Establishment Gatekeepers and the Long Con

A post from a friend showed up on my FB feed recently. It was discouraging to read. It was a dismissal of anything but establishment news (the mainstream media), the very echo chamber (propaganda arm) of our neoliberal and neocon establishment. Have we learned nothing in the last couple of years, never mind the last 20, or 50? 

Neoliberalism (crony Capitalism), the war economy, the devastation of the US economy (the world economy, or the planet – climate change), the rise of extremism, the rise of Trump (another symptom of the problem), have all been accomplished through the complicity and “fake news,” the brainwashing of the public by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and the rest. Yet these are the sources my (otherwise thoughtful) friend wants us to exclusively consider for an informed opinion. 

This is absolutely mind-boggling. Why would anyone assume that anything not from the mainstream must be suspect, especially when we know from experience (30 years worth at least) that everything coming from the mainstream is biased in favor of our Crony Capitalist Empire, and has the purpose of brainwashing us into supporting it? 

Yes, I know it’s hard. You have to read many sources to get something close to the truth, or at least accurate facts. But if you just accept opinions and propaganda that the CNNs, MSNBCs, Fox Newses, and other mainstream media spew as fact, then we’ve learned nothing, and are bound to repeat the follies of this last decade or so … until the end of this sixth extinction event, which humanity is unlikely to survive. The truth is not found in the establishment’s propaganda arm. It’s hard to break the brainwashing, but we have to start now, if it’s not already too late.

And any faith in either Democrats or Republicans is sorely misplaced, just two wings of the same bird… the corporate state, the best government money can buy…

–LE