Microblog Memes

The left does ignore this problem or get wrapped up in their useless "big picture" rhetoric that leads nowhere when this is a very practical, tangible problem. Dominating over the right-wing propaganda machine is the obvious answer. When I suggest the left needs their own propaganda bots & troll farms flooding social media, their own podcasters & influencers to propagate their propaganda, better engagement through local organizations to answer & counteract right-wing bullshit & push some of their own to keep the right-wing occupied, I get responses like

This is such a boomer take. This is like trying to claim Clinton lost in 2016 because she didn’t tweet enough or use the right young-person slang, skibidi

or digressions like the comments here that dismiss everything as another problem to pin on capitalism without offering constructive ideas that could seriously lead anywhere. A left-wing propaganda machine to outdo the right-wing is doable, I doubt propaganda bots would cost a fortune to set up. The loser mentality of just venting about impractical shit instead of organize & reach for practical solutions is a major part of the problem.

This isn't exactly new. But it's still problematic, especially in today's age. And also much bigger now because of today's age. Mainstream media is owned either by the right-wing, or by the rich who just surrender to the leading power (which in this case is the right wing anyway). My politically literate friends understand this, at least. But when the major media outlets are unreliable, it leaves either unknown or biased sources of information or citizen journalists (who have their own biases). So there's no reliable outlet of information that favors the left, at least any that would be considered trustworthy in the wider media sphere. So again, this isn't news to the politically literate. Those that aren't get perpetually stuck in the right wing infosphere, because that's the only "reliable," known sources, in their perception.

Newspaper serve two purposes: spreading information and making sure that the population carries along with the political decisions being made.

For everything that you're outraged about, there's 3 things that are more important that you have no idea about, that you have never heard of, because the media doesn't report it. They don't need to lie, just not forward some information. There's no way to prove it either since it's technically not a lie. Just misrepresentation of information.

I mean, I get it, nobody is talking about the MAGA takeover of the media, but literally half the media is now captured by MAGA, who is going after the rest. Where are people supposed to hear about it?

We don't have a lot of time left. We have to take control after the Midterms, and go hard on MAGA. Congressional investigations and hearings into anti-monopoly/anti-trust issues in the media will be an important priority. They'll find that there was a lot of corruption and bribery involved, and those companies will be broken up.

For anyone who hasn't seen these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfoxed
https://youtu.be/uoTJoLZbd1w

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brainwashing_of_My_Dad
https://youtu.be/pNTsTOcRO-k

If your ideology requires the censorship of competing ideology its a shit ideology.

The real part of this that people on the left won't talk about is how this directly intersects with their campaign of pushing cynicism in leftwing spaces through shill accounts pretending to be liberals and progressives, and how effectively they have divided the party like this.

I remember when this started with the Bernie Bro stuff, even as Bernie himself was like "hey you idiots stop falling for this agitprop." Since then they've run the same basic playbook with every election and it has gotten more and more effective as the same useful idiots double down on the same basic narratives

This guy acts like any of this is new, or that it's some right wing conspiracy to make us mistrust the government.

They're in the pocket of capitalist interests and have been for hundreds of years. More and more it's becoming clear that the leading factor behind most of our major societal issues is unfettered capitalism, destroying everything and squeezing everything.

Our governments answer only to the rich these days, moreso than ever before in recent Western history. Any response from the people can be moderated and restricted, and at worst results in a pathetic protest that - while it may be large - is a brief, unsustained blip that doesn't even rattle the stock market, let alone worry the rich ruling class at all.

Society has been cleverly trained to think they can't affect change, and that writing a comment online (like this one) is a good way to affect change or make a difference.

All it does is make you feel like you've done something useful, when you haven't, and identified yourself and your political opinions to your government, who will put you on various lists and come for you when the time comes.

This guy is on the right track, but needs to think bigger. Much, much bigger.

I think part of the issue is that a lot of people who are aware of this know that it's been happening for a lot longer than since Trump's first election, and it's not specifically a right wing takeover. It's an overall consolidation of power into the hands of an ultra-wealthy few, and right wing is currently the most advantageous position for them to take.

This particular video is from 2018, a year into Trump's first term, and it shows a large amount of local news stations that were believed to be spread across the political spectrum (at least for US run stations) all reciting the same exact script.

But the movements of Rupert Murdoch, or the Sinclair Media group, or iHeartRadio, or any of the many number of conglomerates didn't just crop up overnight purely under right wing situations to support right wing movement.

Unless you really think Trump's first election was some 5D chess thing, he was catching flak from all sides. Before that, the news media gave incredibly kind coverage to Obama's involvement in the Middle East, his use of drones, his moves to further the rights granted to the US government and intelligence agencies through the Patriot act (started under Dubya, but expanded under Obama), the construction of illegal immigration centers during his tenure... the list goes on for him like it does for most Presidents.

The screws have been tighening for decades, this isn't something shockingly new to present day, we're just approaching critical mass.

They don't want to talk about how it's capitalism that's the problem, about how capitalist control of media will inevitably subvert democracy, making capitalism and democracy incompatible.

Except it is not the right, it is the billionaires, filthy rich shareholders, etc. Big company CEOs and politicians (left and right) are just their pawns. They heavily lean on right/conservatives because they are easier to manipulate. Remember, billionaires are food, not friends.

Problem is, people ARE talking about it...

...but where exactly would you expect to HEAR about people talking about it?

He's put the cart before the horse.

It's not "the right", it's the super wealthy billionaires who have taken over the political media & infosphere. Earnest liberals and conservatives should open their eyes and see, they are both being used against the other right out in the open.

The political media and infosphere is FOR SALE, why does he ignore that? Anybody can buy them and control the narrative. Oh, correction, anybody who's filthy rich can buy them. Not you.

By "the right" did he mean the pedo elite and the epstein class? Or is that synonymous now?

Cause by my eyes, having ghislane with supermod status on reddit and jeff having been in close enough contact with the 4chan guy to make /pol exist, not to mention zuck playing every side on fb and now long rat owning twitter; all these mean that the majority of left/right discourse can be boiled down to "manipulated opinions astroturfed by billionaires who have the ability to bot farm absolutely any opinion into the general populace."

but it's literally fascism. like the inability to refer to the fascism as fascism is what Rowling the transphobe was writing about?

I think the American ruling class has always controlled the media.

What changed is the American ruling class is now dominated by nationalist fascists rather than internationalist neo liberals.

The problem is, what are you supposed to do about it without violating the First Amendment?

Capitalism is just regressing towards its natural end stage.

I'm not sure I understand what he's complaining about, don't we constantly talk about how these people are fascists? Like isn't that the lens through which we view this?

I feel so validated by this. The root cause of this though is capitalism.

But yeah we also need stricter laws about corporate speech and ownership and how to protect the public from these kind of schemes.