Didn’t they go bankrupt and shut down most operations years back? Oh wow not even that long. May 15th 2023 they filed for chapter 11. Seems they got a right wing sugar daddy. No worries, that’s never impacted journalism where that has happened. If you don’t count every time it’s happened.

Well yes given that we are largely talking about mainstream media. Mainstream implies there are other smaller estuaries that the media feeds into. Does that matter really? I’d argue not.

From its Inception. Media has been a valuable and coveted tool of capitalists and fascists. One only has to look to 1920s and 1930s Germany to see what that can bring about. Yes, subversive content definitely does make it through from time to time. And those in the know chuckle a little bit. While most people have no idea it was even there. Like that several minutes segments Bo Burnham sang with a sock puppet in his last Netflix special. About all anyone remembers of it is that it wasn’t the funny they wanted. Completely missing the message. Never seeing or hearing the message about the growing fascism and media’s role in it. Wait? Bo Burnham, a silly songwriting YouTuber prescient? Yeah I was kind of surprised too. Netflix absolutely let it slip through. Though at the time I think they still haved way more good will behind them. Probably not feeling too implicated or threatened.

Yes there can absolutely be good media. Unfortunately the media at Large is largely capitalistic parasitism. Even more unfortunately is that’s what most people are only exposed to. Where are the poet laureates of our day? Where are the people writing catchy protest anthems. (I listen to them. Most people don’t and don’t care to ) Where is this generation is Woody Guthrie or Arlo Guthrie? I bet you one exist somewhere. No one’s ever heard of them. And that’s on purpose.

It’s all bread and circuses these days. Who cares if there’s a fascist in office. The McRib is back and that one low effort reality TV show. That every goober in America is addicted to for some reason is starting a new season.

Believe me I know enough about being out of the mainstream. I was goth when goth was goth. I listen to postpunk before it became alternative. I listened to electronic music before Skrillex was born or whoever this David Guetta guy that’s really popular for some reason graduated Primary School. I have not listened to radio or pop music and nearly 15 years I have no clue at all about who’s popular right now. I can introduce you to so many obscure and awesome artists. No one cares. It isn’t what everyone else they know is listening to or watching unfortunately.

Wow starting off contradicting yourself. It’s an interesting argument Style. Not sure how it’s going to work though.

All right so I’m not going to defend Merrick garland. I wish that he had done better too. Unfortunately he is kind of what you want. Someone who will try to stay out of the way and seem impartial at least. We’re going to see first hand what having a blindly ideological and engaged Department of Justice will look like and why it’s a bad thing very soon.

That said Merrick Garland did not appoint the judge that sabotaged the case. Merrick Garland and the Democrats did not appoint the Supreme Court Justices who sabotaged the case. And it’s neither the executive branch or a political party’s place to act as a balance or check to the whole f****** judicial branch of government. Even with that whole checks and balances crap is b*******. It was the congress’s job. The Congress which Democrats never solidly controlled in any meaningful sense unfortunately. Especially due to Senators Manchin and the sinema.

There are plenty of actual things to blame Democrats for. That they didn’t put on the sort of performative play that we would have liked to have seen is way at the bottom of the list.

I suggest you read up on Walter Mondale. Who as a lawyer is in some small part that we are all entitled to an attorney. ENTITLED! Or Michael Dukakis who posthumously exonerated two Italian anarchist immigrants. Wrongfully convicted of murder and executed in 1927. Yeah they’re no Che Guevara, and that’s a good thing. But the American population soundly rejected both.

It wasn’t till 1993 that Democrats found success again. With the leadership of a corporatist self named 3rd way Democrat.

Now we can probably agree that the lesson Democrats learned from that was bad. But it was also valid. They’ve seen repeated success with it since. This whole claim that if only Democrats would embrace the left, that they would start winning again. Is utter bullshit however. Is it what this country needs? Absofuckinglutely! But this is a country that now almost a Century after the Red Scare is only just timidly starting to embrace actual left-leading politics again.

Even then it’s generally only the most online of the most online. Your average person on the street couldn’t tell you the difference between a Democrat and Democratic Socialist and a social democrat. Let alone what an actual libertarian is or what anarchists stand for. And are still put off by such terms. Not to mention that no actual ideologically left cleaning group holds any significant presence in any governing body town city state or at Federal level. How the hell would we be of any help to an actual governing party? We’re too busy fighting amongst ourselves to even go for the soft seats.

The Democratic party could not even prosecute a guy who tried to murder Congress. So the thinking goes - Why the fuck would someone vote for them when they do fuck all?

It was never the Democrats job to do that. It was congress’s. Democrats did try. And they absolutely could have done better in many areas. I’m not defending them on that. But we need to also recognize that a large portion of Congress was flattered and extremely impressed that Trump was able to sic so many people on them. That they had no choice but to eagerly and gladly defend him while sucking up for him. Conservatives love an authoritarian. And without a few conservatives. Democrats were and never did accomplish much of anything.

It’s like they’re a company pretending to be another company, disguised as another company. Tropic Thunder all the way down.

Well, by “broken” I mean “Not being used in a manner befitting humankind”. That is to say, it’s been misused.

Objectively it has always been used to its owner’s benefit whenever they desire. That is how the media has always functioned. And how it currently is functioning. They’re simply was more diversity of ownership at one point which made it harder to notice monolithic opinion shaping. Ideologically I’m 100% agree with you that is how the media should be used. But being in touch with reality I can say 100% the media has never been used that way. The only media but even remotely comes close to operating that way would be community or straight up publicly funded not for profit media.

Relevant counterpoints to current events . . . I guess we could use some form of successfully beneficial online community and compare it to greatawakening.win or whatever the Qanuts are posting to these days.

While that is absolutely something we should be looking into. It in no way disproves any of the historical examples of sensationalist capitalist/ownership bias Etc throughout the media historically. Property serves its owner. Always has always will. Therefore not a Counterpoint.

Lol they certainly aren’t planning all this. None of them are that particularly bright. All this conspiratorial tone gives them far more credit than any of them have ever been due.

Blue Sky will not become a heavily monetized enshitified platform because of some Machiavellian conspiracy. It will become that. Because it is what un regulated capitalist structures must become. Hell even the regulated ones have a hard time not being that way.

It absolutely is. They may be limited on what they can check. But critical thinking skills which is the main thing I’m advocating for could easily eliminate a lot of the junk. Which is more than anything what I’m advocating for. Critical thinking skills get people thinking about sources and verification and not just accepting what they’re told.

They do it every 4 years only. Republicans break unofficial funding records daily. Wealthy capitalist financiers pump untold sums of money into media outlets to provide campaign messaging constantly. 24/7/365 every year. Dwarfing every single record Democrats have broken summed together. Just of the tip of the iceberg we know. Tim pool was being paid by your buddies the Russians / Putin in the realm of millions of dollars. For making one to two minimally edited propaganda videos per week. Every 2 weeks he would double what someone like Sam Cedar earns in a year. It’s why there’s such a disparity in messaging Democrats don’t have those kind of resources or accessibilities.

You say that as if anyone ever had a chance of stopping a banger like this

Then you should be able to provide relevant counter points to current events and the constant creep of sensationalist yellow journalism. Otherwise you’re just disagreeing to disagree.

When it comes to mass media it’s actually been this way far longer. The 50 years statement was in relation to just postwar propaganda output ala the red scare. It existed and was popular before that too. But I look forward to you actually posing something to actually disprove it other than “nuh uh”.

No not specifically. Again many of these people deny community with those they disagree with because of ideology. Though as someone pragmatically anarcho communist I do agree it is the better method. Working in communities.

The problem is how does one effectively address attacks facilitated through government? Is education reeducation? We’re not talking about instilling any sort of ideology. I despise ideology generally. Vanguard parties specifically. We are talking about basic critical thinking skills. Checking and verifying sources. Not just blindly believing what others tell you.

Third party candidates are often part of the misinformation machine. Used as an attack Vector as well. The problem is Democrats cannot address everything. Oligarchs fund conservative media more than most people realize. So many outlets exist just to push a narrative. Not to make a profit. Tim Pool and several other right-wing demagogues were recently exposed for getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars effectively a week to put out one or two low effort barely edited videos of propaganda. They made more in a couple weeks than someone like Sam Cedar for instance makes in a year. And they are just the ones we know about. Democrats simply cannot compete with or push back against all of it with the minuscule funding they do get.

Solidarity is great. And I I’m all for it. But how do you have solidarity with a group of people that cannot even agree on what constitutes reality. How do you address the material conditions of people who reject addressing the material conditions if it also helps someone who isn’t them.

The answer is you cannot. Not until critical thinking skills Etc are addressed. As long as people are blindly ideological of any stripe. There can’t be solidarity

How would you fix something that isn’t broken? This is what for-profit capitalist media does and has always done. Manufacturer consent for capitalism and its desires. Regulation in the past made it mildly less obvious? I mean they still breathlessly covered and promoted the Red Scare a half a century ago.

Not to mention that state and nonprofit media still have issues. How would one fix any of them? The only way to fix the media is to fix the voters. Actually teach critical thinking stills and encourage them. Not gullibly devouring anything fed to you unquestioningly.

You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink. All the information to debunk every claim ever made by Trump is out there. All anyone has to do is look. But most people cannot be bothered. They will just go with whatever hearsay they see on Facebook.

On that note I recently had to deal with my sister getting a bit frothy. Raging about how the Harris administration had spent so much more money than the Trump administration had on some meaningless thing. I had to insert myself and point out if there had never been a Harris administration. And that not even the Biden Administration had done what she was talking about.

Who did you think we were? This is who we’ve always been. They’re just getting comfortable taking the mask off again. Trust me, my grandmother and other family were put through the racist indian boarding schools. Common throughout the US and Canada. You know, the ones they keep finding mass graves on. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Just more subtle, less in your face.

Most people thought are too distracted with bread and circuses to care however.

Who is he and why should anyone care?

If they assume that and pre-capitulate it may as well be. These are the right motions to be making whether or not any of these are even the right people. Whether or not there will be free and fair elections again. The only way there will be is if we fight.

Look if you want to gaslight someone. Gaslight someone else. I’ve been paying attention and got receipts.

If someone verbally and physically threatens poll workers. Putting people into offices they have no qualification for. Who’s only goal is to deny a Democrats victory, and there are unusual or suspicious circumstances. If we do not look into it. We don’t deserve a democracy. And yes if he wins by less. He wins by less. But at least we know. This isn’t a baseless wild goose chase like the fascists wanted. If the Democrats were the ones making the threats and taking these actions and a similar discrepancy or unusual anomaly popped up. I would still say we need to look into it. If this isn’t something worth looking into. Something worth understanding. Then what is?