When I think about what has weakened the United States, it is challenging to know how much of the destruction has been caused via “trickle down” extreme wealth concentration, and how much has been willful ignorance of groups like this. They will not be happy until women are relegated to the kitchen and maternity wards -while gender studies, race studies, science, and history are eliminated from the education system. Welcome to the dark ages, round two.
you got it buddy, extreme concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people is a recipe for economic and social disaster. we are knowingly allowing this to happen. the revolution will not be fun, it will not be virtual, it will be worse than any that have come before. the destruction of america as we know it is an avalanche quickly approaching it's tipping point.
Judging from some of the posts on Teh Tweeter machine, grammar and spelling are also not-so-much. Oh, reading comprehension, critical thinking, newspapers and books?
This right here-> "do some reading about what happens to your beloved freedom of the press under fascist regimes. believe me, you don’t want to go there." Abso-fucking-lutely!
Correct me if I am in error saying this, but are not journalists and major media purveyors supposed to be college/university educated persons? Educated persons who supposedly should at the very least know how to read the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the recent history of the world wherein which Authoritarianism and Fascism have played large significant parts in attempting to subjugate the world at large to tyranny by destroying any genuinely legitimate freedoms that all human beings are naturally entitled to enjoy as a natural right.
This failure of the media at large is a monstrous demonstration of the failure of the American Education Systems, especially the so-called Institutions of Higher Education.
Look for a rant from me soon about American Education's failure!
Follow the money and in the case of large media outlets follow the owners.
One of the first things Hitler did long before he came into power, even before his infamous Beer Hall Putsch was to buy an existing Newspaper, the Volkischer Beobatcher (People’s Observer) in 1920 which over the course of the next 25 years served as the official newspaper of Nazi ideology.
From one of the academic studies contained in my special collection some details of that purchase: “However, while the party continued to grow, the progress was not substantial enough to satisfy Hitler. What the group needed, he believed, was a more effective advertising vehicle. Thus when he learned in December 1920 that the Volkischer Beobatcher (formerly the Munchener Beobatcher) was for sale, he set out to buy it. To procure the 120,000-mark asking price, he turned to Dietrich Eckart, who squeezed half the necessary sum from Ritter von Epp and the Reichswehr, [and] the other half from friends.” Pg. 146, Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich, by David Clay Large; W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1997.
Now if only journalists and reporters would all be required to read and know history in detail such as described by this quote.
Exactly. Sinclair has wrapped its neofascist tentacles firmly around ABC and I stopped watching their DC metro affiliate about 4 years ago when it became obvious where their loyalties were.
With Freedom of the press at stake at ground zero one would think there would be more attention paid to stories like this one from JT but alas as we all know most of the chickens are walking around this country with their head up their ass ! Damn shame but keep up the notifications Jeff if only for the few of us.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with OAN here is a link to a Reuters news article about the relationship between ATT and One America News,
"A Reuters Special Report
How AT&T helped build far-right One America News
One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T Inc, the world's largest communications company."
thank you for this and isn't it curious that our 'liberal' media hasn't uttered a peep about ATT's role in OAN. wonder what else is going on that we don't know about in terms of just who is really funding the rightwingnuts or just playing both sides.
Piercing the veil that hides the machinations of major money manipulators is not easy. I do my best with my own perspective, and comments like your initial comment spur me on to investigate the many connections that make up the hydra-head of the right wing idealogues. I will most likely be using the Reuters article you inspired me to find in an article sometime soon.
Spot on! Our education here in the states is so flawed and currently stuck in reverse. One example was reported on July 4 that 1 out of every 3 Americans don't know the reason why we celebrate Independence Day. Pretty sad considering these book burning zealots want to take us back even further.
I think as long as Texas (the largest market for textbooks) is setting the rules and choosing what goes into textbooks, a lot of what we consider baseline knowledge will never get taught. Seems draconian to continue to rely only on physical books--whose production relies on volume to keep price affordable--considering that lockhold. Quite the knock-on effect.
I'll be glad to. It was reported by a few media sources including a group called Study Finds. Turns out 1 out of 3 Generation Z folks can't spell independence and it gets even worse. Apparently 2 out three don't know why we celebrate July 4.
The world is going so crazy I can hardly stand to look at it, and the media is just haplessly reporting like everything is normal. If Treestump or DeSatan gets elected (quite possible), we are fucked. But let’s focus on cocaine being found in the Whitehouse or the latest nothing sandwich story that is good for profits but not for democracy. Makes me sick.
Thank you hardly seems enough; but thank you. This shift towards normalizing the horror that is happening to us (to my family) needs explosive words like yours.
What I notice when I infrequently watch GMA and other “news and entertainment” channels is how they focus on money: how much a movie made at the box office, how much a celebrity is worth, etc., and it seems to me they think money is the measure of worth and value. So much different than watching in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, from my perspective.
It’s no wonder that American values have shifted. It was and continues to be quite alarming. We have become the Jerry Springer show.
Agreed. Seems like the corporate media news owners don't give AF about what their employees (journalists) learned in journalism school when it comes to balanced, researched, factual, fair news...they just have them report their own (media owners) personal views and agendas and pass it along as real news. America is third world IMO.
I read many of the comments as soon as my pacemaker stopped smoking and the EMTs cleared out.
Thank you for this column I said it before and I will say it again: the MEDIA got him elected. And the MEDIA hangs on every word he vomits out. THE MEDIA still gives him millions of dollars of free publicity, while virtually ignoring the good that President Biden has done and will continue to do.
Although THE MEDIA has been designated THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, they continue to normalize all the absolutely horrifying crap happening every day.
I hope that when the Fourth Reich takes power there will be NO going back. Not for generations to come. Heaven help us when we have to wear an capital D on our sleeves as they fire up the ovens once more. And please don't say that could never happen again; it has begun.
I’ve been saying for months that there’s going to be a second civil war; I think it’s already started. If Trump is jailed, the deplorables will riot (at best) or kill people (very likely) because WHO’S GOING TO STOP THEM?? If Trump ISN’T jailed, a lot of us left wing liberal communist socialists will take to the streets.
The day after the Inauguration, I marched with more than 100,000 other people, in the pouring rain, in Portland, Oregon. If Trump doesn’t go to jail, I’ll be out there again.
That is why I prefer to let Substack writers like you watch that mainstream news and tell me secondhand how messed up they are. I do not watch television because we don't even have the means to at this point. However, I already suffer from the reporting of the mainstream enews that I subscribe to. I do have to say that I enjoyed the commentary in the Washington Post this morning speculating what is going on with Prigozhin. A lot of defenestration jokes. Someone said that Prigozhin going back to Russia and getting his things (Rubles and personal guns) was like your boyfriend coming to clear his things out of your house. Apparently Lukashenko is now saying that the deal where Prigozhin gets to live in Belarus is not finished yet. I think this is a case of 1984, they will restate the deal when the time is right and then it will be like the deal never existed. I think we should trade Prigozhin for those Nazi moms. Send them to Belarus, or Russia. Does not matter where. They can be satisfied that the things they want repressed are repressed by the government too. In fact, someone should suggest it to them. In fact their censorship and indignity might be welcomed in those countries, until it isn't. Oh well, that is what happens in fascist regimes. You're in or you're out. Maybe ABC press should go interview Putin and Lukashenko on what is going on. Sounds like they are primed to report on that in a manner that neither would find offensive.
Yeah. I'm about done with all these fascist right wingers appropriating the word "Liberty" as if they're somehow part of an oppressed minority. And I'm also fed up with the bothsidesing of nearly all political coverage.
It's as if the mainstream press didn't get the memo that the Fairness Doctrine no longer applies. It's also as if they're afraid to actually pick a side, and are failing to actually read all the articles they print and air about places like Russia, China, N. Korea, Turkey, etc. and their suppression of the actual press in favor of government propaganda outlets. Yes, press outlets. The leopards will definitely eat your faces first.
If the choice is between Donald Trump and a steaming pile of dog shit, you have to vote for the steaming pile of dog shit. Because the steaming pile of dog shit wouldn’t try to eliminate the Constitution or subvert Democracy.
On a more serious note, the Democrats have to get rid of Robert Kennedy Jr. When I listened to Air America, he seemed like a reasonable man who wanted to carry on his father’s legacy, but now he’s a conspiracy theorist promoting his crackpot ideas: Vaccines cause autism (they don’t), the men who died in the 80s didn’t have AIDS, it was poppers that killed them (nope), antidepressants cause school shootings (whut?) and other nonsense. Problem is, many voters see him as a good alternative to Biden and 24% of Democrats would vote for him. If he doesn’t get the nomination (which he won’t, you silly goose), he’ll run as a 3rd party candidate. Just as Jill Stein cost Hillary the election, RFK will siphon off enough votes from Biden to throw the election to Trump.
But what are the Democrats doing? Same as they always do: rolling over and waiting for belly rubs. I expect the Republicans to be power mad, unscrupulous and craven; it’s who they are and they make no bones about it. What I DIDN’T expect was the Democrats to play dead. I’m so disgusted I could scream. Where are Hakim Jefferies and Chuck Schumer? Nancy Pelosi would have had a lot to say about the threat to Democracy posed by the authoritarian-leaning Republicans - BRING BACK PELOSI!!
To see why this is happening all we have to do is look at who OWNS most of mainstream media.
The days of small, legitimate journalism is struggling to report factual, unbiased news with now sensationalism and bottom line profit is considered all important even if that means downright lying or pushing the views of one side.
I'm still encouraging anyone liberal who _can_ leave the US to do so. Per a note I posted this morning, I went over several spineless moves Dems make and how they never actually fight back.
They don't give a shit. They don't. They say they do. Maybe they even try. But the grand majority just don't give a shit because they're still in the privileged class and don't have a clue what all us hapless broke fucks are complaining about, because as far as _they_ can tell, all the trains are running on time.
AOC, having an actual working class background, is an exception, but of course she's not quite actually Democrat so much as "running on the ticket."
The fascism is going to happen. Sure, we might rebel against it after the fact or whatever, but obviously no one gives enough of a shit to stop it. If they did, we would have spent all over 2020-2022 on election reforms, anti-gerrymandering bills, and other safeguards to Democracy.
We didn't. Because they don't give a shit. They aren't fighters. They want to talk it out with people who are clearly batshit insane. That doesn't work without professional psychiatric help.
C-span is your friend, watch it you might get lucky. AOC and her squat are too busy "performing" outrage for the MSNBC cameras, along with her mentors Sens Warren and Sanders. DSA, Sunrise, WFP, 3rd way, Branch Bernardians, etal., aren't the base of the party....
[As a subscriber to both Smirking Chimp and you here] I feel I can say this: you are the voice inside the heads of so many and we are here for it.
Yes! It’s cathartic to hear my own unfiltered thoughts.
Same
When I think about what has weakened the United States, it is challenging to know how much of the destruction has been caused via “trickle down” extreme wealth concentration, and how much has been willful ignorance of groups like this. They will not be happy until women are relegated to the kitchen and maternity wards -while gender studies, race studies, science, and history are eliminated from the education system. Welcome to the dark ages, round two.
you got it buddy, extreme concentration of wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people is a recipe for economic and social disaster. we are knowingly allowing this to happen. the revolution will not be fun, it will not be virtual, it will be worse than any that have come before. the destruction of america as we know it is an avalanche quickly approaching it's tipping point.
Judging from some of the posts on Teh Tweeter machine, grammar and spelling are also not-so-much. Oh, reading comprehension, critical thinking, newspapers and books?
Fuhgeddaboudit.
This right here-> "do some reading about what happens to your beloved freedom of the press under fascist regimes. believe me, you don’t want to go there." Abso-fucking-lutely!
Correct me if I am in error saying this, but are not journalists and major media purveyors supposed to be college/university educated persons? Educated persons who supposedly should at the very least know how to read the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the recent history of the world wherein which Authoritarianism and Fascism have played large significant parts in attempting to subjugate the world at large to tyranny by destroying any genuinely legitimate freedoms that all human beings are naturally entitled to enjoy as a natural right.
This failure of the media at large is a monstrous demonstration of the failure of the American Education Systems, especially the so-called Institutions of Higher Education.
Look for a rant from me soon about American Education's failure!
This cannot go unaddressed any more.
Follow the money and in the case of large media outlets follow the owners.
One of the first things Hitler did long before he came into power, even before his infamous Beer Hall Putsch was to buy an existing Newspaper, the Volkischer Beobatcher (People’s Observer) in 1920 which over the course of the next 25 years served as the official newspaper of Nazi ideology.
From one of the academic studies contained in my special collection some details of that purchase: “However, while the party continued to grow, the progress was not substantial enough to satisfy Hitler. What the group needed, he believed, was a more effective advertising vehicle. Thus when he learned in December 1920 that the Volkischer Beobatcher (formerly the Munchener Beobatcher) was for sale, he set out to buy it. To procure the 120,000-mark asking price, he turned to Dietrich Eckart, who squeezed half the necessary sum from Ritter von Epp and the Reichswehr, [and] the other half from friends.” Pg. 146, Where Ghosts Walked: Munich’s Road to the Third Reich, by David Clay Large; W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1997.
Now if only journalists and reporters would all be required to read and know history in detail such as described by this quote.
"Volkischer Beobatcher" modern translation: "Truth Social" with a side order of "NewsMax".
unfortunately, it seems that more and more media owners are for 'them'.
The far right media lunatics such as CNN, FOX, and now apparently ABC are endorsing this disturbing movement without even trying to hide it.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group owns the most ABC stations. I stopped watching ABC years ago, when I learned a bit more about SBG.
I saw John Oliver’s scathing take-down of Sinclair. That did it for me.
Exactly. Sinclair has wrapped its neofascist tentacles firmly around ABC and I stopped watching their DC metro affiliate about 4 years ago when it became obvious where their loyalties were.
With Freedom of the press at stake at ground zero one would think there would be more attention paid to stories like this one from JT but alas as we all know most of the chickens are walking around this country with their head up their ass ! Damn shame but keep up the notifications Jeff if only for the few of us.
Yup, I haven’t watched the Sinclair-owned ABC affiliate in St. Louis for many years... except for Jimmy Kimmel of course :)
let's not forget ATT's role in financing AON(?sp)
For those of you who are unfamiliar with OAN here is a link to a Reuters news article about the relationship between ATT and One America News,
"A Reuters Special Report
How AT&T helped build far-right One America News
One America News, the far-right network whose fortunes and viewership rose amid the triumph and tumult of the Trump administration, has flourished with support from a surprising source: AT&T Inc, the world's largest communications company."
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/
thank you for this and isn't it curious that our 'liberal' media hasn't uttered a peep about ATT's role in OAN. wonder what else is going on that we don't know about in terms of just who is really funding the rightwingnuts or just playing both sides.
Piercing the veil that hides the machinations of major money manipulators is not easy. I do my best with my own perspective, and comments like your initial comment spur me on to investigate the many connections that make up the hydra-head of the right wing idealogues. I will most likely be using the Reuters article you inspired me to find in an article sometime soon.
Spot on! Our education here in the states is so flawed and currently stuck in reverse. One example was reported on July 4 that 1 out of every 3 Americans don't know the reason why we celebrate Independence Day. Pretty sad considering these book burning zealots want to take us back even further.
I think as long as Texas (the largest market for textbooks) is setting the rules and choosing what goes into textbooks, a lot of what we consider baseline knowledge will never get taught. Seems draconian to continue to rely only on physical books--whose production relies on volume to keep price affordable--considering that lockhold. Quite the knock-on effect.
Wow, really?! Can you please provide me with a link to or publication name to that information? Thank you, for bringing this to my attention.
I'll be glad to. It was reported by a few media sources including a group called Study Finds. Turns out 1 out of 3 Generation Z folks can't spell independence and it gets even worse. Apparently 2 out three don't know why we celebrate July 4.
Pretty shocking to say the least.
Indeed! Thank you for your help.
The world is going so crazy I can hardly stand to look at it, and the media is just haplessly reporting like everything is normal. If Treestump or DeSatan gets elected (quite possible), we are fucked. But let’s focus on cocaine being found in the Whitehouse or the latest nothing sandwich story that is good for profits but not for democracy. Makes me sick.
Moms For Lunacy=Twatzies
Wows.
Thank you hardly seems enough; but thank you. This shift towards normalizing the horror that is happening to us (to my family) needs explosive words like yours.
Who were the victims in every takeover? The Kmer Rouge murdered teachers, journalists, educated people.
Sometimes I'm looking at my subscription to the NYT: imagine what an authoritarian regime would want to do with that.
Call them Hitler Moms. That’d make the point.
What I notice when I infrequently watch GMA and other “news and entertainment” channels is how they focus on money: how much a movie made at the box office, how much a celebrity is worth, etc., and it seems to me they think money is the measure of worth and value. So much different than watching in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, from my perspective.
It’s no wonder that American values have shifted. It was and continues to be quite alarming. We have become the Jerry Springer show.
Agreed. Seems like the corporate media news owners don't give AF about what their employees (journalists) learned in journalism school when it comes to balanced, researched, factual, fair news...they just have them report their own (media owners) personal views and agendas and pass it along as real news. America is third world IMO.
I read many of the comments as soon as my pacemaker stopped smoking and the EMTs cleared out.
Thank you for this column I said it before and I will say it again: the MEDIA got him elected. And the MEDIA hangs on every word he vomits out. THE MEDIA still gives him millions of dollars of free publicity, while virtually ignoring the good that President Biden has done and will continue to do.
Although THE MEDIA has been designated THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, they continue to normalize all the absolutely horrifying crap happening every day.
I hope that when the Fourth Reich takes power there will be NO going back. Not for generations to come. Heaven help us when we have to wear an capital D on our sleeves as they fire up the ovens once more. And please don't say that could never happen again; it has begun.
I’ve been saying for months that there’s going to be a second civil war; I think it’s already started. If Trump is jailed, the deplorables will riot (at best) or kill people (very likely) because WHO’S GOING TO STOP THEM?? If Trump ISN’T jailed, a lot of us left wing liberal communist socialists will take to the streets.
The day after the Inauguration, I marched with more than 100,000 other people, in the pouring rain, in Portland, Oregon. If Trump doesn’t go to jail, I’ll be out there again.
Last paragraph should read, I hope THE MEDIA knows that when....
Pauline
That is why I prefer to let Substack writers like you watch that mainstream news and tell me secondhand how messed up they are. I do not watch television because we don't even have the means to at this point. However, I already suffer from the reporting of the mainstream enews that I subscribe to. I do have to say that I enjoyed the commentary in the Washington Post this morning speculating what is going on with Prigozhin. A lot of defenestration jokes. Someone said that Prigozhin going back to Russia and getting his things (Rubles and personal guns) was like your boyfriend coming to clear his things out of your house. Apparently Lukashenko is now saying that the deal where Prigozhin gets to live in Belarus is not finished yet. I think this is a case of 1984, they will restate the deal when the time is right and then it will be like the deal never existed. I think we should trade Prigozhin for those Nazi moms. Send them to Belarus, or Russia. Does not matter where. They can be satisfied that the things they want repressed are repressed by the government too. In fact, someone should suggest it to them. In fact their censorship and indignity might be welcomed in those countries, until it isn't. Oh well, that is what happens in fascist regimes. You're in or you're out. Maybe ABC press should go interview Putin and Lukashenko on what is going on. Sounds like they are primed to report on that in a manner that neither would find offensive.
Yeah. I'm about done with all these fascist right wingers appropriating the word "Liberty" as if they're somehow part of an oppressed minority. And I'm also fed up with the bothsidesing of nearly all political coverage.
It's as if the mainstream press didn't get the memo that the Fairness Doctrine no longer applies. It's also as if they're afraid to actually pick a side, and are failing to actually read all the articles they print and air about places like Russia, China, N. Korea, Turkey, etc. and their suppression of the actual press in favor of government propaganda outlets. Yes, press outlets. The leopards will definitely eat your faces first.
If the choice is between Donald Trump and a steaming pile of dog shit, you have to vote for the steaming pile of dog shit. Because the steaming pile of dog shit wouldn’t try to eliminate the Constitution or subvert Democracy.
On a more serious note, the Democrats have to get rid of Robert Kennedy Jr. When I listened to Air America, he seemed like a reasonable man who wanted to carry on his father’s legacy, but now he’s a conspiracy theorist promoting his crackpot ideas: Vaccines cause autism (they don’t), the men who died in the 80s didn’t have AIDS, it was poppers that killed them (nope), antidepressants cause school shootings (whut?) and other nonsense. Problem is, many voters see him as a good alternative to Biden and 24% of Democrats would vote for him. If he doesn’t get the nomination (which he won’t, you silly goose), he’ll run as a 3rd party candidate. Just as Jill Stein cost Hillary the election, RFK will siphon off enough votes from Biden to throw the election to Trump.
But what are the Democrats doing? Same as they always do: rolling over and waiting for belly rubs. I expect the Republicans to be power mad, unscrupulous and craven; it’s who they are and they make no bones about it. What I DIDN’T expect was the Democrats to play dead. I’m so disgusted I could scream. Where are Hakim Jefferies and Chuck Schumer? Nancy Pelosi would have had a lot to say about the threat to Democracy posed by the authoritarian-leaning Republicans - BRING BACK PELOSI!!
To see why this is happening all we have to do is look at who OWNS most of mainstream media.
The days of small, legitimate journalism is struggling to report factual, unbiased news with now sensationalism and bottom line profit is considered all important even if that means downright lying or pushing the views of one side.
I'm still encouraging anyone liberal who _can_ leave the US to do so. Per a note I posted this morning, I went over several spineless moves Dems make and how they never actually fight back.
They don't give a shit. They don't. They say they do. Maybe they even try. But the grand majority just don't give a shit because they're still in the privileged class and don't have a clue what all us hapless broke fucks are complaining about, because as far as _they_ can tell, all the trains are running on time.
AOC, having an actual working class background, is an exception, but of course she's not quite actually Democrat so much as "running on the ticket."
The fascism is going to happen. Sure, we might rebel against it after the fact or whatever, but obviously no one gives enough of a shit to stop it. If they did, we would have spent all over 2020-2022 on election reforms, anti-gerrymandering bills, and other safeguards to Democracy.
We didn't. Because they don't give a shit. They aren't fighters. They want to talk it out with people who are clearly batshit insane. That doesn't work without professional psychiatric help.
You don’t know that many democrats. I’m not leaving the kids with some serial killer.
Or I'm meeting the wrong ones? Something.
C-span is your friend, watch it you might get lucky. AOC and her squat are too busy "performing" outrage for the MSNBC cameras, along with her mentors Sens Warren and Sanders. DSA, Sunrise, WFP, 3rd way, Branch Bernardians, etal., aren't the base of the party....
Maybe
Just stop it, please.
Best column yet, Jeff.