FOG NEWS
The news is screwing us. There are so many ways to acquire information these days, but just as many ways to be conned and manipulated.
Talking Bag is seriously considering another mental health news blackout, but there are reasonable voices out there:
(On Contact)
"Robert Scheer – the Editor-in-Chief of Truthdig, and author of 'They Know Everything About You: How Data-Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies Are Destroying Democracy' – discusses the New MaCartheyism underway to silence the left-wing press. RT correspondent Anya Parampil looks at the apparent efforts to marginalize online left-wing journalists."
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The U.S. hysteria regarding claims that Russia influenced the 2016 election is ridiculous on its face. As if ads on social media are the most dangerous game changer, if without evidence you believe the Russian government posted ads to change the game. How about worrying about how much damage is caused by the reporting on all the major news outlets, Fox being the worst of a sad lot. How about considering election irregularities and voting machine integrity? How about wondering why third party candidates are given short shrift, while the Duopoly gets round the clock coverage. We rigged our own system, not the Ruskies.
The mainstream media and their comedy shows, what passes for real news these days, are tools for the establishment, propaganda that makes you laugh. Regular news programs are propaganda that isn't even funny.
I heard a few minutes of NPR while driving this week, it drove me crazy. Here's a taste:
After David Green announces that interest in a third party is currently at the highest level ever recorded in a poll, 61%, indicating that the majority of Americans want alternatives to Democrats and Republicans, he discusses our political party system with Cokie Roberts (a career journalist from a privileged family, not an historian).
(Morning Edition)
She of course said nothing substantive. She mentioned that Washington didn't belong to a party, but didn't mention that he was one of the richest men in the colonies and by far the wealthiest president, well...before Trump. Money in politics and an American aristocracy started pretty early.
Cokie said nothing about the legal and illegal suppression of votes, or the suppression of participation in democracy from individuals and organizations outside of the two party system. There is a lot of dirt out there proving that the Rs and Ds crush outsiders using a host of dirty tricks, not just making it very hard to get on a ballot.
She might have said something about the poor ranking the U.S. has compared to other democracies around the world, or that corporations usurped control of the presidential debates that used to be run more fairly by the League of Women Voters, or she might have voiced concern about Citizens United and how political action committees with virtually unlimited funds use propaganda to manipulate public opinion.
She might have said a lot of things, but no, kooky Cokie talked sweetly about irrelevancies before concluding:
"...the main impact of third-party candidates, is to influence an election, not to win it."
Wow! Amazing that we have a democracy where 61% of the electorate can't effect change!
Part of the reason may be that news services serve their masters, not the general population, even when they purport to be public institutions. Check out this piece questioning PBS:
(YouTube.com)
Published on Sep 2, 2016
A Jill Stein interview on PBS with Judy Woodruff was heavily edited to remove portions where she spoke about Hillary's pro-corporate and pro-fracking ties. The full interview was livestreamed but the posted video had the edits. Youtuber Matt Orfalea noticed the discrepancy and made a video detailing the edits. His post went viral but was removed by Facebook.
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