David Broder – Being Anti-Trump Isn’t Enough

Link to an article by David Broder comparing Silvio Berlusconi to Donald Trump:

“Being Anti-Trump Isn’t Enough”

Bonus Quote:

“all the Leftists’ and liberal democrats’ worry about the danger of neo-Fascism lurking beneath Berlusconi’s victory is misplaced and, in a way, much too optimistic: Fascism is still a determinate political project, while in the case of Berlusconi, there is ultimately nothing lurking beneath, no secret ideological project, just the sheer assurance that things will function, that he will do better.  In short, Berlusconi is post-politics at its purest.  The ultimate sign of ‘post-politics’ in all Western countries is the growth of a managerial approach to government: government is reconceived as a managerial function, deprived of its properly political dimension.”  Slavoj Žižek, Revolution at the Gates, p. 303.

Bonus links: “Donald Trump’s Travel Expenses in 10 Weeks Cost US Taxpayers as Much as Barack Obama Spent in Two Years” and “On the Differences of Comedy in the Time of Alt Right Transgression”

Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky – The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine

Link to a video narrated by Amy Goodman about the “Propaganda Model” of Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky:

“The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine”

Incidentally, this video helpfully updates the “anti-communism” filter of the original version of the theory.  But the original theory always came up a bit short by failing to make clear that these five filters are really about the specific tactics of liberal capitalist media in an ideological war.  Liberal capitalists find these filters to be “correct”, in the sense of being a reflection of their own ideology.  Critics necessarily approach this with a different ideology.

Bonus links: Inventing Reality: The Politics of the News Media (an earlier Marxist rather than anarchist take on the same topic), “Monopoly Media Manipulation”, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty, Propaganda, and The Sublime Object of Ideology