step down, not even if Hunter was not under indictment.
Garland is ideologically compromised, if not assessing his post presidency options.
Dominion has already collected.
Not MSNBC, the DNC. Spent millions wasted at Fox 2020 and 2022.
Insurrection involves aiding, abetting and or giving comfort to insurrectionists. The police officer injured have a potential civil case for damages. Potential criminal also.
Another criticism of the DNC. Stupid beyond help. The dumbest liberal knows that advertising on Fox is a waste, and I think I read somewhere that Fox or was it Twitter was not accepting factual ads from Democrats. The ads that refute the Republican lies.
BTW I recall that Rupert ran Fox, out of his pocket for five years, as it took that long to be profitable. Another fact that refutes Ruperts claim that it is not Red or Blue but green. I distinctly remember in 1996 that Fox was wall to wall right wing and that Bill O'Reilly was his star
Murdoch was subsidized by the Saudis.