I think we already have an American corporate empire. We have the illusion of
democracy, of free speech. I don't think we need to worry about Blind Democracy
being censored. Does our government really care about what a few blind people
on an outdated email list share with each other? I have heard the same story
about the Ighurs (Chinese Muslims, I really don't know how to spell this) so
far. Yesterday, it was on Intercepted. Today, the same story was on Democracy
Now. The source is a man who escaped from China and is now peddling the book
he's written about his experience. Is there any truth to this news story?
perhaps. Ten years ago, I might have believed it. Now, I question it. Why?
First of all, the news stories from most of the media about Venezuela are
outright lies. Second, the stories about the reasons for the rebellion in Hong
Kong have been gravely misrepresented by just about everyone. The reasons are
far more complex than what is described and what hasn't been described, is the
US involvement in provoking the demonstrations. And we know that Obama's plan
was, "a pivot to China", with this new secret plan hatched by the Atlanta
Council, having just been revealed for an all out effort to subdue China. And
I've read articles on The Grayzone that say that what is happening in that
province in China from which this guy comes, has been vastly misrepresented.
I've also heard similar things from that Chinese American journalist on
Flashpoints. Everyone has their own version of the truth. Often, people firmly
believe their versions, as opposed as these versions may be. I've sat at family
dinners and heard my daughters describe a past incident which I remember very
differently from the way that each of them does. But the fate of huge numbers
of people doesn't depend on our family differences of opinion. However, when
our media pretends to be neutral but acts as representatives of the Washington
establishment, or in the service of another country's government, we are just
pawns, to be manipulated. That's what those people were who stormed the capitol
on January 6, and that's what all of us were who voted for Biden.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, February 4, 2021 2:23 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Media Runs Defense for Amazon After Retail Giant
Caught Stealing Millions From Workers
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?