Submitted by Missing_Trillions t3_11cflhy in Documentaries
That is the same thing. The mainstream of culture, discourse and politics is driven by the owners.
People need to remember that back during the labour movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries the workers and unions had to start their own newspapers to combat the propaganda of the bosses.
After WW2 people forgot that its a class struggle and by Watergate people are celebrating a media that was more concerned with documenting the attacks by one political elite on another than the enormous class war waged on the new left and black power and anti war and American Indian movement by the American intelligence community ie. COINTELPRO.
It's only become worse but decades ago Noam Chomsky wrote and lectured about this extensively.
Is there anything the people running these media companies have in common?
Money and the willingness to step on you to get it.
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Class, upbringing, a material incentive to maintain the system that gives them power.
You mean they CONSERVE it:)?
Neo-liberalism would like a word.
They're the same image.jpeg
Interlocking board memberships with other large, powerful corporations, and an abiding interest that the ruling class, to which they belong, continues to rule. So, for instance, we don't see anywhere near as many stories about how much influence the ruling class has in, and over, our government, to insure that the US continues to be a place where the rich can grow richer, while everybody else doesn't.
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They're capital.
Surprisingly, politics
Rupert Murdoch
Other than being part of the ruling class that benefit from the continuation of the status quo?
yes. but nothing you are allowed to notice.
Should look into their bloodline and religion
Now look up who owns Reddit
Who do you mean?
^^^
Getting harder and harder to tell the difference
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You say that as though it's a new sentiment.
Yes and: most corporate media is partisan agnostic. They protect the status quo and hierarchy. aka The Radical Centrists.
Fox News, aka GOP.tv, a notable exception, are unapologetically right wing populists. Meaning alliance of upper and lower classes against the middle.
The main (major) problem with FOX news is it isn't based on fact, it is 90%+ conservative propaganda. All of their major contributors have a truthful rating in the single digits, that's not opinion but fact!
Where I don’t disagree with you about Fox you seem to be giving cnn, msnbc and all the other networks that do the exact same thing only with a different narrative a hard pass. And who might be determining this “truthful rating?” I’m sure they are just regular people with zero political ties.
Fox always lags far behind, regarding fact-checking. That is hugely more true about their "news-entertainment" programs, which are propaganda, pure and simple.
Yup, the "left" does it too. But, the right has made a science of it, and taken it to heights hitherto undreamt of. But, you have your what-about-ism to protect you from really seeing that.
The fact is, it's ALL owned by the rich, and both sides keep any information about how our country really runs out of the limelight.
You literally said it yourself, it’s all owned by the rich and they purposefully don’t tell us the truth. You are literally agreeing with my statement and then claiming I’m protecting my what-about-ism like I was wrong.
Not at all, the other networks don't get the facts correct all the time but they do it at a much higher rate than FOX, OAN and News Max who basically lie to their viewers at as close to 100% as they can get.
Funny how there are people dumb enough to actually believe this. Lmao
The really funny part is how many people who watch FOX, OAN or Newsmax actually believe what they are being told and are either too stupid or too ignorant to realize they are being lied to and conned at the same time!
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You do realize that Trump was a pathological liar don't you? Also Trump did nothing for you or the country unless you're in the top 1%. He also sold out our intelligence community to Crazy Vlad Putin in Helsinki, ripped off the country by forcing secret service and other govt. officials to stay at his hotels and inflated prices and also added $7 trillion to the national debt. Just to name a few. He also opened the door to elect other village idiots like Boebert, Greene and Soros into Congress. Soros is cut out of the same cloth as Trump and where do you think that lyingidiot Soros learned his lessons of constant lying from? Donald Trump!
I meant Santos or whatever name he's going by this week. Not Soros. Anyone on Reddit know why I lost my edit feature? Did I hit something that took it away?
You likely don't mean Soros, buddy
You leave out the power of doubt. What we truly need is drastic change. That scares people, so anything that casts doubt on how much change we need makes it easier for people to think it's always been this way, and it always will.
Lmao
They never ask how much war or tax breaks for corporations/rich will cost our people, society, economy, but will always ask how much popular programs that help people will cost.
Do you mean like this? https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/28/politics/ukraine-war-world-costs-analysis/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/economy/trump-tax-cuts-impact-economy/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/asia/us-afghanistan-spending-waste-intl-cmd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/15/economy/trump-tax-cuts-impact-economy/index.html
Every one of those articles came out after the legislation passed... Want me to link articles defending war spending or tax cuts? This list is so sparse you had to link the same trump tax cut article twice to pad it out.
Edit: Actually read the article on Ukraine. It doesn't criticize spending at all. It lists a few negative effects of the extended war throughout the world, but it doesn't even mentioned how much the US has spent, let alone talk about what the money could have gone to.
> let alone talk about what the money could have gone to.
There's hardly anything better to spend money on, right now. Especially if it's from the DOD/military budget.
You're essentially beating your age-old enemy with ZERO casualties or danger to your citizens.
>There's hardly anything better to spend money on, right now
Lol there are endless things to better spend it on if your own population is suffering deprivation. But America is a rich it can fund both. But that doesn't mean defending Ukraine is more important than averting the a suffering of your own people due to your own actions.
>Lol there are endless things to better spend it on if your own population is suffering deprivation
So why take the money specifically away from Ukrainian aid instead of a million things you COULD take it away from locally? Like tax cuts for corpos and billionaires, the military industry, etc., etc?
As far as being (effectively) at war with a country, right now the US basically "getting stuff for free" (in terms of human suffering). The money they're sending is game-changing in Ukraine but pretty much inconsequential in terms of the US GDP.
>So why take the money specifically away from Ukrainian aid instead of a million things you COULD take it away from locally?
The real question is why is a firehose of aid to them possible with so little debate but for your own people it's not?
I feel like I'm constantly saying the same thing over and over again and you're just flat out ignoring it.
Every country has various "buckets" of budget. The US is not taking money away from infrastructure or firefighting to send it out to Ukraine, it's using the military budget or the emergency budget. Aid or not, you wouldn't see a difference.
You also wouldn't see a difference because MOST of the aid is in the form of equipment and not money. You can't build a hospital with a bunch of M777 howitzers, can you?
As for "why aid for your own people is not possible" - ask the Republicans who are consequently blocking all attempts at a more "for people" legislation.
>I feel like I'm constantly saying the same thing over and over again and you're just flat out ignoring it.
You're saying something that presupposes something I never said and you keep saying it so I keep ignoring it.
Supporting Ukraine is in fact not the most important priority for any nation other than Ukraine and perhaps some of its vulnerable neighbours.
>Every country has various "buckets" of budget. The US is not taking money away from infrastructure or firefighting to send it out to Ukraine, it's using the military budget or the emergency budget. Aid or not, you wouldn't see a difference.
This presupposes these are unchangeable things. But there are emergencies in America that need funding, there ways to rebudget. But they don't because hegemony has priority over feeding and housing and giving medical care to Americans who can't afford it.
If poverty in America were treated like Ukraine is by media and politicians they'd unass all that money too.
>You also wouldn't see a difference because MOST of the aid is in the form of equipment and not money.
Equipment they'll pay to replace so it's still money to the arms manufacturers.
>As for "why aid for your own people is not possible" - ask the Republicans who are consequently blocking all attempts at a more "for people" legislation.
Naw, democrats are also guilty. They're just less guilty. Biden stopped a rail strike that was partly about safety issues and here we see the consequences of that anti union probusiness attitude.
Democrats would be considered milquetoast at best on many other democracies if the republicans weren't around, but they're also in the wealthiest nation on earth with limited ambition or ideological inclination toward big broad stroke solutions. Even if they had the full control of legislation they'd never do a proper new deal.
>You're saying something that presupposes something I never said and you keep saying it so I keep ignoring it.
You're right, sorry, I confused you with the other guy because you sounded the same.
>Supporting Ukraine is in fact not the most important priority for any nation other than Ukraine and perhaps some of its vulnerable neighbours.
That's an impressively short-sighted worldview. Also, we've already been there, done that. Read about a guy called Chamberlain and his stance towards Hitler.
>there are emergencies in America that need funding
Which emergency in the US is underfunded SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE of the UA-aid?
>But they don't because hegemony has priority over feeding and housing and giving medical care to Americans who can't afford it.
And what exactly is the impact of the UA-aid on the fact that the Republican party reacts with a hissy fit every time anyone suggests anything REMOTELY pro-citizen in legislature?
>If poverty in America were treated like Ukraine is by media and politicians they'd unass all that money too.
Remind me again, how many poor people in the US are getting kidnapped, killed or their houses blown up daily?
Also, which US "help the poor" programme suffers lower finances due to the UA-aid?
>Equipment they'll pay to replace so it's still money to the arms manufacturers.
Nope. Most of that equipment was either already retired or scheduled to be retired. For instance, there's A LOT of Abrams tanks after the Marine Corps decided to completely change their strategy and removed armour.
>Naw, democrats are also guilty.
Fair enough, although it certainly doesn't seem like it the last couple of years.
>Even if they had the full control of legislation they'd never do a proper new deal.
The US is a fundamentally broken democracy. No party ever has "full control" due to how much power lobbyists and the businesses behind them have gotten over the years.
>That's an impressively short-sighted worldview. Also, we've already been there, done that. Read about a guy called Chamberlain and his stance towards Hitler.
Comparing Russia to Hitler is kinda ridiculous. Russia has shown how dysfunctional their military is. Compared to Hitler Putin has no flex at all except in a very limited region.
It's fantasy to think he's a threat to a nuclear armed Europe. Hence why its no more important to most nations than countless other regional conflicts are. Were just racist because we think of Europeans are facing strife its exceptional.
>Which emergency in the US is underfunded SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE of the UA-aid?
Were back to you saying things that presuppose things I don't say.
>And what exactly is the impact of the UA-aid on the fact that the Republican party reacts with a hissy fit every time anyone suggests anything REMOTELY pro-citizen in legislature?
That it was just as true 20 years ago and 40 years ago and 60 years ago when the modern political situation was less dire. America has always been this way and its consistent if uneven across multiple generations.
>Remind me again, how many poor people in the US are getting kidnapped, killed or their houses blown up daily?
Change Ukraine to rojava and magically we don't care. Maybe because it would piss off turkey and their value to nato supersedes our humanity. Ie. Hegemony.
>Nope. Most of that equipment was either already retired or scheduled to be retired. For instance, there's A LOT of Abrams tanks after the Marine Corps decided to completely change their strategy and removed armour.
It's dishonest to suggest its all free and never going to be replaced. The tanks aren't even the bulk of the support.
>Fair enough, although it certainly doesn't seem like it the last couple of years.
That's because you need to look beyond what the GOP does. It's lesser evil ism, not good VS evil.
>The US is a fundamentally broken democracy. No party ever has "full control" due to how much power lobbyists and the businesses behind them have gotten over the years.
Hence why the moral idea of helping Ukraine is superficial. It just so happens to appeal to it.
>Comparing Russia to Hitler is kinda ridiculous. Russia has shown how dysfunctional their military is.
German military was very weak up until around 1941, they needed time to ramp up production. What they had in 1937-1940 was strategy and tactics that haven't been seen to date and caught attacked countries off-guard.
Had France and England actually respect the treaties they had with Poland, there would be no World War II.
Had Ukraine not receive help from its allies, it would be already done - they'd run out of ammunition, artillery shells, medical equipment, etc.
Don't let the fact that most of the war content posted on Reddit is "russians being dumb" fool you - if they were overall half as incompetent as these videos show, Zelensky would've received the victory parade of his army marching through the Red Square months ago.
>It's fantasy to think he's a threat to a nuclear armed Europe.
HE IS the "nuclear armed Europe" too, mate. At least on paper, russia still has the nuclear arsenal to rival that of the US, France and Britain combined.
We can ASSUME that it's no longer the case (judging by how badly maintained their regular military is), but can we bet the lives of half the planet on it? I don't think that's a bet any sane politician who knows anything about the history of dictators is willing to make.
>Hence why its no more important to most nations than countless other regional conflicts are.
Russia getting their grubby little idiot hands on Ukraine has extremely huge strategical and economical consequences.
Ukraine's fields produce food that can feed a fifth of the planet. Natural gas and oil reserves have been found that rival those of Russia. Then there's all the geopolitical stuff on top of that. I highly recommend watching THIS video. It's pretty long but will let you understand why NATO can't let russia have this - even if we ignore all the warcrimes stuff.
>Were just racist because we think of Europeans are facing strife its exceptional. (...) Change Ukraine to rojava and magically we don't care
That's actually true, but the reasons for NATO's help are entirely not humanitarian, but rather strategic. It's a military operation through and through, it's just that only Ukraine is doing the actual fighting.
>Were back to you saying things that presuppose things I don't say.
OK, in that case explain what did you mean by this sentence:
>there are emergencies in America that need funding
Because apparently I don't understand it, in the context of this discussion.
>That it was just as true 20 years ago and 40 years ago and 60 years ago when the modern political situation was less dire. America has always been this way and its consistent if uneven across multiple generations.
Exactly my point. Meaning - UA-aid existing or not doesn't change anything.
>It's dishonest to suggest its all free and never going to be replaced. The tanks aren't even the bulk of the support.
I never suggested either of these.
>Hence why the moral idea of helping Ukraine is superficial
Like I said, it's not a moral or humanitarian sentiment that's pushing NATO countries to help. It's 100% entirely strategic. What's going on right now is a "weird world war" where everyone's involved but only two countries are doing the fighting.
Healthcare, infrastructure, debt relief, housing, white-collar crime enforcement. All better ways to spend money than sticking it to Russia.
>Healthcare, infrastructure, debt relief, housing, white-collar crime enforcement
Ekhm...
>Especially if it's from the DOD/military budget.
Also, the US military doctrine assumes always being ready to fight two superpowers at once. Right now, one of these superpowers is bleeding out after methodically bashing its head against a certain Ukrainian wall.
Don't be fooled into thinking this is a "local conflict" or anything like that - this is 100% a world war (even if it's "weird" and seems local), because the times have changed and these days everything is global. If Ukraine falls and Russia is allowed to rebuild, it WILL go after the Baltic states and Poland, who knows if they'll stop there.
Now, we already know what happens if you let a dictator take land without repercussions, so this cannot stand.
It would be immoral (considering the crimes the russians are committing) AND self destructive (considering how intertwined the global markets are).
>All better ways to spend money than sticking it to Russia.
For RIGHT NOW, maybe. Although it's not like the US is a poor, third world country and can't do both - support Ukraine AND do all the things you listed. I mean, come on, mate - they've sent 0,4% of their GDP so far, it's not like you can reform a whole country for that. Or even just healthcare.
Also, this 0,4% doesn't mean the US has sent that much money, which could be used for, say, housing. That includes the declared value of the equipment they're sending. So tell me, how many hospitals can you nationalise for 150 M777 howitzers?
So, yeah, there are better ways of governing money, if you're USA. But as far as spending your military budget goes - you can't do better than having someone fight for you while at the same time cleaning up your warehouses of old stuff.
It didn't come out of the military budget
It also didn't come out of the healthcare budget, did it?
Do you even know how spending works or do I have to explain our entire legislative system to you? It doesn't come out of a budget. That's. why it needed serval pieces of legislation. All of which passed easier than legislation that helps people.
DOD contracts are fraught with bloat and inflated bids
There is another way that these media outlets hide the truth... by burying the story. This allows them to claim to be reporting on something, while keeping people in the dark. In the old days, it was placing the article on page A22 of the newspaper. Now it is placing it 3 clicks away from the front page.
I checked the waybackmachine for each of your citations. I can not find the articles on the front page of the afternoon capture for any of them. That includes the Trump one, which is hard to believe considering CNN has had 10 Trump-bashing articles per day, every day, up to the present.
I found those in 2min of googling all from just one mainstream news outlet . I can find plenty more that examine it from different angles and had more exposure but you can google things yourself and i've made my point.
And I spent 10 minutes scouring the waybackmachine and can not find the articles anywhere on CNN.com.
Which proved my point- that the stories exist but are buried to the point they can't be found. And you further proved my point- that people will google what they want to find and then say "See! It's right there! They do report on it!"
Also, it's easier to print and bury than live record and bury. Which is why you'll even more rarely see televised CNN pundets question defense spending or budget cuts.
OK, replace "never"in my original comment to "rarely."
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Just read Manufacturing Consent. I always laugh at how right and left meet in the middle. All these conservative friends talking about media conspiracies, and i say it isn't a conspiracy. It has been documented and discussed for decades by none other than your friends on the left.
Also, check out Inventing Reality, something something something, by Michael Parenti.
People don't like to think this, in a culture that touts individualism, but we really are sheep - AND THAT'S A GOOD THING. We survive because of other people. There is next-to-nothing that we don't get because of other people. We are social beings, and that is one of our major assets.
But, it can so easily be used against us.
In fact, we are INFLUENCED to prize our individuality - by other people. It's a value that we got from other people, along with all our other beliefs and values. If everybody thinks they're an individual, how individualistic is that, actually?
So, we are highly susceptible to the social engineering conducted by the people who want us to act in ways that benefit them. Media is one of the main ways in which that engineering is accomplished. Thus, what we think of as reality was presented to us, and continually corroborated by much that we see around us. Nothing that doesn't support that version of reality is presented in the MSM that serves its owners and advertisers, along with the people who they share interlocking corporate board memberships with, but is relegated to low-traffic, alternative news sources few read, and many doubt.
Piggy backing to say, people need to watch Michael Parenti's lecture in 1986 (commonly known as yellow parenti).
Adding to this and u/Starskeet people should watch all of Adam Curtis' documentaries like Century of the Self.
Through in Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle, Antonio Gramsci collected works, Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism and the granddaddy of it all Edward Bernays' Propaganda.
It's freeing in a nihilist sort of way.
This. I keep seeing social media posts saying things that are covered in MC and posting it like it's some secert mind blowing conspiracy. Like nah fam, this shit was sorted out some 50+ years ago
I bring up Manufacturing Consent all the time in conversations about how bad the corporate news media is. It's not just the news spreading propaganda either. During the most recent Superbowl, an ad or something was played in remembrance of Pat Tillman - the NFL player turned Army Ranger shortly after 9/11. During his deployment, he heavily questioned the US involvement in the region and died of friendly fire - a 3-round burst to the head from short range.
Century of the Self is also a good watch regarding the birth of advertising in the west.
I'm confused.
> I always laugh at how right and left meet in the middle.
Don't the US right and "left" meet somewhere on the right?
There still is a very small true left, I guess you could be referring to us?
> All these conservative friends talking about media conspiracies, and i say it isn't a conspiracy. It has been documented and discussed for decades by none other than your friends on the left.
Does something stop being a conspiracy when it's documented and discussed?
Does something stop being a conspiracy when it's documented and discussed?
No, but it might stop being seen in the same way that a "conspiracy theory" is often seen - that is, not really believed by many people, but actually the overwrought imaginings of a mind that sees conspiracies behind every door.
> Does something stop being a conspiracy when it's documented and discussed?
When it's being done in the open from the beginning? Yes, because the key component of a conspiracy is that it's designed to be secret.
Conspiracy involves at least some level of secrecy, otherwise it's just a pact
If it starts with some Ievel of secrecy, does it stop being a conspiracy when it's documented and discussed?
Well yes. If everyone knows about your secret plans then they're not very secret anymore
>Well yes. If everyone knows about your secret plans then they're not very secret anymore
source re: it stops being a conspiracy.
agreed. it's just that often people confuse conspiracy with conspiracy theory and people are led to believe that all of the latter is some ridicilous tin foil lunacy when in fact conspiracies are very real.
Agreed. And Manfacturing Consent at least doesn't cry because a pedophile wasn't treated with "dignity."
Coming up on 8 decades since Enlightenment as Mass Deception discussed it:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm
Oligopoly. Not monopoly.
Regardless of party affiliation, the rich are in control. Fox is the best example of this, but that's only because public awareness of names like Sinclair Broadcasting is slim at best. I'm not a fan boy of anyone, but if a man needs recognition for his attempts to bring public attention to the class warfare that's been taking place, Robert Reich should be noted. It's unfortunate but Bernie's been marginalized by both parties and that screams two sides of the same coin.
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Regardless, you meant to say regardless.
Perchance.
Thx
Most rich people are just lucky or smart enough to benefit from the skewed system, and not in control. The banking system and its gatekeepers, and the ultra rich, are in control.
The concept of class warfare is just a ploy to give the poor a scapegoat out of the rich, and turn them against each other as adversaries.
There IS class war, and my class is winning. - Warren Buffet.
Class war is real, and always has been. But, the media, which should be telling us a lot more about that, is owned by one of the warring sides.
So if I happen to get wealthy one way or another, I'll automatically become an adversary? Class war is just a way to turn the society against itself so the real elites can benefit. Divide and rule you know. Most rich people have nothing to do with media ownership, let alone of the huge internet platforms or biggest media outlets abroad that are the arbiter of what content other smaller media outlets propagate.
Smooth brain take.
>The concept of class warfare is just a ploy to give the poor a scapegoat out of the rich, and turn them against each other as adversaries.
Separating the rich from the bankers is like saying it's not the republicans or democrats, it's the politicians.
>Separating the rich from the bankers
Why wouldn't you separate people like Usain Bolt or Al Pacino from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Saudi royal family or George Soros?
>is like saying it's not the republicans or democrats, it's the politicians.
Because it is?
>Why wouldn't you separate people like Usain Bolt or Al Pacino from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Saudi royal family or George Soros?
Because once you get into those echelons you're part of it. And less wealthy people often play a key role anyway. Much of the liberal intelligentsia functions to explain why it's right and good that we're under a bankers thumb.
There's no value in being too granular about wealth. Many people abuse workers while owning businesses worth a few mil.
Class war doesn't need to be this complicated.
And a lot of the political machine is made up of enthusiastic not very well off staffers and prospects for the higher echelons of political power. No need to point at only some of them. It's like how after the Ohio train crash people said don't just blame the ceo, learn the names of the shareholders and board members too.
You've been eating nothing much but propaganda for a while now. Its no secret the government has high level agents employed in high position at all those firms too... and the most effective propaganda is not the propaganda you dont realise is propaganda like black hawk down. Its propaganda that you actually pay to consume as news or entertainment.
Add to the info-sphere of propaganda all of the corperate advertising, which is just another form of consumptive based propaganda, lobbying or propogandists tailored specifically for the politicians, and education that is memory and recall focused rather than logic and critical thinking? And you've got a psychic reality that is nothing but propaganda going on really in every aspect of society, institution, age and demographic. Its the worst on the planet by far - simply because Americans dont even believe they are impacted by propaganda. In fact theyll double down on alternative facts and shout down anyone rational as the ones spewing bullshit.
sure, foreign governments try to influence you, but their influence is a drop in the ocean compared to your own government and corporations.
The fact that you believe differently is due to propaganda from your own government and corporations.
Agreed. But would include community and culture in there too
Community and culture don't have the same agenda that the government and the corporations have.
Baudelaire originally, but these days Keyser Söze:
That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
Governments is tasked to break up companies like this. They have not going after a large corporation for a long time. Last one I can remember was Microsoft.
Problem is that once capitalists accumulate enough wealth it's just easier to buy the government.
They did exactly that, about 40 years ago.
Civic democracy literally can't exist when wealth is that concentrated.
Right blameshift to the captalism boogeyman. Couldn’t be corrupt government officials that would do the same under any other monetary system
Wow, people can be corrupt in any system, shocking. So if they’re always going to be corrupt then it’s not blameshifting to talk about how the current system is allowing that corruption to flourish. The problem with unregulated Capitalism is that it concentrates fantastic wealth and power in the hands of a few unaccountable individuals and corporations. That’s not an error or a goof, that’s the entire design of the system. It allows the superwealthy and corporations to buy off the government at an industrial scale with no need to even be subtle about it.
I’m sorry, but capitalism will never love you, and white knighting it won’t make you rich. Stagnating wages while corporations report record profits, wealth concentrations that make feudal nobility look like a teenager with a piggy bank, a government solely concerned with keeping the rich rich and making them richer. This is unregulated capitalism working as intended.
We used to keep this shit in check, stopping mergers, breaking up monopolies, the super wealthy used to have a 90% tax bracket, etc. Problem is that around the time of the civil rights movement those in power, actual power, realized that they could use social issues to keep the people divided and rabidly tribalistic about their political parties while they robbed us blind. It worked. It’s not red vs blue, it’s green versus not, and you ain’t on the green side.
Anything unregulated will get out of control, it’s just the constant lazy argument of “capitalism bad” is so easy and and unproductive. You’re never going to stop people from exchanging goods and services for capital, so quit the non-starter argument. The fact you and I are arguing over this rather than doing something effective is proof that it is a very effective distraction.
When bribery is legal and government regulation is a revolving door between CEOs and "regulators", we get this cancerous corrupt system.
I believe this started with the Telecommunications Act of 96. (I plan on watching this later, so maybe it's mentioned). Media used to hold political figures and the wealthy somewhat accountable. Now those guys just flat out run media and use it as a tool to divide and shape opinions in order to maintain the status quo.
> Governments is tasked to break up companies like this.
The Government is tasked with protecting rich people from having to deal with poor people. Everything else is incidental, at least in the USA.
I like how people in the comments blame the political party that's not theirs for media manipulation but never blame their own. Just goes to show how brainwashed everyone is 🤡
"The other party is a bunch of corporate stooges, but not my party! If everybody would just vote for my party, we could all have nice things!"
Make that "we", and I'll agree with you.
Your comment is more of the same: all those OTHER people are influenced and brainwashed.
Agreed
It's almost like one party was just fine with antitrust and representation laws, while another was about maximum deregulation except when minorities also get to enjoy any benefit.
This doc is a weird mixed bag. It makes some valid points, but when it goes into the coverage of TWA 800 it veers into tinfoil hat territory. We know what brought down that plane and it wasn't a missile. Also, the sympathetic treatment given to a child predator is all kinds of WTF.
Its absolutely laughable since it also treats the US as a closed media market when in reality media is also impacted by global news from good sources anyhow. Yeah they make their own spin but no they dont control all news and what reaches you…
Yeah I feel the same way. It almost feels like a Psy op or something, like it's crackpot theories to discredit the idea that we should break up the polyopoly
Or it’s just kind of a bad documentary
Obviously, hence my choice of words...
That's a good point.
Now take your experimental drug. And if you question us you are a right-wing racist who is killing grandmothers.
It's not experimental and then there is legit questioning and "just asking questions".
OMG you're so right, they need to learn how to do it less obvious from all the fossil companies! /s
God all the fucking covid vaccine commercials piss me off. It's always forced down your throat with smiling actors...
Sounds like you've stopped questioning the motives of the people that say things you like to hear. They call that "cognitive bias", and most of us, on both sides of the partisan divide, are guilty of it.
How does it sound like that in the slightest?
Cool, Reddit does a good job of doing that too.
Name names, the people behind it get away with it through anonymity. If we held people to account for their deeds, it'd be different.
What would you do if you had their names (most of which can be looked up)? The whole system is designed to protect these people. Why do you think the NSA is spying on us? Why do you think the cops are unaccountable?
This is a documentary where they never talked to anyone actually involved, it was basically ambush journalism at its finest. When Jean-Philippe Tremblay was asked if he ever tried to talk to any of the major players, proudly answered NO. He went on to say he had 93 minutes to get an alternative point of view across to the viewers and that is what he wanted to present and thought they did a good job of doing that.
Sounds bad, on the face of it, and maybe it is. But, if the media serves the rich first and foremost, that's NOT what they're going to tell you. They're going to tell you they're fair and objective. Well, they've been telling us that all along. Maybe a documentary like this one is the best way to find out things that the MSM has a vesting interest in not telling us.
What you want from MSM is factual reporting and you will never get 100% factual reporting from any of the major networks, but with that being said you have to look to those that present the facts at the highest level and the best at doing it are ABC, CBS, NBC and the worst are by far, FOX, OAN and News Max.
And they admitted to using that power to manipulate the most recent presidential election, we do not have a fair system
Break them up.
Break it all up.
We did you standard oil and bell
Why is it so hard Todo the same now?
Why is it so hard Todo the same now?
Because the people who have the power to do it were funded by the people that they would need to do it to. And, a conservative SCOTUS isn't likely to step in, after they decided that money = free speech, and that dark money campaign contributions don't harm actual democracy at all.
Honestly, you have no idea how scary your question is. The fact that you, and many others, would need to even ask it, tells me how little so many people know about how our country works. That's one of the things you can thank our corporate media for. This is part of why Bernie Sanders is advocating for a government-funded, but non-partisan/independent, non-profit news organization that actually informs people about what's going on. I don't see that working all that well, because the people who would be making the appointments in such an organization are, themselves, HIGHLY partisan.
More of a rhetorical question then a question that I was really looking for an answer. I obviously know how messed up things are.
U guys still watching TV?
This is dangerous to our democracy.
The story of mgs2 folks
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When the top people at companies make 200% more (that’s a very low estimate) it breeds this greed that we all have to deal with.
There used to be laws against exactly this.
Read "Inventing Reality" Michael Parenti is very knowledgeable on the way media distorts reality in favour of the elite minority.
I hope this prigram reveales how 5 separate conglomerate corporations can be a monopoly.
Is there any place I can get real local and world news?
Democracy Now!
Thanks. Going to check it out when I get home. They're not biased towards the left right up or down? 😉 And they're not in anyone's pocket? Does anyone else agree with this suggestion?
They cover news on the left which is generally ignored by corporate and right wing media.
Definitely left leaning, in my view. But fair.
The YouTube version is 50 minutes. Anyone know what is missing from it?
its gotten way worse since 2012 too
"In this country, the most powerful country on Earth, it is so actually difficult to get information, especially outside our borders, not to mention what's going on inside of this country".
Wow, so much eloquence. 8-3
What do ya know, propaganda is just as prevalent in the US as it is anywhere else in the world.
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I love people discussing this as if its relevant?
This is ten years old and the media landscape has dramatically changed.
Turns out all those conspiracy theorists trying to destroy the media weren't doing it to bring us truth but to push more lies.
That was wonderful, thank you
This is what I'm here for
This was really good. A compelling review of the downing of TWA flight 800 ties up a number of additional loose ends in addition to big money coverup deals.
Inventing Reality
1 Conservative viewpoint and the rest are Leftist outlets.
People are too ignorant to accept that the Left has always been in power. The Right are just controlled opposition.
Big Tech, Big Pharma, Corporate Media are all in bed together with the Government.
Yet people accept their shit and eat with pleasure. Forced mandates and destruction of l;ivelihood and small businesses, etc.
They’re all:
Anti-union
Anti-Medicare-for-All
Anti-College-for-All
Pro cutting taxes on the wealthiest.
What are you talking about?
You've proven my point.
Thank you.
Thanks Rupert and thanks GOP for letting it happen.
I despise the republicans as much as anyone, but making the assumption that this phenomenon only affects their wing is naive beyond belief, and betrays an unhealthy ideological bias. Both sides of the corporate media industry are after ratings and will do whatever it takes to get them.
While the right wing deals in anger and outrage, the left wing runs filler fluff on products and celebrities. Both are detrimental - obviously the rights outrage baiting has caused significantly more harm though.
There is no left wing in America. Both the republicans and democrats are conservatives who are jointly responsible for this joke of a democracy.
Who are these left wing media you’re referring to? AT&T own CNN’s parent company (and the new boss at WB is super happy that in his mind he’s making CNN “balanced” by giving right wing voices a platform on it). MSNBC are owned by Comcast, and ABC is a Disney subsidiary.
There’s right wing (AKA Fox) and then there are corporate media who both sides the shit out of everything. Corporations are very heavily anti-left because true leftist policies (higher taxes, more regulations, higher pay for workers, etc) hurt their bottom line.
I'm with you, but outrage baiting, as you call it, is just as bad from the left leaning media as it is in the right. The right baits the anger of angry white men, while the left baits the anger of crazy, angry old cat ladies.
It's funny how easily a person can spot the media manipulation/outrage baiting of their rival political party, but can't spot it in their own media.
What left wing media is there to spot bias in?
MSNBC is the worst offender IMHO, but there are many others. CNN was atrocious when Trump was president, but they seem to be working on being a bit better.
MSNBC is owned by Comcast. CNN is owned by Time Warner.
Both of those are corporations placing them at the right end of American politics. If either of them ever come across as left-leaning, it is simply a disguise of their true corporate nature.
You have been told by the right wing media that another part of the right wing media is the left.
The corporate owners are irrelevant. They just want profits rolling in and do not care which side sends them money.
What makes them left-leaning is their content and editorial decisions. MSNBC is clearly far to the left of center in American politics.
Oh, and BTW... the U.S. is further left than 90% of the world's nations. (There is more to the political scale than health care, getting that out of the way since that is the only comeback people have when I make that statement.)
That is the formulation they would like you to believe yes. But MSNBC is not in the far left of American politics, or at least were not whenever I’ve seen them. They have a center-right bias just like the Democrats. I’m not sure you know what the left actually wants, but it’s not the stuff advocated by msnbc.
Oh and by the way, the US is in no way left of 90% of nations, that is an absurd and completely made up statement. And nationalized healthcare should be a right-wing agenda item, as it would save untold billions of dollars and produce better outcomes.
The U.S. is further left than... nearly the entirety of South American, Central America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe.
Again, the political spectrum has more to do than one subject. For example, Venezuela is far left economically (how's that working out?) but try to have an abortion there (punished by mandatory prison sentence)... or a gay marriage (which is constitutionally banned.)
So, besides Canada, Australia, and Western Europe (I'm ignoring the state sanctioned religions and monarchies that still exist there) what country is further left than the U.S.?
Well none, if you get to define what left is.
I think you’re confusing agenda items of the American left with left-wing politics. Abortion, for example, is not a left-right issue. Or more accurately, the parties in the United States are misaligned on the abortion issue. Conservatives should be opposed to government interference in medical decisions.
So really the issue is one of perspective. What you really mean is that you perceive the US to be left-leaning based on the policies you prioritize. That’s simply not the same thing as statistics. If you have any data you’d like to present, I’m glad to read it, but these are just feelings you have.
It's ridiculous to think that politics can be defined by statistics or data. What the fuck are you even talking about? What stats are you looking at? What "data" have you presented? Just emotional opinions like "that is an absurd and completely made up statement."
And yes, many within the U.S. political split takes on stances that don't align with their claimed ideology. The left should be pro-freedom and anti-influence of pharmaceutical companies. Yet what side did they take on "vaccination" mandates? The left should be anti-war, yet they are cheering on sending billions of dollars to weapons manufactures under cover of the Ukraine proxy-war.
I was responding to your made-up statistic. 90%? There are 195 countries in the world, what even is 10% of that? There are 19.5 countries more lefty than the US?
My point was that you are biased. You are drawing conclusions based on your opinion and then presenting it in numerical form. That's the data I'm talking about.
The Left should be anti-war? Why? Why should the right be pro-war? Who told you that these political opinions are aligned this way? There's no historical basis for that. The left and right were both mixed in favor of WW1 and 2, Korea, Vietnam, and MiddleEastHappyFunTime 1 and 2. The notion that Left means anti-war is your own color because of the eventual political alignment at the end of the Vietnam conflict. That's exactly one instance where being left meant anti-war and being right meant pro-whateverthefuckvietnamwas.
Realistically, the Right should be anti-war. It's a wasteful expenditure and an overreach of government. You seem to have conflated the individual politics of the GOP with "Right" and politics of some of the Donkeys with "Left". That's unmoored in global politics, historical politics, or really anything else. It is literally the narrative you have been programmed from the corporate media you consume.
The GOP are a center-right party with nationalist tendencies, globally speaking. The Dems are also a center-right party, this time with some historical flag-burning tendencies. But those times are decades ago, you don't see Nancy Pelosi out there without a bra on. There is no left-wing party in the US, just as there is no left-wing media. Maybe Democracy Now! or other crap like that, but neither you nor I consider that to be mainstream, and with up to 200k viewers an ep, it really isn't.
And Ukraine is not a proxy war. Principals aren't participants in a proxy war. I suppose you could claim that it is half-proxy, but that's a pretty novel formulation and inaccurate. The US is doing literally the barest minimum to aid that country. I am not pro-war myself, but I am confident that the US military could completely flatten the Russian army in a heads-up conflict. If the US were directly involved in Ukraine, it would already be over.
So, name 19 countries further left than the U.S.
>the US military could completely flatten the Russian army
Huh? The U.S. couldn't even defeat primativists fighting with Mosin-Nagants in Afghanistan after two decades.
You're confusing ability with intent. The US didn't intend to flatten Afghanistan. Let's be honest, no one really knows what they intended, but leveling the country was not in the remit. The US military was not built to fight insurgents in their own mountains.
What the US military is good for is fighting another large military in open warfare. And in that capacity, The only force on the planet that could contend with any one branch of the US military is another branch of the US military. The Navy has 11 aircraft carriers with 60 planes each. China has one. Russia had one.
The Russians are struggling to defeat Ukraine. A country with a third the population and a hundredth the landmass. If the US decided to act militarily in Russia (and nukes didn't exist), the war would be over in a month. We have a standing peacetime military that is larger than their wartime active military.
Also the US lost about 2,400 people in Afghanistan. The Afghanis lost at least 240,000. That may not be winning, but it doesn't look like losing.
For us, Europe is what we compare ourselves to, culturally and economically. Compared to them, we're definitely to the right.
But, compared to the whole world, I think you're right on.
I see your point on the corporate nature and maybe there's a better way for me to have worded my comment. My main point was just that MSNBC spends its time talking about how bad the Republicans are in bashing Republican positions, while Fox News spends all of its time bashing the Democrats and democratic positions.
That may be true, but not all of them, right? They only bash certain politicians and policies. Fox's 180 on Trump should tell you how much they actually care about the things they say. One day he was a serious danger to America and the next he was our only hope. The media we have are controlled by the wealthy and report things in ways that are favorable to their worldview - or to their ratings. That's not a conspiracy theory, that's literally our system.
It's the same way the Republicans can call themselves the party of small government while every Republican administration balloons the deficit. They just literally do not give a shit if the reality lines up with what they are saying, and apparently neither do their voters.
MSNBC may spend their days bashing certain policies or politicians of the GOP. But they simply don't have to platform ideas that are to the left or to the right of the ideas they wish to discuss. If you say inconvenient things, they simply don't have to ever mention you or your ideas.
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True leftism isn't even on the table in the US. THAT'S the function of the 'leftist' MSM.
Meanwhile, we're maybe THE most right-leaning 'developed' country, all the while the right tells us we'll be communist - I.E., like the social democracies, which are simply more regulated capitalist countries, in Europe, any day now. It's how all those Koch-funded organizations and "non-partisan" foundations work to keep things like national healthcare out of serious consideration, even though a majority of Americans favor it.
Well said. That was exactly the point I was trying to get across. The sad reality is that leftist media wouldn't be popular because it wouldn't be all doom and gloom. Have you watched the news lately? Turns out everything is bad everywhere, except for here, where it's getting worse. The very nature of for-profit "news" is anathema to a leftist world view.
Is that a joke? I'm legitimately confused as to how you can't see this for yourself.
It's only a joke in the sarcastic sense. It's implying there is no left-wing media in the US, because there is no left-wing media in the US. If you follow this thread down you'll see further discussion of the topic, or you're welcome to present any left-leaning media in the US as a retort. Hint: None of the right-leaning media you've been told by other right-leaning media is left-leaning actually is.
> None of the right-leaning media you've been told by other right-leaning media is left-leaning actually is.
According to who? What media that you watch tells you that? It's amazing how it's so hard for people to see the world through any perspective that doesn't confirm their bias...
There is no left media. It is right wing and extreme right wing.
Sure, kid.
It's blatantly obvious to anyone with a functional brain. The multi billion dollar media company is pro workers rights, or fair pay? I dont think so. "But they support democrats" democrats are right wing.
Commie gonna commie.
Whatever you say, comrade.
What left leaning media?
...and which is more dangerous? I haven't seen many crazy old cat ladies engaging in any mass shootings, or attempting to prevent the peaceful, lawful change of any government leaders.
People who aren't on the right see them as batshit, alternative-fact-fueled crazies. People who aren't 'woke' see them as being overly concerned about politically correct pronouns. And, Biden was THE most middle-of-the-road candidate available at the time - that, and the glorious fact that he simply wasn't Trump, were why he was elected.
Eh, what're they gonna do? Throw litter at you?
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Also the lefts version of outage-baiting is "you won't believe what #celebrity# wore to #sponsored event#!!"
Uh, outside of fringe/joke media, the left does not do that.
Ok, brainwashed npc.
Sources then? What do crazy, angry old cat ladies even get upset about other than animal stuff?
Sources? Apparently, I'm talking to one.
Whatever, man. Go snack on some crayons.
Fuck off with your stupid ass conspiracy nonsense
Lol liberals
Dagamoth t1_ja2ywze wrote
Mainstream MediaCorporate Media