This guy acts like any of this is new, or that it’s some right wing conspiracy to make us mistrust the government.
They’re in the pocket of capitalist interests and have been for hundreds of years. More and more it’s becoming clear that the leading factor behind most of our major societal issues is unfettered capitalism, destroying everything and squeezing everything.
Our governments answer only to the rich these days, moreso than ever before in recent Western history. Any response from the people can be moderated and restricted, and at worst results in a pathetic protest that - while it may be large - is a brief, unsustained blip that doesn’t even rattle the stock market, let alone worry the rich ruling class at all.
Society has been cleverly trained to think they can’t affect change, and that writing a comment online (like this one) is a good way to affect change or make a difference.
All it does is make you feel like you’ve done something useful, when you haven’t, and identified yourself and your political opinions to your government, who will put you on various lists and come for you when the time comes.
This guy is on the right track, but needs to think bigger. Much, much bigger.
Capitalism is just regressing towards its natural end stage.
Except it is not the right, it is the billionaires, filthy rich shareholders, etc. Big company CEOs and politicians (left and right) are just their pawns. They heavily lean on right/conservatives because they are easier to manipulate. Remember, billionaires are food, not friends.
You are describing the right. It is moot point; it must be stopped.
They are not the right, they have no ideals besides money, power and privilege. It is just easier to bend the right into obedience and their world view, hence why. Same shareholders you would call “right” also will have shares in green energy and sustainability because to them everything is an investment.
I still think that they’d make for a terrible meal.
Maybe they’d make for good fertilizer instead?
Compost the rich
By “the right” did he mean the pedo elite and the epstein class? Or is that synonymous now?
Cause by my eyes, having ghislane with supermod status on reddit and jeff having been in close enough contact with the 4chan guy to make /pol exist, not to mention zuck playing every side on fb and now long rat owning twitter; all these mean that the majority of left/right discourse can be boiled down to “manipulated opinions astroturfed by billionaires who have the ability to bot farm absolutely any opinion into the general populace.”
It’s the other way around. Right wing media got popular because people reacted against the rapid devolution of mainstream and left wing political discourse and sought other media. But I’ve accepted that people like this will live and die without ever understanding this.
They don’t want to talk about how it’s capitalism that’s the problem, about how capitalist control of media will inevitably subvert democracy, making capitalism and democracy incompatible.
Ding, ding!
People are the problem.
You can point all this out yet they will still go oh well, they will agree you…then go and hoover it up.
There may be a tipping point but honestly it ain’t close.
I think part of the issue is that a lot of people who are aware of this know that it’s been happening for a lot longer than since Trump’s first election, and it’s not specifically a right wing takeover. It’s an overall consolidation of power into the hands of an ultra-wealthy few, and right wing is currently the most advantageous position for them to take.
This particular video is from 2018, a year into Trump’s first term, and it shows a large amount of local news stations that were believed to be spread across the political spectrum (at least for US run stations) all reciting the same exact script.
But the movements of Rupert Murdoch, or the Sinclair Media group, or iHeartRadio, or any of the many number of conglomerates didn’t just crop up overnight purely under right wing situations to support right wing movement.
Unless you really think Trump’s first election was some 5D chess thing, he was catching flak from all sides. Before that, the news media gave incredibly kind coverage to Obama’s involvement in the Middle East, his use of drones, his moves to further the rights granted to the US government and intelligence agencies through the Patriot act (started under Dubya, but expanded under Obama), the construction of illegal immigration centers during his tenure… the list goes on for him like it does for most Presidents.
The screws have been tighening for decades, this isn’t something shockingly new to present day, we’re just approaching critical mass.
The second I saw that you said news stations after that link I knew it was gonna be the “This is extremely dangerous to our democracy”
There was an episode of West Wing where CJ was really worried about (it was obviously Sinclair media) the consolidation of news media especially. I think that episode was in 2003 or 2004. It’s not a huge problem until it is. But, I contend it has been a right wing plan. Yes, the oligarchs have been the ones doing the buying but the plan to consolidate all media has been a major plan by the Christian right since at least the 80’s. They’ve been the ones pushing hard for it. And while it can benefit the oligarchs it primarily benefits fascism and the right.
If you think it only started with right wing christians in the 80s and hadn’t been going on since the end of the seccond world war, the invention of the intelligence agencies and the sudden realisation that governments can move exorbitant quantities of money into companies that dont exist, to pay for experiments on the population in secret, you’ve missed a beat
'Because all those post-nazism scientists have a lot of ideas on how to get those damn commies to spill the beans and we can’t have them go work for someone else, how else are we going to make the drug that makes you trip so much balls your arms and legs fall off? (yes. that’s a real thing. Bromo-DragonFLY)
Consolidation from what? A time when television news studios were owned by your average mom and pop who mortgaged their house for a chance at their dream lifestyle?
Media has always been owned by the oligarchs. For literally centuries it’s been owned by the oligarchs. The Opium Wars, the Indian Wars, every war ever has been supported by the news outlets owned by the war-profiting oligarchs.
The consolidation was just an optimization, both of operationalizing ideology and of extracting profit.
But there was never a time before which media was actually competitive and balanced and could guide someone towards an accurate understanding of the world. The white supremacist oligarchs have literally always controlled the media, the narrative, and the propaganda.
Yep, there are some interesting connections to how advertising got started and got perfected into that repetition based system that reinforces beliefs by familiarization. The consolidation is just centralization of that process.
I also don’t think the consolidation is the root cause, it’s a tool.
Unless you really think Trump’s first election was some 5D chess thing, he was catching flak from all sides.
That’s at least 3D chess. Bad news are good news. The media made him popular.
He’s put the cart before the horse.
It’s not “the right”, it’s the super wealthy billionaires who have taken over the political media & infosphere. Earnest liberals and conservatives should open their eyes and see, they are both being used against the other right out in the open.
The political media and infosphere is FOR SALE, why does he ignore that? Anybody can buy them and control the narrative. Oh, correction, anybody who’s filthy rich can buy them. Not you.
Earnest liberals and conservatives
Both those groups support the existence of capitalism. Wealth inequality and capitalists owning media are natural results of this.
If they stopped supporting the system that caused this, they wouldn’t be liberals/conservatives, they’d be leftists.
So, that’s every country since the reformation? Uh-oh we’re in big trouble
but it’s literally fascism. like the inability to refer to the fascism as fascism is what Rowling the transphobe was writing about?
I’m not sure I understand what he’s complaining about, don’t we constantly talk about how these people are fascists? Like isn’t that the lens through which we view this?
That is downstream of corporate takeover of media, is what he’s trying to say. Something that is indeed rarely discussed, but I wouldn’t say never
I don’t think everyone connects the dots
Problem is, people ARE talking about it…
…but where exactly would you expect to HEAR about people talking about it?
Actions speak louder than words.
You’d hope so, but a lot of recent events tend to point to the opposite and it doesn’t look like we’re going to see any actions strong enough to really break through any time soon.
I think the American ruling class has always controlled the media.
What changed is the American ruling class is now dominated by nationalist fascists rather than internationalist neo liberals.
The problem is, what are you supposed to do about it without violating the First Amendment?
One thing that would at least help is applying antitrust laws and breaking up said companies. Their size and consolidation alone is a decent chunk of the issue, though that still leaves more to be desired
Stop using sources that push propaganda? Support independent journalists like 404 media & use fediverse social media?
no I think I’ll just stay on tiktok and twitter. thats where my friends are after all. (this is not an attack on you specifically but your argument is used like this all the time, there are reputable alternatives to mainstream media.)
Actually, I don’t think you understood my argument.
I’m not asking about what individual members of the public are supposed to do, I’m asking what lawmakers are supposed to do. I’m talking about beyond a mere boycott, which (as you yourself just pointed out) is a losing strategy.
The solution won’t come from the law, the lawmakers are part of the ruling class who benefit from this.
I mean, there was a law to prevent exactly this. Unfortunately the law said they could ask the FCC for permission to violate (the rest of) it.
If i ran the administration with a majority, the first stop would be the FCC to create legislation towards free and fair reporting that actually gets enforced, with punishment based on percentage of profit instead of flat rate fines. Monopoly of information laws should also be created via the FCC.
I do not though so. here we are :P
free and fair reporting
Thats not possible. Everything is propaganda; the effect of choosing which aspects if a story to emphasize and what context to include is a zero-sum game as far as shaping public perception.
percentage of profit
Most media are loss makers. By funding it, oligarchs are able reinforce a system that keeps the money flowing into their bank accounts.
“A perfect world is not possible so we should do nothing”
Your comment is propaganda thats trying to show the negative aspect of regulating a medium when the only thing to be gained from giving this viewpoint without a solution is defeatism.
and if you think Fox News is losing money I have a bridge to sell you.
Who said we should do nothing? We should recognize all reporting is biased, and democratize media so its biased towards us, the working class.
Bringing back the fairness doctrine just means for every hour of “we need to invade Iraq/n because they’re evil brown muslims” we get an hour of “We need to invade Iraq/n because the people yearn for freedom”
So youre saying the same thing I said, except you think its different because instead of saying the FCC you said the working class.
Do you have an actual working implementation of how media can be democratized by the working class? Are we voting on if news is true? How would this work in practice? I am not going to completely dismiss your argument but I am failing to see the vision.
who do you expect is the person deciding what reporting is free and fair? is there a governmental regulatory body, created with the purpose of determining if the reporting was factual? shouldn’t the efficiency of this process be improved via pre-approving any media by this regulator to avoid fines?
is there a governmental regulatory body, created with the purpose of determining if the reporting was factual?
yes
shouldn’t the efficiency of this process be improved via pre-approving any media by this regulator to avoid fines?
You’re looking to slippery slope this into saying this would lead to a system in which only state approved viewpoints should be shown. which is what we currently have. so, what is your idea?
governmental regulatory body, created with the purpose of determining if the reporting was factual
Yes, thats the FCC, they did that historically, and required equal time/space for both democratic candidates and republican candidates. Naturally that meant channels would count up every 3 second clip and replay, and surrogates/pundits didn’t count at all.
Also the fediverse is in no way immune. Most of the instances seem to be administered by honest people without a fascist political agenda, but Lemmy and Piefed in particular are incredibly easy to manipulate with user accounts.
At least the admin team isn’t on the side of the fascists, unlike other platforms. Probably wouldn’t take much money to fix that though.
I could get more specific, but let’s just start with that.
No need to make the trials about the speech when you have plenty of financial crime to go after
Or prosecute for treason, material support to traitors, etc
Isn’t there a 2nd one about dealing with issues like this
What media is going to report on a media takeover? They are preparing for the midterms to try and force voters to choose the option that leads to a fascist dictatorship run by the corporate oligarchs. It’s very clear but I’ve long given up on the average person’s capacity to see the realities they live in and let it motive them to group up and attempt the end boss raid that needs to happen.
