On March 1st, 2024, Elon Musk tweeted on his social media platform ‘X’ referring to an ABC TV news report,
“People, who get their news from legacy TV, live in a fake alternate reality.”
(‘legacy’ = the long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past)
Since October 7, journalists of hegemonic Western colonialist media have made themselves accessories after and then before the fact of crimes against humanity ordered by the Israeli government and committed by Israeli military in their continuous mass murderous bombing and air strikes demolishing homes and entire cities of Israel’s captive Palestinian population in Gaza – indiscriminately killing thousands of residents, 70% [1]of which are women and children. These journalists became accessories after the fact and then before the fact. How?
Albert Einstein argued that
“private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands”, resulting in “an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organised political society”.
Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education).
It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.” [May 1949 edition of socialist magazine Monthly Review]
In case it is of interest, this is a letter to the editor (LTE) of mine submitted to vtdigger this morning in response to a recently published LTE regarding the name of “Vermont Public” written by Paul Stone (https://vtdigger.org/letters_to_editor/please-change-the-new-vermont-public-name/), fyi:
Vermont Public Disconnect Is Quite Obvious:
Since the merger between Vermont PBS and VPR and the subsequent name change, because it most definitely describes and means nothing whatsoever, I have been referring to the organization as “Vermont Public Whatever.”
We live in a time in which the truth has less and less bearing on how the world operates. This is something that has evolved over a long period of time but it feels like we are, more acutely, feeling the effects of allowing ourselves to be influenced by those who are willing to lie to get whatever they want.
It may seem like this is something new, but the world of politics has witnessed this phenomenon for as long as the political game has been played.
The difference today is that the years of not stopping the lies forcefully enough have finally caught up with us and there are now millions of people around the world who are easily convinced that lies have somehow been magically converted into the truth because someone in power has told them to believe them.
It’s 02-20-2021 and iBrattleboro is 18 today. Watch out now, we’re all grown up and can vote! Still a few more years until we can rent a car, but hey…
More seriously, the site stated 18 years ago as a place for people in the Brattleboro area to share news, events, information and opinions. iBrattleboro can be whatever you, the community contributor, wants it to be. If it is exciting and useful, you made it so.
The American form of government is in an advanced state of decay. An argument might even be made that we are witnessing the final gasps of a failed centuries-long experiment. On the other hand, one might say that what we now have is just a logical evolution of a country created by slaveowners and an elite corps of wealthy white men. There are always many ways to look at events.
When the majority of people in a society are being used as pawns by a privileged few then I believe that the government has failed to uphold basic human values. If we want to nurture a democracy then we have to promote what is best for most of us.
Lately I’ve noticed that a great many commentators on television and radio feel obliged to begin every answer to every question with the word “so.” For example, the answer to “What did President Trump mean by his latest tweet?” might be “So, no one knows what is going on in the mind of Donald Trump, but….” The problem with this usage is that it is both unnecessary and incorrect.
There are many correct uses of the word “so.”
