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CaliforniaPeggy
(156,297 posts)
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)
fred v
(271 posts)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
(40,656 posts)The last time someone went the let them eat cake route it didn't end well.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)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.
Response to fred v (Original post)
carolinayellowdog This message was self-deleted by its author.
Skittles
(170,191 posts)
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
(1,917 posts)Fer fux sake, they invented him and then foisted it upon us.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)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.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)
ZX86
(1,428 posts)
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
(505 posts)
mountain grammy
(28,804 posts)What you said, "it's a big club and you ain't in it."
FighttheFuture
(1,313 posts)Califonz
(465 posts)"These two have their picture in the dictionary next to 'Quid pro quo' !"
Divernan
(15,480 posts)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
(10,170 posts)
Divernan
(15,480 posts)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
NRaleighLiberal
(61,696 posts)that what they report is meaningless. They must report what their masters demand, and they will not report against their own interests.
Period.
HOPNOSH
(37 posts)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.
ReRe
(12,182 posts)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
(18,998 posts)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
(1,917 posts)
StarzGuy
(254 posts)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
(254 posts)...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....
Response to StarzGuy (Reply #17)
FighttheFuture This message was self-deleted by its author.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)He is an outsider just like me.
Read his book, please, Outsider in the White House.
danimich1
(175 posts)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
(45,984 posts)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
(271 posts)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
(1,708 posts)
ebayfool
(3,411 posts)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
That was actually Thom Hartmann! 
ebayfool
(3,411 posts)Write more. Write often. You have a talent for expressing what a lot of us feel, but don't have the words to elucidate.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)The CNN panels resemble in sincerity a scripted reality show. Pro wrestling is more authentic, they at least generate some real, raw, emotion.
sinkingfeeling
(57,484 posts)
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Save Democracy.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)
malthaussen
(18,477 posts)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
(19,326 posts)
ancianita
(43,162 posts)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
(1,645 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)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
(57,596 posts)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
(7,723 posts)
pansypoo53219
(22,957 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)
sendero
(28,552 posts).... 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
(294,130 posts)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
(1,313 posts)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
(271 posts)I am not a member of the Heinz family! Therefore, I'm bumping the total number of replies to 58.