Andy Borowitz | The New Yorker: Bar Officially Cannot Be Lowered
A bit of fun close to home from New Yorker columnist Andy Borowitz. Professor Davis Logsdon leads the University of Minnesota Team.
Matt Taibbi: Sandra Bland Was Murdered
Taibbi: After Ferguson, it was the same thing. Editorials insisted that the solution to the brutality problem lay in "less criminality within the black community." The officer who shot Michael Brown, Darren Wilson – the same guy who called Brown a "demon" – insisted that Brown would still be alive "if he'd just followed orders."
FAIR: Mental Illness Doesn’t Explain Mass Violence—but Neither Does ‘Islamic Extremism’
FAIR: With the latest mass shooting in Chattanooga, corporate media followed the usual pattern of being ready and willing to label violence as “terrorism” so long as the suspect is Muslim—
FAIR: Some Things Considered, Mostly by White Men
From the article: A new FAIR study finds that NPR commentary is dominated by white men and almost never directly addresses political issues.
Henry A. Giroux | Trumping America
Giroux: Rather than viewing Trump’s comments as a political virus that has deep roots in nativist apoplexy and a long legacy of racism and state violence, his despicable remarks are reduced to an uncivil rant by a bullying member of the billionaire class with no reference to the unmarked status of white privilege and its underlying logic of white supremacy. Such commentary at its core is superficial, duplicitous, and represents a flight from responsibility and a politics of denial.
Chris Hedges: The Lonely American
Hedges: We must connect with those around us. It is only the communal that will save us. It is only the communal that will allow us to build a movement to resist. And it is only the communal that will sustain us through mutual aid as climate change and economic collapse increasingly dominate our future.
Salon| “We are in a revolutionary moment”: Chris Hedges explains why an uprising is coming — and soon
Hedges: If things unravel [in the U.S.], our backlash may very well be a rightwing backlash — a very frightening rightwing backlash. We who care about populist movements [on the left] are very weak, because in the name of anti-communism these movements have been destroyed; we are almost trying to rebuild them from scratch. We don’t even have the language to describe the class warfare that is being unleashed upon us by this tiny, rapacious, oligarchic elite. But we on the left are very disorganized, unfocused, and without resources.
▶ Noam Chomsky: If US wants to study ‘weaponization’ of media, US should study itself
Noam Chomsky says that America’s media machine has been spreading its own form of propaganda throughout the world, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge its own culpability in international conflicts.
The Chicago Anonymous Marches Against Mainstream Media With New Tactics
The canvassing technique showed considerable efficacy in spreading truth and awareness, educating the people of Chicago. By Alex Freeman for The Fifth Column MintPressNews.com April 6, 2015 Chicago, IL (TFC) – On Saturday, April 4, activist groups across the country held events to raise awareness that the mainstream media is a sales and propaganda arm More
Bernie Suarez: 6 Immediate Health Benefits of Not Believing Mainstream Media
Suarez: When you disconnect yourself from the 24/7 lies that mainstream media has become, especially since the legalization of propaganda which was implemented in the United States by an amendment to the 2012 NDAA, you will notice you will became a bit more aware of yourself than you were before.
Mark Fiore animated cartoon: Pam Geller’s Islamification
Fiore: There are only so many ways you can say, “shooting cartoonists is wrong and free speech is great.” Feel free to check out my previous responses to cartoonists being attacked or Muhammad cartoons being drawn. When I heard about the “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, I was curious about who would organize such a “festival.” (Having organized a cartoon festival myself, I think you can hardly call a two-hour meeting a “festival,” but I digress.)
Video exposes the truth about mainstream media
A study by the University of Maryland found that on average those Americans receiving their news from for-profit media outlets were almost three times as likely to have inaccurate perceptions related to American foreign policy as those receiving news from nonprofit news sources.