The Enemy of Mankind
“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcolm X
The Enemy of Mankind
The mainstream media, sometimes called “The Enemy of Mankind,” correctly, I might add, never rests. Like rust and disease, the mainstream press pushes forward with any story that reaffirms their worldview. What worldview is that? The one that makes the most money, while enabling them to cling to power like a man hanging by his fingertips from a cliff’s ledge. “That press!” And no, that doesn’t mean I hate the 1st Amendment, any more than hating child porn means I’m against free speech.
Remarkably, the same people who think that any joke told by President Trump casting the Washington press corps in a negative light, are silent when it comes to speech codes, hate speech laws, or gender enforced speech codes on college campuses. Similar anti-free speech laws are being proposed throughout much of the Western world. Some are already the law in places like England and Canada. This should frighten the hell out of rational freedom-loving people.
Meanwhile, YouTube, Facebook, Google, and Twitter limit the free speech of mostly conservatives groups. This is done to fight “Fake News,” deemed as such by the half dozen global corporations that control virtually all “non-fake” news. Thus, conveniently eliminating their competitors.
Yesterday I saw multiple articles about one person behaving badly towards another. Now, people behaving badly is nothing new. But add race to the mix, and “Voila!” you’ve got media gold. In both cases, some jerk, who happened to be White, behaved badly towards a “Person of Color.” Neither incident was anything major, just someone being a racist jerk, while a group of mostly White people looked on in horror at the bad behavior. Not in support of the bad behavior, but in genuine revulsion at what they were watching.
The media fixated on these two people, among the 193,000,000 White Americans, to indirectly point out the ongoing problem of White racism. They didn’t need to say to this outright, the story’s focus was enough. In the comments section debate raged; “Should the media focus on very, very, very marginal stories, which represent statistical anomalies, as though they were common?” There were the rational responses that said the media was stirring the racial pot, which they were. And, there were the insane responses that argued that Americans needed to be aware of any jerk behaving in a racist fashion, no matter how rare. So we could keep an eye on them, I guess, lest they grow into a raging mob. In other words, people broke down into tribal units and took sides. While, apparently, thinking as little as possible. That’s all it took. That’s the power of the race card in the hands of the media.
Another headline read: “Trump Cuts Lunch Program For Poor Kids” The headline intended to elicit the “My God! What a horrible human being Trump is,” response. Which, it did. What the president actually did was cut back on some of the more stringent dietary rules imposed on lunches by Michele Obama’s signature achievement of rendering kid’s school lunch inedible, and, in no way, cut actual food for the poor. You’d never know it, though, by reading the headlines. Yes, in this brave new world of ours, limiting The Feds death grip on culinary ingredients for school kids is equal to starvation.
One of the biggest stories with widespread ramifications for the U.S. was almost completely ignored by the mainstream press. “The FBI Admitted To Having Multiple Spies in President Trump’s Camp.” This included more than one foreign spy. The excuse from the mainstream press is the old canard “The alleged threat of foreign spies attached to the Trump camp,” none of which have been found. Not Carter Page. Not George Papadopolous, neither of whom were shown, in any way, to be Russian assets beyond the relentless innuendo offered early on in the mainstream media that produced no actual evidence. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Leaving one unassailable fact: The Obama administration spied on Trump’s people. About that...there is no doubt. What do the big boys and girls in the corporate media have to say about this? They’re either silent. Or, they lie.
I could go on, day after day, observing fools being fools. The press is especially egregious.
Young journalists, who are budding socialists, and old socialists who are budding journalists, have taken root in the mainstream press, fighting the power, while working for the biggest corporations on earth. They are the new “Little guy.” The new David, fighting Internet giants, comprised of people sitting in their underwear, trying like hell to make a difference.
The rabbit hole has opened wide and threatens us all, and it isn’t the poor schmucks in their underwear that are the problem.
That much should be obvious.
Mark Magula
The mainstream media, sometimes called “The Enemy of Mankind,” correctly, I might add, never rests. Like rust and disease, the mainstream press pushes forward with any story that reaffirms their worldview. What worldview is that? The one that makes the most money, while enabling them to cling to power like a man hanging by his fingertips from a cliff’s ledge. “That press!” And no, that doesn’t mean I hate the 1st Amendment, any more than hating child porn means I’m against free speech.
Remarkably, the same people who think that any joke told by President Trump casting the Washington press corps in a negative light, are silent when it comes to speech codes, hate speech laws, or gender enforced speech codes on college campuses. Similar anti-free speech laws are being proposed throughout much of the Western world. Some are already the law in places like England and Canada. This should frighten the hell out of rational freedom-loving people.
Meanwhile, YouTube, Facebook, Google, and Twitter limit the free speech of mostly conservatives groups. This is done to fight “Fake News,” deemed as such by the half dozen global corporations that control virtually all “non-fake” news. Thus, conveniently eliminating their competitors.
Yesterday I saw multiple articles about one person behaving badly towards another. Now, people behaving badly is nothing new. But add race to the mix, and “Voila!” you’ve got media gold. In both cases, some jerk, who happened to be White, behaved badly towards a “Person of Color.” Neither incident was anything major, just someone being a racist jerk, while a group of mostly White people looked on in horror at the bad behavior. Not in support of the bad behavior, but in genuine revulsion at what they were watching.
The media fixated on these two people, among the 193,000,000 White Americans, to indirectly point out the ongoing problem of White racism. They didn’t need to say to this outright, the story’s focus was enough. In the comments section debate raged; “Should the media focus on very, very, very marginal stories, which represent statistical anomalies, as though they were common?” There were the rational responses that said the media was stirring the racial pot, which they were. And, there were the insane responses that argued that Americans needed to be aware of any jerk behaving in a racist fashion, no matter how rare. So we could keep an eye on them, I guess, lest they grow into a raging mob. In other words, people broke down into tribal units and took sides. While, apparently, thinking as little as possible. That’s all it took. That’s the power of the race card in the hands of the media.
Another headline read: “Trump Cuts Lunch Program For Poor Kids” The headline intended to elicit the “My God! What a horrible human being Trump is,” response. Which, it did. What the president actually did was cut back on some of the more stringent dietary rules imposed on lunches by Michele Obama’s signature achievement of rendering kid’s school lunch inedible, and, in no way, cut actual food for the poor. You’d never know it, though, by reading the headlines. Yes, in this brave new world of ours, limiting The Feds death grip on culinary ingredients for school kids is equal to starvation.
One of the biggest stories with widespread ramifications for the U.S. was almost completely ignored by the mainstream press. “The FBI Admitted To Having Multiple Spies in President Trump’s Camp.” This included more than one foreign spy. The excuse from the mainstream press is the old canard “The alleged threat of foreign spies attached to the Trump camp,” none of which have been found. Not Carter Page. Not George Papadopolous, neither of whom were shown, in any way, to be Russian assets beyond the relentless innuendo offered early on in the mainstream media that produced no actual evidence. None. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Leaving one unassailable fact: The Obama administration spied on Trump’s people. About that...there is no doubt. What do the big boys and girls in the corporate media have to say about this? They’re either silent. Or, they lie.
I could go on, day after day, observing fools being fools. The press is especially egregious.
Young journalists, who are budding socialists, and old socialists who are budding journalists, have taken root in the mainstream press, fighting the power, while working for the biggest corporations on earth. They are the new “Little guy.” The new David, fighting Internet giants, comprised of people sitting in their underwear, trying like hell to make a difference.
The rabbit hole has opened wide and threatens us all, and it isn’t the poor schmucks in their underwear that are the problem.
That much should be obvious.
Mark Magula