They may be protected by the constitution but when the President of America consistently brandishes anything painting him negatively as âfake newsâ, thatâs a form of censorship. Its shutting down one side of the story.
I didnât equate different forms of censorship, you projected that.
I didnt defend human rights abuse, you projected that.
Human rights abuse is despicable wherever it happens.
I just choose not to believe a border line conspiracy theory piece from a US agency reporting on Chinese matters.
Same as I wouldnât believe a Chinese piece reporting on U.S affairs
Whatâs really come home to roost is the capitalist idea of making people stupid through media, though it has been coming home to roost for years.
English language countries are bedevilled with this, though itâs certainly not exclusive to them. Ireland, like New Zealand and Canada gets away relaatively lightly in comparison to their bigger neighbours.
But the US, UK and Australia in that order, all have appalling problems with right-wing media that has turned large sections of their populations into selfish, individualistic, materialistic, education-rejecting, passive (against untrammeled corporate power) yet reactionary (against the marginalised) racist cunts.
This was specifically the goal of Rupert Murdoch who dominates the media in all three of those countries and it has been the goal of the Republicans, the Tories and the Australian Liberal party. We all know about Fox and the myriad of right-wing propaganda media in the US and UK, but so much daily programming on both TV and radio is designed to promote stupidity and vacuousness and the internet ramps the cult of the vacuous self up to an interminable level.
It feeds into everything. Rejection of science, rejection of reason, rejection of truth, rejection of a commonality of humanity, rejection of empathy. They call it âthe marketplace of ideasâ, which means that stupid, abhorrent or plain wrong opinions all have equal validity and equal âtruthâ to expertise, reason and actual truth.
Itâs how we got Brexit and Trump, itâs how we get the rejection of acknowledging the climate crisis, itâs how we got the rejection of dealing with COVID-19 because "the economy. Itâs how we get all sorts of charlatanism which offers no hopeful view of the world, only a dystopian one filled with constant existential threat. The right-wing charlatans manufacture fake existential threats which they push relentlessly - they blame immigrants for everything, they blame the EU, they blame âliberalsâ, they blame âspongersâ, but when two real existential threats come along - the climate crisis and COVID-19, they call them hoaxes or treat them with far less seriousness than they treat the fake threats.
The utter vapidity of right-wing politics and the cruelty and sadism that is at the heart of it has been laid bare. Intentionally sacrificing hundreds of thousands of people (many of whom voted for right-wing parties, incidentally) to the ideology of the âmarketâ is a fitting and inevitable denouement for such a rotten and evil ideology.
The opposition to Trump is alive and well mate, tune in to MSNBC or CNN every night and you will get the other side of the story. There is no shutting down one side of the story, unless media outlets have been taken off the air while I was typing this. Do you actually watch any US media?, Trump took about 10 questions from Jim Acosta yesterday, who is the most anti Trump reporter you could imagine. If Trump wanted to control the narrative he would only have Fox News at his press conferences.
There is nothing conspiratorial about the CCP shutting down any criticism of it, or people disappearing who donât get the message the first time round. Thatâs not based on anything I read in the media, itâs based on talking to people who have lived in China and fled the place.
Fox news appeared in the news section of my dodgybox yesterday so more entertainment for the working day. The ads during the day are almost all lawyers advertising compo services (the boyscouts of america one was a little surreal) and pills or some other class of quackery with the odd copper pan set thrown in.
Labane, mate, Trump takes questions from everybody. He just doesnât answer them in any helpful or informative manner, even the softball ones he gets from this OOAN crowd - he still sounds like a street corner wino on a non-stop rant. Heâs not censoring the media though, just frustrating the shit out of them which will play to his unshakable base and see him a long way to a second term all depending on where the world is whenever.
Youâre obviously a media hound and have said (correct me if Iâm wrong) that you do not support Trump. How should the non-Fox media be dealing with him in your opinion bearing in mind that asking him questions, especially anything requiring detail, nuance or intellect, is useless for the reason I said above.
They should report the news and comment or give opinion on it. All the news, not just the news that is negative toward Trump. Thereâs plenty to criticize and even condemn Trump for but thereâs also occasions where they have deliberately refused to carry anything that might be positive towards him, such as economic news over the past 3.5 years. Thatâs not journalism, thatâs political activism.
Woman nearby me died this evening from it. She was in her 80s Iâd say or close to it. She and her two sons were in Spain about a month ago and came back before it got as serious as it is now. Only got symptoms two weeks after and she was in Icu. One son was hospitalized with it and the other was OK, didnât affect him badly, just in isolation at home. Speaking to a relative and they donât know whatâs going to happen with having a funeral. Awfully sad.