hitting the unsubscribe button is totally fine, actually
Goddamnit, i have managed to avoid venting my spleen about US politics on LiveJournal for a long time because, honestly, nothing has changed since this time 8 years ago, when almost half of country's voters got whipped up into an anti-immigrant frenzy and cast their ballot for a celebrity conman who has spent his entire, privileged, elite life
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I think you are missing my point a little bit. The talking point that newspapers shouldn't endorse a candidate anyway is a distraction from the main problem - the undermining of editorial independence.
From my perspective, it is unrealistic to pretend that newspaper editorial boards have no opinion on anything. They're made up of human beings, and specifically human beings whose job it is to be well-informed on the major issues facing their readership. Of course they have opinions! How or if they choose to communicate those opinions are up to them - that's what freedom of the press means.
Most newspapers make the decision to separate out news and commentary (opinion/editorial) sections, which in the old days meant physically separate, so readers could freely throw the entire opinion section in the trash the moment they bought the paper. (I used to do that with the sports section.) Some publications make the decision to communicate primarily through commentary, usually magazines with long-form writing or essays. A few publications ( ... )
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Your comment mentioning Fox being right and MSNBC being left also made me think about television news and how this framing of either of those outlets as serious news sources is not helpful, imo.
The issue with America media right now was already well-defined by Stephen Colbert in a joke he made at the White House Correspondents' Dinner almost 20 years ago: "reality has a well-known liberal bias!"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2X93u3anTco
The sad thing is that reality actually doesn't have a liberal bias, but the American media ecosystem has become so deeply centered around sensationalist reporting of absurd nontroversies that whenever someone tries to discuss a serious issue without cherry-picking a few facts to construct a BS narrative it's dismissed as elitist, simply because it's not low-brow trash. The Daily Show pointed it out yet again just the other day in a skit where Ronny Chieng was trying to get Jordan Klepper to report on policy proposals but instead he kept derailing the topic into "LOL, Biden made a gaffe".
https://youtube ( ... )
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if i am on your "friends" list you know my feelings
Bezos and the other Big Money Boys know Trump has an enemies list
they know they will head the list if their business supports Harris
Trump has made it clear what he will do "When elected on his first day"
the first rule: Protect your money
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Fantastic post, i have nothing to add.
What you said about right-wingers adopting the language of the persecuted gets at something i have wanted to write about for a while but i can't quite find the right way to present it. I floated the theory with a friend of mine on Skype and she's like, nah don't see it. She came up Catholic (as opposed to Protestant), though, so perhaps that has an impact? Basically it was a theory that the reason why western conservatives imagine they are persecuted is rooted in the Christianity-based culture that they grew up in. Because most people in the west grew up in a Christianity-dominant culture they can't see the absurdity of people with all the power complaining about being a persecuted minority, because Christianity itself has the narrative of Christians being a persecuted minority. That might have been the case in the first couple hundred years of the religion when the books of the New Testament were written, but clearly has not been the case for well over 1500 years. But because those books have ( ... )
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I live in Mormon Country and LDS folk definitely feel persecuted.
The "serious" Evangelists I've known felt persecuted by Satan/Sin... just in general, and the same goes for the Catholics who were raised on guilt/shame as their neutral base feeling about being Not Jesus/Mary... or being the NEXT Jesus/Mary but like... in secret and therefore doomed to fabulous-but-horrible martyrdom. Jehovah's Witnesses feel persecuted and offended by other religions *existing* at all, and then elevated above everyone else's disgusting and abominable beliefs.
Confuse Christians with Jews for awhile, then feed a few hundred Christians to the lions 1600 years ago,.. sure, that ain't great but... eventually, let the Christians grow powerful enough to murder the families of those who once mighta fed Christians to lions... then let Christians murder indigenous people across Europe, then let them murder each other in an extended sectarian war about wonkish legal interpretations re: Kings and God on/off for a few centuries, and in the meantime let them ( ... )
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DEMOCRACY NOW has been my friend since forever.
Counterspin I listen to as their stories are pretty interesting also (I subscribe to both podcasts), but I will admit that overtime, I have begun to get a bit "over" the tone and choice of words the woman uses in Counterspin. Their stories are great, but I just wish they'd drop the snide comments. It takes away from the journalism they do present (which is true, investigative journalism imho.)
Good post!
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Jeff Bezos is a tool, and wants to be forgiven by Trump.
The Guardian is my "go to" when I am reading news at work. I appreciate what they do.
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thanks for articulating and sharing all this
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