Sunday, November 22, 2015

The War on Freedom



Wikipedia
A pseudonym for an anonymous group of authors who printed scathing pamphlets in 1588, resulting in the executions of people who may not have been associates.

Google eBooks
A Discourse on Rational Communication

PINAC
Documenting infringements on First Amendment rights. Also, see Journalist Arrested.

COPBLOCK
Documenting Abuse of Authority


Mint Press News (09/03/2015)
Many public colleges and private universities are being infiltrated by plutocrats.
I think I've said this before. Free speech has its consequences. Everywhere I see protesters getting arrested which means local authorities now have their criminal records and finger prints on file.

When the Founding Fathers were contemplating the First Amendment, they formed the ideas from a long, horrific history of torture and executions for speaking up. One such example is the Martin Marprelate controversy (link in the box).

Now main-stream journalism is under assault. The authorities know how to spot them because they have the big professional video cameras, lights and boom microphones.

Authorities also know how to spot people up-close holding up their cell phones recording incidents.

The natural progression of revolution is to escalate and counter-escalate. The next phase that follows protesters and journalists getting arrested and whose grievances are ignored, is a vicious underground resistance movement.

If Bernie Sanders isn't elected, can we expect nothing less? To all those protesters and journalists who have already been arrested and documented, you should probably plan your safe-houses and movements carefully and go off the grid. To the rest, good luck.

Friday, November 20, 2015

The Fourth Estate




The End of Mainstream Media
Wikipedia
The Main-Stream Media. Here's a site called the 4th Estate. It's last known post was January 31, 2013

Wikipedia
The Alternative Media

Mint Press News (09/17/2014
It's evident that The Press is losing traction with its audience.

Christian Post (09/16/2015)
Personal account of a magazine publishing employee.

Intelligence^2 (10/27/2009)
A collection of articles debating reasons for the demise of the mainstream media

Empire Dusk (08/21/2008)
In the 5th to the last paragraph, I predict the demise of the Mainstream Media. I feel quite vindicated.
The printing press was invented around 1440. I'm just throwing it out there as my interpretation of the birth of the Fourth Estate, but it's debatable. The moniker was said to have been used first in 1787.

When Salon reported the suspension of CNN Reporter Elise Labott for a Tweet. I was inspired to create this post. It seems more frequently that Mainstream Media pulls more dirt over itself. They've become terrified sycophants to the rich and powerful.

CNN apparently has fallen out of favor of the Republican candidates, especially the Trump campaign. At a rally Noah Gray was threatened when he almost strayed off the reservation to cover a protester. The mantle of retribution for the mistreatment of reporters is the virility of the Internet.

In a 2011 Rolling Stone interview, Keith Olbermann describes the self-destructive nature of Corporate Media:
They form together in a massive id and they do whatever they want. In a corporate setting, there's nothing to stop Rupert Murdoch or Disney from doing whatever the hell they want with the news.
The Daily Kos brought up Keith Olbermann in a post titled "Is Comcast Quietly Suffocating MSNBC" January 15th of 2015, Just a few short months later, Ed Schultz was fired, Schultz changed his mind about the Keystone XL Pipeline in March of 2014

With the bulk of mainstream media owned by multinational corporations that spend millions if not billions of dollars on politicians, mainstream journalists find them selves in the middle, being crushed into submission, forced into fawning flattery and asking only softball questions to preserve their careers.

Politicians can now treat reporters badly with impunity. Sally Kohn at the Daily Beast asked "Rope-Ghazi: What Difference Does It Make?" If the reporters can be certain of their future income by crowd-funding their own podcasts and blogs, they might start raising the stakes with their questions.

Being fired from the mainstream media will actually give you more street cred.


Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Appearing Presidential: Problem Here

I recently came across a post on Facebook from the Moderates for Bernie community, criticizing the way he presented himself at the most recent debate: (Click here for the full article.)

Bernie Sanders committed 2 back-to-back blunders at the beginning of Saturday’s Democratic debate. First, after paying lip service to the Paris attacks in his opening statement, he pivoted to stump speech rhetoric about economic inequality. In contrast, Clinton and O’Malley both focused exclusively on terrorism in their opening statements. [...] Make no mistake, these are bad politics. Both messages appeal to Bernie’s base, but debates provide a unique opportunity to expand the base. And these two answers did not make him seem presidential to voters still on the fence, especially directly after the Paris attacks.
 I commented "The trouble with trying to appear presidential is the sacrifice of intellect. He's not willing to do that."

I still beam with pride over the subtlety of my trolling. But is it really trolling? I got no responses but I did manage to eek out one 'like' so far.

Not many get what I say or write. The example here is that I'm commenting on the author's expectations. The author is correct, but is it really wrong that Bernie wouldn't sacrifice what he knows deep in his heart, just to appeal to under-informed voters? It would be deceptive to do so and it would come back to haunt him later,

He would need to make overgeneralized, inaccurate statements to appear presidential, because as Jon Stewart said: "The problem isn't that Bernie Sanders is a crazy-pants Cuckoo Bird. It's that we've all become so accustomed to stage-managed, focus-group driven candidates that his authenticity comes across as lunacy."

It goes even beyond that. our entire culture has been conditioned to accept as facts not only false information, but inaccuracies, expired time-sensitive data, and short-term conclusions instead of more hazardous long-term conclusions.

Bernie Sanders was roundly criticized for linking climate change to terrorism during the debate, but afterward, fact-checkers found evidence confirming his conclusions.

His unwillingness to sacrifice his integrity to simply appeal to under-informed voters may be his undoing, and it's a very sad situation for our country.

Monday, November 9, 2015

College Safe Spaces



The New York Times
The Safe Space is a trauma therapy center where real victims can recuperate. Also explains the 'microaggression.'

Breitbart
A Response to the New York Times article. Safe Spaces are an afront to Free Speech, apparently.

Media Matters
The very real crisis of mental health support for college students.

New Republic
Is this the norm or the exception?

Reason.com
Offensive Halloween Costumes, at Yale! Really? Realllly?
Are college campus safe spaces really good for students? To a certain point it seems like a good idea, especially for students that are victims of real crime or abuse.

It seems, however, that interpretation of the idea for safe spaces is getting a little extreme.

Some students apparently feel the outside world that awaits them looms darkly, and seem to be trying to stifle their adjustment to the harsh realities.

Friday, November 6, 2015

COM: Politics and Media Out Of Control


MEDIA
OUT OF
CONTROL
Politico
This is where it all started. It was assumed that Ben Carson actually received a scholarship, but in reality he said he was only offered a scholarship.

USA Today
The original headline was "Ben Carson admits fabricating West Point story, report says" Interesting that USA Today felt the need to change their own headline.

The Washington Post
Here it's explained that Ben Carson was offered a scholarship but didn't take it.

The Washington Post
Here the author states "Ben Carson's admission Friday to Politico that he had not been offered and accepted a full scholarship to West Point could be a major problem for a presidential candidate whose appeal is almost entirely built on his remarkable personal story."

The Daily Caller
The Daily Caller has earned itself space on my list of sources. Politico never made it.
So this is how politicians can bait the media with ambiguous statements, then turn around and attack the media, pointing at the media's sloppy false inferences,

Did this really happen? Was it intentional? There's no way to prove it, but the media is at fault for not doing its homework anyway.

Either way the damage is done to the candidate. The graphics popping up all over the Internet that are mocking the candidate, possibly for something he never did or said, won't go away anytime soon.

News outlets must answer not only for parroting the original story, but now changing their own headlines after the fact to cover up their laziness.

The schadenfreude and groupthink of the media needs to be checked.