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[fred v]

This message was self-deleted by its author (fred v) on Mon May 9, 2016, 01:48 AM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. A big, fat K&R!

[GliderGuider]

2. A shout-out for waking the fuck up. K&R

[fred v]

27. I wasn't Asleep

Just arrogant, ala American Exceptionalism. Or, as William Casey may or may not have said to Bob Woodward, "I believed." Such was very common among men of my generation from upstate New York.

[roguevalley]

42. they are all prompting violent revolution with their behavior too.

The last time someone went the let them eat cake route it didn't end well.

[truedelphi]

48. It indeed ended badly. And the peasants got their revenge, but

The tide turned first against the revolutionaries and then against the counter revolutionaries. If there had been film footage of the carnage, it would rival what happened in Europe during World War II.

Since the events happened pre-video, we don't realize how massive the blood bath was. But it really was not at all a wondrous sight.

[Skittles]

4. they FAILED at letting Trump happen? THEY WERE COMPLICIT

[sarge43]

5. What she said

[snot]

19. Ditto that.

The 1%, shaken by the success of the (real) left in the 60's, responded by acquiring control of 95% of traditional media worldwide, among other things.

Liberal or simply genuinely concientious journalists, no matter how brilliant or even how popular, were frequently pushed out and now work for independent outlets. What was left were people whose own inclinations or lack thereof qualified them to hew to the 1%'s news agenda.

That agenda has to a considerable degree consisted in training the 99% to blame their misery on various "others" – muslims, immigrants, etc. – and to vent their fear and anger in hatred toward those others.

The 1% has simultaneously done all it could to defund public education and to direct curriculae toward vocational training and other areas that do NOT particularly develop critical thinking.

They trained their base to hate; when Trump hammers that bell, it rings in their hearts.

We're now all reaping what the 1% sowed (what we allowed them to sow).

[freebrew]

36. COMPLICIT?!

Fer fux sake, they invented him and then foisted it upon us.

[bvar22]

43. Complicit is the correct word.

24/7 Wall to Wall "News" coverage of every little thing Trump do, his FACE everywhere,
not just the Cable News, but mags and newspapers.


The permanent WARS, Gutting of the Middle/Working Classes, dumbing down of our Education System (and Media)... have poured fuel on the fire.
I would like to blame it ALL this on the Republicans, but the "Centrist" wing of the Democratic Party has assisted this also.

"All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. Thus its purely intellectual level will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach. "

---Guess Who

[Fast Walker 52]

51. like with 9/11, like with the Iraq war, like with the Wall St meltdown and bailout...

[zentrum]

6. Kicked.

[ZX86]

7. Our choices this election.

Good cop. Bad cop. Doesn't matter what your political persuasion is, the game is rigged. Heads they win, tails we lose. It's a big club and you ain't in it.

[ReasonableToo]

8. 2016 election explained in one picture!

[mountain grammy]

22. One big happy family..

What you said, "it's a big club and you ain't in it."

[FighttheFuture]

52. Wow!! Just Perfect.

[Califonz]

57. Caption contest?

"These two have their picture in the dictionary next to 'Quid pro quo' !"

[Divernan]

9. They did NOT fuck each other indiscriminately!

Jeffrey Epstein was VERY discriminating in first screening which powerful men (cough/Bill/cough) were invited to fly on his Lolita Express. It was only after these men and the underage teen "masseuses" were on board that the indiscriminate "massaging" began.

Bill Clinton a Frequent Flyer on Pedophile Billionaire's 'Lolita Express'
And Bill was careful enough to bring his 4 secret service agents with him as well! Why should my taxes go to some federal programs like LIHEAP, public defenders or education when there are ex-presidents in need of protection while being "massaged".

According to news reports, the former president took several flights on the jet to the Epstein's island, and at least on one was accompanied by "4 secret service," according to a flight logbook first reported on by Gawker.com.
http://gawker.com/flight-logs-put-clinton-dershowitz-on-pedophile-billio-1681039971

Bill Clinton took repeated trips on the " Lolita Express"—the private passenger jet owned by billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—with an actress in softcore porn movies whose name appears in Epstein's address book under an entry for "massages," according to flight logbooks obtained by Gawker and published today for the first time. The logs also show that Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually service Epstein and his friends and acted as a "potential co-conspirator" in his crimes.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in Florida to one count of soliciting underage girls for sex (and one count of adult solicitation), for which he served just over a year in county jail. But sprawling local, state, and federal investigations into the eccentric investor's habit of paying teen girls for "massages"—sessions during which he would allegedly penetrate girls with sex toys, demand to be masturbated, and have intercourse—turned up a massive network of victims, including 35 female minors whom federal prosecutors believed he'd sexually abused. He has reportedly settled lawsuits from more than 30 "Jane Doe" victims since 2008; the youngest alleged victim was 12 years old at the time of her abuse.

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--8lxTGpfN--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/wvoyfgwzetlpbojxt8l1.jpg

[Melissa G]

16. This is the same Bill Clinton that Hillary wants to have do all our Trade Deals.

[Divernan]

18. CLINTON TRADE DEALS - NOT JUST FOR LETHAL ARMAMENTS ANYMORE!

As Hillary's "minister of trade", he can drum up billions in "contributions" to the Clinton Family Foundation.

Wow! The ABSOLUTELY PERFECT, profiteering opportunity for Bill. Those slick Clintons - always thinking ahead to grow their wealth.

This would be the perfect area to set Bill loose - trade deals! I mean, they pulled this shit before with tradeoffs on State Department weapons approvals in exchange for hefty "donations" to the Clinton Foundation. Now they can expand their quid-pro-quos to the entire broad spectrum of trade.

CLINTON TRADE DEALS - NOT JUST FOR LETHAL ARMAMENTS ANYMORE![/b

HILLARY AND BILL - THE WORLD IS THEIR OYSTER!

During a campaign event this week, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton capitalized on the nostalgic popularity of Bill Clinton when she told a room full of supporters that she plans to put Bill to work because he has so many “good ideas.”

Clinton was talking extensively about trade, an issue that she has gotten a fair amount of push-back on from opponent Bernie Sanders. While Sanders opposes the Trans-Pacific partnership and rails against NAFTA, Clinton has always supported these trade deals.

But just because you feel Clinton has bad judgement on trade doesn’t mean that she can’t put someone even worse behind that wheel. Clinton said that when it comes to trade, a President Hillary Clinton would call on the first husband to broker deals and “be in charge.”

“I told my husband he’s gotta come out of retirement and be in charge of this.”

To many who are critical of Bill Clinton’s trade policy during his time as president in the 90’s, saying Clinton would put her husband in charge of trade is akin to putting him in charge of the White House interns: Just a bad idea.

[truebluegreen]

10. I think it was Digby who coined the term "the Villagers"

to describe those you so accurately name One Big, Wealthy, Incestuous, Clusterfucking Elite. As George Carlin told us, lo these many years ago, it's a club and you/we aren't in it.

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. This is why we turned the TV off 8 years ago. The media is so deep into the bubble

that what they report is meaningless. They must report what their masters demand, and they will not report against their own interests.

Period.

[HOPNOSH]

24. Divorced the TV 5 years ago

I hear you. More music, books, and fun in this house. NO TV. Comcast and ATT bombard me to come back.....sorry bad boyfriend not interested.

[tblue37]

12. K&R. nt

[ReRe]

13. A Great Big FAT K&R!

Now I read every single bit of your OP, including all of Salon links. That says it all. We truly ARE in the effing twilight zone. This is what has happened to our "M$M".

I highly recommend everyone read this all the way through.

NOW, is there anything we can do about it???

[zeemike]

14. I have reached the same conclusions.

I don't watch TV so I don't know, but I would guess the barely mentioned Sanders win in Indiana right?

That is the beauty of Trump...they can spend all the time talking about him and not have to talk about Sanders...and I suppose it is supposed to scare the shit out of us so we will vote for Hillary no matter what.
The difference between the MSM and Pravda is only in style and subtlety.

[freebrew]

37. The M$M is much better at it...nt

[StarzGuy]

15. Yep, I agree with what you posted here...

I agree with what you have opined in this post. Consider MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. Now I love her show but really? Now it appears more than ever that this program along with the rest of MSNBC has gone to the dark side and should be named MSGOP. I remember how she was enthusiastic about Sanders entering into the campaign. It will make Clinton a much stronger candidate in the general election. You reap what you sow. Now that Sanders has given the Clinton candidacy a lot of trouble stating they are going all the way to the convention and perhaps make it a contested one.

I wonder if she ever thought that egging one Sanders to enter the race would result in a weakened Clinton candidacy because now she has to fend off from a democratic socialist, who by his own past is an independent not beholding to the rules of the Democratic party.

Does Rachel care? Probably not because she is member of the media elite. Now it does appear that a lot of what MSGOP is doing was imposed on the remaining rational media types such as Rachel Maddow.

However, I don't see or hear any outrage about what Sanders is doing. I voted for Sanders in the Arizona primary with the hope that, if he really were to take the nomination maybe, just maybe, we would get some changes in this country hoped for by a Sanders presidency.

She appears to be mushy mouth about the situation that now confronts the Democratic party.

I would have never let Sanders run as a democrat. If he wanted to run for president let him run as an independent. Then lets see how much support he would get...

I also would reject the Democratic policy to let independents vote in the primaries. Let us vote for a true Democrat, not a wolf draped in Democratic cloth. If we had closed primaries I can assure that I would have voted for clinton. I would have rejected the Sanders independent campaign.

Time and the election will tell whether or not the Sanders insurgency into the Democratic party will have helped or hurt. Right now, I feel I'm being denied the democratic candidate I will or would have voted for in the general election.

Good work!

[StarzGuy]

17. BTW, I don't think Rachel Maddow cares who wins the Democratic nomination so long as she...

...can do the play by play all the way through the convention. She seems really giddy about the prospect. Media elitist w****s, oh how I hate them....

[JDPriestly]

20. Why I am voting for Bernie.

He is an outsider just like me.

Read his book, please, Outsider in the White House.

[danimich1]

21. I was getting my master's in public affairs reporting

In the late 80's. Everything was great until we did a chunk of time studying in DC one summer. We met with the heads of all the big print bureaus - Time, Newsweek, etc. it was this great immersive program. I learned pretty quickly though that my naive expectations that reporting the news was to help educate the public was so so wrong. I learned that the reporting was for other reporters, who would write a better headline, who had a chance at a Pulitzer. It was all a big game - they all knew the nasty gossip and secrets of the real stories, but it wasn't about reporting, it was all about the "gotcha" moment. These people we're all so far removed from what real people were experiencing.

This wasn't just the media, but the legislators, too. They were so insulated from real life. They were protected from real people by their staffers. They took trams around the Capitol and only associated with each other and lobbyists. Yards away from them were scores of homeless, destitute people, yet everyone there walked around in their business suits and dresses and didn't even see the desperate sad lives around them.

I also interned for a senator and at the EPA. I thought The EPA was supposed to help protect people. What a joke. I sat in pre-press briefings where they discussed the strategy for how to avoid answering questions that would make them look bad and would show how they weren't doing their job. How to avoid those "gotcha" questions is all they were focused on.

The senator I worked for was treated like a celebrity by the staffers. He was chauffeured from place to place and met with the lobbyists and other legislators. I answered phones and kept a tally of people's opinions on topics of the day. I don't really think they cared. He was completely insulated. I never saw him, but heard lots of stories.

None of these people have a clue what the real world is like, what real people experience. Their lives are simply about competing with each other, impressing each other. That's it. They are just like the popular group of kids in high school who are so rude and nasty, and who feel good only when belittling others that they think are inferior. They are not real - they define themselves by who they can convince to surround them. Everything they do is to keep themselves within the popular group.

I ended up doing non-profit work because there's no way I wanted to be a part of that plastic society of people.

These are the people who are running our country and the people that are supposed to be reporting and keeping our government honest.

[Jack Rabbit]

23. Well done, Fred

K/R

I can't get over the banlity of modern culture, but if they had television in France in the 1780s, what do you suppose we'd see? Probably balls at Versailles, featuring the Queen's outrageous hair-do and expensive gown and war coverage of King Louis' latest attempt to stick it to the British, all of which wastes money. But what else was there to spend money on? Years of bad weather and crop failures left the peasants with nothing. They could harvest no grain and thus there was no bread. France was an economic basket case.

Then one day the insipid journalist stood by as the bourgeoisie and thr industrial workers tore down the Bastille. I wonder if the journalists knew what to make of it, Perhaps a few did, the Amy Goodmans of the day, but only the radical intellectuals in the salons watched that kind of news.

[fred v]

28. Kardashian News, Inc.

Who has bigger tits/donors? Whose sex tape/attack ad is better? Neil Postman was prophetic three decades ago: We really are amusing ourselves to death.

[mckara]

25. I Want to Save this Article

[vanlassie]

26. Wow. K&R.

[ebayfool]

29. The most brilliant analysis I've read in years! - Thom Hartmann on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Thom_Hartmann/status/728056021638328320

I happen to agree with him about your analysis. On Sanders, notsomuch! But this OP is a gut-puncher, solid and spot on!

K&Rec'd

[fred v]

47. Wow

That was actually Thom Hartmann!

[ebayfool]

59. Yupper! Your OP is getting well-deserved notice. Like I said, a gut-puncher & spot on!

Write more. Write often. You have a talent for expressing what a lot of us feel, but don't have the words to elucidate.

[DLevine]

30. K&R. nt

[Babel_17]

31. It's painfully obvious

The CNN panels resemble in sincerity a scripted reality show. Pro wrestling is more authentic, they at least generate some real, raw, emotion.

[sinkingfeeling]

32. Agree 100%. Specially that America isn't much different than another country on earth.

[Ikonoklast]

33. Kill Your Television.

Save Democracy.

[Katashi_itto]

34. Kardasian News, the people that gave us Trump AND Clinton.

[malthaussen]

35. Can't blame a snake for being a snake.

What I see here is someone who signed up for a social contract and now believes that he was swindled, and is mighty pissed off about it. There's a lot of that going around these days. The social contact was pretty basic: I'll be a good little citizen, and you great ones will rule me with decorum and dignity, and act generally to my best advantage, and in return you get strokes, perks, and adulation, and I won't have to worry about the world because Daddy will take care of everything. And now it is becoming more obvious to more people that the chosen Daddies are in it only for themselves.

So a certain amount of outrage emerges, and it takes one of two general dimensions: those who still believe in the contract, and just want to find a proper Daddy, and those who believe that the contract itself is invalid, and want a new one. Many of those who still want a strong and righteous Daddy are in the Trump camp, because some people never learn, and are meat for a good con. Those who want a new contract tend to support Mr Sanders, who has said time and again that the campaign is not about him. Listen to the man's words: he is disavowing the Daddy role. He wants us all to grow up.

A third camp hasn't quite given up on the contract, and are in general less outraged by the current state of affairs than some others. They want a strong Daddy (or Mommy, as may be), but they are not quite so naive (or possibly so desperate) as Mr Trump's supporters, so they support Mrs Clinton. They do expect her to effect some change, so long as they themselves don't have to pay much attention to it. That's her job.

These categories don't begin to cover all voters, many of whom have radically different perspectives from the ones outlined (which is probably going to end up costing Mr Sanders the nomination, but that's a different rant). But it does apply, IMO, to that segment of the populace who are freshly dismayed with the way things have been going this century. This segment of freshly-dismayed is something new under the sun. (Well, actually, not new, but it hasn't been around for awhile) Consequently, this election is "historic" and "unprecedented." Interesting times for all.

-- Mal

[99th_Monkey]

38. Kudos! Good OP. Guess which group the Clintons identify with & belong to ... nt

[ancianita]

39. Interesting OP. But I see this as the media backing off on anybody white, no matter the crazy.

The standard of white mediocrity is what minorities make fun of when they laugh about American leadership. They laugh about how they can't possibly be inspired by or aspire to be like Republican or Democratic leadership.

Media as oligarchic tools just keep on logrolling the same narratives, living high the tax money their stressed out worker hosts pay them on penalty of jail.

[lakeguy]

40. that's one excellently righteous rant right there!

[AzDar]

41. K & R

[closeupready]

44. To the extent the media is part of the establishment, power corrupts not just

official institutions like Congress, but also "Fourth Estate" ones like the mainstream media. And just as the near-absolute power of DC over the last 30 years has corrupted our government to an unprecedented state of decay, so our media has become little more than a cheerleading propaganda arm for established authorities. K&R

[Blue_Tires]

45. Can journalists stop crying about how they have "failed" about Trump

and just fucking redeem themselves instead? It's old and I've been seeing this apologia since December...

It's not like they don't know what they need to do...

[Fast Walker 52]

50. yeah, but it's no fun, and it hurts their ratings

[pansypoo53219]

46. HILLARY SPEAKS ELITE, not the 'real' people.

[Fast Walker 52]

49. fuck the evil corrupt MSM-- they are killing us

[sendero]

53. "journalism"..

.... has failed this country for decades. They are nothing more than lap dogs for the political and financial elites. To act like something has recently changed is laughable.

[malaise]

55. The absolute truth

and it is this is true in every fucking so called liberal democracy - it is one big joke to the alliance of the elites

[FighttheFuture]

56. I like my TV... be selective on news... Larry Wilmore, Samatha Bee, RT News, John Oliver...

Daily Show, Late Show with Stephen Colbert (he still does satire on the real events), and the occasional BBC News... those cover my TV news...

Oh, for those who think RT News is Putin's Prodigy... grow the fuck up already. Thom Hartmann at 6pm CST, Lee Camp's Redacted tonight on Fridays (it may be called "Headline News at 7pm (CST)), Headline News with Ed Schultz (M-Th, 7pmCST). Excellent sources all.

[fred v]

58. I hate the number 57

I am not a member of the Heinz family! Therefore, I'm bumping the total number of replies to 58.