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crimethinc · 7 years ago

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Not Your Grandfather’s Antifascism: Anti-Fascism Has Arrived. Here’s Where It Needs to Go.

Following the clashes in Charlottesville and the massive anti-fascist demonstrations afterwards in Durham, Boston, and the Bay Area, the struggle against fascism has arrived in the consciousness of the general public. Tens of thousands of people are realizing that the fight against fascism didn’t end in 1945—that today, as increasingly authoritarian governments collude with ascendant fascist movements, this battle is more pressing than ever.

It’s worth taking a moment to review what anti-fascists have accomplished since Trump was elected. Despite harassment and attacks from fascists and law enforcement, what was initially a few hundred people without financial resources or sponsors has grown into the foundation for a massive social movement. On April 15, fascists rampaged through Berkeley, recording video footage of themselves beating people to use for recruiting purposes. On Sunday, August 27, the same fascists attempted to hold another rally in Berkeley. In response to the murder of Heather Heyer during a fascist rally in Charlottesville two weeks prior, thousands of people converged to make the fascist demonstration impossible.

Imagine if the “Unite the Right” rally had taken place without resistance, and a thousand white supremacists had been able to march around Charlottesville unopposed. In that scenario, emboldened fascists could have presented themselves as a legitimate part of political spectrum, while preparing the way for more murders like the ones in Charleston and Portland. In that case, the government with Trump at the helm would be able to present itself as the only possible solution to fascist violence, and the general public would be forced to seek assistance from the very authorities that are already implementing most of the white supremacist agenda. We should be grateful that long before Charlottesville, forward-thinking anti-fascists were doing the thankless work of monitoring fascists and mobilizing against them.

But now that the struggle against fascism has arrived on a massive scale, it’s time to come to grips with the limitations the movement faces today. Every victory generates new challenges. Let’s explore the obstacles that the anti-fascist movement will have to overcome to succeed in creating a world free of authoritarianism.

Not your grandfather’s anti-fascism.

Corporate Media Back the Fascists

The Washington Post titled their coverage of Sunday’s demonstration “Black-clad antifa members attack peaceful right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley.” It is not surprising when Fox News publishes barefaced propaganda describing the organizer of far-right demonstrations that have included at least one fascist murderer as a “prayer activist,” but it is more unsettling to see fascist talking points parroted by supposedly liberal outlets.

Scaremongering from the corporate media.

The image at the top of the Washington Post article shows a right-wing demonstrator apparently being shoved by an anti-fascist with a shield. Yet several videos show the same far-right demonstrator pepper-spraying anti-fascist demonstrators without provocation and then pepper-spraying people at random immediately before the photo was taken. If you look close, the attacker is wearing a shirt that celebrates Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet for murdering dissidents by dropping them out of helicopters. If you look closer, you can see that the anti-fascist in the picture has a stick, but is choosing not to use it, instead simply using a shield to block the fascist with the pepper-spray from carrying out further attacks. In fact, the Washington Post chose to use a photo in which the assailant’s right hand is not visible, so readers would not see the pepper spray he holds in it.

Take a closer look.

When the Washington Post portray such fascists as “peaceful,” suggesting that they are victims even as they attack people and glorify mass murder, this gives them legitimacy, securing space for them to recruit and to promote and organize further attacks. Why would liberal media outlets do this?

Journalists often determine the substance of their story in advance, and it appears that media outlets across the spectrum had determined in advance to report the anti-fascist demonstration in Berkeley as an expression of violent excess even before it happened. In the event, the demonstration was largely peaceful; even the worst clashes were considerably less violent than the fighting on April 15. Despite this, corporate media outlets that had ignored April 15 altogether devoted considerable space to a few isolated incidents in which anti-fascists scuffled with fascists or other Trump supporters.

The intention was clearly to impose a limit on the amount of popular legitimacy anti-fascists would be permitted to accrue after the events in Charlottesville. Two weeks of positive coverage of anti-fascists, during which various members of the clergy came forward to praise their efforts, were deemed to be too much. Heather Heyer’s murder had taken corporate media by surprise, interrupting their conventional narratives and proving that the threat anti-fascists had supposedly been blowing out of proportion was all to real. It took corporate editors two weeks to regain control of the discourse. As soon as they did, they reimposed their old stereotypes as if Heather had never been killed.

This should put an end to any illusions we might have had that corporate media could side with anti-fascists. Outlets like the Washington Post aspire to position themselves against both Trump and his adversaries in the streets—to occupy what some call “the extreme center.” They are gambling that the current polarization of society is temporary, that they can be the beneficiaries of disillusionment with both sides.

Anti-fascists have to strategize about how to organize and legitimize our efforts to the general public without the benefit of positive media coverage. This is no easy task. At the minimum, it will demand our own grassroots media, at the same time that this media is under systematic assault from right-wing trolls.

This challenge is symptomatic of the larger phenomenon of polarization, which is worth examining separately.

The Swinging Pendulum of Polarization

US society has been splintering and polarizing for years now, since the recession of 2008 if not before. The movement against police and white supremacy that burst onto the national stage in Ferguson in 2014 as Black Lives Matter generated a far-right backlash, which inspired a resurgence of anti-fascist organizing. In response, fascists gave angry liberals and anti-fascists a central place in their strategy, seeking to provoke them into reactive behavior that could be used to further mobilize the right-wing base. Milo Yiannopoulos used this strategy until it blew up in his face last February, when a black bloc of hundreds shut down his event in Berkeley.

Various fascist and fascist-friendly organizers also used this approach, baiting leftists and anti-fascists with a series of “free speech” rallies in Berkeley, Portland, and elsewhere around the country that won the nascent fascist movement notoriety and momentum. This movement appeared fully formed for the first time in Charlottesville—but the shockwaves of that debut drew many more people into the movement against fascism, changing the balance of power once again. The “free speech” rallies scheduled afterwards in Boston and the Bay Area were total washouts for the fascists.

In each of these cases, when the pendulum of polarization swung to one side, the opposing side was able to use the specter of that victory to draw more sympathizers into action. With the media narrative coming out about Berkeley, the pendulum has again swung away from anti-fascists to benefit the right-wing reaction.

So long as this pattern persists, every anti-fascist victory will produce an even greater threat from the far-right and the government. To break out of the pattern, anti-fascists have to figure out how to strike blows without equipping fascists to cash in on the resulting fear among right-wingers, or else to find a way to draw in large swathes of the population more rapidly than their competition on the right. We can offer a few hypotheses about how to accomplish this.

Anti-fascists in Dallas, Texas.

The Myth of Symmetry

The allegation that fascists and anti-fascists are equally bad has been advanced most famously by Donald Trump himself in his response to the events in Charlottesville. He suggested that the problem was an “egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides,” refusing to say a word about the fascists who murdered Heather Heyer. This should tell us something about those who describe fascists and anti-fascists as symmetrical.

To equate those who fight for freedom and equality with those who want an autocratic state to enforce hierarchies is to reserve all legitimacy for the state alone—which is itself an autocratic position. It means celebrating the legalism of passive spectators over the heroes who fought the rise of dictatorships in Italy, Germany, Spain, Chile, Greece, and a hundred other nations. It means congratulating those who keep their hands clean while their neighbors are rounded up and imprisoned, deported, or killed.

We have to become adept at spelling out the ethical differences between fascism and anti-fascism, and all the justifications for forms of direct action that can actually be effective in this struggle. We need allies from many different walks of life who can help us make this case to the public at large.

Unfortunately, we can’t count on everyone on the Left to behave responsibly. In “How ‘Antifa’ Mirrors the ‘Alt-Right,’” the same Chris Hedges who assisted the state in dividing and repressing the Occupy movement reappears to perform the same service in relation to the movements against fascism and the Trump administration.

The irony of a war journalist perennially accusing others of being driven by a lust for adrenaline should not be lost on anyone. It is worse still that Hedges, as a journalist, arrogates himself the right to pass judgment on the events in Charlottesville from a distance rather than deferring to people like Cornel West who were actually there putting their bodies on the line. But the true irony here is that Hedges purports to be warning against precisely the problem that he himself is creating. “By brawling in the streets,” Hedges alleges, “antifa allows the corporate state… to use the false argument of moral equivalency to criminalize the work of all anti-capitalists.” Actually, it is Hedges who is equipping the state to do this, by attributing “the same lust for violence” to anti-fascists that he believes motivates fascists. He could just as easily use his soapbox to debunk this moral equivalency, but he lacks the moral courage—he simply cannot resist performing the same kind of “self-advertisement for moral purity” that he accuses others of.

In 2012, when the authorities needed a narrative with which to isolate the ungovernable elements of the Occupy movement, Hedges provided that narrative, and the FBI subsequently parroted it verbatim in their efforts to justify a series of entrapment cases. Now Hedges is providing Trump’s government exactly the same service, equipping them to declare “antifa” a terrorist organization, as many on the far right have already been demanding. Already, the mayor of Berkeley is calling for “antifa” to be designated as a gang—imagine if everyone who opposes the rise of fascism is classified as a gang member, or a terrorist!

Hedges needs to understand that it is not anti-fascists gaining ground that brings about fascist attacks and government crackdowns. If anti-fascists were not gaining power in the streets, fascists would still be taking advantage of the despair and resentment of poor whites, and the government would still be developing more means of repression—there would simply be no social movement to protect us from them. It is fundamentally paranoid, disempowering, and ahistorical to understand these developments as the result of anti-fascist activity. On the contrary, it is imperative that we build the capacity to act effectively in the streets before the fascists outstrip us and the government is able to centralize enough power to establish tyranny once and for all.

All that said, we also need to avoid offering our enemies on the Left and Right alike the opportunity to present us as a mirror image of our fascist adversaries. Let’s explore some ways we can go about this.

Identity and Containment

On one hand, it has been extremely useful for people in the US to learn from anti-fascist movements in other parts of the world. At the same time, the wholesale uncritical introduction of European models has created problems, chief of which is the containment of the struggle against fascism within a discrete identity, “antifa.” It has been a tremendous boon to the far right that they can describe anti-fascists without having to spell out the entire word “fascist”—it helps them to avoid the question of why anyone would oppose resisting fascism.

In German, abbreviations are common: national socialist becomes Nazi, anti-fascist becomes antifa. But in English, especially to those not familiar with the history of German anti-fascist struggles, the word antifa can appear alien and off-putting. At its worst, the German antifa movement has tended towards subcultural insularity; this is the last thing we need in the US, locked in a massive struggle with fascists and the government itself—a struggle we can only hope to win if ever-wider segments of the population are drawn into our side of the barricades.

Identity is fundamentally about distinguishing oneself from others. Anti-fascism, however, is for everybody. We should be careful not to insulate it within a particular demographic with a specific dress code and lingo. This is paramount because the far right are scrambling to depict antifa as a monolithic, hostile, alien organization. Our task is not just to build a network of groups, but to create an anti-fascist momentum that will spread contagiously throughout society at large, along with the critiques and tactics necessary for this fight. Specific antifa groups and the cultural cache of “antifa” itself can be useful in that project, as can black bloc tactics, provided we evaluate them as tools for achieving particular objectives rather than expressions of identity or belonging.

One of countless European solidarity demonstrations in memory of Heather Heyer, who was murdered in Charlottesville.

The Tendency to Militarize

As the conflict between fascists and anti-fascists intensifies, we are seeing more and more guns in the streets. Some people who were in Charlottesville reported that it was good that there were guns on both sides: it discouraged fascists from escalating physical conflicts past a certain point. Others report that most of the anti-fascists openly bearing arms were located some distance from the clashes. Some people who were in Ferguson at the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement say that without the treat of gunfire from the locals, the police would never have permitted the demonstrations happen. Others who experienced the trauma of having their loved ones shot before them counsel that the consequences of bringing guns into street conflict are weightier than most people can imagine.

Participants in the Syrian revolution report that for the first several months, the revolt created an open space of debate and possibility in which many people of different walks of life participated. Later, after the conflict escalated, power among the rebels accrued in the hands of religious fundamentalists, as they were the only ones who were able to consistently acquire military supplies—and from that point on, the horizon of liberation and transformation was closed. Sometimes, such escalation is inescapable, even if it closes the door to future possibilities; in any case, it is better to prepare for it now than to be suddenly caught flatfooted. But if our goal is to carry out a revolution rather than to fight in a civil war, we should not hurry the process of escalation—we should drag it out as long as we can. Most of the social changes we want to see cannot be brought about by guns.

Likewise, we should not imagine that coercive force can solve everything, nor permit fascists and state repression to put us so on edge that we see enemies everywhere we look and begin to attack people when it is not strategic. In the words of an elder anti-fascist veteran from Germany, fascist violence aims to exterminate, while anti-fascist violence aims to educate. We should not hurry to put fascist martyrs in the ground next to Heather Heyer. We must never risk coming across as bullies. It must always be clear that we are here to protect the public at large, not to assert our own authority or masculinity. When we are compelled to use coercive force, we must make sure that the ways we do so don’t centralize power or legitimacy within our own movement.

Antif-fascists in Berkeley on Sunday behind a banner reading “Avenge Charlottesville / Defend your community.”

The Language of Terrorism

In the wake of Heather Heyer’s murder, signs appeared at vigils and rallies reading “White Supremacy is Terrorism.” While it is understandable that people wish to condemn her murder in the strongest possible terms, it is dangerous to use the language of terrorism to do so.

The framework of terrorism is constructed by the state to define who has the right to employ violence and who doesn’t. When we denounce white supremacists as terrorists, we mimic the verbiage of Senator Cory Gardner, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House.

Terrorist is used to designate those who are beyond the state’s control and cannot be brought into political alignment with the state. This explains why Heather’s murderer has not been charged with terrorism, while many anarchists who did not so much as scratch someone have received terrorism charges over the past decade and a half.

Using the rhetoric of the state reinforces frameworks and narratives that the authorities will ultimately use against us. This is dangerous to our movements and constitutes a betrayal of comrades engaged in struggles we’re often aligned with. Palestinians are labeled terrorists to delegitimize their struggle against the Israeli state. Like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front, the YPG and YPJ in Rojava have been labeled terrorists. The language and ideology of the “war on terror” were carefully introduced into US political discourse in order to prepare the ground for the catastrophic invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The word terrorism comes to us from the Jacobin government’s brutal and merciless rule in France in the 1790’s—the term was invented to describe their “reign of terror” during which thousands were executed. Even though the word was coined for the Jacobins and that they wore it proudly as a badge, some historians today argue that the Jacobins weren’t terrorists because they were a state entity with legitimate power. This should give us a sense of the extent to which the discourse of terrorism serves to give the state carte blanche while delegitimizing all who stand against it.

There Is No Good Authoritarianism

Sunday’s far-right rally in Berkeley was promoted under the slogan “No to Marxism in America.” As with the far-right “March against Sharia,” there is no danger of the United States coming under a Marxist government any time soon. Like all totalitarians, fascists desperately need enemies even more oppressive than themselves to point to in order to convince people to join their ranks. There is an ominous symmetry between groups like ISIS and Western fascists, some of whom openly fantasize about a “White Sharia.” This explains their obsession with authoritarian Marxism.

In fact, the fiercest opposition to contemporary fascist organizing has not come from authoritarian Marxists, but from anarchists who oppose state power itself. This is inconvenient for many fascists in the US, who still need to present themselves as enemies of “big government” in order to appeal to US Libertarians and traditional conservatives.

If fascists are eager to paint all their domestic opponents with the broad brush of Marxism, we should not hasten to assist them. Yes, authoritarian Marxists have historically played a role in the fight against fascism, but they have hardly played it honorably. They began by betraying and undermining other social movements as early as 1871. If Stalin hadn’t sabotaged anti-fascist participants in the Spanish Civil War and other movements around Europe and then concluded a pact with Hitler, the Second World War would have unfolded much differently, and it might not have taken decades afterwards for grassroots liberation movements to recover.

If both fascism and authoritarian Marxism are experiencing a resurgence today, this is partly because the Millennial generation grew up after the fall of the Berlin Wall and too young to have grandfathers who fought in the Second World War. For many in the United States, totalitarianism is abstract, something to joke about on the internet. Some young people on the Left see the hammer and sickle the way many young right-wingers see the swastika: as a provocative meme rather than a blood-drenched symbol of oppression. Yet Stalin, too, carried out ethnic cleansing, as have many other authoritarian Marxist regimes.

One cannot consistently oppose fascism without opposing all forms of authoritarian government. This is not to say that rank-and-file members of authoritarian communist organizations can never be comrades in this struggle. Many of them are sincere people with the best of intentions—and clearly we need all the comrades we can get when we are facing down Nazis with guns. The point is that anti-fascists should oppose the leadership of authoritarian Marxist parties for many of the same reasons that we oppose fascists and other authoritarians. If you care about a member of an organization like the Bolshevik Party, you can express that care by making sure that his organization never comes to power—for if history is any guide, he will be the next up against the wall after you.

We must make it clear to the general public that we do not intend to impose a new dictatorship, but only to open and preserve spaces of freedom. There is no statist solution for tyranny.

Martyrdom

Unfortunately, Heather Heyer is not the first person to be taken from us by fascist violence, and she will not be the last. In addition to being wary of the discourse of terrorism and the tendency to militarize our struggles, we should wary of the discourse of martyrdom and tendency to celebrate death in battle. We need to find ways to remember people above all for who they were, for what their lives gave to the world, not for how they died or what their deaths meant to the struggle. We should not begin to regard ourselves or each other as playing pieces to be exchanged for strategic gains.

We live in a society in which aging and death are concealed from most of us. If this struggle continues to intensify, more and more of us will be forced to learn what it is like to spend hard weeks in the hospital, to meet at funerals as well as outside jails and courtrooms. We should approach this as another opportunity to come to know ourselves and each other better, to recognize what is beautiful and worthwhile in life—the things for which we are fighting in the first place. We should not subordinate ourselves to the struggle, but recognize it as one of the ways that life pours forth abundantly within us.

Cutting to the Roots

The vast majority of the anti-fascist struggle does not take place in street confrontations. It takes place in how we raise our children; it takes place in the hard conversations at workplaces and family dinners; it takes place in the ways we relate to our neighbors, the ways we understand togetherness and belonging. To triumph, we have to make it possible for people of all genders and ethnicities and religions to work together to survive the ordeals of capitalism; we have to create movements that can offer everybody more than the fascists ever could.

Ultimately, a thoroughgoing anti-fascist movement should not focus on targeting fascist groups that so marginal as to stick out from the rest of the political spectrum, but the infrastructure through which any authoritarian program will be enacted. That is to say, it should focus on the state itself. If we simply fight defensive battles, the fascists will eventually gain the initiative. We should take the experiences of fighting together that we can experience in anti-fascist struggle as use those as points of departure to work together to solve all of the problems that we have. This is the way to take the offensive and move on to confronting the fundamental sources of oppression.

Some believe that life will go back to normal soon enough, and fascism and anti-fascism will once more be things of the past. But we fear that we have yet to see how far these conflicts will go, and that we have to invest ourselves in confronting them head on. The only way out is through. Double or nothing.

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trumptweettuesdays-blog · 7 years ago

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TTT 10.24.17

This week’s themes are Propaganda; Military Leader?; Tax Reform; Russia, Facebook and Hillary; Health Care; Disaster Relief; NFL Protests; Fake News; and, Presidential Notes

Propaganda

Normally we put the propaganda Tweets a little lower on our list of themes to cover, but Trump’s propaganda Tweets are so outrageous and numerous this past week that we moved this theme to the front. Despite any and all arguments that the stock market does not equal the economy Trump Tweets and Tweets about the stock market as though it is the economy. As we have said before, the stock market is not the same as the economy and stock market values do not do much for anyone who is not wealthy. As CNN Money reports, “Barely one-third of families in the bottom 50% of earners own stocks, according to the Fed. On the other hand, nearly 94% of the top income group owned stocks in 2016.” Trump also has continued his claims that he has accomplished more than any other president and is touting his legislative victories - but there are no clear major victories! Trump lost his battle against Obamacare and lawsuits against his immigration ban continue. He also has yet to get everyone on board for his tax reform. And, he Tweeted about wall prototypes for the wall against Mexico but there is no support for the estimated $21.6 billion dollars it would cost the U.S. to build the wall. So, Trump, yea these Tweets are not evidence of a good presidency, but they are more propaganda.

Stock Market

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-cant-stop-tweeting-stock-market-records-160110560.html

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/20/investing/trump-stock-market-americans/index.html

Heritage Foundation

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-delivers-tax-reform-speech-to-conservative-group/

Border Wall Prototypes

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-wall/border-wall-prototypes-a-first-small-step-on-trump-campaign-promise-idUSKBN1CT007

Military Leader?

Despite having no military service himself, Trump has marketed himself to the conservative base as a no nonsense military leader and generally received positive support from his base for his love of America, including the military. But Trump might have gone too far this past week when he gave an off the cuff apology to the wife of a soldier who was lost in Niger. Coincidentally, the widow, Myeshia Johnson, is friends with Congresswoman Wilson (D-Florida) who overheard the conversation and publicly shamed Trump for his dismissive remarks (Trump said: the soldier...“knew what he signed up for, but it hurts anyway). Then Kelly, Trump’s new chief of staff, attacked Congresswoman Wilson for taking credit for an FBI building but she didn’t, which was clarified when a news record of her speech was released. The Congressional Black Caucus is demanding an apology for Kelly’s attack on Wilson - not to mention Trump’s embarrassingly disrespectful Tweets that refer to “Wacky Wilson.”

We think to help ameliorate all this bad press, Trump does what he does best, which is go on the defensive and start Tweeting about other related items. Thus, Trump Tweeted about freeing Raqqa and other non-specific successes in defeating ISIS. Of course, Trump claims he has done more to stop terrorism that President Obama. U.S. Central Command, according to The Hill article that Trump Tweeted, did not declare total victory in Raqqa.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-myeshia-johnson-trump-condolence-call-20171023-story.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/22/politics/frederica-wilson-tweets-trump/index.html

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/356534-trump-hails-liberation-of-raqqa-as-critical-breakthrough-in-anti-isis

Tax Reform

Trump is already claiming some legislative victory for his tax reform plan. But wait, at another time, Trump said it’s really just a “large tax cut.” And that is all that is really proposed right now. It is not tax reform, it is tax cuts. And, largely tax cuts for the wealthy. US Today reports “Lawmakers have cited projections that Trump's proposed tax cuts would increase budget deficits by up to $1.5 trillion over 10 years.” Democrats say they will oppose tax cuts that benefit only the wealthy, but Republicans’ argument is that a tax cut to corporations will help the economy, which will then help the middle-class - a classic “trickle down economy” logic. But, in the end, if this plan goes forward those that will benefit are the wealthiest.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-23/trump-s-bad-news-for-tax-reform-is-good-news-for-cuts

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/22/trump-sees-great-spirit-tax-reform-plan-targets-passage-end-year/788446001/

Russia, Facebook, and Hillary

It was recently released that Facebook received $100,000 in ads by Russia on the Clinton-Trump campaign. There has been mounting evidence that Russia helped Trump win the election. Of course, Trump has continued to deny any wrongdoing for months now despite an evolving case that continues to reveal that Russia did help Trump. But now it has been made clear that the DNC and the Clinton campaign paid an special investigator to find information on Trump and possible connections to Russia. Though, originally it seems that this investigator was paid by a Republican (name unknown). Trump is pointing to the DNC funding of the investigation as proof that all the information is biased - though, that’s a big logical jump. U.S. intelligence has already confirmed some of the information in the dossier as true/verifiable. Time will tell how much more information is in the dossier.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/356560-trump-facebook-was-on-clintons-side-not-mine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.5df31ce22386

Health Care

Trump will not let go of his goal to destroy Obamacare no matter the consequences. It seems it is about attacking Obama's legacy rather than finding a solution to health care. Trump says it's about not giving insurance companies subsidies, bit everything else Trump does shows he's not against supporting the wealthy and corporations. There has been a recent bipartisan attempt by Republican Lamar Alexander and Democrat Patty Murray to extend insurance subsidies for two more years. Trump is not having it though, and he prefers to blame all the insurance problems on Democrats.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/senate-health-care-deal-doubt-trump-opposed-50553257

Disaster Relief

Trump tweeted support for Californians affected by the recent wildfires and also tweeted about a meeting with Puerto Rican Governor, Ricardo Rossello. The wildfires caused widespread structural damage and relief and repair efforts continue. Ricardo Rossello criticized Trump for giving himself a “10/10” for relief response, and found himself in Washington in an attempt to fight for equal treatment in relief efforts; a concern many have raised.

The California wildfires can be added to the list of recent natural disasters the United States has faced. While efforts continue in both California and Puerto Rico, much can be said about the difference in response time as well as rhetoric regarding said efforts.

California wildfires

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-wildfires-devastation-20171023-story.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/23/number-of-structures-lost-in-wine-country-blazes-jumps-to-8400.html

Rossello calls for “equal treatment”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/puerto-rico-gov-ricardo-rossello-calls-for-equal-treatment-in-relief-efforts/

NFL Protests

Trump continues to criticize NFL players as well as the league itself for players’ persistent protests during the National Anthem. He also continues to misunderstand, or ignore the reason behind the protests. Players have continued to take a knee, but have also added sitting and raising a fist as forms of protest. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that while he would like for players to stand, he would not support punishing players for protesting. He acknowledged that players are attempting to raise concerns about issues facing their communities, and while he did not give details, stated that the NFL is considering ways that they may support these communities and help address some of these issues.

Breakdown of NFL protests

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/24/the-nfl-player-protests-broken-down-by-team-and-week/

NFL leaders’ response to protests

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2017/10/23/donald-trump-blasts-nfl-leadership-tweet-over-continued-player-protests-anthem/789781001/

Fake News

Trump has returned to his attacks of non-conservative media outlets as being “fake”, and now he has “statistics” to support him. However, the problem with Trump’s tweet frenzy claiming he’s been right about “fake news” sources is that it simply doesn’t present a full picture. Since Mr. Trump respects Fox News so much and they seem to be among the few news sources who haven’t found themselves under his scrutiny, we looked to one of their reporter’s review of the survey Trump claims finally proves he was right about the “fake news”.

According to the Morning Consult/Politico survey, 46% of Americans do believe that stories about Trump are fabricated; however, the survey needs to be further examined. Firstly, as the Fox News reporter, Howard Kurtz admits, the survey is not the ideal reputable source. Secondly, as Kurtz also admits, review of the survey and the stories covering Trump since his presidency began, reveal that regardless of how people feel about these stories they are not fabricated.

So, while Trump attempts to convince his followers that this survey proves that he has been right about “fake news” organizations, his own champion source of reporting disagrees. Trump simply proves, yet again, why it is important to fully understand a source before citing it, but also the necessity for his followers to fact-check Trump himself.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/19/fake-or-not-nearly-half-voters-say-media-fabricate-stories-about-trump.html

Presidential Notes

Trump’s weekly notes include information about meetings with other nations’ leaders, but what stands out the most this week is his decision in regards to the John F. Kennedy assassination files and Tom Marino’s decision to withdraw from being considered for the drug czar position.

In his tweet, and in further explanations, Trump suggests that if government agencies can submit compelling evidence as to why the JFK files should not be released, he will consider listening. Many believe that the release could stir more trouble and greater conspiracy theories than already exist. If Trump decides to release the files, he is agreeing to a full release, as opposed to previous partial releases that have opened some files to the public (many of which had major redactions). It still isn’t clear what Trump’s ultimate decision will be but government agencies have already raised concerns; the CIA chief among them.

Trump also faced criticism for his nominee’s decision to withdraw from consideration as drug czar. Despite previous knowledge that nominee, Tom Marino helped block past attempts at addressing the opioid crisis in the United States. An investigative, “60 Minutes” segment linked Marino to lobbying efforts that blocked past legislation meant to fight the opioid crisis. So, Trump faced criticism yet again for nominating someone to a position for which they did not have the experience, or had no business being considered for holding.

Concerns regarding release of JFK files

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trump-plans-to-release-of-jfk-assassination-documents-despite-concerns-from-federal-agencies/2017/10/21/d036cf36-b65d-11e7-9e58-e6288544af98_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Trump drug czar nominee withdraws

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/355780-trump-drug-czar-nominee-withdraws

#Trump #Donald Trump #45th President #Propaganda #Military #Johnson #Tax Reform #Russia #Facebook #Hillary Clinton #Health Care #Disaster Relief #Puerto Rico #California #NFL #Fake News

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deniscollins · 5 years ago

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Playing on Kansas City Radio: Russian Propaganda

What would you do if you owned Alpine Broadcasting Corporation of Liberty, Missouri, and Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, offered to pay $324,000 for three years, or $49.27 per hour, of which you would earn $27.50 an hour, to broadcast Russian propaganda in Kansas City: (1) accept the offer based on freedom of speech or (2) reject the offer based on misuse of freedom of speech? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

When commuters spin the radio dial as they drive through Kansas City, Mo., these days, between the strains of classic rock and country hits they can tune in to something unexpected: Russian agitprop.

In January, Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, started broadcasting on three Kansas City-area radio stations during prime drive times, even sharing one frequency with a station rooted in the city’s historic jazz district.

“Who needs a ridiculous Red Dawn invasion,” a participant in one online forum wrote about the new broadcasts. “Your overlord, Mr. Putin, will be addressing you soon, so it’s best to prepare now,” another commenter wrote, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

In the United States, talk radio on Sputnik covers the political spectrum from right to left, but the constant backbeat is that America is damaged goods.

Sputnik’s American hosts follow a standard talk radio format, riffing on the day’s headlines and bantering with guests and callers. They find much to dislike in America, from the reporting on the coronavirus epidemic to the impeachment of President Trump, and they play on internal divisions as well.

On a recent show, one host started by saying he was broadcasting “live from Washington, D.C., capital of the divided states of America.”

Critics in Kansas City called Radio Sputnik’s arrival an unabashed exploitation of American values and openness. Those behind the deal defended it as a matter of free speech, as well as a simple business transaction.

Peter Schartel, the owner of Alpine Broadcasting Corporation of Liberty, Mo., the company airing Sputnik in Kansas City, said that he started the broadcasts on Jan. 1 both because he liked what he heard during a trial run last fall and because he was getting paid.

The deal was brokered by RM Broadcasting, a Florida firm that hunts for airtime to sell to Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian state media organization behind Sputnik.

Last year a federal judge in Florida ruled against RM Broadcasting’s owner, Arnold Ferolito, after he sued to prevent the Justice Department from forcing him to register as a foreign government agent. (Various news media organizations linked to Russia had already been ordered to register.)

The ruling outraged Mr. Ferolito, who said he made his first deal to get Russian state radio on the air in the United States in 2009. “They are paying for airtime and I make a percentage,” he said in an interview. “I am not being paid to represent the Russian government.”

Anyone tuned to Sputnik on 104.7 FM while driving across the historic 18th & Vine district in Kansas City, Mo., will find that it fades for a few minutes of music from KOJH — the call letters refer to Kansas City’s oldest jazz house — before Sputnik takes back over.

For years, Anita J. Dixon, a community organizer, dreamed of creating a radio station built around the music of such legendary Kansas City musicians as Count Basie and Charlie Parker. Ms. Dixon said having Sputnik dominate the same frequency was jarring.

“What was supposed to be a historic jazz station in a historic jazz community is now broadcasting Alex Jones and Sputnik,” Ms. Dixon said. “Ever heard the expression of being sold up the river? That is how it felt.”

Mr. Schartel disputed the notion that Kansas City is getting Sputnik instead of jazz. Radio Sputnik does beam its signal on the same frequency as KOJH, he said, but outside the limited geographic area awarded to the Mutual Musicians Foundation for the nonprofit, low-power jazz station.

Ms. Dixon still found it galling that Russia had gained space on the radio dial on the same frequency she had envisioned as a beacon for a black community that, among other things, had sent soldiers to die defending American values like free speech.

People ask how Russia managed to interfere in U.S. elections, Ms. Dixon said. “Because they get free airwaves,” she said. “It is called propaganda.”

Before Kansas City, Washington had been the only American city with Sputnik broadcasts — round the clock on one AM station and one FM station. Public disclosure forms show that the Russian government is paying more than $2 million over three years, starting in December 2017, for the Washington broadcasts.

In Kansas City, the fee is $324,000 for three years, or $49.27 per hour, according to RM Broadcasting’s Foreign Agents Registration Act filing. Mr. Schartel said he gets $27.50 of that hourly rate.

When it began in January, the Sputnik broadcast on KCXL was met with strong condemnation from locals. The station received a lot of hate calls, including a threat to burn it down, Mr. Schartel said.

An editorial in The Kansas City Star noted that the free press was a prime target of Mr. Putin’s attempts to weaken public trust in American institutions. “It’s sad, but not astonishing, that an American entrepreneur would put business above patriotism,” the paper wrote. “Listener, beware.”

Those involved in putting Sputnik on the air defended it as free speech. “I am not a bumpkin that fell off a wagon; I encourage people to listen for themselves,” Mr. Schartel said.

What was once Radio Moscow was reborn as Radio Sputnik in 2014. Mr. Putin backed the effort to create a central, state-run news organization — called Rossiya Segodnya, or Russia Today in English — designed to challenge the West’s global dominance on reporting news.

In a modern spin on propaganda, it focuses on sowing doubt about Western governments and institutions rather than the old Soviet model of selling Russia as paradise lost.

American intelligence agencies have concluded that Sputnik; its television sibling, RT; and other Russian-controlled media outlets were part of the Kremlin’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election in the United States, and could star in a repeat performance this year.

In Russia, the government controls the main television stations and an ever-growing list of news agencies.

Anna Starkova, the head of Rossiya Segodnya’s press service, said by email from Moscow that broadcasting in Kansas City would “not only broaden our audience but also give us valuable new experience locally.”

Sputnik now broadcasts in 90 cities worldwide, she said, dismissing as “absurd” the idea that listeners are the target of Russian election meddling.

Working through the news headlines on recent Sputnik broadcasts, the hosts found much to fault.

The impeachment of Mr. Trump is bad.

“The entire impeachment is a lie,” said Lee Stranahan, a former Breitbart reporter and the right-wing co-host of Sputnik’s morning show.

The American political system is bad.

Politics here is meant “to make sure that the masses of poor and working people don’t have access to even the most essential things,” said Sean Blackmon, a host of an evening program.

The American military presence in Iraq is bad.

United States forces should withdraw to allow Russia and China to rebuild Iraq and Syria, an Iraqi guest suggested.

Above all, the American press is beyond redemption.

“The wheels are coming off the establishment media,” Mr. Stranahan said. That is the Greek chorus across Sputnik.

Sputnik argues that the station is not trying to sow distrust or to undermine public confidence, but rather is seeking to express opinions that cannot be heard in other venues. “They know perfectly well that they are not going to be allowed to say that on CNN or Fox or MSNBC,” said Mindia Gavasheli, a veteran Russian television journalist who runs Sputnik’s Washington bureau.

Sputnik produces eight hours of daily material in Washington, filling the rest with feeds from its bureau in Edinburgh, from RT broadcasts and from shows that highlight aspects of Russia, like traveling to the Caspian Sea. In Kansas City, Sputnik airs six hours every day, during commuting times in the morning and evening as well as on weekends.

There are no immediate plans to expand elsewhere, Mr. Gavasheli said, although what he described as the “brouhaha” over Kansas City had prompted inquiries from other markets in the United States.

The Sputnik hosts seemed to revel in having a new audience. The morning show did a couple of segments on Kansas City barbecue and tried to make light of Russian influence by joking that Mr. Putin had ordered that the Kansas City Chiefs win the Super Bowl. (That was before the game, which the Chiefs won.)

Sputnik shares its Kansas City stations with a cast of far-right conspiracy theorists, evangelical pastors and anti-Semites. The host of one program, TruNews, recently described the impeachment of Mr. Trump as a “Jew coup.”

“He calls things the way that he sees them,” Mr. Schartel said of Rick Wiles, who made the remark. “I feel that he has got a right to say what he is saying.”

“We’ve always put on voices and people that wouldn’t be able to get on anyplace else,” said Mr. Schartel, who has owned the station for 26 years.

A mission statement on KCXL’s website says the United States has become a different country that now looks down on traditional values. “We tell you the things that the liberal media” will not, it said.

#Russia #Freedom of Speech

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joannrochaus · 6 years ago

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What is truth?

A Lie (1)

On 17 January of this year, BuzzFeedNews reported that President Trump had directed his attorney Michael Cohen to lie to congress about the Moscow Tower project. This was what according to BuzzFeedNews was reported to the special counsel Robert Mueller who was investigating allegations of Mr. Donald Trump colluding with Russia in order to win the elections in 2016. Most of the media jumped on this news, hoping it would be true, because then they would have found the ‘smiking gun’ which would lead to the impeachment of president Trump.

However, half a day after this story broke and had done a lot of damage, the special counsel released a rare public statement in which it stated that “BuzzFeed’s descriptions of specific statements made to the Special Counsel’s office, and the characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.” Or, in the language of us, common people: BuzzFeed’s story is a lie. All the media who jumped on this story were left with egg on their face and President Trump celebrated his victory on his beloved Twitter.

A Lie (2)

Three days later, a short video is posted online which goes viral. In this video a junior at Covington Catholic High School wearing a MAGA hat, is shown standing face to face with a native American protestor. It is only a very short video, just over a minute, but it was posted with the purpose to make this young man look bad. Much was edited out and only a few clips were shown. Again, most of the media in the US jumped on this and accused this student together with his fellow students of Covington Catholic School of blatant disrespect for a Native elder. Many celebrities joined them in condemning this young man and his school, and called for the publication of names, addresses, so that these students could be harassed and their names tainted for the rest of their lives.

One day later, more than two hours of video recording is posted on the internet by others about all that was happening at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC that led up to the infamous event that was shown in the short clip posted the day before. Some of the media and celebrities withdrew their comments, some even apologized, others didn’t. At the moment a group of lawyers supporting the Sandmann family is preparing a series of lawsuits against some of the media and celebrities, to sue them for libel and other crimes. The first lawsuit is filed against the Washington Post, claiming $ 250,000 (US).

Lie (3)

While the media are still wiping the egg off their faces of these two blunders, a third one is all over the news now. Jussie Smollett, who is openly gay and black, reported that on Jan. 29, he was attacked by two masked men as he was walking home from a Subway restaurant. He claimed that the men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at him, poured a substance on him, threw a rope around his neck and shouted, “This is MAGA country!”

Again, many in the media, in politics and among celebrities jumped on this and started pointing fingers at the Trump followers, especially the white among them, calling them racists.

However, while many were still wiping the egg off their faces, deposited there by the fallout of the previous two cases, a new load of egg was dumped there instead. When police started to investigate, the whole story fell apart. No evidence could be found, and even after studying hours of surveillance video from the area where Smollett claimed the attack took place, they couldn’t find any proof. They did find some clues which indicated that the whole event was set up by Smollett himself. Today it is reported that Smollett has changed from victim to suspect and that felony criminal charges against him have been approved. The police is seeking his arrest.

One can wonder why someone like him would do something like this. However, knowing the political climate in the USA and the enormous acrimony between followers of Trump (often wearing the MAGA hat) and his ‘enemies’, you could easily come to the conclusion that the intention is to give the Trump camp again a negative press.

Investigative Journalism Dead?

A free press has always been seen as essential in a democracy. Journalists should have the freedom and ability to investigate whatever governments and other with power come up with, in order to inform the population about the truth. However, in recent years, with the increase of enmity between the two sides of the political spectrum in the US, it seems as if the media have not been able to resist the temptation to take sides. It already started in the Obama era, or maybe even before that, but it became extremely clear after Mr. Trump was elected president of the USA. The image you have of the situation in America in general and more specifically of the American political situation, depends on what media outlet you use to inform yourself. For a while now, I have been following Fox News, but also CNN.com, the Washington Post, the New York Times and others. Often it seems as if the latter three live in a different reality than the first one. It takes a lot of skill to compile what probably is the truth from the biased information and opinions you are bombarded with by all these news media. Instead of doing a lot of investigating and trying to discover the truth, it seems as if today it is the only task of the media to serve as propaganda outlet for the parties, movements, politicians, they affiliate with. Instead of being independent investigating journalists, it seems as if many journalists have become mere writers of opinion articles. Whatever confirms your opinion is being reported, whatever could possibly disprove your position is often ignored or distorted. More and more the question is being asked what happened to investigative journalism.

Australia

This all happened in America. What about Australia? Thankfully we can note that this biased journalism is not as blatant here as it is in North America. However, when you compare the reporting of the Australian with that of the West Australian, you will be able to discover quite some differences there as well, in the way things are being reported. And it is a known fact that organisations like ‘Getup’ with its millions of foreign support, are trying hard to buy the media or bully the voters into supporting extreme left politicians. Especially Christians will experience that more and more they are either marginalized or depicted as ‘outside of the mainstream’ or bigoted or ridiculously old fashioned, or occasionally they may even find themselves at the receiving end of outright hate campaigns.

Defence of the Truth

How do we as Christians respond to all this? Should we fight evil with evil and participate in name-calling? Certainly not. As Christians we are called to be the salt of the world, the light in the darkness. We are called to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. We are called to stand up for the Truth and to resist the works of the devil, who is called the Father of Lies in John 8.

We can and must learn from situations as described above. It shows us the wisdom of the words of our Saviour in Matthew 7:1 : “Judge not, that you be not judged.” If we are not called to render judgment, let us then first of all suspend our judgment. If we read something or hear something that makes us upset and we are inclined to respond judgmental, let us remind ourselves of the words written in Proverbs 18:17 : ” The first one to plead his cause seems right, Until his neighbor comes and examines him.” There are always to sides to an issue. We should not believe the media as a faithful witness. We should wait and see if there is more to a case than we initially read or hear. And that is not only the case with what is reported in the news media, but also in our personal life. God in His divine wisdom gave us the ninth commandment. The catechism in its explanation of this commandment in Lord’s Day 43 says that we shall not condemn or join in condemning anyone rashly and unheard. Let us be gracious toward our neighbor and always believe what is good and not evil, until an overwhelming amount of evidence forces us to change our mind. Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. Love believes all things, hopes all things. (1 Corinthians 13). Let the church be an example to the world of how beautiful life can be if we all follow these rules given to us by God in the ninth commandment as well as in 1 Corinthians 13 and other parts of the Bible. Especially when people notice the hatred with which the media is so often filled and with which politicians and celebrities fight each other, as we have seen so clearly over the last couple of years in the USA but which we see happening in our own country from time to time as well, then the church and individual Christians can give a huge testimony about the goodness and love of God by showing in their lives that things can be so different, if we are filled with the Spirit and with the love of God.

from The Christian https://www.reformednews.info/2019/02/21/what-is-truth/

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nickyschneiderus · 6 years ago

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How to watch the midterm election results in real time

The only thing more exhilarating (or stressful) than the 2018 midterms race is Election Night. Control of both the Senate and House of Representatives is up for grabs, and most races are too close to predict. Whether you’re looking to live stream election results on a traditional cable news channel like CNN or MSNBC, or you’re looking for special coverage from respected news outlets like the Washington Post or some lighter fare from late-night hosts, here’s everything you need to watch online.

Election results 2018: 8 ways to watch online for free

All of the major live TV streaming services offer at least a free seven-day trial. If you haven’t yet cut the cord or you’re just stuck on mobile for Election Night, this is a great opportunity to see what you’ve been missing.

1) FuboTV

Cost: $39.99 for your first month and $44.99 per month thereafter (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, iOS and Android devices

News channels for 2018 election results: CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC America

Billed primarily as a sports-focused streaming service, FuboTV isn’t surprisingly solid for news as well, providing the four main pillars of cable news (CNN, CNBC, Fox News, and MSNBC), as well as BBC America. In addition to a ton of specialty sports channels, you’ll also get great channels like AMC, Syfy, FX, and more. (Here’s a complete guide to FuboTV channels.)

Game-changing feature: Three-day replay for games and 30 hours of cloud DVR.

Fubo TV

FuboTV

2) Sling TV

Cost: $25-$40 per month

Sling TV Devices: Amazon Fire TVs, Android Fire Stick, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Xbox One, Google Chromecast, and iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: CNN, MSNBC, CNBC

Sling TV is split up between two separate basic packages (which you can combine for a premium), and a few add-on options, so getting your news and election results can be tricky. If you’re a Fox News acolyte, you’re out of luck. Sling TV doesn’t offer it at all. But if you want CNN, both Sling Blue and Sling Orange offer it, but Blue will get you more overall channels. If you want MSNBC or CNBC, you’ll have to pick Blue (or the combination Sling Orange + Blue package), then add on Sling’s “News Extra” package for $5 per month. It’s a bit of a jumble, but Sling TV is worth the hassle. (Here’s a complete guide to Sling TV channels.)

Game-changing feature: Price. Sling TV offers the most flexibility for the least amount of money.

SlingTV

Sling Orange + Blue

3) Hulu with Live TV

Cost: $40 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick and Fire TV, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, and iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: CNN, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC

There’s no BBC available on Hulu (or any Viacom properties, like Comedy Central), but you get the majority of necessary news channels to keep up with election results from a variety of political perspectives. (Here’s a complete guide to Hulu Live TV channels.)

Game-changing feature: Every subscription comes with free access to Hulu’s on-demand library, meaning you can catch up on all of your favorite shows. (Here are our picks for the best movies on Hulu, Hulu documentaries, anime, and the must-see Hulu originals.)

Hulu with Live TV

4) YouTube TV

Cost: $40 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Google Chromecast, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Xbox One, iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: BBC World News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC

YouTube has a fair bit of fluff (do you really need a channel devoted to Seattle Sounders FC?), but you’ve got basically every option you need for election results 2018 coverage. If you’re looking to keep the streaming service after the election, there are better entertainment packages out there, but YouTube TV is great about letting up to six people make accounts through one subscription. And it’s the same price as Hulu with Live TV. (Here’s a complete guide to YouTube TV channels.)

Game-changing feature: You can add up to six accounts per household, and each one of those accounts gets unlimited cloud DVR. Even better: You can fast-forward through ads in recorded programs.

YouTube TV

5) DirecTV Now

Cost: $40-$75 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, and Amazon Fire Stick.

News channels for election results: CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, CNBC, MSNBC, OAN, BBC World News

Even though it sits in the standard-to-high price range, DirecTV Now gets you the most bang for your buck. With more than 65 channels, the entry-level Live a Little package will get you the major news networks, but not BBC World News, unfortunately. You’ll have to go two packages up to the $65-per-month Go Big option for that. If you plan on keeping the streaming service after election results 2018 are in, DirecTV Now is the cheapest way to get HBO as an add-on, for a measly $5 per month. (Here’s a complete guide to DirecTV Now channels.)

Game-changing feature: AT&T Unlimited customers can save $25 a month off every DirecTV Now package.

DirecTV Now

6) PlayStation Vue

Cost: $44.99-$79.99 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: PlayStation 3 and 4, Roku, Amazon Fire, Google Chromecast, Kodi, iOS and Android devices

News channels for election results: CNN, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC

PlayStation Vue is available on way more than just your living room console, and altogether it’s not a bad option for watching election results 2018 on the four main news networks. That said, its more expensive packages quickly delve into redundant channels you’ll never watch. The silver lining is that PlayStation Vue has one of the wider selections of add-on packages, including Spanish-speaking channels and HBO. (Here’s a complete guide to PlayStation Vue channels.).

Game-changing feature: You can stream on up to five devices at once, and there’s unlimited cloud DVR.

PlayStation Vue

7) PlutoTV

Cost: Free

Devices: Desktop, iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and Google Chromecast, PS4.

News channels for election results: NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, CBSN2

Yep, that’s right free, and it’ll get you live streams of NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, CBSN2, and a few other smaller options. PlutoTV’s channel lineup is very untraditional. Instead of major channels like AMC or FX, you’ll get more genre-based options. Dig martial arts action? Try out Flicks of Fury. Stand-Up 24/7 is exactly what it sounds like, and Anime All Day will fill your heart with giant robots piloted by cute girls. On the downside, it’s a little weird to see RT America included in the news lineup, considering its parent network has long been accused of being a propaganda machine for Russia’s government. (Here’s a guide to Pluto TV)

Game-changing feature: Besides being free, Pluto TV is a familiar format for anyone coming from cable channel grids.

Pluto TV

8) Philo TV

Cost: $16 per month (after a 7-day free trial)

Devices: Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, iOS, Android

News channels for election results: BBC World News

The good news is Philo TV is almost $10 cheaper than Sling TV’s barebones Sling Orange package. The bad news is it’s almost a desert of news content, save for BBC World America. So I guess if you prefer the sweet tones of British accents delivering the news of your country’s fate to your eager ears, you can’t go wrong with Philo. To be fair, Philo does a surprisingly good job of getting entertainment options like AMC, BBC America, Comedy Central, BET, HGTV, and more. (Here’s a guide to Philo TV channels.)

Philo TV

Election results 2018: Other ways to watch results online

It’s 2018, and you’re just as likely to be on the internet while you watch the future of American politics play out. Plenty of news outlets have already created hub pages where you can follow live streams and watch the polling data come in. Plenty of entertainment shows like The Daily Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will be jumping into the fray, hoping to ease the tension with some laughs. If you’re fixated on your social media apps, you can bet they’ll be there, too. Here’s a comprehensive guide to where you can find all these election results 2018 hubs.

1) The Washington Post Live

Washington Post Live is WaPo’s hub for live journalism, meaning it’s the place the publication frequently hosts speakers, policy wonks, and politicians who discuss the issues of the day. The Post is already featuring midterms previews, so you can bet it’ll have live commentary on the election results as they come in. No subscription is needed.

2) The Washington Post election results tracker

If you want the hard data as it comes in, WaPo is also providing a state-by-state breakdown of each individual race with easy to understand text and graphs. Not only that, interactive maps of each state let you see how voting results break down from county to county. If you’re someone who hasn’t managed to keep up with every single race in your home state, WaPo’s tracker is an easy-to-use option, and it provides enough surface level context to quickly bring you up to speed.

Washington Post

3) New York Times Midterm Results Hub

Be careful with this one, as it’s evidently subject to the same story limit as any other New York Times article. If you’ve been scouring through their site reading other stories, you could lock yourself out of the results hub. That said, it’s a broader version of the Washington Post’s tracker.

New York Times

4) AP midterms hub

Like a lot of other outlets, the Associated Press will be regularly updating its own midterms hub with various reports and visual data to help you parse out how the night is going. If you’re looking for a more narrative account of the night that isn’t the dread-inducing Twitter, this is a solid option.

5) BuzzFeed News election results hub

BuzzFeed News had strong Election Night coverage in 2016, and we expect more live commentary on the site’s YouTube channel.

youtube

6) Apple News midterms hub

If you have the Apple News app on your iPhone or desktop, you’ll get a pleasant little surprise on Nov. 6, when the app switches out its midterms previews coverage for a new Election Night section. The new section will also replace the Apple News Digest at the bottom of the app. You’ll be able to track live results and key race updates. It’ll also have a cool graphic of the split between Democrats and Republicans that’s updated every minute or so. If you like your news more bipartisan and curated, Apple News will be cultivating reports from all the major outlets. And don’t worry: Apple says you don’t have to authenticate a TV provider if you want to watch video coverage.

Apple News

7) Politico live election results

Politico’s hub can be a little much to look at at first, but it’s surprisingly well-organized, with tabs for individual state election results, live analysis, a live call feed for when final tallies come in, and more. My favorite bits are the two simple graphs for the Senate and House races, with a clear “Politico favors ____ to gain/maintain control of the _____.” Beneath that, you’ll find small blog posts detailing each state election in the order in which they close their polls.

8) FiveThirtyEight

Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight was one of the few outlets to poll Donald Trump as having a legitimate chance of winning the election, and while it’s more of a data aggregator than a pollster, it’s proven itself a fairly reliable resource for election data. You can find a House forecast here, and a Senate forecast here.

FiveThirtyEight

9) Snapchat

Snapchat has been doing a bang-up job of encouraging users to get to the polls as of late. Aside from the filters and lenses that proudly show off the fact that you’ve voted, Snapchat has provided registration information and successfully registered more than 400,000 users in a two-week span. Snapchat is also showing people where their polling location is via a partnership with Get to the Polls. If you’re just looking for election results, though, Snapchat is also planning on hosting a live stream on its Discover page. It will include streams from the Washington Post and local stations in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Snapchat’s original show, Good Luck America, is planning on airing new episodes throughout Election Night.

10) Yahoo/Huffington Post

Yahoo and HuffPo are teaming up just in time for the midterms to launch a news channel on Roku. It features content from Yahoo News, Yahoo Finances, HuffPost, MAKERS, Yahoo Sports, and RYOT. All you have to do is add the Roku channel to your existing Roku device. (Here are our guides for the best Roku channels, Roku private channels, and Roku free channels.)

Bonus: Late-night shows

The usual roundup of late night entertainment shows will be presenting either live or special editions of their programs for election night. Expect to see Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Trevor Noah’s Daily Show.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Of course, you can always follow along here on the Daily Dot. We’ll be keeping tabs on the evening’s tightest races and following the major narratives around the House and Senate.

from Ricky Schneiderus Curation https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/midterm-election-results-2018/

#Ricky Schneiderus Curation

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politicalfilth-blog · 6 years ago

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Political Prisoners of the USSA: Cody Wilson Joins Snowden, Assange, Ulbricht

Land of the free? Protectors of freedom of speech? Right to own arms?

I’m not sure what country you’re thinking of… if there is one, it’s Liberland. But the last place with those values is the US… or USSA as I call it.

The creator of Defense Distributed---a website offering downloadable files that can be used to 3-D print firearms from home---has been released from being kidnapped (jailed) after paying a $150,000 ransom (bond).

In what could possibly be a honeypot setup by the state, Cody Wilson was arrested and charged with “sexually assaulting a minor” in Travis County, Texas.

The timing cannot be discounted: the entrepreneur and gun-rights activist has been at the center of an ongoing legal battle over the existence and operations of Defense Distributed.

Prior to the arrest, Wilson was hanging out in Taiwan where there is no extradition treaty. It makes one think he was wise enough to know the government was coming for him.

As reported by Cnet:

“...the State Department settled a legal case that allowed an organization called Defense Distributed to release those plans online….That prompted 19 states to file a lawsuit seeking to block the free distribution of those files due to public safety concerns....” Whether or not the allegations hold any water remains to be seen. Using alleged female victims to discredit a man’s reputation is an old tactic of the powers that shouldn’t be. The same type of suspicious allegations have followed whistleblower Julian Assange.

Another freedom fighter, Ross Ulbricht of the Silk Road, was framed of “hiring a killer” to smear his public persona, even though those charges, nor any evidence, were ever even taken to court.

A similar (yet more popular) circus is currently unfolding with Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Defense Distributed has posed a threat to the state’s restrictions for years now. It’s like the Bitcoin of firearms---crypto guns.

The state’s quest to disarm its citizens (except the police of course) will fail practically and theoretically as long as people can arm up at the press of a button.

Gun control advocates have seethed with fury at Cody’s operation, namely because ALL firearm regulations are rendered useless when anyone can simply 3-D print their own weapon.

Self-defense for a digital age; it’s truly revolutionary.

But now Wilson has been forced to quit the company he founded.

So, what if this accuser is actually malicious and is lying about her age on adult websites to extort men for money?

There’s a possibility that she was already in counseling due to a prior arrest and court order, so she had handlers.

What if Wilson gave her money because she blackmailed him and said she would report him as having had sex with her if he didn't pay up?

No one should be automatically guilty of an act where the malicious, fraudulent actions of others could make someone guilty by default.

In an interview just a few weeks ago, Cody had this to say:

Yet, according to CBS:

“Austin police received an arrest warrant for Wilson for sexual assault after a counselor contacted the police on Aug. 22 and said a girl under the age of 17 had told her she had sex with Wilson after meeting through a dating website SugarDaddyMeet.com. Police said Wilson and the girl met at a South Austin coffee shop before going to a North Austin hotel, where he allegedly assaulted her and paid her $500 in cash.”

Cody appears ready to fight the allegations, however. His attorney released the following statement:

“We are glad that Cody is back in Texas again where we can work with him on his case. That’s our focus right now, representing our client and preparing his defense.”

The fact that “child” and “sexual assault” are the mainstream headlines when a girl who supposedly said she was 18 (the arbitrary age by which you magically change into a woman by government edict), by using an adult hookup site, and who took payment for the consensual, voluntarily agreed-upon sex shows how much the media works as the propaganda arm of the government.

If it even happened at all, the headline should be something like, “Cody Wilson tricked by young, experienced girl into paying for sex under false pretenses.”

But, since when does the truth matter in the USSA?

The 3-D printing pioneer was invited to be a featured guest speaker at Anarchapulco, The World’s Premier Liberty Event.

Considering the circumstances, it’s uncertain if he’ll be able to attend.

All should take note, however, of just how easily it is for the US government to frame people, track someone down and kidnap them within days. Hours after ALL the mainstream media outlets pushed the story of Wilson being charged, he was identified as to his whereabouts in Taiwan, had his passport immediately revoked and found himself in custody.

Even though Taiwan doesn’t have an extradition agreement with the fasco-communist US government, once they revoked his passport, Taiwan had the opportunity to remove him for being in the country illegally.

For all those involved in anything cryptocurrency related or anti-state, I have always said there are two important things to do. #1 is get out of the USSA immediately. They can and will target you and take you down by any means necessary. And, #2, is try to get a second passport (and even better renounce your US passport) for further protection.

Things are just getting worse and worse in the “land of the free”. Ross Ulbricht, who only set up a free market website, was given numerous life sentences for such a crime in the highest security prison in the US. It’s so bad that Ross recently asked to be put into solitary confinement for his own protection. You can sign a petition HERE demanding his release by the Orange Fuhrer.

As for Cody, we’ll be waiting for more information to expose what looks like a shady plot by the US government to set up and kidnap him.

There’s a price to pay for being an enemy of the state, and technically, we all are.

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from The Dollar Vigilante https://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2018/09/30/political-prisoners-of-the-ussa-cody-wilson-joins-snowden-assange-ulbricht.html via The Dollar Vigilante

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citizentruth-blog · 7 years ago

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Hannity Insanity: FOX News's Journalistic Integrity Conundrum - YOUR NEWS

New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/hannity-insanity-fox-newss-journalistic-integrity-conundrum/

Hannity Insanity: FOX News's Journalistic Integrity Conundrum

Sean Hannity may not be a “journalist” per se, but his viewers, his network, and anyone concerned with journalistic integrity should insist he be more transparent about financial entanglements which further impair his already-subject objectivity. (Photo Credit: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Rex/Shutterstock)

Sean Hannity likes to claim he is not a “journalist” when confronted with potential conflicts of interest surrounding the content he provides as a commentator on his show on FOX News. Yet he also likes to argue that his program breaks “real news” and conducts interviews the way a legitimate journalist would. In a manner of speaking, Hannity is trying to have his cake and eat it too, and as far as many of his viewers are concerned, they probably don’t care. They should care, however, as should FOX News and anyone concerned with journalistic integrity.

Hannity has been thrust into the spotlight recently because of the revelation that he is a client of Michael Cohen, the same Michael Cohen who is an attorney and spokesperson for one Donald Trump, who had his home and office raided by federal investigators in relation to payments made to adult entertainer Stormy Daniels, and whose own legal team only last week revealed their connection during a court hearing. Hannity’s entanglements with Cohen are particularly salient considering he has used his platform as a means of decrying any investigations into the affairs of Cohen and Trump, but never disclosed this relationship to his viewers, and reportedly, even FOX News executives were blindsided by the disclosure.

Despite Sean Hannity’s downplaying of the situation, it’s not as if the reason for soliciting Cohen’s legal counsel is immaterial. According to a report by Jon Swaine and referencing public documents obtained by The Guardian, Hannity is linked to some 20 “shell” companies formed in Georgia devoted to the purchase of real estate including foreclosed properties and, in some cases, properties from below-median income/above-average poverty areas. The mere existence of these companies is not an indication of illegality, but it does make his railing against the Obama administration for the high rate of foreclosures when he has benefited from it disingenuous, if not patently ironic.

Similar failures to disclose key relationships seem of more than just passing interest. Two of Hannity’s most lucrative properties (apartment complexes) are financed by loans through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the current head of which, Ben Carson, has appeared on Hannity to the host’s praise. Along these lines, Hannity has featured Bill Lako, a principal at the firm Henssler Financial, as an expert. This same firm just happens to have registered Hannity’s various shell companies. Once again, that Hannity is a client isn’t something about which to be so cavalier, particularly when his relationship with this featured personality may impact the viewer’s opinions and judgment on financial matters.

This is where the issue of whether or not Sean Hannity is a “journalist” becomes most relevant, and why, to many, his self-serving faux surprise at being of supposed persecutory interest to the mainstream media rings hollow. Hannity and his defenders would aver that he is a commentator who renders his opinions, and as such, is not bound by the same journalistic standards as, say, a reporter. Conversely, some observers would insist that if Hannity walks, swims, and quacks like a reporter, he may well be considered one, despite how he identifies himself.

As such, it explains why there is tension not only between conservatives like Sean Hannity and the rest of the news media community but even among FOX News’s talking heads. There are those on-air personalities like Shepard Smith who fashion themselves as journalists and see what Hannity and Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson do as entertainment more so than news. Which, predictably, prompted Hannity and Ingraham to fire back on Twitter that they do “real reporting” and aren’t just purveyors of theater.

This creates a kind of conundrum alluded to in the opening, particularly for Hannity. On one hand, he wants to be treated seriously as a leading voice in conservative thought and a dominant presence in cable news. Even though the controversy over Hannity’s persistence in covering the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich as some sort of hit job related to his supposed identity as a source for WikiLeaks that saw his show lose sponsors, the FOX News veteran has remained a priority of the network’s as a ratings draw, especially with Bill O’Reilly no longer in the mix, and thus, he at least has the second half of the proverbial equation satisfied.

On the other hand, however, Sean Hannity doesn’t want the same standards of accountability to apply to his delivery of what he calls “REAL NEWS.” (His emphasis, not mine. Evidently, when you put things in all caps, THEY MAGICALLY BECOME MORE BELIEVABLE.) So, like his boy Donald Trump, his answers—in his case, as to whether he is a journalist—are malleable, changing to fit his purpose or perhaps his mood. As Paul Farhi, media reporter for The Washington Post details, Hannity has “flipped” repeatedly on his ownership of the term journalist, or has otherwise striven to qualify the use of the word, labeling himself an advocacy journalist or opinion journalist.

As experts on the American press and television journalism quoted for Farhi’s column insist, meanwhile, this may be all but semantics. Either way, the lack of transparency risks a loss of trust from Hannity’s viewers, an idea which would lead other news personalities to disclose any potential conflicts of interest out of a sense of duty to their profession. But Hannity claims (when it suits him) that he is not a journalist. Thus, he lacks any such consideration of ethical quandaries, and surprisingly enough, a significant portion of his viewership and of the broader news community doesn’t seem to be too bothered by his lack of disclosure.

That FOX News is apparently giving Sean Hannity a free pass on these matters is telling for a number of reasons. For one, it underscores how important Hannity is in the bid to best CNN and MSNBC in the primetime cable news wars. More than this, though, it signifies how the network’s own journalistic standards have eroded over the years—and it’s not like they were all that highly regarded before the era of Trump. Only a few years ago, FOX News brass were preventing Hannity from appearing at a Tea Party rally in Ohio.

Now, he’s not only advising President Trump and sharing legal representation with him, but he’s serving as a major mouthpiece of FOX’s pro-Trump propaganda machine, a reality that helps further put him at odds with Shep Smith and other anchors at the network. For a media outlet that billed itself as “fair and balanced” during the George W. Bush years—a slogan which strained the bounds of credulity even then—its present stance seems to be to drop all pretense of objectivity. FOX News now touts what it offers as “real news, real honest opinion.” Pardon me if all this talk about what’s “real” and “honest” doesn’t quite have me convinced.

Callum Borchers, writing for The Washington Post, penned an analysis in response to the revelations about Sean Hannity, opining that his fans will still support him in spite of the notion he is a hypocritical “welfare queen” because he provides his audience with a highly entertaining escapist defense of a president in Trump that frames “attacks” on #45 as unfair, unpatriotic, and vicious. The “welfare queen” line, in it of itself a reference to Reagan-era use of the term, was recently invoked by New York Times columnist Bret Stephens during a discussion about Hannity’s property holdings on MSNBC:

I think it’s funny Sean Hannity turns out to be a welfare queen for HUD, having taken advantage of guarantees that were put forward by none other than the Obama administration. Look, you know, Hannity, he’s said over and over again—that he is not a journalist. He proves it every single day. The question for Fox News is whether they want to consider themselves a journalistic institution and continue to employ as an anchor a guy who clearly is better at real estate than he is at reporting.

For Stephens and other independent observers, the issue with Hannity is not that he has made use of federal monies to accomplish his real estate investment goals; from my understanding, this is fairly commonplace, and he shouldn’t be faulted for it any more than we would fault Trump for his use of bankruptcy in his business dealings. Rather, it is with his unspoken reliance on the HUD program while decrying other people’s taking advantage of government “handouts” that eats at his professed credibility. As Stephens goes on to say, it’s not even as if Hannity, while a particularly bad example given his high profile, is the lone bad actor in this regard:

The currency of our political moment is hypocrisy. It is the most valuable currency of our political moment, right? So I can trade on—I can say anything. I can do anything. I can be in conflict, right, as long as I’m pursuing my own self-interest and being narcissistic and whatever. As long as I’m doing that, I don’t have to worry about the consequences. So norms are being cast aside from the top all the way down to the bottom and people who claim to be the moral arbiters of our politics turn out to be the biggest violators.

There is no shortage of figures to which to ascribe these comments on both sides of the aisle, but for Stephens, a conservative who has been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, the implicit reference to him and Hannity as unprincipled sorts who weaken the conservative brand is clear. Even if Stephens’ derision is more narrowly focused, though, his point is well taken given the American people’s eroding confidence in the nation’s political institutions, most notably with respect to Congress and the Democratic and Republican Parties but with the media and the office of POTUS not dramatically better either. Do as I say, not as I do. It is no wonder so much of the electorate has reacted like children rebelling against their parents—act inconsistently as a public servant, and that’s the risk you run.

As Borchers explains, though, Sean Hannity’s viewers are willing to look past his “transgressions” because he gives credence to their feelings and beliefs, much in the way evangelicals and other Christians will look past Trump’s infidelity and his attacks on minority groups because he reinforces expression of anti-abortion views and “religious liberty” at the expense of others’ civil rights. At the heart of their appeal is acceptance of their supporters’ worldview in the face of a rapidly-changing world that increasingly rejects this worldview’s long-held assumptions and prejudices. As much as we might chide Hannity and Trump as blockheads and gasbags, we can acknowledge they do possess a talent for communicating a sense of shared experience to a large audience.

In rendering my opinions across the blogosphere, I am part of the ever-growing global community designed to facilitate a discussion through political commentary. My opinions, of course, are my own, and you, the reader, are certainly free to agree or disagree, or even summarily dismiss them as incomplete. At the very least, however, I strive to do my homework by consulting other viewpoints on a given topic and citing appropriate information when relevant. Not to be grandiose about these things, but I do this because I think it’s right to do.

This is exactly why FOX News’s lack of journalistic standards and refusal to admonish Sean Hannity is disturbing, even for an amateur commentator and non-FOX-viewer like myself. Until there is an apparent rejection of the network’s methods which eschew facts and fuel the right-wing Trump propaganda machine, there is every worry that upward trends with respect to hasty, inaccurate reporting as well as the promulgation of fake news will continue. It was striking to see a little over a year ago, during an exchange between Hannity and CBS News special commentator Ted Koppel, the latter coolly answer in the affirmative when asked point blank by the former whether he is “bad for America.” Hannity insisted Koppel was selling the American people short, but a year after the fact, perhaps Koppel’s “cynicism” was justified.

‘F**k Trump!’ Alex Jones And Other Trump Supporters Rage Against Syria Strikes

#Bret Stephens #Conservatism #donald trump #Fox News #journalism #Michael Cohen #news media #Sean Hannity #Ted Koppel

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profgandalf · 8 years ago

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Do We Need Propagandists Again?

My rhetorical question will probably meet with few affirmatives. Propaganda is BAD, right? Of course it is: we don't want nor need propaganda in our lives. We want the truth! When Americans think of propaganda, they think of totalitarian states and false narratives meant to bamboozle the populous. Fake News is probably the newest manifestation of this.

We Have Used Propaganda as a Nation in the Past:

Some may think of some of our own propaganda, especially some of the cartoons of World War II ("Daffy the Commando") or Frank Capra's Why We Fight. But even that number is small. However, propaganda is not by definition false and there needs to be a voice out there which represents the world-view and ideas that belong to mainstream core that is Western civilization and specifically Middle America.

Instead of the perpetual beat of the drum of change that is the hallmark of dissatisfaction, many long for a voice which affirms what our culture is doing well.

The Voice of Walter Winchell:

I doubt that many fans of The Legend of Korra nor Star Wars: The Clone Wars would recognize the name Walter Winchell (1897-1972) one of American's more recognizable voices to my father's generation. Throughout the years of World War II Winchell "opened his radio broadcasts by pressing randomly on a telegraph key, a sound that created a sense of urgency and importance, and using the catchphrase `Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press." He would then read each of his stories with a staccato delivery (up to a rate of 197 words per minute," (Wikipedia). This is the voice imitated at the beginnings of both Korra and The Clone Wars. Why? Because he was so effective. He became the voice that Americans trusted as they heard about the inevitable victories of the Allies against the Nazis.

Winchell’s role in WWII and After:

Winchell, a Jew, had championed America's involvement against Germany even before the war was declared. And after the start of the war he was a stalwart supporter of FDR and the government throughout that time and a major supporter of the war effort in his news reports. History seemed to confirm his reports and he gained trust. As time progressed he became an arch-conservative while still being the voice of the trusted establishment as it fought against Communism as well as crime. Winchell even provided the introduction narrative for the famous 1959 TV show The Untouchables. In other words, he was the broadcasting voice of the establishment trusted in a time of turmoil. His face featured on the cover of Time is an indication of his status. And that is why the film makers of the cartoons imitate him. He was a master propagandist.

How Bad Is It to Have a Propaganda on the Air?

And I am left wondering is that bad? Are there any voices from which America can take comfort in a time of perpetual upheaval with madmen testing potential nuclear missals, ISIS beheading hostages, terrorists attacking innocents with bombs and cars, not to mention a general press determined to detract the attempts of the nation's current chosen government? Most Americans now tune into the narrative with which they identify. But there is no unifier. Maybe we need propaganda.

Being Propaganda Does NOT Mean a Work is False--A Work that Lies is Profane, And Propaganda Can Tell the Truth:

Now, contrary to what some might automatically assume, a propaganda piece is not necessarily false. It can be And when faced with a belief system which one wants to believe is true, the temptation to push the narrative naturally along to make that even better encourages lying, but this is not necessarily an absolute outcome. Works which are classified as propaganda differ from a traditional work of art in only their ultimate purposes. The work of art depicts what is true as experienced in everyday life. The more true to life a work is, the better quality of art. A work of propaganda in contrast expresses the truth of its ideology above all else. Thus, if the closer to truth the political or religious ideologies are, the more in-line a work of art can be both propaganda and true art.

A Hypothetical “Christian” Work of Propaganda that Would Be Profane:

However, when a work fails to do this, when it lies to support a religious or political belief system, it becomes profane. It overtly lies to support a false concept or ideology. An example might be a work which portrays that that each time an individual prays, God answers his or her prayer directly. Now as a Christian I believe in the power of prayer. However, my own experience in life shows me that God does not answer every prayer with the action the prayer requests. Life has shown me that God says yes, no or sometimes wait. If in a work of fiction I portrayed God as a cosmic Santa Clause I would be lying to to try and make my belief system more attractive. I would be creating a Christian work of art that was profane.

Examples of Propaganda that Avoided Being Profane:

Many scholars think that the Aeneid is actually a masterful piece of propaganda. It sets up the idea that Rome as a nation is actually divinely ordained with a great purpose to fulfill. However, it avoids being profane by not lying--by presenting to the reader not only the hoped for glories of Rome but also the terrible costs that establishing the nation has on both individuals and cultures, including the destruction of Carthage. Another work of great propaganda would be Pilgrim's Progress, and still another might be Uncle Tom's Cabin. Note one does not have to agree with the artist. Many might question the role of Rome, Bunyan’s understanding of the nature of Christianity, or Harriet Beecher Stowe‘s accuracy of how slaves felt. However, they all told the truth to the best of their ability. Therefore while their works are all propaganda, none of them are profane.

Why We Need Propaganda?

In a recent Fox interview "Are we doing enough to counter the 'online caliphate'?" Ryan Mauro weighs in on how to combat terror campaigns on the internet. His point is that at present the West is doing a lousy job at undermining the message coming from ISIS and other Islamic Terrorist groups. They are doing a great job getting their victory out and the West is failing to counter with its own positive message while also pointing to their profound failures. He says that we can do this while still telling the truth. In fact our truth outweighs their lies. What he is talking about, although he never uses the word, is in fact propaganda.

Profane Propaganda of WWII and Western Response:

Moderns do not recall this, but the Nazis were the masters of propaganda. With massive demonstrations and orchestrated events, they projected to the world an almost mythical unstoppable power.

The free world was slow to respond. But eventually they did. Frank Capra, in particular, used their own propaganda against them by drawing a direct contrast to the life Americans wanted for their children and the Hitler Youth Camps for which the Nazis were so proud. And the free world used something that most ideologies that are false can not bear: humor. There was nothing funny about how the Nazis saw themselves just as there is nothing funny for the Islamic extremist, but when their irrationality is exposed by a clever propagandist, their message deflates. Thus Daffy Duck hitting Hitler over the head with a mallet, or the British propagandist who spread up Hitler's goosestepping soldiers so their absurdity became overt. (That is probably why they went after the humor magazine Charlie Hebdo.)

Why Do I Want Propaganda? A Voice of Certainty

So what am I suggesting? We need a vigorous voice that supports the achievements of what the core of America values. Part of the success of Fox News has been its overt aiming at this demographic. But recent events have suggested a tilting away and the recent removals of both its founder (who has since passed) and one of its most famous conservative voices suggests that there are hands on its tiller that may be of a differing mind set. (The failings of both men do not deny their effectiveness, and I am suspicious of the clamor for their removal since it is a moral measure). (If interested check out Dick Morris' analysis) Another outlet which has made itself known recently has been the YouTube video channel called Praguer University (not a university in reality but an outlet for conservative arguments especially supported by Dennis Prager), But why do we need this? Because of a fundamental quality which I believe weakens the fabric of our culture. The West in general and the US specially needs to regain a sense of confidence in itself.

The left Thrives On Doubt.

This was recently profoundly illustrated by Sen. Sanders harsh questioning of Russell Vought because of his belief that those who do not share his understanding of Christianity will not be saved. (See article on US News and World Report) To Sanders this seems racist and exclusive, but his objections reveal his and the left's misunderstanding of deeply held religious belief. He, in fact, does not even understand his own heritage. Orthodox Jews have doubts about the final fate of Christians as much as Christians do of Jews or Muslims. That's the nature of belief. What he wants is for all of us to look at our religious faith in the lens of doubt.

Doubt in the Narrative of Pop Culture:

Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek the Next Generation gave the quiescent liberal line when Data was asking about religious beliefs in its perception of death: “I always thought that beliefs were not coming to a conclusion but being on a journey"

Sounds nice, but in fact offers no certainty, and--in fact--is an example of what Timothy Sandefur describes as "Picard’s commitment to non-commitment" ("The Politics of Star Trek") Such high sounding claims are, in in fact, not faith at all--they are examples of apostasy.

The very nature of those who wish to reshape America into a new society must first bring in doubt and disparagement. You can not have "change you can believe in" if you think that things are not really that bad. That is why the left attacks so many of the fundamental elements of American society such as the uniqueness of the American constitution (written by elite white men) the value of the religious values found in the Judeo Christian principles (homophobic racists) and the inherent nobility of the American civilization (built on racist, genocidal religious bigots).

I now hear in academia students opening assuming that the qualities of American exceptionalism is, in fact, a self-created delusion. When I struggled with my son’s history teach to include some of the positive elements within America’s journey his response is well of course those are there but everyone knows that. No they don’t. The left’s insistence on the doubt and failed qualities of America has become all too evident. Students make foolish comments of moral equivalency (The Nazis were bad but we were no better since we put Japanese Americans in concentration camps) They have even developed an inability to understand civil discourse.

What Cost?

The outcome of this is perpetual doubt. But social progress and strength comes from confidence. Whatever one thinks of Bill O'Reilly (I sometimes found him a bit overbearing) I really appreciated the point he hammered on his show enumerable times: the US is at its core a noble and exceptional nation. Walter Winchell said that repeatedly as did others in the media like Paul Harvey as did Edward R. Murrow. We need propagandists who will in fact affirm the truth that we as a people are indeed a great nation. In my study of history I have never found a great nation which doubted itself and its basic principles.

America Needs to Believe in Itself

Pres. Obama was elected apparently claiming this, but as time went on, with his apologies for American arrogance, his assumption that the institutions of law were profoundly flawed, his lecturing to Christians that the evil of ISIS was no worse than our own Crusades, even his ideas reflected in his wife's comment that it was not until he rose to power that she was able for the first time to be proud to be an American. All of this reveals the stumbling self doubt that is central to the common voice of the intelligentsia today. And that is what really helped Donald Trump win, not racism, nor homophobia, but an assurance of America's innate greatness. Although many may him as not representative of the America to which they belong, the current president would do well to get a good PR person and hammer the positive message which brought him into power.

This all being said there must still be a small sense of caution. Having a strong and appealing voice to affirm the fundamental worth and strength of American ideas is good. But one must always still keep a small bit of questioning in mind. Religion in fact affirms that absolute faith does not belong to the state but to God. Walter Winchell as helpful to the American sense of self as he was, eventually got caught up in the personal attacks of McCarthyism. And today if one looks up his name in Wikipedia, the first thing one will see is not that he was one of America's favorite voices in a time of stress and war but rather that he was primarily a gossip columnist.

#propaganda #fake news #left and right #walter winchell

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