EDITOR—Matt Orfalea in one of his inimitable spoofs demonstrates that for all its ostensible diversity, US media does not dare deviate from the official monotonic narrative on any of the important topics defining reality for most people in the West. This was seen, for example, with the phenomenon of Russiagate, still an unchallenged hoax now making a comeback with the expected victory of Trump in 2024, and currently the narrative gyrations covering the Ukraine fiasco, the imperial genocide of Palestinians, and the constant demonisation of Washington’s main designated enemies, Russia, China, and Iran.
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EDITOR—Testing the limits of actual journalism on an establishment franchise, John Oliver flogs the Supreme Court, the ethically questionable gifts some of the justices receive, and makes an offer to Clarence Thomas that could ruin John’s life. Genuinely. You’ll see.
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EDITOR—The evils of animal factories are well-known to an increasing number of humans, but the attachment to animal-based food is old and deeply grounded in cultural traditions. This discussion may hopefully expand your consciousness about the whole thing. The first prejudice that needs to be left behind is that this topic is frivolous and that it has no place in a world rocked by so many “more serious problems.”
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EDITOR—When Stewart first “retired” from the TV spotlight about a decade ago, we were not among the mourners. In fact, as card-carrying contrarians, we celebrated Stewart’s departure in the only way we saw fit: By reposting this classic, hard-to-surpass analysis by Steve Almond of what Jon Stewart and his protegé Stephen Colbert really represent in the maelstrom of American culture. As Almond astutely notes, “far from actually serving a newsworthy role, let alone consistently educating mass audiences and criticizing the empire…Stewart and Colbert are trivializers of evil, their legacy one of defanging the truth about systemic evil by hurling toothless parody at it.”
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PATRICK LAWRENCE—There is no need to wonder what causes this departure from observable facts, diabolically purposeful as it often is, and what comes of it. This may seem an unprecedented moment in human history, but there are, indeed, many precedents. Barbara Tuchman told us all about them in The March of Folly (Knopf, 1984): These grand lapses reflect an absence of intellect, vision, and principle at leadership level and lead ineluctably to failure and one or another kind of mess. The Ukraine case, the preoccupation in Munich last week, could not possibly make this clearer.
