CHRISTIAN BIGOTRY: “Supreme Confusion” / John Cole
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Category Archives: Plutocracy
CORPORATE MEDIA: “The Day That TV News Died” / Chris Hedges
I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual—a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission, when it consciously chose to become a carnival act, it would probably be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.
Donahue and Bill Moyers, the last honest men on national television, were the only two major TV news personalities who presented the viewpoints of those of us who challenged the rush to war in Iraq. General Electric and Microsoft—MSNBC’s founders and defense contractors that went on to make tremendous profits from the war—were not about to tolerate a dissenting voice. Donahue was fired, and at PBS Moyers was subjected to tremendous pressure. An internal MSNBC memo leaked to the press stated that Donahue was hurting the image of the network. He would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” the memo read. Donahue never returned to the airwaves.
[…]
Television news celebrities are in the business of sales, not journalism. They peddle the ideology of the corporate state. And too many of us are buying.
The lie of omission is still a lie.
Related articles
- Phil Donahue on His 2003 Firing from MSNBC, When Liberal Network Couldn’t Tolerate Antiwar Voices (aislec.wordpress.com)
- Phil Donahue: Chris Matthews Was ‘Threatened’ By Me (huffingtonpost.com)
PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: “The Shame of America’s Gulag” / Chris Hedges
Illustration by Mr. Fish
If, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “the degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” then we are a nation of barbarians. Our vast network of federal and state prisons, with some 2.3 million inmates, rivals the gulags of totalitarian states. Once you disappear behind prison walls you become prey. Rape. Torture. Beatings. Prolonged isolation. Sensory deprivation. Racial profiling. Chain gangs. Forced labor. Rancid food. Children imprisoned as adults. Prisoners forced to take medications to induce lethargy. Inadequate heating and ventilation. Poor health care. Draconian sentences for nonviolent crimes. Endemic violence.
SUPREME COURT BIGOT: “Voting Rights Act” / Bob Englehart
The white-wing reactionary troll Antonin Gregory Scalia is a fucking racist bigot!
h/t: Truthdig.com
Related articles
- Is Antonin Scalia the Vilest Person in Washington? (alternet.org)
- Rachel Maddow: Antonin Scalia ‘a troll’ (politico.com)
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: “Wealth Inequality in the United States” / politizane (MUST WATCH VIDEO)
h/t: Planet Atheism
h/t: PZ Myers
Related articles
- Income Inequality Goes Viral (billmoyers.com)
- This Viral Video Will Change How You Think About Wealth Distribution in the U.S. (fastcoexist.com)
- How wealth inequality crowds out America’s success (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- Wealth inequality in America infinitely worse than you think it is (coolrevolution.net)
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: “Richard Wolff on Fighting for Economic Justice and Fair Wages” / Bill Moyers
h/t: Bill Moyers.com
POLITICS: Amitai Etzioni / “The Conservative ‘Party’ Dominates”
There is a very widely shared myth about “Washington.” Accordingly, there are two camps, the right-wing GOP and the left-leaning Democrats, who are more or less matched. Each control one house of Congress, and command about half of the electorate. Hence, the gridlock.
Actually, much of American politics over the last four years or longer should be understood as a contest between the conservative “party” (most of the GOP and good part of the Democrats) and a liberal minority party. . . .
Gridlock exists when one party pulls east and the other party pulls west and, hence, nothing budges. This is not the case in Washington. Here, most times, one party wants to move east and the other wants to stay put. Thus, what appears as gridlock is actually one conservative blocking victory after another. The fact that the last Congress passed only half as many bills as most previous ones does not trouble the conservatives one bit.
INCOME INEQUALITY: Nick Hanauer / “TED Talk On Income Inequality Deemed Too ‘Political’ For Site”
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Hanauer, one of the first nonfamily investors in Amazon.com, shared this argument as part of a talk he gave at the TED University conference. Now, the organizers of TED — a movement aimed at bringing attention to “ideas worth spreading” — is refusing to share Hanauer’s talk on the internet, calling it too “political,” according to the National Journal.
Chris Anderson, the curator of TED, wrote in a post on his website responding to the allegations that the organization is inundated with requests to post talks on its homepage and only features those that are “truly special.” Anderson also claimed that once Hanauer found out the site would’t be posting his talk, he hired a public relations firm to promote the talk to progressive organizations like MoveOn.org. Anderson also released a video of Hanauer’s talk, providing a link to it in his post.
This post is dedicated to our true unsung heroines and heros, Librarians.
Mitt Romney’s “The 47 Percent” / George Carlin’s “The American Dream” / Priceless!
POLITICAL IDEOLOGY: “Collectivism vs. Individualism”
h/t: Americans Against the Tea Party
h/t: MoveOn.org
Always Question Authority 