“Alternative Media” Failure

To the “alternative” media, I would say this – as well as to the readers, who need to be more critical, not just of the major media, but to supposed alternatives, as well.

I would not play into the fear-mongering of the neoliberal fascists – who control most major media, as well as most governments, the IMF, ECB, Fed, OECD, WTO, WHO, CDC, Davos, Big Oil, Big Pharma, (to name a few power centres) along with the military industrial security complex, and the banking and “intelligence” cartels.

The neoliberal fascists are far more slick and polished, far better at PR and disguises, propaganda and public manipulations, and more in line with Huxley’s dark vision of a more subtle, scientific fascism; compared to the neoconservative fascists, such as Bush I, II, Cheney, and the Trump administration, who are more overt, more obvious, and less insidious – but no more dangerous.

The neoliberal fascists are every bit as dangerous as the neoconservative fascists surrounding Trump – and they seem intent on turning the coronavirus into a dress rehearsal for fascism.

Playing into the “pandemic” hysteria narrative is therefore unwise and extraordinarily dangerous. The virus could turn out to be more dangerous than present figures indicate, but at present, bathtub drownings and car accidents are much bigger problems, quite literally, not to mention the common flu – or hunger, poverty, obesity, poor diets, and war. But a fascist “response” to an exaggerated and hyped “crisis” – a manufactured crisis – is a very real and present danger.

See Trends Research for another perspective, and a clearer one, I would say. But alternative media getting propagandized themselves, and repeating the official narrative on major issues, is not surprising: most of the “alternative media” blew it on most if not all litmus test big stories of the past decade – the CIA/State Department coup in Ukraine, for example, and the geopolitics surrounding that event, or Russiagate, or the Cold War that followed.

The alternative media needs to step up its game. Playing into the hands of the two wings of the on-going, bipartisan neoliberal/neoconservative fascist coup, is not intelligent reporting or commentary. You are being played.

Thoughtful readers need to question everything – including their favourite media sources.

I am sounding a warning here, by the way, not taking an inventory of current alternative media performance on this or any other issue. It is a warning call, not a report card. I don’t follow the alternative media, as with the major media, enough for a detailed assessment of the present state of the former. The latter is, of course, a tragic, sick joke. The former dances between thoughtful relevance, and being an unwitting tool of self-serving elite powers.

JTR,
March 17, 2020

 

Further reading – big picture analysis:

Noam Chomsky, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control In Democratic Societies,
Year 501: The Conquest Continues,
Class Warfare,
and
Requiem For The American Dream: The Principles Of Concentration Of Wealth & Power
George Orwell, 1984
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, and Brave New World Revisited
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We
Jack London, Iron Heel
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
David C. Korten, When Corporations Rule The World
Susan George, Shadow Sovereigns
John Pilger, The New Rulers Of The World
John Perkins, A Game As Old As Empire, and
The New Confessions Of An Economic Hitman
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
Peter Phillips, Giants: The Global Power Elite
Murray Bookchin, The Ecology of Freedom
Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom
Bertrand Russell, Roads To Freedom
Joanna Macy, World As Lover, World As Self
Ronald Wright, A Short History Of Progress