As we approach the New Year, quaking at the prospect of a mentally disturbed President, it is important to hear Bernie Sanders discuss how our corporate news media has failed us. If people are ignorant of the basic issues, what do their votes matter? By propagating the Big Lies of Trump, the mainstream media normalizes him. Their interest in doing this is ratings and advertising revenue. Beyond that pecuniary interest though, lies the reality that the mainstream media is the propaganda arm of the corporatocracy.
Mike Spindell
Economics, History, Information Technology, Mythology, Politics, Propaganda, The Arts, Video
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21 thoughts on “Thoughts For The New Year: Bernie Sanders on the Danger of Our Corporate Controlled Media”
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ElephantTail 
December 29, 2016 at 11:16 am
A concurrent view of the corporate media focused on MSNBC. http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/media-spent-election-teaching-americans-how-love-dictator-what-will-they-do-him-office
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December 29, 2016 at 11:26 am
And the media view from Heather (Digby) Parton, who is one of the best political commentators around: http://www.salon.com/2016/12/29/donald-trump-media-enablers-digby/
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December 29, 2016 at 8:33 pm
” The party he now leads was already at a peak moment of extremism and are unable and unwilling to act as a moderating force. And the modern media environment has made it possible for a fabulist like Trump to create an alternate narrative that is likely to be believed by millions of his followers, who are already far more gullible than most people.”
I think I agree that the Ryans of the party are both unwilling and unable to restrain Trump.
But I think it is wistful thinking to assume the party is at a peak of extremism – perhaps a local maximum. I see nothing to suggest the party cannot go much further. Is rounding up ethnic groups out of the question? I hope so. But I don’t think anyone can say with certainty.
Further, I don’t believe ‘gullible’ properly describes many of Trump’s followers. “Easily persuaded” does not capture the fact that some of these people eagerly assume and defend a position despite well known facts and far beyond the normal rules of inference and logic.
I am not sure what word we should use to describe Trump’s followers. But ‘gullible’ does not describe many of them.
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December 30, 2016 at 11:36 am
BFM: some of these people eagerly assume and defend a position despite well known facts and far beyond the normal rules of inference and logic.
Sounds like cultists, to me. I think they believe, literally, in a magic solution, they are no different than those that put their trust in God, Christ, Mohammed, Karma, or any other supernatural entities or phenomena, despite all reason, the rules of inference and logic.
I think they truly believe in the divinity of kings, that Trump thinks in ways beyond their own comprehension or understanding, so they just trust him to deliver on what seem like impossible promises. Of course Democrats talking about Obama “playing ten-dimensional chess” were no different, they also believed completely that he could think in ways beyond their comprehension or understanding, so they just trusted Obama to deliver on what seemed like impossible promises (that turned out to be, um, not possible).
95% of the world population is cultists that rely upon others to do the difficult thinking for them. In this election, the Democratic cultists narrowly lost to the Republican cultists.
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December 30, 2016 at 1:53 pm
@mm: ” … the Democratic cultists narrowly lost to the Republican cultists.”
Unfortunately for all of us, the Republican cultists are far more dangerous – not to mention cunning and ruthless.
Before someone accuses me of ad hominem attack on poor Republicans, let me just say the Republican plans for Medicaid seems dangerous for millions of citizens to me. And the takeover of so many governors office and state legislatures seems the very essence of cunning. I could go on from ACA to nuclear winter, but I think you get the gist of my view.
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December 30, 2016 at 3:42 pm
BFM: the Republican cultists are far more dangerous
I consider that is a matter of perspective. It is worse when Democrats are half as bad (as Republicans) because it creates a consensus view. The prime example being when RomneyCare became ObamaCare and thus the best we can possibly do under ANY administration.
But we can go earlier, to Bill Clinton’s welfare “reform” that did what he promised, ended welfare as we knew it forever. Or accepting the “war on drugs”, with direct and collateral damage ruining the lives of millions of convicted people (or people killed by police) while creating enormous hardships for their parents and spouses and children.
Or Clinton’s chicken-shit Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. Unlike Republicans, when Democrats adopt a “conservative” policy they transform it into a bipartisan policy that will cause permanent harm for decades, or even forever. But this is a a one-sided equation; what the Republicans do under Trump can be undone by Democrats in the same position; it is temporary, the true danger of permanent damage to 95% of Americans occurs when Democrats in Congress with a Democratic President adopt corporate friendly, wealth-friendly, socially conservative and trade friendly policy.
And the only reason they are allowed to do that is because of the cultish obedience of Democratic voters that have decided to let the self-serving leadership do their thinking for them.
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December 30, 2016 at 7:02 pm
From the Alternet Article link:
“The next commander-in-chief is an impulsive, deceitful, corrupt, intellectually lazy megalomaniac. That’s a delicious character disorder for the villain of a comic book, and it’s ideally suited to a news industry whose audience is addicted to melodrama and whose narrative technique maximizes suspense, surprise and dread. Though horror is a thrilling genre, and real-time tension is irresistible to our animal appetites, there’s no guarantee that the scary story we’re living through will have a happy ending.”
That’s an interesting analogy I hadn’t thought of. I don’t watch news, I don’t like horror movies. I think I take a much more Zen attitude. It doesn’t take much for me to predict the direction of the political future, I think it is a ship steered by simpletons, in nearly every country. So at this point I don’t worry about what Trump will do, or won’t do, or what comes out of his mouth which I consider to be devoid of information about what he really will do or won’t do. I don’t worry about his cabinet picks, or Supreme Court picks, or tax policy, or interactions with Congress. I assume when something happens, it will be awful. But I also assume when it happens, there is nothing that me worrying about could have done about it.
My email was cleaned last night, and this morning had forty three unread messages, fourteen asking me for donations to help them stop Trump. Or, you know, pay their salary while they do something completely ineffective, because it isn’t really possible to “stop Trump”, he isn’t going to respond to your rallies, petitions, boycotts, begging or crying with anything different than what he was going to do anyway. And obviously, because these same outlets were in the business of spending donations long before Trump got elected, they aren’t very effective at doing whatever they do, if they couldn’t stop him when it was plausibly possible — Why should I think they have a shot at it now, when he has real political power?
I had something like nine asking me to sign online petitions to stop Trump nominees. Please count up for me the Republican Senators that will switch their vote from Yea to Nay, based on how many thousands of people clicked “sign” on an online petition. If you came up with more than zero, I think you miscounted. These things are just a ruse to collect email addresses so they can beg you for donations, to pay their salary for sending out this kind of bullshit false hope.
Online media is just as money grubbing and profit driven as TV media.
I’ll wait for the bad news I am absolutely certain will arrive, and deal with the reality the day it dawns.
In the meantime, I don’t worry. Worry is a survival emotion, of course. It serves to focus the mind on potential actions you can take to prevent harmful events. But once you realize you are taking all the mitigating actions possible and there is no more you can do, it is time to stop worrying, it just gets in the way.
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December 31, 2016 at 7:50 am
Update: Another few dozen desperate pleas for my donations today. Several about they are down to the wire for donations this year and can’t survive if they don’t meet their goal (which I don’t think they can meet, but of course they will still be emailing me tomorrow, which means they are lying to me…)
However I notice a pattern that raises a question: I am told time and again, Trump and his policies and his cabinet picks are “unacceptable.” It seems like the new buzzword. And hype. What does it mean to say I don’t accept Trump as President? Or I don’t accept Person X as his choice for position Y?
Aren’t his picks just facts? Since when do we get a choice? It isn’t like we can walk away.
Here is my plea: It is not acceptable to me that tectonic plate movement continues to cause disasters that have killed over a million people in 2016 alone, and destroyed the homes, towns and glassware of countless more. Did you know tectonic plate movement, as innocent as that sounds, can be linked to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions? Any of these can force home owners like you to pay thousands of dollars for foundation repairs, which may not be covered by your insurance. So please sign my petition against ALL future tectonic plate movements, especially in the USA. And when you have done that, please contribute $10 to help me continue this important work. I truly believe that together, simply by making people aware of the issue, we can STOP this careless, and frankly completely unacceptable and pointless movement of tectonic plates that has been so heartbreakingly devastating to so many.
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December 31, 2016 at 10:22 am
–My email was cleaned last night, and this morning had forty three unread messages, fourteen asking me for donations to help them stop Trump. Or, you know, pay their salary while they do something completely ineffective, because it isn’t really possible to “stop Trump”, he isn’t going to respond to your rallies, petitions, boycotts, begging or crying with anything different than what he was going to do anyway. And obviously, because these same outlets were in the business of spending donations long before Trump got elected, they aren’t very effective at doing whatever they do, if they couldn’t stop him when it was plausibly possible — Why should I think they have a shot at it now, when he has real political power?-
MM,
Yes I get similar volume of similar E Mail each day and not surprisingly they all plead with me for my donations to their particular cause….or else dire things will happen. I get them from Congressmen and Senators from far flung areas of the country. I am also getting and I expect you are getting too, urgent requests for me to fill out polling preferences, that are merely hooks to bring me to requests for funds. The ones that amuse me most are organizations that I have not joined, threatening me that my membership will lapse, if I do not respond with a donation. Finally, there are the petitions that I am urged to sign importuning various Republican controlled entities to desist in some despicable behavior. As you have stated, the question as to why I should support institutions with such a history of failure, is never answered. Oh yes, Debbie Wasserman Schultz keeps E Mailing me as if I was a supporter.
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January 1, 2017 at 8:09 am
Wishing you all survival in 2017! But while I have your ear, I have to ask: Are you pro-earthquake, or anti-earthquake? Because I cannot help but notice you haven’t supported our awareness campaign on killer tectonic plate movements [TPM].The public needs to be aware of these lethally dangerous plates, and we need to expose the many politicians that have all but admitted they have no intent of doing anything about TPM. Oh, they will “watch the issues”, but standing by and watching while literally millions of Americans could be killed by just one aggressive Cascadia movement? Unacceptable. Let’s make 2017 the year we hold their feet to the fire. The smallest amount will help, but the more you give the more we can do. With gratitude and solidarity in the face of TPM adversity, MoreMozart and the Stop TPM Team.
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January 1, 2017 at 10:51 am
@mm: “The public needs to be aware of these lethally dangerous plates, … ”
What is it with you people? Plates and their movement are as natural as the air we breathe. And even if there is some problem with the plates, man certainly did not cause their movement and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
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January 1, 2017 at 11:08 am
BFM: Man did not survive and thrive by just accepting whatever nature throws at us as “natural” and therefore “inevitable,” or even “good.” We control nature! Who says there is nothing we can do? science?!? WTF do they know? Their so-called “Facts” ?!?
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January 1, 2017 at 11:19 am
BFM: You may have already gathered, but FWIW, I am just spoofing the flood of emails I am getting, from the likes of MoveOn and many others, telling me that if I can donate just $5 (or $5 a month) then they can stop X, Y, Z. Trump’s cabinet picks, the Republican agenda to gut social security or medicare or overturn the ACA, stop Trump “in his tracks”, or whatever other lie they are telling to get me to help pay their $250K salary and expenses as head of a supposed “non-profit” (as if they could make the same in a real job). I find their claims of potential effectiveness about as plausible as telling me they can stop tectonic plate movement.
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January 1, 2017 at 11:33 am
@mm: ” I find their claims of potential effectiveness about as plausible as telling me they can stop tectonic plate movement.”
I think agree the probability, right now, to change Trump or Republicans is remove.
But I think the organizations and petitions also serve an attention directing and organizing purpose. So I am not sure that all of it is useless.
As the cuts to ACA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social welfare programs begin to change people’s lives for the worse, people will need something to focus their dismay and anger to meaningful political activity.
So I would not throw all that literature in the trash without giving it a look.
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January 1, 2017 at 11:40 am
@mm: “We control nature! Who says there is nothing we can do? science?!? ”
If you had a clue about science you would know that the measurement of plate movements is pure social construct. We, mankind, make up the inches, feet and miles that measure plate movements.
If perfectly natural plate movement worries you so much get together with your PC (Plate Correctness) crowd and make up some new measurements – Earth Normal Units for example. In ENU, plate movements are hardly discernible, not even worth measuring. There, do you feel better now? Well do you?
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January 1, 2017 at 1:12 pm
My Plate Correctness crowd subscribes to using multiples of the wavelength of blue light; a natural unit considering it is the predominant wavelength making it through our atmosphere. we call this the Blue Standard (BS for short). The TPM measurements, uniformly converted to BS (which we call Total BS), are quite alarming, which is why we so desperately need funding to demand our elected leaders do something about this Total BS.
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January 1, 2017 at 3:55 pm
BFM: To be specific, what I throw in the trash is bait. Inviting me to take a poll? bait. Asking me for a donation so they can keep on “reporting”? Bait. Asking me to sign a petition? Bait. Asking me for a donation so they can keep supporting Democratic Candidates pretty much regardless of what the candidates actually stand for, including those I know supported Hillary? Bait.
Without exaggeration, I think over 95% of these things are scams by the founders. We can look up the non-profits and charities, they have to publicly report the salaries of their top officers (Form 990). When those people are making $240K plus per year, they are by definition the 1%, and in my book if they earn over $150K, which is near the top of the scale for almost all PhD college professors, then they are scamming their contributors, putting their own self-interest over the “cause” they are supposed to champion. Non-profit for the organization does not mean no profits for the officers. Not to mention the exorbitant travel expenses they also have to report.
I seldom see anybody in charge of these organizations taking a modest salary (MoveOn is an exception). They are typically just another arm of politics run by the 1%, and ultimately sympathetic to the 1%, not much different than 95% of Congress, or those in FOX, on MSNBC, or in the media. Arianna Huffington found a niche on the left that makes her hundreds of millions of dollars; no wonder she switched sides.
Ah well. Thus is the way of the world, I suppose, if anything good happens, some smart psychopath will find a way to exploit it for their own self-interest.
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January 1, 2017 at 5:05 pm
“The TPM measurements, uniformly converted to BS (which we call Total BS), are quite alarming, which is why we so desperately need funding to demand our elected leaders do something about this Total BS.”
Hmmmm ,… As I understand it, you PC people believe there is a BS gap – that is frightening.
If there is anything that I thought was fully funded in Washington it has got to be Total BS.
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January 2, 2017 at 11:51 am
corporate controlled? That is rich, it is controlled by leftist journalists for the most part hired by leftist producers who are in turn hired by leftist managers. Much like the universities are full of leftists.
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January 2, 2017 at 4:09 pm
Bron: The universities are full of leftists because they are filled with highly intelligent people, and leftist is the normal position that 80% of people capable of rational thought arrive at. The other 20% are crippled by emotional problems, particularly an abnormal degree of selfishness that overwhelms their ability to think about anyone other than themselves.
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January 3, 2017 at 1:51 am
“That is rich, it is controlled by leftist journalists for the most part hired by leftist producers who are in turn hired by leftist managers.” — Bron
Shouldn’t the next step in your chain of thought be all the leftist corporations that hired the leftist managers, that hired the leftist producers, that hired all those leftist journalists?
Why stop — continue until there are no forks left — which are always left, it appears.
Funny shit, Bron.
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