Cultural Detritus, Reviews, and Commentary
Link to an episode of the TV program “On Contact,” with Chris Hedges interviewing Helen Buyniski:
“Wikipedia – A Tool Of The Ruling Elite”
Bonus links: “Wikipedia: J’accuse” and “On The Rewriting of History” and “The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine” and “Evidence of Google Blacklisting of Left and Progressive Sites Continues to Mount” and “RYM Shitheads” and The Sublime Object of Ideology
Link to an article by Paul Street:
“Shameless Hypocrisy: Lessons of the Great Khashoggi Kill Story”
Street (following Herman and Chomsky) is wrong to suggest that this kind of journalism is hypocritical. Rather, Domenico Losurdo has explained how this disavowed politics of exclusion is central to the kind of liberalism that these sorts of journalists adhere to. See Liberalism: A Counter-History (“The political criticism that Losurdo directs towards liberalism is based upon a precise philosophical analysis: he exposes the lack of universalism in this train of thought: its inability to go beyond representing the special interests of the strongest classes.”).
Link to an article by Max Blumenthal & Jeb Sprague:
“Facebook Censorship of Alternative Media ‘Just the Beginning,’ Says Top Neocon Insider”
Bonus links: “Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies” and “Russiagate and the Men with Glass Eyes” and “Untying PropOrNot: Who They Are” and “Clinging to Collusion” and “Three Variations on Trump Quote”
Link to an article by Jordan Holycross:
“New York Times’ Trauma Tourism”
Bonus links: “Hold the Front Page” and “Food Stamp Fables”
Link to an article by John Pilger:
“Hold the Front Page. The Reporters Are Missing”
Bonus links: Critique of Cynical Reason, and “Three Variations on Trump Quote”, and “The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine”
Bonus quote:
“in the analysis of ideology, it is not simply a matter of seeing which account of reality best matches the ‘facts’, with the one that is closest being the least biased and therefore the best. As soon as the facts are determined, we have already — whether we know it or not — made our choice; we are already within one ideological system or another. The real dispute has already taken place over what is to count as the facts, which facts are relevant, and so on.”
Rex Butler, “What Is a Master-Signifier”
“There is an even greater problem with the underlying premise of those who proclaim the ‘death of truth’: they talk as if before (say, until the 1980s), in spite of all the manipulations and distortions, truth did somehow prevail, and that the ‘death of truth’ is a relatively recent phenomenon. Already a quick overview tells us that this was not the case. How many violations of human rights and humanitarian catastrophes remained invisible, from the Vietnam War to the invasion of Iraq? Just remember the times of Reagan, Nixon, Bush… The difference was not that the past was more ‘truthful’ but that ideological hegemony was much stronger, so that, instead of today’s greater melee of local ‘truths,’ one ‘truth’ (or, rather, one big Lie) basically prevailed. In the West, this was the liberal-democratic Truth (with a Leftist or Rightist twist). What is happening today is that, with the populist wave which unsettled the political establishment, the Truth/Lie that has served as an ideological foundation for this establishment is also falling apart. And the ultimate reason for this disintegration is not the rise of postmodern relativism but the failure of the ruling establishment, which is no longer able to maintain its ideological hegemony.”
Slavoj Žižek, “Three Variations on Trump: Chaos, Europe, and Fake News”
Bonus links: “Fake News: How to Watch the News, Episode 03” and “The World Is Returning to Pluralism After American Hegemony, Says German Philosopher” and “Why the Democratic and Republican Establishments Can’t Stop Insurgents” and “Centrists Are Pining for a Golden Age that Never Was”
Link to an article by Vijay Prashad, reviewing Seymour Hersh‘s book Reporter: A Memoir (2018):
Link to an article by Ted MacDonald:
Link to an article by Joe Lauria:
Rather curious how much press this unsubstantiated “Russian meddling” trope gets, whereas the old story of tampering with voting machines by Republican party operatives received little: “The Ghost of Rigged Elections Past: New Revelations on the Death of Michael Connell”. See also “Reflections on Media Gone Russia-Wild” and “The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy” and “Why Is Russiagate Rumbling Into the 2018 Midterms?” and “The Road to Disaster?” and “The New York Times as Judge and Jury”
Link to an article by Jim Kavanagh: