The post's title, from Pink Floyd's rock opera "The Wall" is the only nod to Music Monday this week, it buzzed through my mind as I read an article online about the firing of a journalist.
I don't read any newspaper, don't watch any news or political shows on TV. News for me these days comes solely from the internet. For those who do still trust corporate newspapers to offer "fair and balanced" views, the news that democratic socialist journalist/columnist Harold Meyerson was recently fired from his regular Washington Post column by newspaper's owner Jeff Bezos aka CEO of internet giant Amazon should alert them to what's becoming common in mass media: getting rid of any who don't toe the corporatist line!
My 2013 post Robber-Baronitis mentions Jeff Bezos, by the way.
From Wikipedia
Commenter "Sneed Urn" at Huffington Post wrote
Exactly!
(My highlights in both quotes)
This video is around a couple of months old, not much has changed in the meantime. Watch a comedian tell us how it really is.
I don't read any newspaper, don't watch any news or political shows on TV. News for me these days comes solely from the internet. For those who do still trust corporate newspapers to offer "fair and balanced" views, the news that democratic socialist journalist/columnist Harold Meyerson was recently fired from his regular Washington Post column by newspaper's owner Jeff Bezos aka CEO of internet giant Amazon should alert them to what's becoming common in mass media: getting rid of any who don't toe the corporatist line!
My 2013 post Robber-Baronitis mentions Jeff Bezos, by the way.
From Wikipedia
Harold Meyerson (born 1950) is an American journalist and opinion columnist. In 2009 The Atlantic Monthly named him one of "the most influential commentators in the nation" as part of their list "The Atlantic 50."
Life and career
Born in Los Angeles, Meyerson was educated in the Los Angeles public schools and at Columbia University. The son of long time leaders in California of the Socialist Party of America, he was active in the 1970s in the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.
Meyerson is editor-at-large of The American Prospect and was an opinion columnist for the Washington Post from 2003 until 2015, when he was fired by the latter. He served as executive editor of the L.A. Weekly from 1989 through 2001, and continues to write about California politics in the Los Angeles Times. His articles on politics, labor, the economy, foreign policy, and American culture have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, and New Statesman.......
An avowed democratic socialist—according to Meyerson one of only "two" that he encounters during "daily rounds through the nation's capital," the other being Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — he is a vice-chair of the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America
Commenter "Sneed Urn" at Huffington Post wrote
His firing is not at all ironic. It is (most likely) in response to Sanders' rise and the growing realization among conservative rank and file that they have been duped. Keeping the balance of power tipped towards big money is the job of corporate owned media. Presenting "opposing" points of view is part of that process, to be able to claim objectivity with the actual intent to frame the range of what counts as progressive and what is "fringe".
Sanders has been able to overcome the "fringe" label. The media now has to help disenfranchise his supporters through other means. Limiting Sanders' exposure and always asserting the presumption that Clinton is the de facto nominee are the primary ways media works for corporate interest and against the people in the democratic race. This should not be a surprise.
Exactly!
(My highlights in both quotes)
This video is around a couple of months old, not much has changed in the meantime. Watch a comedian tell us how it really is.
12 comments:
as I'm sure you know, there are far greater powers running all this than the talking heads/images we see and hear.. Hillary, Bernie, cruz, Trump- whoever is just the face we either love or hate but thats all they really are. There's an agenda in place that goes far ahead of this time , perhaps 30 to 50 years in advance. These power people know exactly what they want to happen and what they'll allow or not at any given time.
Illuminati, is the only thing that truly REAL. The elections the candidates and all the yadayadayada that goes with it is just to keep US focused on that which they wish us to see..
even if some are looking/seeking- they wont find out anything as its too deep a secret and I am Certain should anyone ever get that far they wouldn't live to tell it.
If anyone thinks they have one iota of control or hope their vote will change things, they are deluding themselves, which is of course exactly what the "Powers" want us to think. and daily they giggle with glee as we preform exactly as they have set us up to do. anger, rage, debates, broken relationships due to serious differences of opinion as to how things should be.. we are the Puppets and they sooner we accept that the soon we can spend our time simply finding the best way to survive and thrive in whatever environment they are busy setting up for us.
not a pessimist-- just a Realist..
I do think once this travesty of an election is over, all the folks who bitched and griped about Obama not following thru with all the things he campaigned on and the things he was allowed to get passed, will wish they'd not said a negative word about him. what they'll have by comparison will make him look like a SAINT..
one episode of Homeland is all anyone would need to watch to know that what I am saying is Truth... there is more going on that we will ever be privy to and if we were we might well totally and completely loose our mind..
They play us like a swinet--thats 2 hairs stretched tight across a hogs as:) and we keep dancing. round and round we go and only they know when and where it will take us.
sorry I couldn't be Sonny Sunshine with comment.. I'd try to do better Tommorrow:)
Harold Meyerson's firing from the WaPo was about as surprising as Teddy Cruz receiving endorsement from the socially conservative National Organization for Marriage. Fair and equal editorialization is always desirable, but every newspaper has a political slant displayed on the editorial pages. My local newspaper leans left, which is very surprising here in the land of red, and the editorial pages are splashed with more blue than red. Washington Post's readership is essentially conservative, which matches the editorial pages. The leftist journalists remaining at WaPo are not as to-the-left as Meyerson. Meyerson is stronger than ever right now and his current essays are readily available to those desiring his words. His firing has been good for the far left, socialist-leaning, savvy voter...it deepens the cause.
Like Rupert Murdoch, there isn't much good about Jeff Bezos. He's a known member of the Bilderbergs, which says volumes about him. His global conglomerate, Amazon, has become America's (and the world's) darling, supplanting Walmart, with increasingly malevolent business and labor practices. Do most Americans care? No! I don't shop Walmart and I don't shop Amazon. Amazon (and subsidiaries) is another company in most citizens 401K stock portfolio.
I don't discount the American citizen when it comes to negligence. Americans pander to so many of the corporations that we love to hate. We claim victimization, then turn right around and purchase goods and services from these same corporations. Many of us work for these behemoths and are actually part of the deviousness.
I viewed "Cider House Rules" last night and thoroughly enjoyed it! A very good movie, though an unlikely plot, but nonetheless entertaining. Many take-home-messages, and one applicable to this topic is the "do nothing". So many people do nothing, waiting for someone else to make the first, second, third, or fourth move, then complain about what happened to them when the "rules" are provided by those that don't need to abide by them. In terms of Amazon, et al, we willingly provide the platform for these corporations to do our bidding by supporting them with our spending money.
An interesting twist has entered the frame with the rise of The Donald: glorification of the rich and powerful. It was always there, but The Donald is the effigy. Flipping the middle finger in disdain at anything annoying...deriding others with falsity to fortify one's standing...bullying to cripple an opponent...purchasing one's power. The Donald's GOP lead is a reminder that many Americans identify with an ego, not a heart.
Sonny ~ I'm in agreement, generally. Whether we call them illuminati, plutocrats, oligarchs - whatever, there's a shadow government of some kind - possibly global (or aspiring to be) behind everything. How long it has been there I don't know. It's a conspiracy-like theory, but becoming more clearly visible as a reasonable one as things unfold.
Although, if our suspicions are true, elections would indeed be travesties, theatre for the plebs, to placate us, we still have power in numbers, if we could only come together sufficiently.
Bernie Sanders' efforts may not appeal to everyone but he is seeding ideas for the future, and for this reason alone deserves support - all we can muster. Nobody for a very long time (far as I know) has ever spoken out so clearly against Wall Street for example - and been heard by so many. Those seeds he is spreading now will be needed by the next generation, who could be the ones to bring things to fruition. For this reason alone he has my support. "They" whoever they are, whatever we call them will eventually fall, as all over-extended bodies fall at last. We are unlikely to see it happen, but the generation coming up now just might, provided they receive good information.
mike ~ Unsurprising maybe, but for me the timing says a lot! Maybe it "deepens the cause", as you say - it could alert more people to what is actually going on.
Since learning of Bezos' bad reputation re staff treatment I've avoided Amazon as much as possible. I've bought, mainly, used DVDs and used CDs via their website. Back in the UK when I first had a home computer and the ability to buy stuff online, I bought books from Amazon and was most impressed by the great service they offered. That was in Amazon's earliest days (in the UK). As in most things, success bred success and more success bred greed...greed bred bad practices. The fact that people find it necessary to work for such companies and corporations - well they do have to make a living - its a trap - no exit!
Are the American people to blame? Inasmuch as they didn't protest enough soon enough about things that were so obviously wrong, I guess they are. Whether more protest would have resulted in immediate change, or not, though, I'm not sure, but it would have set up a culture of protest rather than passivity and apathy, which seems to have grown. Protests by minority groups, though, have worked at times (LGBTs, BLM to some extent)- one would think that these successes would enliven others to protest on matters that affect us all, not just minorities. But not so - until Bernie Sanders provided a spark.
Trump's ascent, along with the enthusiasm being shown for Sanders' message on t'ther side of the divide shows, at least, that people are eventually realising that there could be choices outside of the established old guard. Due to what's said in Sonny's comment and in my reply, it's not yet clear whether these choices are real or not, or whether, if they turned out to be real, what ensued would be any different from what we now have.
I'm hoping that this is the beginning of something new, the very beginning - that's all.
Glad you enjoyed "The Cider House Rules" - yes, there are several threads running through it about our rules, our morals and customs which provide food for thought.
BTW - PBS' "NewsHour" is a fine source of news. It's often viewed as liberal-biased by the conservatives, hence defunding is periodically sought by congress. The daily program is offered on PBS and online in segments:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/
Another is "Bill Moyers & Company":
http://billmoyers.com/
Both periodically have offerings from Harold Meyerson...perform a search on each site.
mike ~ Thanks for the suggestions. I "took against" both some time ago though.
I think my time here has gradually soured me to media in general.
I don't trust PBS at all as being unattached to "Them" (whoever They are). I now find PBS generally off-putting.
Anyjazz will listen to NPR on the car radio, but its content irks me for some reason, though I say nothing about it.
I lost respect for Bill Moyers during the 2008 election circus, after seeing/reading his views on Dennis Kucinich. Haven't forgiven him.
Sorry. I don't really understand why I feel this way, but I do.
"Every man is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts."
Quote attributed to Bernard Baruch, but several variations exist.
http://blog.debate.org/2012/08/24/a-quest-for-truth-a-list-of-the-top-8-unbiased-news-sources
From Wiki:
"The Year of the Sex Olympics is a 1968 television play made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 as part of Theatre 625. ... In the future, society is divided between 'low-drives' that equate with the labouring classes and 'hi-drives' who control the government and media. The low-drives are controlled by a constant broadcast of pornography that the hi-drives are convinced will pacify them, though one hi-drive, Nat Mender (Tony Vogel), believes that the media should be used to educate the low-drives. After the accidental death of a protester during the Sex Olympics gets a massive audience response, the Co-ordinator Ugo Priest (Leonard Rossiter) decides to commission a new programme. In The Live Life Show, Nat Mender, his partner Deanie (Suzanne Neve) and their daughter Keten (Lesley Roach) are stranded on a remote Scottish island while the low-drive audience watches. Mender's former colleague, Lasar Opie (Brian Cox), realising that “something got to happen”, decides to spice up the show by introducing a psychopath, Grels (George Murcell) to the island. When Grels goes on a murderous rampage, Ugo Priest is horrified when the audience reacts with laughter to the slaughter and The Live Life Show is deemed a triumph."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_of_the_Sex_Olympics
Hhmmm...sounds familiar...LOL.
"You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain ..."
"Great Balls of Fire", written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oklahoma-earthquakes_568b11afe4b014efe0db773e
"Drilling-Crazy Oklahoma Has Its 12th Earthquake In Less Than A Week
The state has become a quake capital of the world.
01/04/2016 08:02 pm ET"
The movie "The Big Short" (not getting much mention by MSM but very high marks from the viewing public) was released in eight theaters in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago on December 11, 2015. Using noon and locations of Philadelphia (home of the Sibly chart), Washington, DC (home for the Federal Reserve Act - could have used the White House or the Capitol Building), Wall Street (base of the banksters), and the natal and/or progressed charts for Government radix (Sep 13, 1788, 12:20 pm, LMT, New York, NY), Sibly chart (July 4, 1776, 5:10 pm, LMT, Philadelphia, PA), and government business (Mar 4, 1789, 10:10 am, LMT, Philadelphia, PA) out of curiosity to see if the release chart might reveal any possible public leanings on those charts with caucus and primary seasons so close - I find the release date interesting in view of the political season about to begin.
The release date transits (planets and midpoints to various chart angles) do not bode well for those charts and I hope the film's popularity will grow, even regarding the fact that it is not entirely correct (but it's basic story is) perhaps signifying a surge in public consciousness and dissatisfaction regarding the relationship between Congress and the banksters just as campaigning season for some elected officials is about to commence.
The public favorable ratings for Congress are barely above single digits. The biggest financial crash since the depression of 1929 was caused by the greedy practices of Wall Street (as well as greed on the part of members of Congress) but only 1 person from the financial community was sent to prison for practices that shattered the lives of millions of Americans and likely affected the lives of billions of citizens of the world. I don’t believe this fact has been lost by the public but the masses are more likely to give it thought because of this big screen effort, particularly millennials who may believe that those whose behavior has bankrupted their futures and those whose governance allowed that behavior need to be punished for their actions and the millions who lost their homes, the biggest investment of their lives, feeling the same way.
Interesting (IMO) charts showing correspondences between some U.S. charts and transits on the day the movie “The Big Short” was released.
http://imgur.com/a/5bnZF
mike (again) ~ Thanks for the list...LOL! Alternet unbiased?! The Independent? Hm - they would say that, wouldn't they!?
Ah well, maybe it's not unbiased I'm looking for or hoping for, it's some proper sensible left-wing slanted reporting, minus the hand of "Them" be they the DNC, corporate handlers, or anyone beyond. What's p....ng me off is that even what are thought of as left-leaning media are being controlled by the DNC and upward. We are not getting fair play.
In the UK even the BBC is controlled - has been for some time, even though in the UK people pay a goodly sum for licenece to be able to access it.
I've not heard of "The Sex Olympics" show - but anything with Leonard Rossiter in it has to be worth a look! :-D
Robert Nicewander ~ Yes, Okie brains need some shaking up - just not the kind they're getting ! One of these days a big one is going to well and truly shake 'em up - maybe then they'll see sense about all this fracking.
I'd like to see "The Big Short" - it will never reach our town, probably not even bigger Okie cities nearby, but when I get the chance of seeing the DVD in due course I'll make a point of seeing it either rental or via Netflix. Films can sway the public (for good or ill) if released at the right time.
Thanks for the links -will look at them in the morning. :-)
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