The Billionaire-Owned, Corporate Media is as Worthless as Ever

I think the U.S. citizenry is being afflicted by a sort of mass insanity at the moment. There are no good outcomes if this continues. As a result, I feel compelled to provide a voice for those of us lost in the political wilderness. We must persevere and not be manipulated into the obvious and nefarious divide and conquer tactics being aggressively unleashed across the societal spectrum. If we lose our grounding and our fortitude, who will be left to speak for those of us who simply don’t fit into any of the currently ascendant political ideologies?

From the post: Lost in the Political Wilderness

Rather than focus its journalistic energy on chronicling the economic insecurity plaguing so many of our fellow Americans, the billionaire-owned corporate media appears entirely obsessed with chattering endlessly about Russia conspiracy theories and domestic coup plots. Instead of looking in the mirror and admitting how its countless errors and propaganda pushing led to multiple humanitarian disasters over the last couple of decades, the oligarch-owned mainstream media insists upon a narrative that Trump the individual is at the root of our problems, as opposed to an entrenched executive branch with excessive power. This is because the mainstream media isn’t actually concerned about our cancerous, systemic metastasizing statism, it merely doesn’t want Trump in charge of it. I, on the other hand, want to dismantle that unconstitutional state entirely and transfer power to the American people where it belongs — self-government. Does anyone actually think for a second the media would be this adversarial if Hillary won?

This weekend’s article by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times represents a sort of coming out party for the billionaire-owned, corporate media. More than anything else I’ve seen, it perfectly demonstrates how completely disconnected and worthless billionaire-owned media truly is. It’s the height of absurdity that these media organizations, owned by billionaires or giant corporate conglomerates, are playing the victim in all this when they’ve been the world’s primary abuser for the entire 21st century.

You can be a staunch defender of the free press and the 1st Amendment, and at the same time point out that the billionaire-owned media has failed us. This is my position, and Trump’s election hasn’t changed that. The handful of corporations and billionaires who control the mainstream press do not = “the press.” They (and the deep state) are currently trying to convince the public that they’re the only ones standing between you and fascism. This is complete stupidity, and if we fall for it, we will get what we deserve.

The billionaire-owned media is far more complicit in creating the imperial Presidency than Donald Trump, he merely figured out a way to get control of it. Now these same charlatans are pretending to put out a fire they themselves started, and want to be celebrated for being so courageous. This is eerily similar to the scam pulled off by the Federal Reserve during and after the financial crisis.

With that introduction out of the way, let’s take a look at a few excerpts from the mind-bogglingly explicit piece in this past weekend’s New York Times, titled brazenly enough, How Can We Get Rid of Trump?

Maybe things will settle down. But what is striking about Trump is not just the dysfunction of his administration but also the — vigorously denied — allegations that Trump’s team may have cooperated with Vladimir Putin to steal the election. What’s also different is the broad concern that Trump is both: A) unfit for office, and B) dangerously unstable. One pro-American leader in a foreign country called me up the other day and skipped the preliminaries, starting with: “What the [expletive] is wrong with your country?”

So let’s investigate: Is there any way out?

Trump still has significant political support, so the obstacles are gargantuan. But the cleanest and quickest way to remove a president involves Section 4 of the 25th Amendment and has never been attempted. It provides that the cabinet can, by a simple majority vote, strip the president of his powers and immediately hand power to the vice president. The catch is that the ousted president can object, and in that case Congress must approve the ouster by a two-thirds vote in each chamber, or the president regains office.

It’s never been attempted in the history of the country, but let’s promote it anyway!

The 25th Amendment route is to be used when a president is “unable” to carry out his duties. I asked Laurence Tribe, the Harvard professor of constitutional law, whether that could mean not just physical incapacity, but also mental instability. Or, say, the taint of having secretly colluded with Russia to steal an election?

Tribe said that he believed Section 4 could be used in such a situation.

“In the unlikely event that Pence and a majority of Trump’s bizarre cabinet were to grow the spine needed to do the right thing with the process set up by that provision, we would surely be in a situation where a very large majority of the public, including a very substantial percentage of Trump’s supporters, would back if not insist upon such a move,” Tribe said. “In that circumstance, I can’t imagine Trump and his lawyers succeeding in getting the federal courts to interfere.”

As a reminder, here’s an example of the intellectual and ethical wasteland known as Laurene Tribe’s mind as of late:

Now back to Kristof.

The better known route is impeachment. But for now it’s hard to imagine a majority of the House voting to impeach, and even less conceivable that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict so that Trump would be removed. Moreover, impeachment and trial in the Senate would drag on for months, paralyzing America and leaving Trump in office with his finger on the nuclear trigger.

In Kristof’s mind, a major downside to pursuing impeachment is that it won’t get rid of Trump fast enough. Is this really a paper the public can remotely trust to report on the country’s problems in a fair manner?

Now here’s where it starts to get simply comical. Kristoff writes:

Some people believe that the 2018 midterm elections will be so catastrophic for the G.O.P. that everyone will be ready to get rid of him. I’m skeptical. In the Senate, the map is disastrous for Democrats in 2018: The Republicans will be defending only eight Senate seats, while Democrats will in effect be defending 25.

So while Democrats can gnash their teeth, it’ll be up to Republicans to decide whether to force Trump out. And that won’t happen unless they see him as ruining their party as well as the nation.

Perhaps instead of “gnashing their teeth,” Democrats could come up with a coherent platform that doesn’t revolve around worshiping Wall Street.

Finally, here’s how Kristoff ends his pathetic plea for overthrowing Trump.

And what does it say about a presidency that, just one month into it, we’re already discussing whether it can be ended early?

No Nicholas, “we” aren’t already discussing it. You are. You and your media peers. Which brings me to the most infuriating aspect of what is happening in American discourse today. What is someone like me, who dislikes Trump, but dislikes the corporate media even more, supposed to do?

This is the uncomfortable position I find myself in today, and if I’m there, millions of others are there as well. Trump understands this, which is why he continues his unrelenting attacks on elements of the corporate press. Personally, my dislike of Trump would be far more acute if not for my total disdain for the billionaire-owned media. Journalists are supposed to be adversarial toward power generally, not pick and choose which powerful figures to challenge based on political ideology. The corporate media has clearly failed the country, thus Trump is being politically savvy by picking a fight with it. As I noted last week on Twitter:

Once again, the corporate media is proving its worthlessness by making everything about a man, as opposed to the systemic disaster that is the oligarch-controlled society we live in. The current President isn’t charismatic enough, and doesn’t espouse the right platitudes when he bombs Muslim women and children. That’s the media’s red line apparently. If it sounds like I’m against everything, there’s a reason. Our culture is deranged and corporate media deserves a lot of the blame.

Finally, here’s an article published by Forbes last year to get you up to speed on what we’re up against: These 15 Billionaires Own America’s News Media Companies.

Billionaires don’t buy media outlets to make money, they already have that. They buy them to manipulate public opinion.

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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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7 thoughts on “The Billionaire-Owned, Corporate Media is as Worthless as Ever”

  1. I thought the media barrage in the run-up to the election was bad…little did I realize how much worse it could become. Apparently these Democrats think being a douchey jerk is grounds for impeachment.

    The whole Russia thing is made all the more laughable by the fact that the CIA just awarded Saudi Arabia a medal for “counter-terrorism work”. Jesus Christ.

    Reply
  2. Michael, when statists “look in the mirror” they like what they see. Otherwise they wouldn’t be statists.

    This is no longer a matter of hoping that these people are just misguided and once they realize the error of their ways they’ll come around. It’s the exact opposite. They know that their words and actions are self-serving and will result in them getting theirs at the expense of others and they’re completely fine with that.

    To think otherwise, is to vastly underestimate your opponent. You have a platform here, Michael. Use it to call them out mercilessly and give no quarter.

    Reply
  3. Great Article! This is spot on and at the heart of the problem. I appreciated all your Spiral Dynamics analysis, but I couldn’t go all in on that. I think the problem is much simplier, and as you wrote here, the essence of the problem is upper 1% of 1%/Bilderbubbas controlling the flow of information, deciding what the top 10 stories of the day are… the illusion of choice, distract, divide, and conquer (get rich)!

    Reply
  4. Michael,
    You really need to accept that Trump is our first, best, and last chance to defeat the Deep State. He is more a solution then a problem.

    Reply
  5. Nicholas Kristof of the NYT is a member of the Rockefeller/CFR, along with Andrew Sorkin, Thomas Friedman, and dozens of other propagandists. See member lists at cfr dot org.

    Reply

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