Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
Two things: I knew senior management at Mother Jones, 20 years ago. At a certain point reading various editions, it became clear to me that they’re a doppelganger. They say a lot of the correct things, but they also suppress the really important stuff like 911. Their funding comes from one of the big foundations, “MacArthur”, I think. Anyway, whatever you read there should be read just as critically as anything else. As for Medium, this is another San Francisco based ‘cool idea’ site. There are some good articles there, too, but also not so good. One such article trashed… Read more »
Quite agree, brother. TGP is first and above all a media watch organisation, since the founding editor, and we’ve been watching Mother Jones and a handful of otehr once promising “left” media for a long time and seen their evolution, for worse. I started my political activism with a focus on media analysis and strategising to get the US left to pay attention to this crucial aspect of the struggle. They didn’t pay any heed to this, of course, and the practically nonexistent state of real left communications you see today is the product of that stupid—or criminal—neglect. Lack of… Read more »
Just did a web search for – “Shane Bauer calls for censorship of left” – and came up with the article linked below. It is from Mother Jones (in 2012) complaining about a MJ article by, you guessed it, Shane Bauer – being censored by a prison warden because it was critical of solitary confinement. Apparently what Mr. Bauer “learned” from this experience is that censorship is a “good thing,” or perhaps that best way to limit people’s ability to understand their circumstances is to carefully control what information is available to them. Then again, perhaps Mr. Bauer is secretly… Read more »
It should be obvious by now that liberals’ natural tolerance toward the insufferable problems caused by any exploitative order, global capitalism/imperialism in our day, derives directly from their investment in the status quo and remoteness —due to wealth and class privilege insulation—from the actual pain inflicted on the invisible and normally anonymous victims. It feels alright to tinker with superficialities forever when your own skin is not in the game and the bombers, death squads, debt collectors and other henchmen for the lopsided status quo are not knocking on your door.
Ides of March, Thursday, March 15; Deactivate your Facebook account.
Spread the word.