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A Free Press Defends Democracy, the Corporate Media Undermines it and is Normalizing Fascism [1]

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Date: 2023-01-19

The National Corporate Media is actually the enemy of democracy.

Freedom of speech has little meaning under the 21st Century domination of corporate owned media, television, most cable stations and movie companies. You can say anything you want to a bare wall, but you cannot say it to a national audience. And Defacto censorship also applies to some in the political class.

Furthermore, the national corporate media has refused to take a stand against the de-evolution of the Republican Party into fascism, and no matter what channel or internet site you visit, today’s insane Republican leadership is being normalized. Which is a major reason for the growth of the fascist movement. Trump for example, still gets 2 — 4 articles a day on most on-line sites and large newspapers, regardless of political sympathies, Biden less than 1 on average. For those misguided and demented MAGA souls, even bad publicity is good publicity for Trump and his minions.

Corporate and Progressive Lessons from Vietnam

Vietnamese villagers hide from rampaging terror tactics by U.S. troops.

There are contrasting lessons to be learned from Vietnam and the 50s. On the progressive side, we learned again the power of a mass movement and struggle. The corporate media and their owners learned something else. The Vietnam War experiences combined with actual combat reporting had a huge impact on the ability of the military and government to continue the war. This was a highly negative form of “learning” for them. We should be aware that while informing the public via the news media was always to a degree right-wing leaning, journalists in the recent past had much more ability to be critical in regard to military adventures and wars in the 60s as they have today. National media is much more repressive and controlled, largely in response to the 60s, Civil Rights, LBGT, and Vietnam War struggles they covered.

American Self-Censorship

In other fascist countries, the national media often comes directly under government control. This takeover may take place differently in America due to the “natural” right-wing media tendencies that have already been established. At one time, national media newsrooms all ran at a loss, which was made up by other successful programming. Today everything is evaluated on its profitability potential. Even stations not under the right wing’s thumb must make profits on their programming, including newsrooms, so they have increasingly reduced actual political coverage and increased entertainment and advertising aspects of programs called news.

Rupert Murdoch serves up some political b.s. on Fox.

To be blunt about corporate media political leanings, they naturally lean right because most are corporate owned, and political morality will also lean toward assuring the highest profits possible for both the owners and shareholders. Today that means Republican bias. Biden tried to label the Republicans fascist in a national speech and was widely criticized in the corporate media, a perfect example of extra-legal censorship.

The Myth of Corporate Neutrality

The unspoken rationale for not calling fascism by its rightful name is the “media neutrality clause”, not an actual law or regulation, which purports that both of our two major parties must get equal treatment. While it’s never really been true, there was a time not so long ago when the differences were not polarized nearly as much as the current divide. Both adhered to capitalism, one supported its ugliest right-wing side, while the other had a somewhat more reformist and liberal perspective on capitalism. That has morphed into outright fascism and a call for dictatorship on the part of the Republicans. While the Democrats have moved somewhat from dead center to a more liberal and progressive side. Not enough for the progressive wing, but clearly in sharp opposition to the fascists.

A Potentially Fatal Weakness

McCarthy is little more than a puppet for the extremists.

The Republican House strategy to prevent raising the debt ceiling, which they along with Trump and other Republican presidents' policies have helped to skyrocket in recent years, is aimed at destroying both what’s left of the New Deal and existing social programs. Now if I understand their plans, their hypocritical position is that there too much dependence on debt financing — but keep in mind that Trump oversaw huge increases in the debt ceiling to pay for significant tax cuts mainly for the wealthy and corporations. Freezing the debt ceiling implies making draconian cuts to prevent default on our debt. These cuts would be applied mainly against social programs like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, which according to their capitalist illogic is a desirable solution. They would of course exempt the military budget and alike rather than social spending.

26 — 36 trillion Dollars

There is a potentially fatal weakness in any Democratic strategies to thwart the plan, if the corporate media fakes neutrality or openly leans towards the Republicans. Obviously, fair media coverage would go a long way towards defeating the plan, but it’s something the Democrats are unlikely to get from the corporate media.

Much depends on whether the Republican plan will precipitate significant opposition, both popular and from some business and corporate circles. The IMF has done similar debt reduction disasters to many smaller and underdeveloped countries which forced the slashing of social spending before they would restore their credit ratings. To deliberately cause such a crisis in your own country is treasonous but not beyond, of course, the Putin-backed, fascist Republican Party.

Cuts in Social Services and Medicare/Medicaid Will Cost Lives.

My own views on why the U.S. has so much debt is the consistent failure to sufficiently tax Corporate America and the upper classes over many decades. There also may be artificially low taxes being paid by other groups and classes. This has helped accumulate a tremendous national debt figure. I fear a lot of horse trading if there is to be cutting of the debt ceiling or failure to increase it. Cuts in certain areas will literally cost lives. Biden should stand firm on not making any cuts in social programs, it would be his downfall. He actually has options and cards to play and should play them.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/19/2146892/-A-Free-Press-Defends-Democracy-the-Corporate-Media-Undermines-it-and-is-Normalizing-Fascism

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