Will Bunch expresses what I’ve been thinking since Trump was elected. American democracy is under attack from within. The fascists who yearn for an authoritarian government in the media are promoting it, and the media who supposedly don’t support it fail to recognize it. They are busy trying to follow the political playbook of the 20th century.
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This seemingly (though not really) simple truth is really propaganda. CNN isn’t unbiased, but then, no one is. Fox News is blatantly lying. Mentioning both sides is a way of whitewashing the truth about the worse actor. Tying the complaint to corporate profits is a way of disguising the real message.
No one should take news reporting at face value. Everyone should be educated in media literacy. But there’s a big difference between a motivated agenda and outright disinformation.
A side-observation that I think is truly only coincidence: user name is Kool_Newt. Newt Gingrich is one of the people I blame most for setting us on this cursed path of culture war and lunacy. It definitely existed long before him (Caning of Charles Sumner), but he lit that fuse on fire and fanned the flames.
https://uh.edu/~englin/rephandout.html
https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/gingrich-language-set-new-course/O5bgK6lY2wQ3KwEZsYTBlO/
Yup. Newt did everything possible to sow division and hatred. Even instructing others on how to go about it.
And then he had the audacity to claim Obama was “divisive”, blah blah blah.
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I disagree. Tying all press to government funding is the surest way to captured media by the ruling party. If journalists are not independent then they are not a check against power.
This is an incredibly short sighted, simplistic view of journalism. If for profit companies don’t pay journalists, then who does? Good luck crowd sourcing an international news bureau. If everyone is the press, then no one is because how do you know who’s telling the truth and who isn’t?
You act like all companies are evil and all individuals and co-ops are somehow pure of heart. It would be the same shit disinfo, just with worse production value.
Not to mention the current American political climate was started in the mid 90’s by Newt Gingrich. He created the philosophy of “party before country,” along with the launch of 24/7 news networks, which is largely responsible for the mess you see today. ⁸ It’s going to take the same amount of time that started this mess to reverse it.
PS: Let’s not forget about the “my way, or the highway” generation, Boomers. Once most of them are out of office we’ll start to see the trend reverse.
Honestly not sure where people come up with theories like this. What about the various Red Scares and McCarthyism? Variations on the same theme go back throughout history - the phenomenon isn’t about some unique American exceptionalist trait, it’s a consequence of the tide of the avarice of rulers meeting the tide of the mindless tendencies of the masses towards group mentalities. Power necessitates a way to gather support and creating an in-group and out-group accomplishes that.
Because it’s factual history at this point…
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/07/07/newt-gingrich-republican-party
https://history.princeton.edu/about/publications/burning-down-house-newt-gingrich-fall-speaker-and-rise-new-republican-party
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/
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Everyone has an agenda, whether it’s ideological, malice, etc.