Jun 152018
 
 June 15, 2018  Posted by at 12:42 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,


Edward John Poynter Erato, Muse of Poetry 1870

 

This is something I’ve commented on many times. Like two months ago, when I wrote:

“As for Donald Trump, as much as we would like to engage in constructive criticism of the man and his government, we find we no longer can. The anti-Trump echo-chamber has turned so deafening that any intelligent debate about his policies is being drowned out amid the never ending flow of fake news and half truths and innuendo and empty smears that US media continue to spout. With a brief lull when the bombs fell on Syria.

Thank you, New York Times, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC. Thank you for killing the entire discussion, thank you for killing off journalism. There is a lot to say about Trump, much of it critical, but we can no longer open our mouths. Because we don’t want to be in the same camp as you. Life in the echo chamber has given us vertigo. We had to get out.”

Jim Kunstler thanked me for saying that. He very much feels the same way. Nothing has changed. They’re still at it, and we still can’t get a word in edgewise. I was thinking earlier today that the best the MSM can do to promote its own case is to praise Trump from time to time. Because that is the only way they could attract some ears and eyes from outside their echo chamber.

They won’t do it. Being negative about the US president makes them too much money. It leaves us with a situation in which the one half of America that reads and hears New York Times, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC has become fully isolated from the other half. Yes, this is risky. But this, too, will be blamed on Trump.

Meanwhile, border policies where children are forcefully separated form their parents need criticism and condemnation from all of the nation. But there is nobody left who can reach the entire nation. A year and a half of 24/7 unproven allegations about collusion with Russia has seen to that.

Therefore, when the Intercept wrote about a Human Rights Watch report last month in Obama’s Deportation Policy Was Even Worse Than We Thought , the MSM don’t cover it, because it doesn’t fit the narrative. But when Trump uses the same ICE machinery to scare potential immigrants away, it’s suddenly considered newsworthy.

Oh, and France uses the exact same scare tactics, going as far as ripping children’s soles from their shoes. We should all condemn these atrocities, and make them stop. But it’s not going to happen if you guys insist on making it an anti-Trump thing, because half the country won’t listen to any more of that.

Journalism and news media must be a force to unite a nation, not one that divides it simply because there’s -more- profit in that.

The neverending Trump innuendo reached another new high in the North Korea meeting, with the ‘media’ competing with each other to find yet another terrible mistake or intentional screw-up by the man who is President of all Americans (like it or not). A feeding frenzy on nothingburgers.

Trump was accused of hob-nobbing with dictators. Excuse me, but all US presidents have done that. He wasn’t being tough enough, he was giving far too much away with nothing in return. Well, that’s not how South Koreans see it, and this concerns them a whole lot more than a bunch of ‘reporters’ covering the beltway.

Truth is, Trump did a good job, everything went well, he put Kim Jong-un in a position where the latter will have to deliver on denuclearization, or face the -international- consequences. It is quite the achievement, but if you wake up every single morning looking for more bad things to say about someone, yes, chances are you miss the good things.

You’re also probably missing the Saudi, US-supported, attacks on Hodeidah, the port city that is Yemen’s last lifeline to the world, and the only chance millions of people have of escaping a famine not seen since the Middle Ages.

That is the kind of thing that should be on your front pages, and opening your news shows, not that North Korea happens to have a border with Russia nudge nudge wink wink, and Trump saluted some Korean general.

America needs real news and real journalism, and it needs it badly. Instead it has an increasingly divisive set of well-paid propagandists who break the country ever further apart. The OIG report that came out yesterday confirms this more and better than anything.

When the country’s own ‘intelligence’ conspires to influence the political process, while the media report on outside influence only, then yes, you have a problem. As I was writing earlier today, you have to wonder how many people will still be working at the FBI by the end of the year.

Something else I’ve said before: the only hope of survival the MSM have in the age of the interwebs is to be brutally honest and open. Real news and real journalism. Because simply spouting opinions is something they will be trumped on by the many many millions of people with social media accounts who already do that every day, anonymously, and for free.

The old media don’t stand a chance against that army. The only thing that can save them is the truth.

 

 

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  • #41194

    Edward John Poynter Erato, Muse of Poetry 1870   This is something I’ve commented on many times. Like two months ago, when I wrote: “As for Donal
    [See the full post at: See? Now You Did It!]

    #41195
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    The old media don’t stand a chance against that army. The only thing that can save them is the truth.

    I agree, with all of it.

    #41196
    Jimbobla
    Participant

    Knowledge is power. Government (and by extension) MSM work to deny us knowledge and supply us with truth-as-they-would-have-us-believe. Here in the U.S. They control us during our formative years in government schools where we are indoctrinated into the “yea, America!” Cult. This, along with church-state teachings of submission-obedience-conformity pretty much puts a lock on the majority. The MSM dally propping up the narrative of the shining city on the hill and employing divide and conquer strategies to distract us from the reality that WE are the lone Empire that rules with a fist. Sadly, I believe the inevitable collapse of Empire from over extension is the only cure to this illness. Great article. Thanks

    #41197
    seychelles
    Participant

    Journalism and news media must be a force to unite a nation, not one that divides it simply because there’s -more- profit in that.

    Prime cheerleaders in the globalist pantheon aren’t about to self-muzzle. But eventually they will discover that anti-Logos is a bad disease.

    #41198
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Haven’t seen Poynter.

    Excellent point that, if they wanted to make Trump look bad, the easiest way is to cover massive, ongoing, longterm genocide of largely civilians in Yemen. THAT’S bad. And that is, , unlike Syria, so far neatly and uniformly supported by Trump and his generals. But not a word.

    I’m truly amazed even looking at it, or hearing the people around me say — as Rachel Maddow — that Trump “gave away for nothing”, “suddenly, and without warning.” He took this on first thing, 2 years ago, South Korea has been constantly informed and approving, and Kim has ALREADY collapsed his nuclear bunker. That was even before we signed. I’m sorry, did we withdraw our subs and remove 100,000 troops in the area? Can drills resume in seconds with a phone call? It’s gob-smacking. No, a lot of people here are repeating around me that “Peace is War” because “Ignorance is Strength.”

    “…”

    “…!!!”

    #41199
    Mr. Jones
    Participant

    Raul writes:

    Therefore, when the Intercept wrote about a Human Rights Watch report last month in Obama’s Deportation Policy Was Even Worse Than We Thought , the MSM don’t cover it, because it doesn’t fit the narrative. But when Trump uses the same ICE machinery to scare potential immigrants away, it’s suddenly considered newsworthy.

    From the linked article:

    Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to mass deport undocumented immigrants with criminal histories, a population he claimed to number 2-3 million. That figure has been widely debunked. In order to meet this ambitious goal, Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued two memoranda that jettisoned Obama’s “felons, not families” approach and made nearly every undocumented immigrant in the country subject to priority deportation.

    Therein lies the problem: Trump is not doing the same thing as Obama. He’s doing far worse(!) — and lying about it the whole way with the administration’s “just following orders/the law” Nuremburg defense. How can the MSM ‘unite’ us when this administration continues to lie about everything under the sun?

    #41203
    zerosum
    Participant

    I believe that we are sane.
    However, there are day that I think that I’m the only sane person.

    #41204

    We are not sane, bud, We are the opposite of sane. Look around you and tell me again that you believe we, or even you, are sane. Sure, you can shift the meaning, and the goalposts, for what defines sane, but c’mon, pretending that we are sane is the most insane thing you could do.

    #41205

    And that IS a great way of approaching this: anyone who thinks they’re sane is disqualified right off the bat, Have you seen the destruction, 70% of vertebrates gone, 75% of insects in a matter of just years? How do you rhyme that with sanity? Well, yeah, if you still see yourself as being sane, anything goes, right?

    #41206
    zerosum
    Participant

    Okay!
    I agree.
    We are ALL stuck in the same matrix.

    #41207
    thomasjkenney
    Participant

    anyone who thinks they’re sane is disqualified right off the bat

    Catch 22!

    I’ve got the apolitical blues, so I’ll quote from one of my favorite apolitical pundits, Mr. Neil Peart:

    Half the world talks
    With half a mind on what they say
    Half the world walks
    With half a mind to run away

    #41208
    Dr. D
    Participant

    Speaking of sanity, it’s the anniversary of Grenfell, I’m sure that’s all cleared up now right? All the proper people held responsible, won’t happen again?

    #41211
    VisionHawk
    Participant

    “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society”.

    Krishnamurti.

    #41212
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    VisionHawk
    That gave me a smile; one of my favorite teachers.
    Krishnamurti.

    #41213
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    How about:

    TAE: Media for the Functionally Insane

    #41228
    regionswork
    Participant

    “Journalism and news media must be a force to unite a nation” This is quite an overstatement. The roles of media are to inform and entertain. Common language; education and experience in the use of language; culture and knowledge of history all affect what information an individual seeks and how it is used in life.

    We are born into a world where many games of power and domination are in play. Though those at the top of the game display images of wealth and power, always seeking more, the true state of the natural world is one of depletion. Debt is created to buy more of the future, but there’s no growth, for the future is barren. War is a poor means of allocating resources, destroying the investments of generations when it flattens cities.

    Being rich is terribly important. Asymmetric information, “I’m lying and I know it, whereas, you think I’m telling the truth because I said its the truth” is the art of deception, not a crime when you make the rules.

    That the world can’t have everybody be rich is a reality half the planet doesn’t want to recognize. The other half is working to have something, anything. The confusion plays out as an angry soap opera, all emotion, no substance, for the future is empty, already consumed and soon to be run by AI robots.

    Meanwhile, drought, famine and war puts more people on the move, heading where the wealth appears to be and where the bombs and thieves came from. A greater community solution is needed, a spiritually based cease fire so life may be attended to, so human civilization survives.

    When fights begin, truth goes out the window. The combatants on Easter Island exhausted everything, including themselves. The Whole Earth future as Easter Island?

    In business is is said, “The meeting isn’t over until blame has been assigned”. Now that business runs the world, blame is the game. So the news reports. We tire of this. That is a strategy for the newscycle, a gift of behavioral economics and branding. Loyalty is rewarded within its own world.

    Spirituality does not come to mind as a means of resolving existential challenges. Realistically, it may be the only way at current levels of necessity.

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