The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is gone. No big loss.

You would think I would be in deep mourning about this, but you are wrong.

There hasn't been any truly public media in the US for a long time. Commercials made their way into the public broadcasting long ago in the form of "underwriting". Money owns the narrative, which is why third parties and renegades such as Bernie Sanders got little coverage. The duopoly happily owns the US media.

And US media has long been consolidated in the hands of a few. You didn't need much of a brain to figure out that there were no real dissenting opinion. That was until the internet set it free. Then Speaker's corner came to your computer instead of having to get a soap box in Hyde Park. Of course, the Internet isn't really moerated so anyone can pretty much say anything.

It's nice to have media that are moderated with varied and informed opinions, but the US doesn't have that.

People say that Trump will bring fascism to the US, but the US has never really been a truly liberal democracy. It's had its propaganda, and the US is the best in the world at doing it: see Paul Weber's Propaganda: Nobody Does It Better Than America.

After all, the US Constitution does start with the words "We the people..." despite it having been mostly written in secret!

American propaganda, however, is much cleverer. American propaganda, they patiently explained, relies entirely on emotional appeals. It doesn’t depend on a rational theory that can be disproved: it appeals to things no one can object to.

And the US's most obvious propaganda is called ADVERTISING!

But don't worry, the Internet allows access to all sorts of opinions other than those given on main stream media. And media consolidation may drive more people to those alternatives. 

Ones that are free of propaganda.

and advertising.

The problem with US media

 One thing I notice when I watch non-US media (Sky News Australia as an exception) is that they usually try to have opposing opinions. Not so in the US. I have yet to see a serious opposing opinion on the US media. For example, I have yet to see someone who voted for a third party in a discussion of why US politics is screwed.  Even Joe Rogan has not interviewed Jill Stein.

That's pathetic.

OK, I wanted a picture of steak frites...

On the other hand, it might be the reason so much bullshit fills the US debate. For example, instead of anyone questioning the concept of "gun rights" early on, it was accepted. No one in the media pointed out that was a ridiculous concept and totally out of line with history.

Likewise, I heard a Fox News piece on "Climate Change" hypocrisy which didn't feature anyone who had a real idea what goes on in the environmentalist community. So, they were making it sound as if people who are Green are vegan.

Tu rigole ! I like to eat meat, but I don't do it that much for various reasons: more in line with my health than the planet. Slow food, on the other hand, which is traditional and regional cuisine that encourages farming of plants, seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem makes more sense to me than having people go vegan. I'm not alone in this since people who push veganism can be shouted down for a lot of reasons: one of which is that truly being vegan is actually a difficult thing to do. Food needs to be certified as vegan!

On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to knock local meat production while eating quinoa flown in from South America.

Anyway, if you really want to get down to it: not having children is the best thing you can do to fight climate change. That gets really interesting when the vegans start their attempts to get people to go on their diet.

The problem is that things are indeed an echo chamber without opinions being challenged.

Russell Brand on Tucker Declares WAR On Fox News

This is interesting. I wouldn't say that I am a total Tucker Carlson fan, but I did start watching him during the Covid. This is an interesting take on him and his show. I have to agree with this since I feel the same way as Russell Brand does and he makes a lot of very interesting points.

Is PBS Credible anymore?

I am going to make a disclaimer that I believe in true public broadcasting, but US public broadcasting is commercial. It has commercials in the form of "underwriting" by large corporations, which is pretty much the same thing as being commercial. Yes, the fact that it is not free of big money influence make it a part of the rest of US media. Big business can threaten to take away its money and PBS is SCREWED--BIG TIME!

Which takes us to this clip from PBS News Hour where one of the commentators says "There hasn't been any obvious gaffes, big scandals, or anything like that."

Funny how Hunter's Laptop has been missing from the media (and I never heard back from Burisma about my job application).

It will probably also be missing again this election cycle (PBS shut off comments to this).

  

I should add that these two clowns are from the New York Times and the Washington Post. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos who would be eating 50 cent burritos if the duopoly wasn't in power and was whacked by someone vaguely like Bernie Sanders enforcing US competition laws.

I live in hope for that day.

But this gets to where Fox News is wrong: The Democrats are nowhere near left wing. In fact, the Republicans have also strayed from their true populist roots, which makes it even funnier when I read Shot in the Foot's blog: they might want to look up Minnesota Justice Harry Blackmun. Or even better, look up Richard Nixon's comments about firearms ownership.

As I like to say, I was rather shocked when I watched a documentary about Nixon (on PBS) and realised how lefty he seemed in the early 1990s!

Sorry for the digression, but US Politics has moved to the right. The Democratic Party has pretty much extinguished anything vaguely New Deal-Roosevelt, which means that someone like Bernie Sanders has no part in that party. Which is why I distrust anyone who claims to be to the left and is associated with that party. It cannot be fixed from within.

The reason that Biden is president is that he appeals to the big donors, which is why the Tech giants can deny the existance of Hunter's laptop and what it means to Joe Biden. So, that really wasn't that much of a digression. 

There isn't much of a "lefty media" in the US other than some things on the internet (E.g.: Real News Network and Democracy Now), but they don't have much of an audience. Which means we are left with Fox News and Sky News Australia who get only part of the story, and are taken about as seriously as Democracy Now.

I feel like someone in occupied Europe trying to get reliable information when I look at the US media because it isn't there.

"All the News fit to Print" is propaganda, or at least explains their editorial policy in that they only feel they need to print what they believe should be printed. 

And Hunter's laptop and associated scandal is nowhere to be seen.

Thoughts on US Third Parties.

This comes from watching the French election, which is a similar legislative-executive system to the US.  I will also admit to voting Green from a disgust with the US duopoly (i.e., the Democrats and Republicans) and its stranglehold on the system.
In a way Dan Savage is correct, the third parties should be running candidates lower down the ticket, in particular for the legislature. That is because a third party would be more effective in pushing its agenda there, or at least in blocking other parties from pushing theirs. It is more effective to be a spoiler/fixer in the legislature than in an election.  Third parties will become a force to be reckoned with once they demonstrate they have power, but they need to be the force to do what the obstructionists in congress have been doing. Or to thwart the obstruction.
One of the Clintonista/Democrat talking points was that the party is a coalition of various political views, but the duopoly parties are failed coalitions.  In some ways, they have become titular left-right parties, although I would argue any difference is more in appearance and relation to hot button issues (e.g. abortion and gun control [1]).  The past election showed how detrimental relying upon hot button issues is to real issues (e.g., the environment).
Third parties are good for keeping politics real. Case in point are the presidential debates which are no longer run by the League of Women Voters.  The president of the LWV, Nancy M. Neuman, denounced this action when the LWV ceased having any real control over the debates:

"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."
Neuman said that the campaigns presented the League with their debate agreement on
September 28, two weeks before the scheduled debate. The campaigns' agreement was negotiated "behind closed doors" and vas presented to the League as "a done deal," she said, its 16 pages of conditions not subject to negotiation.
Most objectionable to the League, Neuman said, were conditions in the agreement that gave the campaigns unprecedented control over the proceedings. Neuman called "outrageous" the campaigns' demands that they control the selection of questioners, the composition of the audience, hall access for the press and other issues.
"The campaigns' agreement is a closed-door masterpiece," Neuman said. "Never in the history of the League of Women Voters have two candidates' organizations come to us with such stringent, unyielding and self-serving demands."
Neuman said she and the League regretted that the American people have had no real opportunities to judge the presidential nominees outside of campaign-controlled environments.

lwv.org/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud
I would that change is drastically needed in US politics, particularly its system of elections, but that will not come as long as the duopoly holds power.
I have pointed out that the Electoral College needs to be abolished, yet the fact that Clinton's "loss" was due to her failing to secure enough votes in the Electoral College is again overlooked and substituted for blame on everything except the existence of that body (as was the case in 1990).  Both times the "losers" won the popular vote.
Of course, abolition of the Electoral College is only one thing in what is probably a long wish list of electoral reforms needed in the US:

open debates run by an impartial body like the League of Women Voters, shorter election cycles, open primaries, ranked choice voting, return of the fairness doctrine and equal time rule (Trump used the lack of it to get shitloads of free publicity), campaign finance reform--if not publicly funded campaigns, easier access to the ballot for parties, reform or abolish the electoral college, end gerrymandering, handcounted paper ballots or receipts, and I am sure that is only the beginning.

While one can dream that there will be internal change, it doesn't seem likely since the parties still seem entrenched in the same behaviours which have led to the US political system being the disaster it is.
OK, we also need to add in media consolidation here since it is one way the "state" can get away with  form of censorship, but only allowing one message to get out.  Also controlling any opposing voices.
Any real change has to come through the system since violence will backfire and result in the wrong type of change.  Thus any dissenting parties best chance has to be to try and thwart the duopoly and use the duopoly's power against it.
Change has to come, but it must come by using the system to gain power and then force change.
[1] This is not to say gun control is not important (or abortion), but these issues have been used to get people to vote against their interests.  Neither is one of left and right, but of public welfare and safety.