We are so used to thinking of a coup as a military uprising. But the
USA has undergone a coup of a different sort, nonetheless, a coup all
the same. Down through our history we have seen a steady transfer of
power, from the Landed Gentry and the Republic for which they stood,
to a confusion of democracy, socialism, Authoritarianism,
but always being guided by the Mega Corporations, toward the now very
real threat of an American Corporate Empire.
Donald Trump, although he was one of them, was the wrong man for the
job. If he'd been right, I would now be playing computer games while
hoping no one reads blind democracy. Frankly, I do not see any
"knight in shining Armour riding to our rescue. The thing to watch
for is how to avoid getting hurt when the Empire like Humpty Dumpty
comes crashing down.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/3/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Each day, as I read and hear what is really going on, I become angrier and
angrier, sadder and sadder, and more and more frustrated. We, most of us,
are truly helpless. We have no control over what is being done in our name
to us or to the rest of the world. Sometimes, I still sign some of Code
Pink's petitions, but I do it because it makes me feel better, not because I
think it will have any effect. I've been reading for years, about how we can
organize and achieve change. Occasionally, with a great deal of effort, a
tiny superficial change is made that will help a limited number of people in
one geographic area. I suppose that's all we can hope for. Some of the
fragmented Communist parties have been attempting to organize to change the
system since God knows when, the 30's? the 20's? You can see how much they
were able to achieve. So everyone voted against Trump. They all dutifully
voted for Biden so that, "we will now have more space to organize for
change". And here we are with an administration that is continuing Trump's
policies, but with a multi racial caste of characters. We have arguments
over the size of a one time check to the population in the midst of a
pandemic and an economic depression while the wealthy elites keep
accumulating more wealth and the government periodically provides banks,
hedge funds, and corporations trillions of dollars. We have a government
planning to increase the intensity of its aggression twoard other nations.
Biden is setting up more commissions to study our pressing issues, not
fixing problems. And the media? The media works for and represents the
Washington establishment. And by the way, Democdracy Now must be getting
money from some very important Democratic Party operatives. They never use
independent news sources anymore. They use corporate news sources and
Democratic politicians. They use The Intercept because as a journalistic
enterprise, the Intercept has moved way to the right from where it started
out. It has a few good people left, but it has changed. Democdracy Now
maintains its leftist creds by continuing to cover stories about the
oppression of people of color. It did not cover the reason for Glenn
Greenwald's parting from The Intercept, nor the details of Julian Assange's
trial. It did not interview Aaron Mate over his coverage of the controversy
over the chemical attacks in Syria, nor did it cover the factd that he
testified about it at the United Nations, even though he got his start at
Democdracy Now. It did not cover the controversy over the truth or
falsehood of Russiagate and it is not covering the questions regarding
whether or not China is actually holding its Muslim minority in prison
camps. It did not cover the US several attempted coups in Venezuela, nor the
occupation of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington. It's important to me
because what happened to Democdracy Now is emblematic of what has happened
to just about all of the institutions in this country that I once trusted.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 8:37 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Media Runs Defense for Amazon After Retail
Giant Caught Stealing Millions From Workers
Oh the rich get rich and the poor get poorer...
And in the meantime, in between time...
The boss calls it "Free Enterprise". The sad fact is that we are allowing
the spokespersons for the American Corporate Empire(ACE)to shape our minds
not only by what they put out as news, but by how they phrase it.
Think of a mighty pillar of the community stealing from their own employees
and "giving" it back to help defray the pathetic wages.
But once the words are crafted, they sneak into our every day life.
Theft is overlooked as if it were a trifling matter. Sunday morning as
church goers flock out of St. Anthony's, one Parisher puts change in the
paperbox buy the front door, opens the lid, removes a paper and then holds
the lid open as other Pious men pass by, lifting papers until the box is
empty. If God can't get their attention, what hope is there?
Carl Jarvis
On 2/3/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Media Runs Defense for Amazon After Retail Giant Caught StealingOh the rich get rich and the poor get poorer...
Millions From Workers Amazon just got caught stealing millions from
its workers, but instead of grilling the retail giant, the media
appear to be working hard to run defense for it.
by Alan Macleod
February 03rd, 2021
Mint Press
By Alan Macleod
It has been a turbulent 24 hours for retail giant Amazon. First, the
company's founder (and world's richest individual) Jeff Bezos
announced that he would step down as CEO. Then, the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) ruled that the company had illegally stolen more than
$61 million worth of customer tips meant for its delivery drivers.
Under their contracts, Amazon drivers were supposed to make between
$18 and
$25 per hour and keep all their tips. However, since at least 2016,
the company had been secretly confiscating tips customers sent through
an app, using their contributions to reduce their own wage payouts,
meaning they were swindling both customers and employees. "In total,
Amazon stole nearly one-third of drivers' tips to pad its own bottom
line," said FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra.
Unlike corporate crime cases in other nations, Amazon will merely be
required to pay back the money it took from employees. Thus, it will
face no negative consequences, except a possible public relations
backlash due to bad press. Yet, instead of grilling Amazon, the media
appear to be working hard to run defense for it, downplaying the
nature of the crime in their headlines.
Covering for corporate crimes
The word "steal" was noticeably absent from much of the reporting,
despite the fact that the original Reuters report used the word in its
title - a direct reflection of the FTC's ruling. Many newspapers
instead decided to go with "withhold" instead:
"Amazon to Pay Fine for Withholding Tips From Delivery Drivers" (New
York Times),
"Amazon will pay $61.7 million to delivery drivers after withholding
tips"
(Los Angeles Times),
"Amazon agrees to multi-million settlement for withholding driver tips,"
(Pittsburgh Post Gazette),
Forebes Media Bias
Despite an FTC ruling, Forbes's headline called the theft an "allegation"
"Amazon ordered to pay $61.7m fine for withholding drivers' tips,"
(The Independent),
"Amazon to pay $61.7M settlement after FTC says it withheld some tips,"
(Washington Examiner).
Other outlets went with words like "pocketing" (Financial Times, BBC),
"keeping" (CBS News), "shorting" (Courthouse News), or "shortchanging"
(Washington Post).
Even worse, many more framed the news as a mere allegation, despite
the fact that the FTC had made a formal ruling. Forbes, for instance,
led with the headline "Amazon Will Pay $61.7 Million Settlement After
Allegedly Withholding Tips From Delivery Drivers." Others (Daily
Caller, Daily Mail) did the same. Meanwhile, in a tweet on the news,
Vox claimed that (emphasis
added) "Amazon will pay $61.7 million in a settlement over allegations
that the company used customer tips to subsidize the hourly wages of
some delivery drivers." Thus, the fact that Amazon had been caught
stealing was watered down into a claim that it was merely
"subsidizing" "some" of its employees' wages.
Perhaps the worst offender was business and tech news site ZDNet,
whose headline was "Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle Flex
driver tip dispute with FTC," which obscured the matter into a foggy
and very technical sounding financial dispute. Only a very small
number of outlets, including Slate and The Huffington Post, echoed the
FTC's decision by using the word "stole" in their headlines.
Reading past the headlines
Framing is an important concept in media, as the words chosen
encourage readers to interpret news in a certain manner. For instance,
this week, reporting on the same healthcare issue, CNN framed it as
"Biden signs executive orders expanding healthcare access," while Fox
News presented went with "Biden signs order on far-left health
priorities." The first primes readers to see the move as improving
inclusivity while the latter fits into a "radical socialist takeover
of government" narrative.
Perhaps more importantly, in this 280-character media landscape, the
majority of people do not read past the headline, even before sharing
content, making accurate titles particularly important in conveying
information on news and current events. Indeed, one article in Science
Post with the title "Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the
headline of science stories before commenting" features one paragraph
of information before descending into "lorem ipsum" gibberish text has
been shared 193,000 times, mostly on Facebook itself (although it is
not clear how many people are sharing it as a joke).
Thus, the effect of the inaccurate titles has been to bury a story
about massive wage theft. Wage theft is a massive problem in the
United States. A
2017 study from the Economic Policy Institute across ten U.S. states
found that 2.4 million minimum wage workers were being defrauded out
of an average of $64 per week, equating to $8 billion annual losses.
For many, their employer is far more likely to steal from them than a
masked robber. Yet this is rarely the sort of violation that "tough on
crime" politicians have in mind when they deploy that rhetoric. And
when the public thinks of crime, wage theft is rarely high on the
list, thanks, in no small part, to how the media downplays corporate
crime where the rich steal from the poor.
And in the meantime, in between time...
The boss calls it "Free Enterprise". QThe sad fact is that we are allowing
the spokespersons for the American Corporate Empire(ACE)to shape our minds
not only by what they put out as news, but by how they phrase it.
Think of a mighty pillar of the community stealing from their own employees
and "giving" it back to help defray the pathetic wages.
But once the words are crafted, rthey sneak into our every day life.
sTheft is overlooked as if it were a trifling matter. Sunday morning as
church goers flock out of St. Anthony's, one Parisher puts change in the
paperbox buy the front door, opens the lid, removes a paper and then holds
the lid open as other Pious men pass by, lifting papers until the box is
empty. If God can't get their attention, what hope is there?