Taibbi: The News Media Is Destroying Itself

That Taibbi never really touches on the collapse of the publishing business model - driven in part by Facebook, as above - and how it drives content creation and C-suite paranoia is another problem with this piece.

 

It should concern the mainstream media, which spends very, very little time on Facebook, preferring the cozy, quippier confines of Twitter that it can effectively be ignored while right-wing schlubs rock and roll on FB.

What happens on Twitter, largely, is a kind of groupthink that desires to or actually wreck or eliminate the career of professionals. (Some of whom, like Chris Doyle, may actually deserve that.)

The left media keeps seeing itself - well-educated, often fairly wealthy and cosmopolitan, usually far from the sorrows of the lower-middle-class - as some kind of underdog. It's not. At all.

 

The point is Taibbi never should have written a piece that didn't include a long disclaimer about the real bad guys, the right-wing media. Basically, he broke a code of some sort.

 

That fucking Taibbi.

 

Taibbi's fault too for not getting this in the story.

"TO: ALL MEDIA

PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM “ANTIFA” IN RESPONSE TO THE THREATS ISSUED BY UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP

Dear Mr. Trump:

Let us be perfectly clear:

“Antifa” isn’t an organization. There’s no membership, no meetings, no dues, no rules, no leaders, no structure. It is, literally, an idea and nothing more. Even the claim of this author to represent “Antifa” is one made unilaterally for the purposes of this communication and nothing more; there is no governing body nor trademark owner to dispute the author’s right to represent “AntiFa.”

“Antifa” is a neologism constructed from a contraction of the phrase “anti-fascist.” The truth is, there’s no such thing as being “anti-Fascist.” Either you are a decent human being with a conscience, or you are a fascist.

The ostensible president of the United States has, today, openly declared that he is a fascist, and that he intends to turn the military power of the United States into a fascist tool.

Now there is no question, and we can stop pretending that this man represents anything but the worst in humanity, which his supporters embody.

And that is the only effect his words will have.

It will likely be no problem for LEO to identify the author of this document, who also has maintained the “AntiFa” page on Facebook since founding it in 2017.

The author of this document is unconcerned with that inevitability because neither that author, nor this document, has been involved in a crime of any sort in any way.

But, since both the “president” and the media insist on acting as though “AntiFa” is this big, scary organization, the author supposes it’s time for “AntiFa” to make a statement.

Thus:

“AntiFa supports and defends the right of all people to live free from oppressive abuse of power, whether that power is unjustly derived from wealth, status as an employer, or political popularity.

Particularly, AntiFa defends and supports the right of oppressed and marginalized people to protest, march, and engage in civil disobedience in pursuit of justice. While it is never our intent to engage in violent or destructive behavior, we cannot and will not take responsibility for telling people how they are allowed to be righteously outraged. We prefer and encourage non-violent action. We also understand that some people just aren’t feeling that nice anymore. Their feelings are entirely justified, and it is neither our role nor our privilege to tell them otherwise.

Mass civil disobedience is what happens when people say they’re hurting and whoever’s hurting them refuses to stop.

Stop hurting them. Fix your broken systems. Get real and meaningful psychological evaluations and background checks - police in some nations have to pass a more stringent test to carry pepper spray than any police department in the US, or the US military, have in place. As a direct and possibly deliberate consequence, our military and paramilitary personnel simply cannot be assumed to be fighting in the interests of the people of this country.

We’ve all seen the photos. This destruction and burning and looting is largely the behavior of outsiders; white people taking advantage of the situation both to enrich themselves by looting under cover of the protests, and to provide excuses for uncontrolled fascist elements within our military and police forces as plausible cover for killing more black, brown, and poor people without fear of sanction. The so-called “accellerationists” who have committed to ensuring that, any time a marginalized community stands up and demands justice, construct a narrative of criminality and destruction that white bigots and affluent oligarchs who benefit from our broken system to validate their bigotry and injustice retroactively. They are successful in this for two reasons: because people like you are easily manipulated in your banal, self-serving ignorance, and because people like you are more than happy to passive-aggressively reap the benefits of pretending to believe this destruction is the act of the oppressed.

This game has gone on for decades on an endless loop since the very dawn of the civil rights era, and we the people are saying ‘no more.’”

And that, “President” Trump, is your solution. No more. Get the dirt out of your law enforcement and your military. Get the dirt out of your government and administration. Ideally, resign now and take your VP and cabinet with you; Nancy Pelosi isn’t a great deal of improvement, but she’ll only be president for a few months.

You can’t arrest 100 million of us, sir, and you would be well-advised not to try. If you think that targeting and “making an example of” the author of this document will get you anywhere, you may rest assured that this author is more than prepared to allow his real name to be used as a rallying cry for justice and civil disobedience from coast to coast.

It is time for you and everyone who thinks like you to understand that whether black, red, brown, white, or any other color, Americans are done living in a nation of empty platitudes and broken promises.

Traditionally, this type of document is accompanied by a list of “demands.” Here are our demands:

-Universal single payer health care, without regard for citizenship status.
-Universal basic income WITH a federal job guarantee, under which the federal government becomes the “employer of last resort.” Involuntary unemployment is a function of profiteering by fascist capitalist oligarchs who are willing to sacrifice the lives of others for their own enrichment. It must end.
-The abolition of “right to work laws” which do exactly the opposite of ensuring anyone’s right to work.
-Publicly funded higher education.
-Robust and effective social welfare programs to include child care, education, employment training and counseling, parenting skills training, and life skills training including fiscal education.
-A requirement that functional proficiency in media, political, and economic literacy be demonstrated to graduate high school.
-The creation of a publicly funded non-partisan media source to serve as the primary source of government information, to be overseen and managed day to day by a coalition of well-known communicators, political scientists, and other experts in propaganda to strip ALL bias from official information before it is broadcast.
-Federal charges of treason filed against anyone willfully and knowingly attempting to minimize public perception of the impact and risks of the coronavirus.
-Reform of whistleblower laws to ensure they have teeth, and particularly to ensure that a whistleblower, acting in good faith, is not identified to the public, ever.

In the end, Mr. “President,” the simple reality is that “AntiFa” isn’t a thing. You can’t end it, you can’t arrest it, and you can’t silence it. Nor, in any decent nation, would the attempt even be made.

“Antifa” means “Anti-Fascism.” The only position that opposes that is fascism. In the end, there is no “organization” that you can “declare terrorists.”

You, sir, and yours, are the terrorists, and your victims are done putting up with it.

America is not, in spite of having an openly admitted fascist as “president,” a fascist nation. We’ve had wars about this. The fascists are 0-2.

Please, Mr. “President” - let’s not try to make it 0-3? Because it will never, ever be 1-2, and none of us wants to see the death toll from your attempt to make it so.

Currently, media and other actors wishing to contact this author may do so through the page. Should Mr. Zuckerberg, who has displayed plenty of authoritarian and fascist tendencies himself, decide not to host that page any longer, this document will be updated.

Best Regards,
“AntiFa.”

 

The damned libruhl media has made everybody hate Amurrica.
Never mind Fox News and OAN and talk radio. Nope, they're holding us up. Keeping us proud.

 

"As of now, Black Lives Matter might be the most powerful political party in the United States." -- Tucker Carlson 6/15/20

 

Somebody's triggered.
Nothing can strike fear in a Trumpist's heart like the notion that black people might have some political power.

 

What you think of as "the left" is actually "the center." At least politically.*

As a cultural matter, we've become more inclusive - without moving left politically.

And the vast majority of American newsgathering is done by corporatist news organizations whose interests lie mostly on the bottom line and in maintaining the status quo.


*unless we're talking about the Daily Worker or the Morning Star, etc., in which case my apologies.

 

All of this is stemming from the black guy with the Muslim-sounding last name winning the presidency. Twice. It was like placing an ant trap in the corner and watching everyone scurry for the bait. All those easy-going seemingly not racist white dudes we know pounced.

 

I read Taibbi's piece and I thought three things:
1) When high-end newspaper columnists complain about college campuses, they aren't talking about college campuses in general. They're talking about something dumb Harvard or Yale did and they're writing from the perspective as an alum of one and trashing the other.
Sort of like the Simpsons writers, who mostly went to Harvard, made Mr. Burns a Yale alum.
2) For this piece to get any oxygen, it had to trash the media, but only the outlets perceived as "liberal." No one is going to give a shit if he had taken a hammer to Fox News or talk radio or any of the high-profile internet sites that traffic in right-wing news. His intended audience is the "liberal" media because they're the only ones who are going to pay attention to him. That approach takes any nuance or important context out of the piece and sets aside so he can take potshots at people who might actually care but doing so prevents any kind of meaningful change.
3) I've been an editor and if I went to a Halloween party as a "Puerto Rican" with brown shoe polish smeared on my face and wearing a wife beater, my departure from my publication wasn't because of "accusations of toxic workplace culture" but because I was a fucking idiot who smeared brown shoe polish on my face and went to a Halloween party as a "Puerto Rican."

 

I'm not gonna hash it out with you. If that's the tack you wanna take with it, OK by me.