Well, how do we get accurate news and how do we know what politicians are telling us is true? If our elected officials are not doing what we need, what can we do about it? Lets look at ABC, NBC, CBS CNN, and Fox “news”. We are living in a time of tribalism and we tend to read and watch programing that reinforces our current attitudes. Those that watch FOX believe that the other national news outlets are in the words of Donald Trump the fake news; that is, not true; this is simply false. Trump continues to vilify the news reporters who do not kowtow to him. He wants his base to not believe anything they report and accuses them of being the liberal left and; therefore, is a threat to the standing of the average person. Again, not true. NBC was owned by General Electric that had the most super fund pollution sites in our country but Bush allowed them to avoid paying to clean it up and instead passed the bill to the taxpayers. Comcast now owns NBC–the ownership was not and is not liberal. ABC is owned by Disney which is not exactly Walt’s Disney, but even if Walt was alive and running Disney, he was anti-union and anti-worker. CBS is owned by a conglomerate of owners. CNN is owned by Turner. MSNBC is the most liberal of the major broadcasting companies. FOX is owned by the Australian Rupert Murdoch and he uses it as a platform for his right wing propaganda beliefs. CBS fired Dan Rather for questionable reporting about George W. Bush’s time in the National Guard and NBC demoted Brian Williams for a lie. Fox, on the other hand does not fire people for lying as long as the lies enhance and reinforces Murdoch’s agenda. It seems that lying is totally acceptable manipulation of those who watch FOX. Example: Several years ago a large rally was held in Washington D. C. in the fall. It was something that Fox approved of and covered it extensively. People were filmed in front of trees in full fall foliage color. Another rally was held in either spring or summer but was lightly attended. What to do!? Simple, Fox just spliced fall shots of people in front of the fall colors hoping that people would not notice this. No one was fired for misleading the people. This misleading of the populace by FOX occurs regularly. If you watch FOX, start watching the other reputable outlets. Google fact checks to see if what you are seeing is true. Check voting of your local and national elected officials. You cannot trust that politician are being truthful. Subscribe to your newspaper and read the small weekly papers that report on local activities. Remember all politics are local. A good example of this is the attempt to take over school boards by the uber rich–people like Bill and Melinda Gates, the Walton family, the founder of Facebook and many others in the top 1%. Soon we will explore public education.
Some books to read: Slaying Goliath by Diane Ravitch. You will be shocked as was I about how extensive is the attempt to destroy public education and replace it with charter schools owned by the super rich.
What Unites Us by Dan Rather
A Very Stable Genius by Phillip Rucker and Carol Leonnig