There are certain narratives that go unquestioned in Corporate media. There are certain explanations, that if you start to think openly about them, appear not merely untrue but absurd. I therefore present to you some of the more bizarre ideas the media has presented to us without ever seriously questioning their bizarreness. And let me remind you, you heard about it on social media.
-Early in Barack Obama's Presidency, he came out with the Cars For Clunkers policy. The idea is that people could bring in their older but still perfectly good cars, and they would be destroyed. These people would then be given what would amount to a down payment on a new car, funded by tax-payers (themselves) so that they would then have even more personal debt and less money for savings. This was an attempt to stimulate an economy that was destroyed by lenders. In what kind of Bizzaro economy do we exist where destroying perfectly good products in order to go into debt to buy unneeded goods makes sense?
-After 9/11, we were told the most patriotic thing we could do was go
shopping. George W. Bush told us this and nobody pointed out the absurdity. Imagine following Pearl Harbor if FDR were to tell the American public the most important thing they could do would be to go shopping. Rather than conserve our resources, we were told to consume them. No tin drives or paper drives for us.
-The idea that The Dow Jones is an honest reflection of the health of the economy or our planet. The DJIA is flashed across the news screen in real time throughout the business day on news channels, as if a 10 point fluctuation means something to the average worker. In the last decade, The Dow Jones Industrial Average has done nothing but point out how much money the 1% have, so much that they don't know what to do with it but buy up more stock. Meanwhile, the environment is being destroyed as the Dow rises. No hint of eventual climate catastrophe can be seen in the magic numbers, as the Dow continues to break records.
-The idea that mainstream news is “real” news. That news can only be official
when it is owned by a corporation and receives money from corporate
advertisers. This, by definition, means that only corporate news is considered
credible. And corporate news, by its very nature, will always put corporate
interests above the interests of people. Not so oddly, this point is never brought up on corporate media.
-On a related note, the idea that Julian Assange is not a journalist but Rachel
Maddow and Sean Hannity are. Because Julian Assange is not receiving a paycheck from a corporation.
-The idea that NATO is an agency that works for peace and democracy. NATO is a
military alliance that exists to advance the interests of those within the
alliance, principally the United States. Its mere existence lessens the
democratic aims of the United Nations and its founding principle of sustaining peace
through democratic means.
-The idea that Conspiracy theories are the domain of the demented. We are told that either
conspiracy theorists are knowingly lying in order to win support for radical
internal groups, are created by foreign powers to weaken your trust of the
government, or they are the product of social losers sitting in
their mothers’ basements. Most people have a shared understanding of what the word theory means. It is an unproven set of assumptions that seem to fit well together and might point to a greater truth. Similarly, we all know what a conspiracy is, it is when two or more people get together to plan and act in secrecy. To think that people conspire together in secret is somehow an absurd belief is...absurd. We know that it happens. All the time. To automatically accept explanations to unusual occurrences (e.g. the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein) is not rational behavior but the response of a indoctrinated cult member. Considering the facts of a possible conspiracy does not make one crazy, it makes one capable of looking into a matter without committing to one specific interpretation. And speaking of conspiracy theories,
-The idea that $100,000 of Russian Facebook posts, only 39% of which were
posted BEFORE the election, should in any way be a subject of conversation, let
alone an unprecedented 3 year obsession. This is the grandaddy of all conspiracy theories, and the only reason it is not called a conspiracy theory is that those who are pushing it also happen to have control over the media and the intelligence agencies. Instead, they use the word "collusion". Look up the word "collude" in the thesaurus sometime and tell me what synonym comes up first. And on a related note:
-The idea that conjecture and narrative are now worthy topics of discussion in news shows. Rachel Maddow's show has survived off of that for...has it been three years already?
So once again, let me be clear that there are in fact dangerous ideas floating about on the social media. The good thing about social media, however, is that few people take things they read on the internet as gospel truth. Most people, when reading something on the internet, seek to corroborate the narrative and conjecture by looking for a logical argument and indisputable evidence. Certainly not as many as we like, but we are all learning social media literacy as we go. We are, on average, far more sophisticated than we were a decade ago.
Establishment media, however, is able to rest on its reputation, so that it is capable of putting forth narratives without convincing evidence. Because they have a fancy set, and because they have airtime on a network, they must be credible people doing honest work. Again, not to harp on her too much, but take a look at Rachel Maddow as an example.
But news institutions can no longer be pointed to as bastions of responsible news. Take a look at Mother Jones if you want to see a publication whose reputation has been worn to shreds. The fact is, the only reason any news agency ever had any credibility is because they had credible journalists in their employ. Name me one journalist in the mainstream media. A few still exist, Matt Taibbi comes to mind, but they are working outside the mainstream much more than they are within it. And I fear their days within the established media are limited.
If you want to find a journalist with integrity, you are far more likely to find one outside the mainstream media. Very many of them are respected establishment journalists who have had to find a place outside mainstream media in order to do their job with integrity. Examples of this are Chris Hedges, Greg Palast, and Krystal Ball. Many more are making a name for themselves by reporting stories that are not being covered by establishment media, people like Kyle Kulinski, Max Blumenthal, Michael Tracey, Sam Sader, Jamarl Thomas, and too many more to mention.
Check them out while you're still able, while there are still alternatives to the official narrative. Each will tell a story similar to mine, of how alternative voices are being throttled subtly and otherwise. I'm afraid their ultimate success or failure will not be determined by their integrity and courage, but on our choice as skeptical consumers of news to speak up for voices outside the corporate media. Please don't be afraid to step outside the mainstream enough to view things from another angle, and please find the courage to speak about what you see.
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