The timing of your post is ironic. It comes even as we see another great American myth unravelling in a New York courthouse. Evidence suggests that the person who popularized the term, "fake news" was the driving force behind the production and dissemination of "fake news"!
Sadly, most people in the USA depend on unreliable sources of information...
I had studiously ignored media coverage of Israel's offensive during that first week, so I was unaware of the beheaded babies story until much later. I was not part of that initial propagandistic dragnet, in other words.
For me, it was that one story that clued me into just how deceptive President Biden was willing to be in order to advance this goal of the destruction of Gaza. Even after he'd heavily intimated that he had personally seen photos of these supposedly beheaded babies, which the White House had to walk back and claim that Biden misspoke, three to four weeks later at a press conference he brought the rumor up again. That's when I knew: he's doing this on purpose. He KNOWS what he's doing.
Biden has always been a lying sack of ... you know what. He has long been one of the most despicable corporate hacks in the "Democratic" Party. He is a product of the system.
How to find reliable news sources? There are many here on Substack. (Hint, hint!) There's no excuse not to know what's actually happening in the world. Turn off the propaganda machine of the mainstream media. Free your mind.
I think the only way to combat bias is to listen to as wide a variety of news sources as you can, of every political hue. If you can find common themes you might get an approximation of the truth. It can be hard to listen to commentary from sources that you don't agree with but it doesn't hurt, and it helps you form your opinions, even if it's to consolidate what you already think.
I couldn't agree more, Jennifer. Even if I dislike someone's views, I like to stay informed and listen to a variety of opinions. I prefer to think critically rather than accept unquestioningly everything I am told by any one source. I am open to having my mind changed if I'm presented with a convincing argument.
No. Listen to credible information sources only. Not a single corporate sponsored platform is in that demographic. Good god no wonder we can’t have anything nice.
Part of me that’s Jonathon Simon, Mehdi Hasan, Seth Abramson Proof, Joshua P Hill
Off the top of my head. Anyone that is sponsored by corporate entities is illegitimate. Anyone that is only purveying one point of you as an echo chamber like Fox or MSNBC is illegitimate.
Anyone espousing the talking points of the entities just listed is illegitimate.
Well that’s not the way to do it. I am qualified. Start with a few sources that are and follow their recommendations. Sarah Kendzior Gaslitnation Eric Gardner, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, Jennifer Cohn Bucks County News, Jonathon Dimon
Thanks, Mark. Consortium News comes to mind. The Greyzone. Rachel Blevins. Naomi Klein. Avi Lewis. Just off the top of my head. There are so many excellent news sources. Lots of them right here on Substack.
Pardon me that’s rather vague on my part. To claim that we have a choice is allusion. Purveying the illusion of choice is the height of moral bankruptcy
It's very frustrating, like they've never heard of Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model and the five filters that media operate through: ownership, advertising, the media elite, flak and the common enemy.
I can't believe that you're trolling me. Hate-mail and trolls. I've just about had enough.
‘A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who hasn’t acquired full the ‘having mode of existence- briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing- cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, and isolated in present day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his ‘normal contemporaries. Not rarely, will suffer from anxiety and depression that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society.’ Erich Fromm.
I was referring to a certain individual. You tell me what I should be writing about for now on. OK
And don't make the mistake of painting me with a brush and not engaging in what you want me to engage on because I am not able to. I have Palestinian friends here. What am i doing? i don't need to explain myself to you!
Humor an old man and allow me to regale you with a story. Once upon a time (2016) in a land far away. It seems so long ago. There used to be facts, certain truths, like the sun will rise in the East. We could all agree on that. Remember those times. The year 2016 was, if anything, the death of truth. In 2016, lying proved profitable, even for those who got caught. 2016 saw a deluge of ‘fake news’ stories, concocted debate facts, and Internet Ads from every Tom, Dick, and Vladimir. Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘post-truth’ as word of the year. But is this true? Is there even an entity known as Oxford Dictionaries?
Pro-Brexit ads on the sides of buses claimed that Britain paid 300 million pounds per week to the E.U. and that with Brexit, they would divert that cash to the National Health Service. Most people knew that neither claim was true, but, in the final analysis, it didn’t really matter.
Hillary Clinton spun such an enormous, complicated web of non-truths about her email server that in the end, no-one understood what she had done, including Hillary herself. The North Carolina state legislature got away with passing a law by lying about men lying about being transgender to peep at women in bathroom stalls- which wouldn’t even make sense even if free porn didn’t exist. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte claimed that men with badges robbed him at gunpoint in Rio, though it turned out that he was yelled at by a gas station attendant for vandalizing the washroom. Weeks later, he’s on Dancing with the Stars, along with Rick Perry after dropping out of the Presidential race- and then, becoming the Minister of Energy: a department Perry had vowed to dissolve, if elected.
The year of the lie was great for the National Enquirer, owned by one of Trumps’ cronies. The tabloid reported that Hillary Clinton suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, depression, and alcoholism. InfoWars editor, and certified nut-job whose radio show Trump loves and appeared on, believes the moon- landing was faked, 9/11 was faked as well as the massacre at Sandy Hook. But Trump mastered the lie. He saw Muslims in New Jersey celebrate the falling of the Twin Towers. He claimed Clinton started the birther movement, not him. After he won the presidency, he lied that millions of people voted for Clinton illegally. He even lied about the size of the crowd at his inauguration! 2016 was the kind of year when you could even lie about being cheated after you won. And here we are again in 2024. Has the world become a better place? What is driving all this populism and tribalism and rhetoric of hate and despair and fear? I keep waiting for someone in the American government, namely the Republicans, to stand up and say what any small child with a modicum of reason would say: “Look, the Emperor has no clothes.”
"The Emperor has no clothes" applies to both Democrats and Republicans and politicians all over the world who claim that being anti-genocide means people are anti-semitic.
The timing of your post is ironic. It comes even as we see another great American myth unravelling in a New York courthouse. Evidence suggests that the person who popularized the term, "fake news" was the driving force behind the production and dissemination of "fake news"!
Sadly, most people in the USA depend on unreliable sources of information...
I had studiously ignored media coverage of Israel's offensive during that first week, so I was unaware of the beheaded babies story until much later. I was not part of that initial propagandistic dragnet, in other words.
For me, it was that one story that clued me into just how deceptive President Biden was willing to be in order to advance this goal of the destruction of Gaza. Even after he'd heavily intimated that he had personally seen photos of these supposedly beheaded babies, which the White House had to walk back and claim that Biden misspoke, three to four weeks later at a press conference he brought the rumor up again. That's when I knew: he's doing this on purpose. He KNOWS what he's doing.
He knows what he's doing, and so do the rest of his ilk.
And they're A-OK with funding and arming Israel while it commits genocide against Palestinians.
And we are learning just how deep the rot is.
Biden has always been a lying sack of ... you know what. He has long been one of the most despicable corporate hacks in the "Democratic" Party. He is a product of the system.
The liars are the defenders of the empire. They have been doing it for so long they don't know what it is to tell the truth.
I enjoy your art as well as your writing.
How to find reliable news sources? There are many here on Substack. (Hint, hint!) There's no excuse not to know what's actually happening in the world. Turn off the propaganda machine of the mainstream media. Free your mind.
The problem is that the narrative is set by sociopaths.
I think the only way to combat bias is to listen to as wide a variety of news sources as you can, of every political hue. If you can find common themes you might get an approximation of the truth. It can be hard to listen to commentary from sources that you don't agree with but it doesn't hurt, and it helps you form your opinions, even if it's to consolidate what you already think.
I go on Washington Post once a week (nasty task I have set for myself) in order to refute comments and to send people to substack for real news.
There are so many comments there which infuriate me and make me feel sick but it is something worth doing.
I couldn't agree more, Jennifer. Even if I dislike someone's views, I like to stay informed and listen to a variety of opinions. I prefer to think critically rather than accept unquestioningly everything I am told by any one source. I am open to having my mind changed if I'm presented with a convincing argument.
No. Listen to credible information sources only. Not a single corporate sponsored platform is in that demographic. Good god no wonder we can’t have anything nice.
I'm not qualified to say who's credible so I prefer to keep an open mind.
Part of me that’s Jonathon Simon, Mehdi Hasan, Seth Abramson Proof, Joshua P Hill
Off the top of my head. Anyone that is sponsored by corporate entities is illegitimate. Anyone that is only purveying one point of you as an echo chamber like Fox or MSNBC is illegitimate.
Anyone espousing the talking points of the entities just listed is illegitimate.
Well that’s not the way to do it. I am qualified. Start with a few sources that are and follow their recommendations. Sarah Kendzior Gaslitnation Eric Gardner, Amy Goodman at Democracy Now, Jennifer Cohn Bucks County News, Jonathon Dimon
Diana, what would be your top 4 or 5 recommendations?
(Another wonderful painting! I really enjoy your art.)
Thanks, Mark. Consortium News comes to mind. The Greyzone. Rachel Blevins. Naomi Klein. Avi Lewis. Just off the top of my head. There are so many excellent news sources. Lots of them right here on Substack.
Agreed. One of my favorites is Common Dreams: https://www.commondreams.org/
"Today’s most obvious ploy is framing genocide as anti-Semitism."
I think you mean "opposition to genocide" or "anti-genocide."
Thanks for catching that. I've updated the post.
Pardon me that’s rather vague on my part. To claim that we have a choice is allusion. Purveying the illusion of choice is the height of moral bankruptcy
Actually I think there is one that is more egregious. The illusion of choice concerning America’s body politic.
Yes
No corporate sponsored platform of any type is anything but it carefully crafted narrative. I don’t understand why people don’t understand that….
It's very frustrating, like they've never heard of Herman and Chomsky's propaganda model and the five filters that media operate through: ownership, advertising, the media elite, flak and the common enemy.
Most of them haven’t but that’s not relevant. Just a tiny bit of critical thinking skills would easily conclude the paradigm.
THIS WAR
Yes, I’m the soul of indiscretion
I was cursed with x-ray vision
I could see right through the lies that you told
When you smiled for the television
And you can see the coming battle
You pray the drums will never cease.
And you may win this war that’s coming
But would you tolerate the peace?
Investing in munitions
And those little cotton flags
Invest in wooden caskets
In guns and body bags,
Guns and body bags!!!!.
You’re invested in oppression
Investing in corruption
Invest in every tyranny
And the whole world’s destruction.
Yes, you may have won this war we’re fighting
But would you tolerate the peace?
There’s a war on our democracy
A war on our dissent
There’s a war inside religion
And what Jesus might have meant.
There's a war on Mother Nature
A war upon the seas
There’s a war upon the forest
On the birds and on the bees
There’s a war on education
A war on information
A war between the sexes
And every nation
A war on our compassion
A war on understanding
A war on love and life itself
It’s a war that they’re demanding
Make it easy on yourself
And don’t do nothing.
I do what I can!
I can't believe that you're trolling me. Hate-mail and trolls. I've just about had enough.
‘A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet ‘for sale’, who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who hasn’t acquired full the ‘having mode of existence- briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing- cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, and isolated in present day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his ‘normal contemporaries. Not rarely, will suffer from anxiety and depression that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society.’ Erich Fromm.
I was referring to a certain individual. You tell me what I should be writing about for now on. OK
And don't make the mistake of painting me with a brush and not engaging in what you want me to engage on because I am not able to. I have Palestinian friends here. What am i doing? i don't need to explain myself to you!
Humor an old man and allow me to regale you with a story. Once upon a time (2016) in a land far away. It seems so long ago. There used to be facts, certain truths, like the sun will rise in the East. We could all agree on that. Remember those times. The year 2016 was, if anything, the death of truth. In 2016, lying proved profitable, even for those who got caught. 2016 saw a deluge of ‘fake news’ stories, concocted debate facts, and Internet Ads from every Tom, Dick, and Vladimir. Oxford Dictionaries chose ‘post-truth’ as word of the year. But is this true? Is there even an entity known as Oxford Dictionaries?
Pro-Brexit ads on the sides of buses claimed that Britain paid 300 million pounds per week to the E.U. and that with Brexit, they would divert that cash to the National Health Service. Most people knew that neither claim was true, but, in the final analysis, it didn’t really matter.
Hillary Clinton spun such an enormous, complicated web of non-truths about her email server that in the end, no-one understood what she had done, including Hillary herself. The North Carolina state legislature got away with passing a law by lying about men lying about being transgender to peep at women in bathroom stalls- which wouldn’t even make sense even if free porn didn’t exist. Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte claimed that men with badges robbed him at gunpoint in Rio, though it turned out that he was yelled at by a gas station attendant for vandalizing the washroom. Weeks later, he’s on Dancing with the Stars, along with Rick Perry after dropping out of the Presidential race- and then, becoming the Minister of Energy: a department Perry had vowed to dissolve, if elected.
The year of the lie was great for the National Enquirer, owned by one of Trumps’ cronies. The tabloid reported that Hillary Clinton suffered from Multiple Sclerosis, depression, and alcoholism. InfoWars editor, and certified nut-job whose radio show Trump loves and appeared on, believes the moon- landing was faked, 9/11 was faked as well as the massacre at Sandy Hook. But Trump mastered the lie. He saw Muslims in New Jersey celebrate the falling of the Twin Towers. He claimed Clinton started the birther movement, not him. After he won the presidency, he lied that millions of people voted for Clinton illegally. He even lied about the size of the crowd at his inauguration! 2016 was the kind of year when you could even lie about being cheated after you won. And here we are again in 2024. Has the world become a better place? What is driving all this populism and tribalism and rhetoric of hate and despair and fear? I keep waiting for someone in the American government, namely the Republicans, to stand up and say what any small child with a modicum of reason would say: “Look, the Emperor has no clothes.”
"The Emperor has no clothes" applies to both Democrats and Republicans and politicians all over the world who claim that being anti-genocide means people are anti-semitic.