Richard,
I never meant to say that Sanders doesn't know what he's doing. What I meant
was that he's trying to organize political opposition to Trump.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of R. E. Driscoll Sr
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2017 3:22 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blame the Media for Creating a World Dumb
Enough for Trump
Miriam:
I find your msg to be confusing to me. Too many conjectures.
I think Sanders knows exactly what he is doing - just like Boll Weevil -
'looking for a home!'
Richard
Sent from my iPhone
On Aug 27, 2017, at 12:03 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
they didn't want Sanders. Sanders is, I think, being a sacrificial lamb,
Ah yes, I forgot about Wallace. But the party leaders didn't want him and
stinking cows.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2017 12:10 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blame the Media for Creating a World
Dumb Enough for Trump
Miriam,
I was looking for them cows...and then remembered that we got horses, no
Yes, Good Old George was presented as a Liberal. Probably in that day andtime he qualified. But I think that Henry Wallace was a more true
created himself and his life.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/27/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
Well, of course, Obama moved to Chicago specifically to become a
community organizer. And then he sort of chose it to be his home, so
that after law school, he returned there. I suspect that on a
psychological level, he didn't feel like he belonged anywhere. He had
a single mother whose work took her from one exotic place to another.
It seems like his grandparents were the most table part of his life,
and their home was his home. But they were transplanted white
Midwesterners, living in Hawaii. There must have been a lot of
disconnects in his life. He had intelligence and ego strengths, and he
you'll need to wait till the cows come home.
Yes, George McGovern. Well, I don't remember a whole lot about him,
but he was, I suppose, a liberal Democrat. I mean, what would you
say about Johnson? He got some really good legislation through, but
he was a loud mouthed Southern Democrat. A very long time ago, I read
a book about him and all I can remember from that book is how
obnoxious he could be, how crude. I mean we're talking about America.
How left wing can a Democratic presidential candidate be? Bernie
Sanders was probably the most left wing almost candidate we've ever
had and his foreign policy left a lot to be desired. If you're
looking for a candidate to talk about dismantling the capitalist system,
the Working Class.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2017 11:05 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blame the Media for Creating a World
Dumb Enough for Trump
Very interesting. So Barack Obama "came home" to Chicago, where at
some point, he found the "right" woman and remade himself in the
image of a "Peoples Advocate".
What I'm hearing is that although Barack Obama is far, far more
intelligent, and much easier on both the eyes and the ears, he is
just as big a liar as is Donald Trump.
By the way, Miriam, were you thinking of Senator George McGovern?
Even back then, in 1972, when I still called myself a Democrat, and
believed that the Party could be reformed, I questioned the views of
my fellow Democrats in Seattle. I never saw him as more than a
Middle of the Road Democrat. But the Party still pretended to care about
to.We still appeared to have a piece of the attention of our government.
But this mirage was even then turning into vapors and leaving the
working class stranded in the Desert, with no Political Party to cling
good.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/27/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, the Democratic Party shifted after their last truly progressive
candidate lost, the one before Jimmy Carter whose name has flown out
of my mind, temporarily. It was then that they adopted super
delegates so that the left wing of the party would never have power
again. I've been very slowly reading the book about Obama, Rising
Star. One gets some interesting insights from the book, if one has
the patience to plow through its myriad details. He very seriously
had his mind on political office and the Presidency from the time he
was in his twenties. So although he did appear to be progressive on
many issues, you can't tell how much was real and how much was
contrived. Everyone recognized his intelligence and his talent. He
had two serious relationships before Michelle; one with a white
woman, one with a woman of mixed Asian and Caucasian background. He
actually proposed to this second woman. She was very much in love
with him. But he decided that he couldn't have a successful
political career in Chicago as a black man, unless he was married to
a black woman. Additionally, he created himself as an American black
man because his actual personal identification was international and
multicultural. But that wouldn't have worked in politics either.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2017 11:26 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blame the Media for Creating a World
Dumb Enough for Trump
I agree with you that Matt Taibbi takes his work seriously. He is a
respectable Journalist, a dying breed. But many of us did our best
to follow what was going on, politically, and were fooled. I sure was.
Of course I'm no journalist, but I think I pay closer attention to
political affairs than the average American. I don't feel guilty,
nor do I feel at all responsible. At the moment, I place a big
share of the mess we're now in on the DNC. When the Democratic
Party decided...at the top level...to abandon the labor unions and
the working class, they began to share in where we are today. Then
they backed Bill Clinton, The Best Republican President the
Democrats ever Promoted. And after being slowly pushed into the
muck by Sweet William, and after eight dismal years with George Bush
and his Texas Cowboy reign, and the lies he told that put us in this
Eternal War on Terror, Barack Obama surprised Hillary Clinton and
White America by winning the brass ring. Obama, who could have
become FDR reincarnated, became instead, a Black Bill Clinton.
Obama has the distinction of being the first Black
Democrat/Republican President, picking up where Bill left off, as
well as continuing with the Eternal Bush War. That war, by the way,
is now named the Bush/Obama/Trump Eternal War on the American Tax
Dollars. Already they have grabbed 54% of every dollar.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/26/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Well, one of the reasons, I believe, that Taibbi wrote that
article has to do with what he wrote in his book about covering the
Trump campaign and what I've heard him say in interviews. He has a
sense of guilt because he was covering the campaign, seeing Trump
as totally ridiculous, seeing Trump's followers as a bunch of
ignorant losers, and then Trump became President.
And Taibbi feels that he misjudged what he was seeing during all
those months. And remember, Taibbi is a journalist and he takes his
role pretty seriously.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl ;
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2017 9:30 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Blame the Media for Creating a World
Dumb Enough for Trump
Matt Taibbi blames the "Media" for dumbing down Americans to the
place that, like a gaggle of drooling, slobbering, Zombies, they
stumble along behind Donald Trump, cawing and croaking out his name
in worshipful tones.
But just who is this "Media" Matt Taibbi talks about?
Could he be talking about a bunch of hard working journalists,
being misled by Trump's Ghouls?
Tempting though it is to point the finger at Trump and His Royal
Court, the real villain is none of them. Not the boys on Wall
street or on Madison Avenue, or the Brass at the Pentagon, sucking
up our tax dollars.
No. The Media is just another phony Straw Man set out to distract us.
The one instigator behind our mad rush toward annihilation, is Greed.
Greed is driving the Media to misrepresent, mislead, and out and
out lie.
And over the years Greed has made the lies more simplified so as to
be easier to swallow.
And why would Greed care to render Americans simple minded? To
better manipulate and mislead them.
As long as Americans stay linked to their televisions and their
iPads and other electronic gadgets, they will continue to move
toward becoming mindless husks.
It's time we took a stand against Greed! Turn off our TV's and
other mass media gadgets. Stop purchasing the junky glitter that
is being shoved off on us. Stop wondering what Donald Trump is
twitting today, and just assume that Donald Trump is always up to no
communities and farmlands.Tell your congress people to cut the Pentagon's budget in half.
54% of our tax dollars is far too much, since they can't seem to
account for several billions. Demand that the government begin
bringing our troops home and retraining them to be Peace Keepers,
building new low cost housing, rebuilding our infrastructure,
training to care for the elderly and the children of working
mothers, teach them to be youth workers, and send them out into our
what [Trump] said,"Tell congress that our future...the way to prevent Terrorists from
coming into our nation, is to provide a high quality of free
education to All of our children, as far as they can each achieve.
Let your congress people know that if they can't seem to hear you,
or don't want to serve you, then you will be at hand to assist them
into the ranks of the unemployed.
And most importantly, make time to organize and attend Town
Meetings...from coast to coast.
That should do for a beginning.
Carl Jarvis
Carl Jarvis
On 8/26/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Matt Taibbi has a relatively new podcast called, The Tarfu Report,
which I discovered yesterday. I listened to Episode 7 today which
is about Trump's personality. There were several clips from the
Arizona speech which I hadn't heard. I don't listen to Trump
unless there's a clip that's part of a newscast or discussion so I
manage to forget how truly crazy he is. But what I heard today was
horrifying, not because the content was especially racist or war
like, but because Trump's personality disorder is so clearly evident.
It is incomprehensible to me that no one who knows how truly
disturbed he is, couldn't have done something to prevent his
getting into office.
Miriam
Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a rally. (photo: Chip
Somodevilla/Getty
Images)
Blame the Media for Creating a World Dumb Enough for Trump
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
26 August 17
Yet another TV executive says Trump is "good for business." Is
sudden good fortune of news media by accident or design?
The craziest part of Donald Trump's 77-minute loon-a-thon in
Phoenix earlier this week came when he rehashed his shtick about
the networks turning off live coverage of his speech. Trump seemed
to really believe they were shutting the cameras off because "the
very dishonest media" was so terrified of his powerful words.
"They're turning those lights off so fast!" he said. "CNN doesn't
want its failing viewership to see this!"
Trump is wrong about a lot of things, but it's hard to be more
wrong about any one thing than he was about this particular point.
No news director would turn off the feed in the middle of a
Trump-meltdown.
This presidency has become the ultimate ratings bonanza. Trump
couldn't do better numbers if he jumped off Mount Kilimanjaro
carrying a Kardashian.
This was confirmed this week by yet another shruggingly honest TV
executive
- in this case Tony Maddox, head of CNN International. Maddox said
CNN is doing business at "record levels." He hinted also that the
monster ratings they're getting have taken the sting out of being
accused of promoting fake news.
"[Trump] is good for business," Maddox said. "It's a glib thing to
say. But our performance has been enhanced during this news period."
Maddox, speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival, added that most of
the outlets that have been singled out by Trump are doing a
swimming business. "If you look at the groups that Trump has
primarily
targeted: CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Saturday
Night Live, Stephen Colbert," he said, "every single one of those
has seen a quite remarkable growth in their viewing figures, in
their sales figures."
Everyone hisses whenever they hear quotes like these. They recall
the infamous line from last year by CBS chief Les Moonves, about
how Trump "may not be good for America, but he's damn good for CBS."
Moonves was even cheekier than Maddox. He laughed and added, "The
money's rolling in, and this is fun. They're not even talking
about issues, they're throwing bombs at each other, and I think
the advertising reflects that."
For more than two years now, it's been obvious that Donald Trump
is a disaster on almost every level except one - he's great for
the media business. Most of us who do this work have already gone
through the process of working out just how guilty we should or
should not feel about this.
Many execs and editors - and Maddox seems to fall into this
category
- have convinced themselves that the ratings and the money are a
kind of cosmic reward for covering Trump responsibly. But deep
down, most of us know that's a lie. Donald Trump gets awesome
ratings for the same reason Fear Factor made money feeding people
rat-hair tortilla
chips:
nothing sells like a freak show. If a meteor crashes into jello
night at the Playboy mansion, it doesn't matter if you send Edward R.
Murrow to do the standup. Some things sell themselves.
The Trump presidency is like a diabolical combination of every
schlock eyeball-grabbing formula the networks have ever deployed.
It's Battle of the Network Stars meets Wrestlemania meets Survivor
meets the Kursk disaster.
It's got the immediacy of a breaking news crash, with themes of
impending doom, conflict, celebrity meltdown, anger, racism,
gender war, everything.
Trump even sells on the level of those Outbrain click-addicting
photos of plastic surgery failures. With his mystery comb-over and
his great rolls of restrained blubber and the infamous tales of
violent fights with his ex over a failed scalp-reduction
procedure, Trump on top of being Hitler and Hulk Hogan from a
ratings perspective is also a physical monster, the world's very
own bearded-lady tent.
Trump's monstrousness is ironic, since the image of Trump as the
media's very own Frankenstein's monster has been used and re-used
in the last years.
Many in the business are of the opinion that, having created Trump
and let him loose in the village, we in the press now have a
responsibility to hunt him down with aggressive investigative
reporting, to make the world safe again.
That might indeed be a good idea. But that take also implies that
slaying the monster will fix the problem. Are we sure that's true?
Reporters seem to think so, and keep trying to find the magic formula.
Just this week, staffers at the Wall Street Journal rebelled
against editor-in-chief Gerard Baker. Baker, who has long been
accused of being too soft on Trump, blasted his people for going
too negative on the president in their coverage of the Arizona
speech. He sent around a letter asking staff to "stick to reporting
resentment.rather than "packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism."
Reporters fought back by (apparently) leaking the memo to the
rival New York Times. This followed an incident in which a
transcript of Baker's recent interview with Trump was leaked to
Politico earlier this month. In it, Baker mentions being glad to
have seen Ivanka Trump in Southampton, and small-talks with Trump
about travel and golf. The implication here is that it's improper
or unseemly for a newspaper editor to have a chummy relationship
with this kind of a president.
And it is, sometimes. Reporters who should be challenging
presidents and candidates are pretty much always cheating the
public when they turn interviews into mutual back rub sessions.
But these intramural ethical wars within our business may just be
deflections that keep us from facing bigger problems - like, for
instance, the fact that we have been systematically making the
entire country more stupid for decades.
We learned long ago in this business that dumber and more alarmist
always beats complex and nuanced. Big headlines, cartoonish
morality, scary criminals at home and foreign menaces abroad, they
all sell. We decimated attention spans, rewarded hot-takers over
thinkers, and created in audiences powerful addictions to
conflict, vitriol, fear, self-righteousness, and race and gender
There isn't a news executive alive low enough to deny that we use
xenophobia and racism to sell ads. Black people on TV for decades
were almost always shirtless and chased by cops, and the
"rock-throwing Arab" photo was a staple of international news
sections even before 9/11. And when all else fails in the media
world, just show more cleavage somewhere, and ratings go up, every
time.
Donald Trump didn't just take advantage of these conditions. He
was created in part by them. What's left of Trump's mind is like a
parody of the average American media consumer: credulous,
self-centered, manic, sex-obsessed, unfocused, and glued to
stories that appeal to his sense of outrage and victimhood.
We've created a generation of people like this: anger addicts who
can't read past the first page of a book. This is why the howls of
outrage from within the ranks of the news media about Trump's
election ring a little bit false.
What the hell did we expect would happen? Who did we think would
rise to prominence in our rage-filled, hyper-stimulated media
environment?
Sensitive
geniuses?
We spent years selling the lowest common denominator. Now the
lowest common denominator is president. How can it be anything but
self-deception to pretend this is an innocent coincidence?
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