571–580 of 596 posts
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If if was not clear my point is that it evolved with the current form of government of the time but never departed from the original goal of for those in power to conserve their power.
People in power who do not want to conserve their power are incredibly rare, regardless of their professed ideological orientation.
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The "states" national guard can be federalized at a moment's notice. The president need only give the order and put his signature on it. At that point, they report to the President and no one else. This isn't theory, Alabama's was federalized some time when my dad was a kid. The president never rescinded the order.
In addition to the National Guard, there's also the State Guard (or State Defense Force in some states), which cannot be federalized.
I suppose this is in response to this executive order: ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/endi... I would add that PBS has this to say about public media funding: > The U.S. is almost literally off the chart for how little we allocate towards our public media. At the federal level, it comes out to a little over $1.50 per person per year. Compare that…
What a poor example. As a German, we are forced to pay much more than that, about 220 euro annually. Only a small percentage actually goes into news and such, most are entertainment programs. I don't know anyone who is younger/my age that is in favor of it or consumes it. It is basically the boomers forcing us to subsidize their shitty crime shows. Annually they collect about 9 billion euro, no surprise the author of…
Its pretty heinous, especially for those of us who simply don't consume mainstream Austrian media in any form.
However, there is nothing to be done. The tax has to be paid.
ORF is heinous propaganda, and I despise it, as I do with all mainstream Austria media, which is inexcusably corrupt.
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I really dislike this line of argument that goes like "everything is the same as everything else so why don't you oppose this?". Okay, but Fox News is obviously fundamentally different because it's a private entertainment program. That's why it's bought out and influenced by the ultra-wealthy. It's a propaganda program for capitalists. You can't just say that's "the same" as a neutrally-funded public program. You can…
FOX isn't a private entertainment programme, it's a channel that's focused exclusively on news and current affairs. State media is the one that includes drama, comedy etc. If your argument is based on that distinction you'll have to rethink it. If it's just left wing good, right wing bad, then you've made my argument for me!
Nobody actually thinks Fox is high quality. That's not why they watch it. They just perceive other news to be just as bad, and it's cathartic to hear their own lies screamed back at them.
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So, is Abrego Garcia back in the US and actually having a real trial? What of the other 200+ people who were illegally taken? Still there despite many court orders to return them? The courts have asked for those people to be released from ICE custody, they haven't complied with a lot of those requests. The courts have asked for them to stop abducting people off the streets without cause but they continue doing it. It…
The misleading perspective is your generalization from things that have happened to things that haven’t happened. The system as it currently exists - overzealous immigration enforcement which is often but not always enjoined - cannot ship me to El Salvador. It’s true that there’s a big danger of someone building a different system that could change that! Preventing that from happening is the key political challenge o…
I can guess the reason: your name is white-sounding. The system's mostly been shipping people who seem Hispanic to El Salvador.
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In the US the 'press' / media is supposed to be a quasi 4th branch of government (society by the people, for the people). Such organizations are important for the voting public to remain informed and thus elect with an informed choice. ... It would also not surprise me if ~25-35% of the US population 'did not trust PBS / NPR' because they didn't like what they heard and thus preferred to disbelieve the sources.
Unfortunately, the media is put in a position of desperate survival mode with the advent of the attention economy. Which has unsurprisingly lead to the "reality-TV-ification" of TV news, and the lazy "here's-what-is-happening-according-to-twitter-journalism" of print media.
It wasn't always quite that bad, it used to be the same stuff repeated for people in venues like lounges at airports or restaurants that wanted to cater to business crowds.
Then around 2001 there was that terrorist attack on the US ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks ). Networks did 24/7 'news' coverage; ever more of a spectacle as time dragged on. In recollection their need for attention, to excite and draw in eyeballs, probably helped with the implicit goal of 'terrorism' to instill terror.
Rather than behaving as rational adults, digesting a negative event, reflecting on what could be done differently ( do not negotiate with terrorists, do not remain passive sheep on an airplane, and FFS lock the cockpit doors ); everyone 'blinked' and caved. Freedoms and liberty were traded for news as entertainment, security theater, and excuses to enter wars 'on terrorism' with unclear goals and objectives.
The 'Internet' probably didn't help in offering a cheaper and supposedly 'better targeted' venue for ads. Other than informative ads (X exists, it can do Y), I find the entertainment focus to be intellectual junk food and noise against the signal. It would probably be a public good if that were heavily regulated.
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I really dislike this line of argument that goes like "everything is the same as everything else so why don't you oppose this?". Okay, but Fox News is obviously fundamentally different because it's a private entertainment program. That's why it's bought out and influenced by the ultra-wealthy. It's a propaganda program for capitalists. You can't just say that's "the same" as a neutrally-funded public program. You can…
FOX isn't a private entertainment programme, it's a channel that's focused exclusively on news and current affairs. State media is the one that includes drama, comedy etc. If your argument is based on that distinction you'll have to rethink it. If it's just left wing good, right wing bad, then you've made my argument for me!
No, that's not my argument.
My argument is that public and private media have different incentive structures so you can't just compare them like that.
And, in addition, the right hates anything public. Of course they want to dismantle public media, because that's what they do. They want to dismantle public schools too, and social security. Because then they, and their friends, can get their slice. The problem with public programs is that rich can't buy them.
And this isn't an unfair characterization of the right, this is their explicit goals. Again, with SS, the second it was made into law it was under attack by the right. They'll lie to you and say "it's insolvent! It doesn't work! We need to privatize it... if me and my cronies control it, then it would be much better!" But of course, what happens is they sell it off, you don't get your retirement, and the money gets stolen. They know that, that's why they want to do it.
> FOX isn't a private entertainment programme, it's a channel that's focused exclusively on news and current affairs.
See, this makes me think you're trolling. Come on now.
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What in the world are you on about? They published an interview with an author who had - admittedly - controversial takes looting. You make it sound like they were telling people to go smash windows. It's telling that you chose not to link the actual piece: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178...
The “admission” was not part of the original publication. They added both that note and changed the title well after the fact. https://archive.is/2020.08.27-191914/https://www.npr.org/sec... The mere fact that they platformed such an extreme, insane viewpoint is the issue. If you can find a similarly sympathetic platforming of a far right nutter by NPR, maybe I’ll take you seriously. Show me one NPR story about the J…
"hand-wringing about looting" -> "condemnation of looting"
"bemoaned the property damage" -> "denounced the property damage"
"Korean small-business owner murdering 15-year-old Latasha Harlins" -> "Korean small-business owner [killing] 15-year-old Latasha Harlins"
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Yes, the UK is slowly backing away from enforcing the license fee (they also talk of decriminalization), partly because the immorality of it is clear to everyone and because those who don't care for it are now in the majority. Nonetheless, there's no reason not to go all the way. There should not be a TV license, let alone one enforced by criminal law. Regular subscription and video scrambling systems are enough and…
I wasn't even talking about enforcement, I neither pay nor fall afoul of the terms. I can't find any evidence of BBC employees calling it "far left", all I find when searching for that is right wing people calling it far left for not agreeing with them enough as well as some more "scientific" analysis that seemed to show it having a right wing bias. Most news bias raters put BBC as centre or centre left (it probably…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43881222
But as you just discovered, there are endless examples.
Dismissing criticism of BBC bias as "right wing people calling it far left for not agreeing with them enough" is almost tautological: yes, that's what bias looks like, the people it's biased against will disagree with them a lot. Not because they're just wrong and the BBC is just right, but because the BBC fires right wing journalists and hires/promotes left wing journalists who then tell themselves that left wing beliefs are True and right wing beliefs are False and thus the news should automatically be left wing. It has been like this for years.
A few more simple examples of institutionalized bias:
1. During Brexit Nick Robinson wrote an article saying the Today programme no longer has any obligation to balance its coverage of Remain vs Leave; i.e. stating in public writing that the BBC is biased.
2. Many on the right don't believe climatology is scientific or accurate, but the BBC has a written policy of refusing to interview or platform such views. They just systematically forbid it and have done for decades. They only report the left's view that there is a crisis. That's political bias.
3. The BBC broadcast a documentary about Palestine in which the child narrator turned out to be the son of a Hamas official.
4. BBC on the US election: "On the campaign trail, Donald Trump drove his message of fear all the way to the White House but it was based on a misconception. Rather than an invasion, America has long been dependent on the work of these migrants in agriculture and manufacturing, making them both essential and dispensable…For his opponents these feel like dizzying and dark times."
Of course if they discover they have a journalist who criticizes the left they fire him immediately citing neutrality (see Chris Middleton).
All this makes a mockery of the concept of public service broadcasting. The BBC is gonna die, it's inevitable, and when it does, it will be because its staff relentlessly abused the public for decades by exploiting the tax based nature of its service.