I think you are right. Part of it is money but part of it is deliberate disinformation.
If actual news gets reported that’s okay - just as long as it does not interfere with cash flow and disinformation.
How and when did the media become a jury or election security experts to make such assertions. basically the fact that they do shows that the claims are at least worthy…
why could a journalist not use the the appropriate responsible ethical and correct term “alleged claims” its just crazy simple… even with the journalist writing like this , how does it pass the editor?? can that many people really be just ignorant. Oh of course not… you know its a ploy… They just proved the presidents claim , as far as I am concerned.
Daniel is one of the great thinkers of the 21st century. Most here will not watch this video. It is too long for the average attention span here and in meme nation in general
It is actually a multi part series. Highly recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LqaotiGWjQ&t=58s
That video is one to watch for sure. So much wisdom backed into that 2 hours…
No one , including MT ever mention where the message and control of the narrative comes from. There is a cut, it is duly noted and a need for bandaid is called for.
Has anyone here ever looked at the roster of the CFR? Didn’t think so. Tom Brokaw, hmmmm. Ceo’s of the major news media, well known reporters. Why is this important?
Flashback 1992: GHW Bush loses to Bill Clinton. Dubya is deeply offended. Dubya then sets out to develop the Christian Right into apolitical force. If people are being brainwashed by media how do you get your message to them? Churches. Many people go to church multiple times a week. It is very easy to get all those pastors on board and disseminate it to the flock. It was a multi year program.
Thus you have the major media concentrated in a few very powerful corporations (thanks to Clinton). The leaders and personalities are members of these groups. CFR, Tri Lat, Bilderberger, WEF etc. It is a very tight exclusive club and you aint in it. The narrative is formed in the club and filters through to the rank and file. The techniques of Edward Bernay are being maximized in service to the “club”
The other side of the coin is censorship of a competing narrative. It went into hyper mode this year because of the election. Say what you will about Alex Jones but strangely he was deplatformed and thus demonetized by EVERY platform on the internet on one day.
How do you make sense?
Good video, Mohammed.
Hi Mohammed, hope your feeling well.
I would just like to answer this question, “No one , including MT ever mention where the message and control of the narrative comes from. ”
I suggest the answer is “from other people.” Check put J P Sartre’s “No Exit.”
Rich, do you know, where these weapons of mass distruction are today? I have always thought that they could of existed. But I thought that Otto Betts and international monitors could handle it.
I think you miss the point. BTW I have not read Sartre or Camus since HS.
The point is the narrative is formulated in small groups of elites. The formulate it and control it then disseminate it through techniques crafted by Edward Bernays.
Most people I encounter consider their opinion to be intelligence. Thus it is very easy to manipulate the asses, er I mean masses when there are limited opportunities not only for information you can “trust” but the opportunity to dialog is limited to facebook and twitter. Complex nuanced issues get reduced to meme pablum.
The result? Look out your window
- The mainstream media is better thought of as PR/marketing for certain narratives, rather than a source for objective reporting. Seeing the bias and distortion is the first step.
- The next question is: which narratives are pushed? In the US, most journalists (90+ percent) vote and financially support Democrat candidates. That speaks a lot to ideological or partisan bias and a resulting echo chamber, which is distinct from a conscious conspiracy.
Look at which stories are pushed vs suppressed. Look at the top of pages for common sites like CNN or FoxNews. The Hunter Biden laptop story was all over Fox but not mentioned at all on CNN.
Social media isn’t a traditional news outlet, but in the run-up to the election, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter clearly weighed in behind the scenes to push certain narratives. In “The Social Dilemma” the example is brought up of encouraging likely Democrat voters to go vote - but not encouraging likely Republican voters.
When it comes to judging politicians, Democrats are given a lot of leeway and excuses, while Republicans are condemned - often for the very same actions.
So it is clearly a partisan media, now joined by partisan social media companies, that are pushing a number of partisan narratives. If calling these “liberal” views bothers some, find another word for it, but often it is along the lines of a Democrat, big government view. - Media has found that telling people what they want to hear is very profitable. So CNN doesn’t try to bring in all viewers - they go after their echo chamber. So does Fox. So does MSNBC. Sometimes these viewer groups overlap, sometimes not.
Some say this is a new phenomenon, but it may not be. It may be that until recently the legacy media (NYT, NPR, ABC/CBS/NBC, etc.) spoke with one voice, and that was all we had. We didn’t have “alternative media” of any large scale until talk radio took off in the early 90s and then the internet.
Today, DrudgeReport and FoxNews have shifted much more to the center or even left than they were say 5 years ago. I understand Matt Drudge sold his website a few years back and the editorial view is much different. (And there is hardly any breaking news there, as used to happen.) And his readership has fallen by half.
Online journalism has shifted to a more establishment-oriented position. The free-wheeling days of the internet are gone. Large corporations have taken it over and squeezed out that fresh, revolutionary, homegrown energy in favor of ultra-polished, commoditized consumption. - Does a liberal media go after far left politicians? Of course. What matters is supporting the establishment. Sanders or other Marxists will be tolerated to an extent, so the news organizations don’t alienate the far left viewership, but more subtle efforts are made to promote establishment power brokers and their views. So the media will go along willingly with Hillary’s attacks on Sanders, for instance.
- I don’t think modern journalism is fundamentally about profit. In journalism schools, they haven’t taught journalism as objective reporting for decades. Instead they preach social change and activism. In college, I can’t tell you how many liberal/leftist students thought it was perfectly acceptable to lie for The Cause - in other words, the ends justified the means. These are the people who graduated and went into newsrooms. Did their ethics and political views change? Hardly.
These folks are perfectly willing to lie, cheat, and steal if it furthers their cause. That’s literally the meaning of “by any means necessary” - though for some reason that point is more often missed than not. - With the death of local journalism, and the consolidation of news into a few hands and the storage of information online likewise in another small set of hands, it is too easy to erase the past. There are fewer and fewer printed newspapers to keep records, so changing the online history is sufficient. Wipe out someone’s Wikipedia page, or edit their history; delete internet archive pages like the Wayback Machine; take down videos; go after ISPs hosting controversial pundits; direct searches to only approved sites; and so on.
We are on the verge of 1984, where today’s Winston Smith works at YouTube to take down videos of thoughtcrimes.
Well M, it is night so when I look out the window I see the lights I put up the other day. As an investor, I suggest that it is important to spend some of those bitcoin billions you have. When you are having fun, you are not being dominated by any elite.
We have to will to be free.
Good Morning Rheba, Your comment comparing Neoliberal philosophy to utopian Libertarianism caught my attention. As I identify as a Libertarian, I thought I would share how I perceive these two political philosophies compare to each other.
My understanding of Libertarian philosophy is in no way similar to neoliberalism. The two philosophy’s are diametrically opposed in the foreign relations department and Libertarianism is not about “isolationism” it’s about free and fair trade, diplomacy, and self defense without pre-emptive action. It’s about strict property rights, for instance, not allowing local governments to permit your property rights away to an industrial hog farm up river polluting the air, river and ground water for all the neighbors, or big developers who will get your beach front hut and turn it into a mega hotel complex.
It’s about letting people live their lives without trying to control their behavior (think war on drugs and the draft). It’s about budget restraints, sound/honest money, and not picking winners and losers in the big monopoly game. It’s about protecting individual property rights and individual civil rights. Neoliberalism sacrifices for the so-called greater good while Libertarianism sacrifices for the rights of the individual. After all, those hog farms and hotel megaplexes will bring in a lot of jobs, a bigger tax base, etc., right?
Socially/Politically, my understanding of Libertarianism is a live and let live philosophy, whereas Neoliberalism needs to convert others or destroy them (think economic sanctions against an entire country - a nation wide torture operation). We don’t have to agree with everyone and we don’t have to associate with everyone, but we don’t have a right to tell anyone what they can and cannot do so long as the behavior does not create a crime victim.
While Libertarianism allows for differences of opinion, Neoliberalism does not. Neoliberals must convert or conquer those with differences of opinions and lifestyle choices. We are seeing this censorship and cancel culture in real time. We are literally living in an era of book burnings in America under current neoliberal politics. Libertarians may not agree with your opinions or life style, but they will defend your right to both. While Libertarianism opposes putting people in cages for victimless crimes, Neoliberalism has advanced the private prison system and swollen our prison population with inmates convicted of victimless crimes.
Even the Wall is an example of Neoliberlism. If you go down the memory hole, all kinds of famous donkeys including Hillary have called for building a wall, with some good reason: serious organized crime on the border. Remember fast and furious under Obama? That operation was a reaction to this border crime problem. Libertarians don’t really believe in ‘borders.’ Why can’t/shouldn’t people travel freely between countries?
A big, big difference between the two ideologies is in the area foreign policy. Our current neoliberal foreign policy has us now fighting in Afghanistan for 19 years, and Trump is thwarted at every turn to bring these people home. For the life of me I cannot understand that. But then again, I’m not a donkey or an elephant . Libertarian philosophy only supports war in self defense, not pre-emptively. That doesn’t mean not to build up your defenses!
While Neoliberalism is all about worrying, acting, and regulating to make sure everyone is following the Neoliberal program, Libertarinism is about living your life the way you choose while respecting and defending other people’s right to live their life the way they choose. Again, so long as those choices do not create a crime victim.
@redneckengineer & brushhog:
I enjoyed reading both of your posts. They remind me of the good old days when I had the energy to fully engage in internet arguments. I salute those who really do still have the fire, I fear it burns low with me now. 
A couple points:
If you look around with a steady eye you will see the culture war is being waged on several fronts where the definition of a word or concept is at the center of the conflict. It is an old trick that has been used by both the right and left, not the exclusive property of one or the other. But one of the things I have noticed is that nowadays you have a lot more of it from the left, and that there seems to be a cottage industry among university academics, and those exposed to them, where this emanates from. A good read on this phenomenon from a fellow I admire and respect, not because we agree because on everything - we don’t, but because he makes me think:
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2020/09/28/the-rump-professional-class-and-its-fallen-counterpart/
My second point is that we must ask ourselves who is served by the policies pursued by both parties and the media. I believe it was either JM Greer or Thomas Frank who coined the term Professional Managerial Class (PMC). In my opinion (and the lord knows I could be wrong) the turning away of the Democratic Party from working class to neoliberal can be traced to the takeover of the party by the PMC. The Republican Party has begun (in baby steps) to recognize this AND the fact that if they are to have a future it is as a party of the working class. Trumpism without the madness accompanying it. More hardcore policy initiatives and less juvenile tweet storms.
Again Taibbi has been at the forefront of showing how this is playing out in real time.
Will
Hladini,
Perhaps there is a difference in perspective and ~some~ policy initiatives, but to deny the common ground of the two and it’s takeover of large portions of the economic discourse is, I believe, to deny reality.
Common ground of libertarianism and neoliberalism that now is accepted by both Republican and Democratic power brokers:
- Free trade - national industry is not necessary, or necessarily a good thing… destroy what we had, who cares? It’s all good.
- Mass immigration - a worldview for libertarians and a vital part of neoliberalism
- Anti-trust neutering - neither accepts or wants enforcement of anti-trust laws
- Mobile Capital - again, a vital part of both world views
- Tax corporations as little as possible, eliminate if at all possible
I could go on. I really could. For hours. But one thing you will notice is that these policies run counter to everything considered vital to a well functioning economy before, say, the 60s or 70s. IOW when we actually had a growing and vibrant middle class. The fact that your side won on so many fronts and we ended up with, not a stronger and more stable economy, but a hollowed out shell… a mess?
Well, by all means don’t let reality interfere with a good narrative.
Will
Fantastic !!! was waiting for REALITY pain points - Currency debasement, No coins, Money, Assange, Snowden, Monetizing the debt, etc. Can one not be assimilated?
Of course there is a group that is manipulating and benefiting from what is happening. Generally speaking we are talking about the global elite. Its a dash toward globalism, and no I dont think liberals are the only ones being manipulated as we saw during the Bush years, the right was hijacked into promoting mass surveillance schemes, and perpetual war under the guise of “patriotism”.
Of course the left thinks they are going to get a socialist utopia where the system is designed and run for the benefit of everyone. The people pulling the strings are using that narrative to empower themselves.
“Trumpism without the madness accompanying it. More hardcore policy initiatives and less juvenile tweet storms.”
Well…that might help a little but rest assured any movement that actually attempts to empower the people and wrest control from the ruling class is going to be demonized, made fun of, ridiculed and hated by the mainstream [and those dumb enough to follow them].
Whether or not Trump made Tweets, the reaction to him by TPTB would have been exactly the same. What ever package you attempt to wrap such a movement in will be torn down by the same forces. You have to accept that going in.
As far as my ability to comment online…you seem to be doing quite well at it yourself. No lack of energy is apparent. My trade secret? Caffeine is a hell of a drug.
There is so much I do not understand, but I search for answers and try to make sense out of a crazy world. Today I came across a video about the 4 ways to break a country and re-engineer it. Thus creating a compliant, but disgusting mess.
For instance I never quite understood how the government could want everyone to pay for Obamacare but give free healthcare to illegal immigrants. Answer - it doesn’t make sense nor should it. The goal is demoralization. Wanting to get rid of “ God Bless America” and the National Anthem” because they are not “woke” but not replacing them with anything. Yep - it’s intentional demoralization.
Next - destabilization, then create a crisis and the final goal. Re-engineer society to fit the conquers plan.
It doesn’t make any sense because that’s the plan. Create demoralization! I think - it’s working.
Intentional demoralization - it’s incredibly cruel!
AKGrannyWGrit
…neoliberalism and the “libertarianism” of the “Libertarian” and Repugnant Parties the bastard sons.
Its not Faux And former Ohio governor K Sick that shifted, its the center that shifted so far to the right that they are now at today’s center, unless the subject is about who can go in what restrooms, of course.
I do not know what Stuart Blarney of Fox Plunderbund’s definition of communist is, but it seems that since Pinochet would not privatize the copper mine Allende nationalized, my guess is that today in the Less than Useless Deluded Nation even people who think like Pinochet are considered outright far-left Marxists rather than fascists.