A friend of mine, also retired from the business, keeps reminding me that we both are complicit in all of this because we developed technologies used to advance the internet infrastructure. He's right, of course, as are you.
My wife and I were speaking of this yesterday.
Face to face interaction has been largely replaced by phone to phone interaction and the like. (I don't count emails as bad, because they really are just a more efficient means of sending letters, which were a time honored and proven means of thoughtful communication. That communication form did allow everyone to communicate, even if they chose not to.)
Now, people don't participate in social activities as much, like going bowling as one example. But, to fulfill their social instincts they rely on social media. That ends up being pretty fake, with carefully curated propaganda masking as news. Wherever there is a chance for faking, someone will exploit it.
I mean, how fake are selfies? People take pictures of themselves in all sorts of random situations and post on the internet. Who looks at these selfies? Other people who want "likes" for their own selfies.
Dogs are smarter. I don't ever see dogs use phones for anything.
Watch MSNBC -they're the only ones I know of that are opposing POS and his ilk. Especially since they have the Bulwark folks and Charlie Sykes on almost every day.
They never back down, except for Joe & Mika's sucking up to the Tangerine Man that time, and Katy Tur sometimes making excuses for him (but I don't think she's doing that the way she used to - I don't watch her much anymore). MSNBC is pretty steady with their opposition to him and his regime.
MSNBC has their thing, and it does attract viewers. That said, if those viewers started leaving, they'd change their focus in a heartbeat.
Business is for business, not for us.
Apart from large grants/endowments, I don't know of anything that would set up a neutral news agent free of politics. And even that doesn't protect you from stupidity.
I was thinking about all this shit earlier this evening (or rather, last night, as it’s past midnight). I’m so sick of everyone capitulating to that idiot. He apparently said, in his lawsuit against CBS, that in addition to their reporting being “election interference” 🙄, it also caused him “mental anguish.” Lord, can the sane half of the country file a suit because of OUR mental anguish? Where do I sign up? I don’t know how much more I can stand.
🤬Spiro T. Agnew🤬, the only Marylander who has gotten that close to the presidency. (Yes, Virginia, The Lord DOES have a sense of humor… a very sick sense of humor.🤬)
The "cable news" networks are paying off because their business model is falling apart. They've become similar to paper printed newspapers, only viable if someone is willing to push in money to support them between "hot" news times. They'd rather pay off than have any business fall off at all.
Consideration of their own self interest would make one doubt their neutrality in any news topic, as pushing for war, crazy politics and etc., would create "hot news" times and thus profits.
Ok, that's the most neutral and considered way I can say "not trustworthy any more" without sounding like a conspiracy nut. Essentially, it's no longer in their business interest to be neutral news providers.
One of those things to consider when reading news.
Some of the Claytoonzers comments today insinuate that we are where we are as a country because everyone having access to technology has democratized stupidity. I beg to differ. We are where we are because there are folks who identify more with the pomposity, self-aggrandizement and exceptionalism spouted by the Founding Fathers than with workers ( indentured and enslaved) that took care of the rich-white-guys-with-land while they haggled over the Constitution and the Amendments. We've sadly been conned by the noble prose of folks like Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow to have great expectations about news outlets and the free press. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the press is forbidden from colluding with the government. It would be nice if they didn't because we would have a stronger democracy. We've just always assumed that since there was an Amendment that gave news media freedom from being controlled by the government that they would use that freedom wisely. Nuh-uh. Just like assuming that freedom of religion means not having the government dictating our religious beliefs. Well whoopsie, religious-right-wing-nuts believe that they have the right to dictate how to run our government, write, interpret and enforce the laws that they dictate to us. When you can have 5-4 and 6-3 decisions created from thin air, why waste time, energy paper presenting Bills, have debates, make laws and Amendments? That's why the Ten Commandments are now being required on classroom walls and not the Constitution.
How silly are we to believe that everyone should have liberty, the right to pursue happiness and have equal justice under law, just because some long dead white guys were pissed off at their crazy king and decided to engrave their demands on parchment and a building or two. We somehow deluded ourselves into thinking that those long dead rich white guys were thinking about all of us. News flash: they weren't. They said so from 1787 when black people only counted as 3/5ths of a person to equalize the voting power of white-slaveholding dudes with the non-slave holding dudes. They didn't think about women, indigenous people or anybody else because it was all about them and what they wanted for themselves. Not for anybody else. The Founding Fathers didn't want all of us to have the right to vote or to get an education to know how to vote wisely. They made it illegal to teach black people how to read. They made it illegal for women to vote. They even made it hard for poor white guys without land to get the right to vote. Are you surprised that Voting Rights is still not enshrined as an Amendment in our Constitution? Are you surprised that birthright citizenship is being contested?
We shouldn't be surprised that people like King DJT (pronounced "digit" ... which is what was probably unveiled to Stormy), Little Speaker Johnson, Marco-lito, Stephen 'the undead" Miller, A-hole Alito and House-boy Thomas want to return the USA to those great ol' days. I always wonder how Miller and Thomas reconcile their self-hate and fascist tendencies. (Can you imagine being their therapists? What am I saying ... they think that they are infallible and it therefore be heresy to have therapists... uh oh... watch the GOP & RFK Jr. now eliminate vaccines and therapists from Medicaid and Medicare).
Let me finish my rant with this: until we learn how to effectively use technology to build democracy person by person, then the corporations that run news media, social media, entertainment, textbooks, educational, financial, legal, medical institutions we will keep having s-show that we are living. We need to find ways to make participating in a healthy democracy cooler than watching a MacDonald's commercial, the WWE, the Super Bowl, Wives of (where-ever) or a Joe Rogain-less podcast. If we can do that, then corpulent, criminal fraudsters and grifters will not have sway over millions and the attention of billions, and then maybe we'll get to have a decent democracy and keep it like Ben Franklin said (who to his credit after 40+ years of owning slaves became an advocate for the abolition of slavery).
I hope that you all have a peaceful 4th of July. I will not be celebrating, only gathering with family and friends to cherish their presence in my life while we can still legally gather together to do so.
And they wonder why so few people trust them...
And the wealthy wonder why they aren't universally loved...
I wonder just WTF I could have done differently along the way to prevent even a tiny bit of this madness.
Fought to ban the internet? I can't think of this mess as anything but inevitable when communications changed to include everyone.
A friend of mine, also retired from the business, keeps reminding me that we both are complicit in all of this because we developed technologies used to advance the internet infrastructure. He's right, of course, as are you.
My wife and I were speaking of this yesterday.
Face to face interaction has been largely replaced by phone to phone interaction and the like. (I don't count emails as bad, because they really are just a more efficient means of sending letters, which were a time honored and proven means of thoughtful communication. That communication form did allow everyone to communicate, even if they chose not to.)
Now, people don't participate in social activities as much, like going bowling as one example. But, to fulfill their social instincts they rely on social media. That ends up being pretty fake, with carefully curated propaganda masking as news. Wherever there is a chance for faking, someone will exploit it.
I mean, how fake are selfies? People take pictures of themselves in all sorts of random situations and post on the internet. Who looks at these selfies? Other people who want "likes" for their own selfies.
Dogs are smarter. I don't ever see dogs use phones for anything.
“Dogs are smarter. I don't ever see dogs use phones for anything.”
Actually, dogs use phones as chew toys… which proves that they are smarter. 🫡👍👏😉
BTW…
🥳 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! 🥳
#🏴 #🏴 #🏴
"Our news outlets are failing us." This says it all. Truthful scary toon and blog.
Watch MSNBC -they're the only ones I know of that are opposing POS and his ilk. Especially since they have the Bulwark folks and Charlie Sykes on almost every day.
They never back down, except for Joe & Mika's sucking up to the Tangerine Man that time, and Katy Tur sometimes making excuses for him (but I don't think she's doing that the way she used to - I don't watch her much anymore). MSNBC is pretty steady with their opposition to him and his regime.
MSNBC has their thing, and it does attract viewers. That said, if those viewers started leaving, they'd change their focus in a heartbeat.
Business is for business, not for us.
Apart from large grants/endowments, I don't know of anything that would set up a neutral news agent free of politics. And even that doesn't protect you from stupidity.
I was thinking about all this shit earlier this evening (or rather, last night, as it’s past midnight). I’m so sick of everyone capitulating to that idiot. He apparently said, in his lawsuit against CBS, that in addition to their reporting being “election interference” 🙄, it also caused him “mental anguish.” Lord, can the sane half of the country file a suit because of OUR mental anguish? Where do I sign up? I don’t know how much more I can stand.
Could we do a class action mental anguish suit? I’m in.
Me too!
Great blog Clay. Rest up, we need you. Walter must be spinning in his grave.
Just sickening. Remember 'drain the swamp'? We are all being pulled into it and sinking fast.
Trump and his guys remind us that the safeguards the founding fathers put in the Constitution mean nothing in a corrupt presidency.
😢
As far as I could tell, they just added sharks.
The Ear Diaper Celebrity Of The Day is
🤬Spiro T. Agnew🤬, the only Marylander who has gotten that close to the presidency. (Yes, Virginia, The Lord DOES have a sense of humor… a very sick sense of humor.🤬)
BTW…
🥳 HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! 🥳
#🏴 #🏴 #🏴
Wonderful job, Clay! I'm glad you're home safely!
The "cable news" networks are paying off because their business model is falling apart. They've become similar to paper printed newspapers, only viable if someone is willing to push in money to support them between "hot" news times. They'd rather pay off than have any business fall off at all.
Consideration of their own self interest would make one doubt their neutrality in any news topic, as pushing for war, crazy politics and etc., would create "hot news" times and thus profits.
Ok, that's the most neutral and considered way I can say "not trustworthy any more" without sounding like a conspiracy nut. Essentially, it's no longer in their business interest to be neutral news providers.
One of those things to consider when reading news.
Some of the Claytoonzers comments today insinuate that we are where we are as a country because everyone having access to technology has democratized stupidity. I beg to differ. We are where we are because there are folks who identify more with the pomposity, self-aggrandizement and exceptionalism spouted by the Founding Fathers than with workers ( indentured and enslaved) that took care of the rich-white-guys-with-land while they haggled over the Constitution and the Amendments. We've sadly been conned by the noble prose of folks like Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow to have great expectations about news outlets and the free press. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the press is forbidden from colluding with the government. It would be nice if they didn't because we would have a stronger democracy. We've just always assumed that since there was an Amendment that gave news media freedom from being controlled by the government that they would use that freedom wisely. Nuh-uh. Just like assuming that freedom of religion means not having the government dictating our religious beliefs. Well whoopsie, religious-right-wing-nuts believe that they have the right to dictate how to run our government, write, interpret and enforce the laws that they dictate to us. When you can have 5-4 and 6-3 decisions created from thin air, why waste time, energy paper presenting Bills, have debates, make laws and Amendments? That's why the Ten Commandments are now being required on classroom walls and not the Constitution.
How silly are we to believe that everyone should have liberty, the right to pursue happiness and have equal justice under law, just because some long dead white guys were pissed off at their crazy king and decided to engrave their demands on parchment and a building or two. We somehow deluded ourselves into thinking that those long dead rich white guys were thinking about all of us. News flash: they weren't. They said so from 1787 when black people only counted as 3/5ths of a person to equalize the voting power of white-slaveholding dudes with the non-slave holding dudes. They didn't think about women, indigenous people or anybody else because it was all about them and what they wanted for themselves. Not for anybody else. The Founding Fathers didn't want all of us to have the right to vote or to get an education to know how to vote wisely. They made it illegal to teach black people how to read. They made it illegal for women to vote. They even made it hard for poor white guys without land to get the right to vote. Are you surprised that Voting Rights is still not enshrined as an Amendment in our Constitution? Are you surprised that birthright citizenship is being contested?
We shouldn't be surprised that people like King DJT (pronounced "digit" ... which is what was probably unveiled to Stormy), Little Speaker Johnson, Marco-lito, Stephen 'the undead" Miller, A-hole Alito and House-boy Thomas want to return the USA to those great ol' days. I always wonder how Miller and Thomas reconcile their self-hate and fascist tendencies. (Can you imagine being their therapists? What am I saying ... they think that they are infallible and it therefore be heresy to have therapists... uh oh... watch the GOP & RFK Jr. now eliminate vaccines and therapists from Medicaid and Medicare).
Let me finish my rant with this: until we learn how to effectively use technology to build democracy person by person, then the corporations that run news media, social media, entertainment, textbooks, educational, financial, legal, medical institutions we will keep having s-show that we are living. We need to find ways to make participating in a healthy democracy cooler than watching a MacDonald's commercial, the WWE, the Super Bowl, Wives of (where-ever) or a Joe Rogain-less podcast. If we can do that, then corpulent, criminal fraudsters and grifters will not have sway over millions and the attention of billions, and then maybe we'll get to have a decent democracy and keep it like Ben Franklin said (who to his credit after 40+ years of owning slaves became an advocate for the abolition of slavery).
I hope that you all have a peaceful 4th of July. I will not be celebrating, only gathering with family and friends to cherish their presence in my life while we can still legally gather together to do so.