Now that Fox News and Tucker Carlson have parted ways, the news host’s former employer is doing everything possible to smear him and explain the network’s reasoning for having to let him go. The latest – a private text message from Carlson and other videos leaked to liberal outfit Media Matters, designed to paint Carlson as a racist, has fallen flat and actually depicted Carlson in, if anything, a positive light. Guest host Aaron Maté and Americans’ Comedian Kurt Metzger discuss Carlson’s comments, including his curious appraisal of the difference between how white people and people of color fight.
IMBECILITY UNBOUND
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Law & Order: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
9 minutes readP. GREANVILLE—Oliver is of course right. The judicial system is broken, it reflects the larger society with its myriad unfixable flaws, inequalities and pervasive corruption. And TV, until recently the most potent medium to control the masses (now equaled but not surpassed by social media), has always been in the business of selling us lies and conformity with the status quo. A big part of that job is to sell the public the notion that the repressive agencies are impartial, “class blind”, or on their side; or that they are benign, or, at worst, just incompetent but never evil. In that sense, Law & Order is part of a large roster of shows dedicated to burnishing the US capitalist “security” machine.
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Caity Johnstone’s Truth Bombs on Ukraine: Absolutely Must read.
41 minutes readCAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Empire apologists get upset when you talk about the fact that this war was provoked because a large amount of empire apologia in 2022 is built around pretending that provocation just isn’t a thing. By some trick of Orwellian doublethink, this concept we’ve all lived our entire lives knowing about and understanding is now suddenly a freakish and ridiculous invention of the Kremlin.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—This kind of thing happens so often because within an empire that is held together by propaganda, capitalism and mass military violence, those who are elevated to prominence within that empire have a symbiotic relationship with those things.
Someone who is worth a quarter billion dollars is unlikely to support the end of capitalism and the elimination of vast wealth inequality. Someone whose wealth and status come from Hollywood is unlikely to oppose the imperial propaganda machine of which Hollywood is a crucial part. Someone who benefits from status quo politics is unlikely to promote meaningful opposition to them.
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VV PUTIN—Of course, practice, international relations and the rules regulating them had to take into account the changes that took place in the world and in the balance of forces. However, this should have been done professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states and one’s own responsibility. Instead, we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism, coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves. The situation took a different turn.