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The American Media and the Rise of American Authoritarianism

Advocates of a free and open American society who cry “Fake News” are right to distrust the media, though their logic for doing so is severely flawed.  It’s difficult to blame these people, however, as they are products of a society in which the American media has been misrepresenting reality since its inception.   The media over simplifies serious political issues.  Due to limited space in publications and limited airtime on networks or cable channels, news outlets are forced to truncate and simplify stories.  Long speeches are reduced to two line quotes or 10 second sound bites . Thus, it becomes difficult to provide full context for stories or accurately convey the spirit and experience of an event.   In their oversimplified coverage of politicians and serious political issues, the media tends to frame politics as a sport, focusing on the horse race aspects of elections and on keeping score of what bills have the votes to pass rather than focusing o...

Beware the Red Undertow following A Blue Wave

I hate the current Commander in Chief.  It’s visceral, my desire to rebel. But in America, the idea of the current Resistance actually leading a conventional revolution against him becomes problematic under this President because all those Americans most prepared to revolt, those in the armed forces and police, people with the know-how and weaponry to lead a rebellion largely support his agenda.  “We’ve got the guns but they’ve got the numbers.” Jim Morrison sang to rally up the youth, forgetting of course that they’ve got the guns! When they have a monopoly on bullets, the only option is the ballot. But after the election there’s still the guns.   Say you run a grassroots campaign with socialist candidates using many small donor contributions and face-to-face politics to get the message of big love government out to the masses and there is truly a blue wave in this country. That’s not it, it’s not game over.  The people who support this president would then p...