It crept in overnight, while we were sleeping. Fascism showed its face not with jackboots and concentration camps…not yet, anyway…but rather as just another day in Capitalist America. Two major media companies, the Washington Post and the LA Times, made decisions to capitulate to the man they fear will be elected president before a single vote has been counted. They decided not to run editorials endorsing their preferred candidate for president, Kamala Harris, because the owners of the companies, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong, are afraid if they anger Donald Trump, he will hit them where it hurts: In their pocketbooks.
Thank you, Lucien, for your forceful response to our dissent into fascism. I have just subscribed to your newsletter. Independent, trustworthy journalists like you are a key ingredient to keeping our democracy alive. I left this comment below on Robert Hubble‘s post today. He is another light in the darkness:
This time by exploring the life of Dorothy Thompson, an American reporter who was expelled from Germany by the Nazis. Thompson remained a loud, anti-Nazi voice throughout the war and wrote with courage and conviction. One of Thompson’s articles that Dr. Richardson explores was written for Harper’s Magazine and it is instructive about who will eventually “go Nazi.”
Today we witnessed Jeff Bezos “go Nazi” and take down with him one of the pillars of the American press. My mother was an investigative reporter, and with all sympathy to those reporters who signed the letter against the decision not to endorse a candidate, walking out en masse to protest is much more powerful. These talented reporters are needed elsewhere - they should leave a newspaper that is leaning toward serving a Trump agenda. When you live in a country where anything can be bought and sold, this is the result. The intertwining of billionaires with government contracts and freedoms of the press and professional credentials, necessarily leads to corruption as the goal is always going to be increased profit, moral integrity be damned.
Amen. These are times regardless of who wins the presidency when everyone with a conscience will be called upon to put action where their words are. I don’t know if it’s too late because the oligarchs have overwhelmed the capitalist system whether we can have the power to push back successfully. It remains an open question question. Corporate journalism is dead and Substack has helped to show the way with folks like Truscott, Hubbell, Richardson, Reich, Snyder and Haas.
Who thought that Moguls should be the saviors of journalism? Bad idea and we are now learning why. In the same way, who thought it was a good idea to privatize outer space? Another very bad idea. We have practically given up on the notion that the airways belong to the public. Those who take over media outlets for use as their private propaganda machines should have their licenses revoked. The fairness doctrine needs to be reestablished but that will depend upon a trifecta at the election . What else remains? Nonviolent civil disobedience such as Lucien advocates here. We may be headed to the time like India when Gandhi called for massive disobedience by millions of people who staged massive walkout sto cripple the country. We seem to have forgotten the lessons of Martin Luther King and I believe it’s past time we follow our beloved martyr’s amazing example.
Below are the steps the dictators of the world have used to seize power. Can you tell me which ones Trump, the insurrectionist, has not used?
Make voters doubt the legitimacy of the elections.
Take over the courts so the leader's criminal deeds become legitimate.
Make voters distrust all media that does not laud the leader.
Make the voters blame scapegoats for some of the nation's problems.
Make the voters hate those who do not agree with the leader. They are the enemy. They do not love their country.
Tell the voters not to believe what they see, hear or read. Only believe the leader.
Tell the voters that only the leader can fix what is wrong.
Tell the Big Lie over and over- soon most will believe it. (eg almost all MAGA voters believe the election was stolen even though Republicans won in the states he lost. Even though he lost all his court cases. Even though his AG Barr and other minions told him he lost. WTF?)
I just looked at buying this and Amazon popped up. Irony is a bitch. Guess I'll be going to the used bookstore for this one and other books from now on. Thanks for the recommendation
I'm all for buying books, but in the event your local used bookstore hasn't a copy of "The True Believer," I suggest that not-so-quaint institution, your local library. Many (most?) metropolitan public library systems have their catalogues online, and searchable, by title, author, and subject. May we share a quick moment of silent appreciation for Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey, who, in 1876, punllished his creation: the Dewey Decimal System for cataloguing library books? Done? Now we get to hock a lunger at his reputation for sexual harassment of his female librarian colleagues, his racism, and his antisemitism.
Make voters doubt the legitimacy of the elections. Elections can and have been manipulated throughout American history. ***Read Joe Conforte and Story Country, Nevada for a small town version that ultimately affected Ronald Reagan winning his election. It's a fascinating story.
Take over the courts so the leader's criminal deeds become legitimate. *** I was a naive 22 yr old messenger and handed $4500 cash once under the table to a judge in Auburn CA. His son became a famous politician. It's all corrupt.
Make voters distrust all media that does not laud the leader. ***Last time I checked MSNBC or ABC last night, they presented a completely unbalanced presidential OP section clearly lauding Harris and vilifying Trump. Probably you can you tube it today. They all use this.
Make the voters blame scapegoats for some of the nation's problems. ***The nation's problems are deep and profound and go back generations. By Scapegoat do you mean Biden? Harris? Excuse me, what happened in Afghanistan? On the border? Would blaming them for the worst foreign policy decision in American history be unfair or scapegoating for Trump's deal to pull out? After all, it was Trump who made the deal, Abdul the Taliban leader who breached it, and Biden who looked the other way.
Make the voters hate those who do not agree with the leader. ***They are the enemy. They do not love their country. I do not agree with Kamala Harriss' evaluation of those who do not agree with her or the Democratic Party's view on freedom of speech. Pro abortion, I guess I am the enemy of both now.
Tell the voters not to believe what they see, hear or read. Only believe the leader. ***Read the response above.
Tell the voters that only the leader can fix what is wrong. ***Yeah, Trump the narcissist uses this one exclusively. Problem is for the Progressive Left, he might actually fix a lot that is wrong and that'll drive them crazy. As for me? I'd just like the things broken (like the border and the economy and the education system) fixed. I don't give a shit who gets the job done.
Tell the Big Lie over and over- soon most will believe it. (eg almost all MAGA voters believe the election was stolen even though Republicans won in the states he lost. Even though he lost all his court cases. Even though his AG Barr and other minions told him he lost. WTF?)***WTF? Trump KNOWS he lost. It was a loss, plain and simple. The popular vote underlines this, if there's any question. I have one for you: what if either Trump or Kamala lose by, say, 345 votes out of almost 200,000,000 cast? Could happen. Maybe. Do we recount for months? Years? Or toss the whole system out and go back to paper ballots? Maybe if we used paper ballots (again) we won't have to face the trial that's coming in November.
If Trump knows he lost, how is it plain and simple that he refused to peacefully transfer power as every president in our history has done. It is not plain and simple to have claimed election fraud over and over for his own ends, misled millions of us, fomented an insurrection, sat there watching it on tv while congress was under attack by his mob.
Fix things / as in dismantle the department of education?
The economy-as in we have the strongest economy in the world and the high prices on everyday items are likely caused more by corporate price gouging than inflation -which by the way is under control -
Fix the border as in kill the strongest bi-partisan border bill ever crafted?
Dude, you gotta think a bit more beyond the cleverly crafted storylines coming out of right wing media outlets.
Trump proposed a 2000% tariff( his words) on imported cars. Trump said China would pay for the tariffs. Wrong. Consumers pay for tariffs.
Most economists agree that trumps “policies” would be far worse for the economy.
There is no migrant crime wave.
Immigrants commit fewer crimes than red blooded Americans.
Taking top secret documents IS a crime. Photo ops at Arlington IS against the rules.
Grabbing woman against their will is evil.
Wake up man. Think it through a little bit more.
Would you hire that guy? Leave him in a room with your daughter?
First consider how many small businesses Walmart has crushed out of existence. And its employment policies. It’s state rule to keep workers under the poverty level so that they rely upon welfare to survive.
I may be blind - and I must check further - but I’m looking at Target right now.
You are right about walmart Patris, everywhere they have opened one of their stores they have decimated all of the small family owned businesses around them. Small towns across the US are ghost towns because a walmart opened, empty storefronts are very common. When I served on the executive board of the Cinematographers Guild in LA we supported local grocery store workers who went on strike because their owners were demanding pay cuts in order to fight walmart which was threatening to move into LA, an embrace of walmart is the kiss of death to small town America.
NYC has fought Walmart like the plague it is. The pandemic left my NYC neighborhood half ghost town. If Walmart were near I doubt anything would be left.
It was a chain reaction of depressed pay and lower benefits for their suppliers employees too when Walmart demanded lower cost per unit and forced those suppliers to cut as much as they could - from their employees.
Agreed... the problem with Walmart Plus is ... Walmart. They are guilty of all that Patris has stated, and with the increased attention and the (potential) demise of Amzn Prime, they may also get drunk with power. I like the idea of entering the thing you want into a search bar for multiple choices.
Don't limit your alternates to Walmart. After you choose an item, condense precise product info in a search term, and enter that into your search engine. You probably have at least a few choices at comparable or better prices. To be consistent, I hope your search engine is an alternative to google, which has been so destructive to the news industry.
I downloaded Honey years ago. You can bookmark items you want and Honey will search for the best price. You also earn points that are worth $$ to redeem. I ear points from Kroger, tractor Supply - it doesn't have to be from stores that Honey recommends.
It has saved me a lot of fruitless searches. Many times the sites it finds are less expensive than Amazon. It works on Amazon, too. It will also try bunches of coupon codes and will apply if it finds a match.
DIdn't Elon Musk (a friend who was a top auto industry PR man told me they called him Ego Most) make his first big buckaroos outta Pay Pal? Which is now owned by eBay. A quick search says around 4,000 institutional investors own 95% of eBay. CEO: Jamie Iannone. AFL-CIO website says that Iannone compensation for fiscal year 2023 was $21,560,669, which was 135 times its median employee's pay for that fiscal year. He got his MBA at Stanford. It's absolutely perfect that almost all the biggest swinging dicks in Silicon Valley went to a university named for Leland Stanford, one of the biggest robber barons of the 19th Century, and a founder of the Republican Party in California. Oh! May I refill your irony glass to overflowing? Stanford, elected Governor of California, sent a message to the state legislature in 1862 with the following: "Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population... There can be no doubt but that the presence among us of numbers of degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race..."
What the name means to me: My Uncle Pud, who looked like the Monopoly game Mr Moneybags, when mrentioned in the local newspapers was Leland Stanford Morris. He sold my mother a lot of NYLife insurance. He and my father's sister—without issue, as they say— lived the tastefully understated good life in an enchanting honeymoon house above Ohio River steamboat traffic. Down a wandering path, the estate had a guesthouse where I got to stay when I visited overnight. Till my aunt bounced a check. Uncle Pud, gone senile without anyone noticing, had hollowed out his business, then his personal accounfs, paying off his brother/partner's secret gambling debts. Elegant Aunt Freda became Leland Stanford Morris's caregiver. Penniless, they lived a couple years longer on welfare in one hotel room. Three days after Uncle Pud died, Freda, apparently healthy till then, did the same.
i have spoken before about the rise of fascism and compared it to Argentina and the rise of Perón. The dismantling of the press. My parents with shutters down and whispering against the government, telling me not to EVER repeat in school what i heard at home! And then i’m school with my first reader every day having to repeat the words “I love Perón” and “I love Evita” while looking at their photos. in so many sad ways I am glad my parents are not around to witness the destruction of the country they loved so much. And I pray now for my own children and grandchildren with hope and optimism in my heart that they will never be afraid to speak out !
I limited my retribution for the WP/Bezos massive cowardice to not renewing my subscription, and writing why in an LTE. I like Amazon Prime and its many benefits too much to drop it, but the WP and Amazon really are two different things.
Anyhow, yesterday I signed on as a $5 per month "Supporter"to The Guardian. That should help cover most of the many things I will miss about the WP.
Amazon and the WP aren’t “two different things” as they are both owned by Jeff Bezos who ordered this action. The only way to get the attention of these folks is to hit them where it hurts, and that’s the pocketbook. I find dropping Prime is a small price to pay. Be STRONG!
I understand your decision. I am unfortunately reliant upon Prime myself. As a partially disabled septuagenarian with an adult special needs child I'm dependent on it for goods and services.
I agree about supporting The Guardian and not renewing your Post subscription and understand about Prime. I have become too dependent on it and have, lately, noticed that there are many more problems with it such as late deliveries. It feels to me that they are going down anyway. What really pisses me off (pardon my French) is that Bezos and all these other Billionaires could live extremely comfortably anywhere the rest of their entire lives without ever "earning" another cent. But the rest of us mortals will suffer. EFF them! I keep thinking that Bezos is like his dildo space ship. All dick and no balls.
That's the way it is, Lucian. Acquiesence in advance is what they did for Hitler too. I've been babbling about the long progression of fascism in this country for what seems like forever. I grew up with the John Birchers calling my parents commies, and me too, at school. I saw it then as an on going progression. Rachel Maddow laid out the evedence in Ultra that backed up what I could not document as I observed and was subject to how deep the the threat of right wingnut Southern Baptist cristyuns was. I knew of Father Coughlin back then, but untill Ultra, I had no idea how much of the Catholic Churth is Fascist too.
Bezos and Soon-Chong are cowards. Sulzberg's a rich crybaby. "Biden won't play ball with me so I'll play with the other team, mommy!"
The legacy media is dead. Substack is becoming a new forceful platform. That is where the real journalism is beginning to take over. You know all the good ones, as well as yourself, who hundreds of thousands rely upon for the truth. I subscribe to at lest twenty of them alone. Let's hope our voices reach far enough there to make the difference. VOTE!
Great idea, Lucian, for a walkout by the newspaper staff, though I doubt it will happen, because people are fearful of losing jobs, no matter how much their jobs are already threatened due to the newspapers’ finances. But the criticism should continue to be put heavily on the owners of WaPo and the LA Times, because they are the ones who put their future profits above the future continuation of democracy and a free society.
Timothy Snyder, the Yale professor and expert on totalitarianism, in his book On Tyranny, says that the first rule is not to voluntarily give up your rights to a totalitarian wannabe. That is exactly what Bezos and Soon-Shiong have done, with their “craven subservience” to Trump as you so aptly put it. He’s not a dictator - yet, and let’s hope the turnout in the next 10 days is a blue tsunami that washes him and his fascist cult out from our political lives and our society.
I am not going to ask anybody to quit their job in the newspaper business because the owner did something terrible. There are 50-500 people dying to take over any job with a major newspaper. Besides, if that person had kids, mortgage, car loans, etc., I would not ask nor condone that that person commit financial, professional, and personal suicide. Lots of seemingly well-off people are really on the edge these days.
This has to be said for people in this position. When you're the major breadwinner, you have to be careful. One time when I walked in the door at 10am, my husband said, "Quit again, did you?" I have a very bad temper, and after I had put up with an intolerable situation for three months or so, I would sit down at my desk, type a letter of resignation, print and sign it, pack all my stuff, put the letter on my boss's desk, and walk out the door. If I have brought up the situation several times, and nothing's changed, I would just walk out the door with no notice. After all, how often do you get notice you're going to be laid off at the end of the day or hour? But my husband always had a job, and I could always go back to temping as a teachers aide in schools. We almost always lived well within our income and my parents would help out if I needed money. But not everyone has the support system I had.
We owned a personnel agency. In our state if you quit (and it is proven so), you did not qualify for unemployment compensation, which was for 6 months or more if extended by the Feds. That is a big deal.
I only filed for unemployment if I was laid off. Before 2008 I was always able to work for a temp agency, so my unemployment would extend for a long time. Sometimes I got worked non-stop for a temp agency until I got a permanent job. I had really good relationships with temp agencies for a long time until they disappeared.
This is what Tim Snyder (On Tyranny) has been warning us about — obeying in advance — to tyrants. NYT is guilty too. They have stopped doing endorsements. Terrifying
Sure, and everything they write about her is a put down. “Rain in the forecast for Thursday. Here’s why this could be bad news for Harris campaign.”
Ok, so that’s sarcasm. But read it first yourself. The NYT owns our beloved Boston Globe and I have learned not to read anything with a NYT byline in it, because if there’s a shred of positivity for Harris, it appears only begrudgingly after about 15 column inches of Trump sanewashing and excuses.
If you were surprised. you must have been reading selectively. While I don't endorse every word in the nyt, to say they have denigrated her for three months, implying a free ride for our boy, is nonsense.
Auntie Beans—You are describing what the Boston Globe chooses to run of what the New York Times syndicates—not what the New York Times publishes. Times bashers have often as not canceled their subscriptions and have no idea what's in it currently.
I was so pleased when the above article was published at the end of September. Frankly I was a bit surprised because their newspaper spent a great deal of time “sanewashing” the monster.
i believe those reticent or still undecided …. the word fascism means little to them, obviously, or they’d know by now what the fuck to do. Hit econ issues that Biden Admin has accomplished.
Amen. Ann Telnaes Wapo editorial cartoonist, said it best. The lights were turned off. By the owner / publisher. It's not about immigrants. It's about trust in America's formerly leading voice for news and opinion. Let's pay for a new proverbial light bill.
Timothy Snyder has observed that Bezos has conveyed to Trump that Trump can bully him, which means that Bezos's effort to appease Trump will backfire. But Bezos's effort will fail for another reason as well. He has allowed the Post to publish columnists and letters to the editor criticizing his decision, which necessarily criticize Trump as well. Even Trump, as stupid as he is, knows that Bezos did not have to allow that, and the demented toddler fascist, if he becomes president, will make Bezos pay for that.
I’ll say this for LKTIV - unlike other writers chronicling impending doom, he actually offers solutions. I love the idea of a strike at WaPo and LA Times; sadly it’s unlikely to happen. Someone like Woodward has little to lose, yet I’ll be shocked if he were to strike or resign. That’s the problem in individualistic Ammurrica, everyone cares only for their own tuchus.
But I remain nauseously optimistic – I think there are just enough people who have looked up from Candy Crush long enough to see the approaching storm and will vote for Harris so that this nightmare will eventually end.
My god, Norris, I hope you're right!! I, too, am "nauseously optimistic" (great phrase!!). The mere thought of the Orange Turd winning makes me queasy & weak in the knees.
"When you are bullied, you STAND UP or you lose your self-respect and your dignity and your right to life."
If you can stand up. There are people who cannot, a fact which makes standing up all that more important for those of us who can. Remembering schoolyard bullies, the solution was usually to get an older sibling or large friend involved, or maybe gather a group for security. Sometimes a teacher would see the bullying and blow a whistle, and make the bully disappear. Here and now, the solution looks like we need to gather together for our own security. There is strength in numbers and power in collective action, so please participate. 2024 is going to be a lesson about bullies. Which lesson remains to be seen.
A lot of people are canceling their subscriptions to these two papers because of their cowardice. Let's see how they hemorrhage money as that continues. (I don't subscribe to the WaPo but I will cancel my LAT subscription after the election.) If they're worried about their economics maybe they should think about that.
Thank you, Lucien, for your forceful response to our dissent into fascism. I have just subscribed to your newsletter. Independent, trustworthy journalists like you are a key ingredient to keeping our democracy alive. I left this comment below on Robert Hubble‘s post today. He is another light in the darkness:
On October 21, Heather Cox Richardson wrote one of her many historical lessons: (https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/october-21-2024?r=ct6a&utm_medium=ios)
This time by exploring the life of Dorothy Thompson, an American reporter who was expelled from Germany by the Nazis. Thompson remained a loud, anti-Nazi voice throughout the war and wrote with courage and conviction. One of Thompson’s articles that Dr. Richardson explores was written for Harper’s Magazine and it is instructive about who will eventually “go Nazi.”
(https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/ho-goes-nazi/)
Today we witnessed Jeff Bezos “go Nazi” and take down with him one of the pillars of the American press. My mother was an investigative reporter, and with all sympathy to those reporters who signed the letter against the decision not to endorse a candidate, walking out en masse to protest is much more powerful. These talented reporters are needed elsewhere - they should leave a newspaper that is leaning toward serving a Trump agenda. When you live in a country where anything can be bought and sold, this is the result. The intertwining of billionaires with government contracts and freedoms of the press and professional credentials, necessarily leads to corruption as the goal is always going to be increased profit, moral integrity be damned.
Amen. These are times regardless of who wins the presidency when everyone with a conscience will be called upon to put action where their words are. I don’t know if it’s too late because the oligarchs have overwhelmed the capitalist system whether we can have the power to push back successfully. It remains an open question question. Corporate journalism is dead and Substack has helped to show the way with folks like Truscott, Hubbell, Richardson, Reich, Snyder and Haas.
Who thought that Moguls should be the saviors of journalism? Bad idea and we are now learning why. In the same way, who thought it was a good idea to privatize outer space? Another very bad idea. We have practically given up on the notion that the airways belong to the public. Those who take over media outlets for use as their private propaganda machines should have their licenses revoked. The fairness doctrine needs to be reestablished but that will depend upon a trifecta at the election . What else remains? Nonviolent civil disobedience such as Lucien advocates here. We may be headed to the time like India when Gandhi called for massive disobedience by millions of people who staged massive walkout sto cripple the country. We seem to have forgotten the lessons of Martin Luther King and I believe it’s past time we follow our beloved martyr’s amazing example.
Hear, hear! Reestablish the Fairness doctrine! Public ownership of media such as PBS and the BBC!
Huge. Bless you
To repeat because it is germane:
Below are the steps the dictators of the world have used to seize power. Can you tell me which ones Trump, the insurrectionist, has not used?
Make voters doubt the legitimacy of the elections.
Take over the courts so the leader's criminal deeds become legitimate.
Make voters distrust all media that does not laud the leader.
Make the voters blame scapegoats for some of the nation's problems.
Make the voters hate those who do not agree with the leader. They are the enemy. They do not love their country.
Tell the voters not to believe what they see, hear or read. Only believe the leader.
Tell the voters that only the leader can fix what is wrong.
Tell the Big Lie over and over- soon most will believe it. (eg almost all MAGA voters believe the election was stolen even though Republicans won in the states he lost. Even though he lost all his court cases. Even though his AG Barr and other minions told him he lost. WTF?)
Thank You. Sharing.
YUP!
Excellent; thanks. If you have not, strongly urge reading, and if you havr, strongly urge rereading, Eric Hoffer's 1951 book, "The True Believer."
I just looked at buying this and Amazon popped up. Irony is a bitch. Guess I'll be going to the used bookstore for this one and other books from now on. Thanks for the recommendation
I'm all for buying books, but in the event your local used bookstore hasn't a copy of "The True Believer," I suggest that not-so-quaint institution, your local library. Many (most?) metropolitan public library systems have their catalogues online, and searchable, by title, author, and subject. May we share a quick moment of silent appreciation for Melville Louis Kossuth "Melvil" Dewey, who, in 1876, punllished his creation: the Dewey Decimal System for cataloguing library books? Done? Now we get to hock a lunger at his reputation for sexual harassment of his female librarian colleagues, his racism, and his antisemitism.
Make voters doubt the legitimacy of the elections. Elections can and have been manipulated throughout American history. ***Read Joe Conforte and Story Country, Nevada for a small town version that ultimately affected Ronald Reagan winning his election. It's a fascinating story.
Take over the courts so the leader's criminal deeds become legitimate. *** I was a naive 22 yr old messenger and handed $4500 cash once under the table to a judge in Auburn CA. His son became a famous politician. It's all corrupt.
Make voters distrust all media that does not laud the leader. ***Last time I checked MSNBC or ABC last night, they presented a completely unbalanced presidential OP section clearly lauding Harris and vilifying Trump. Probably you can you tube it today. They all use this.
Make the voters blame scapegoats for some of the nation's problems. ***The nation's problems are deep and profound and go back generations. By Scapegoat do you mean Biden? Harris? Excuse me, what happened in Afghanistan? On the border? Would blaming them for the worst foreign policy decision in American history be unfair or scapegoating for Trump's deal to pull out? After all, it was Trump who made the deal, Abdul the Taliban leader who breached it, and Biden who looked the other way.
Make the voters hate those who do not agree with the leader. ***They are the enemy. They do not love their country. I do not agree with Kamala Harriss' evaluation of those who do not agree with her or the Democratic Party's view on freedom of speech. Pro abortion, I guess I am the enemy of both now.
Tell the voters not to believe what they see, hear or read. Only believe the leader. ***Read the response above.
Tell the voters that only the leader can fix what is wrong. ***Yeah, Trump the narcissist uses this one exclusively. Problem is for the Progressive Left, he might actually fix a lot that is wrong and that'll drive them crazy. As for me? I'd just like the things broken (like the border and the economy and the education system) fixed. I don't give a shit who gets the job done.
Tell the Big Lie over and over- soon most will believe it. (eg almost all MAGA voters believe the election was stolen even though Republicans won in the states he lost. Even though he lost all his court cases. Even though his AG Barr and other minions told him he lost. WTF?)***WTF? Trump KNOWS he lost. It was a loss, plain and simple. The popular vote underlines this, if there's any question. I have one for you: what if either Trump or Kamala lose by, say, 345 votes out of almost 200,000,000 cast? Could happen. Maybe. Do we recount for months? Years? Or toss the whole system out and go back to paper ballots? Maybe if we used paper ballots (again) we won't have to face the trial that's coming in November.
If Trump knows he lost, how is it plain and simple that he refused to peacefully transfer power as every president in our history has done. It is not plain and simple to have claimed election fraud over and over for his own ends, misled millions of us, fomented an insurrection, sat there watching it on tv while congress was under attack by his mob.
Fix things / as in dismantle the department of education?
The economy-as in we have the strongest economy in the world and the high prices on everyday items are likely caused more by corporate price gouging than inflation -which by the way is under control -
Fix the border as in kill the strongest bi-partisan border bill ever crafted?
Dude, you gotta think a bit more beyond the cleverly crafted storylines coming out of right wing media outlets.
Trump proposed a 2000% tariff( his words) on imported cars. Trump said China would pay for the tariffs. Wrong. Consumers pay for tariffs.
Most economists agree that trumps “policies” would be far worse for the economy.
There is no migrant crime wave.
Immigrants commit fewer crimes than red blooded Americans.
Taking top secret documents IS a crime. Photo ops at Arlington IS against the rules.
Grabbing woman against their will is evil.
Wake up man. Think it through a little bit more.
Would you hire that guy? Leave him in a room with your daughter?
I’ve canceled Washington Post, Amazon Prime and NY Times.
I admire you. The paper cancellations wouldn’t be too hard; Amazon would. However … I was told Walmart on line is a suitable substitute.
First consider how many small businesses Walmart has crushed out of existence. And its employment policies. It’s state rule to keep workers under the poverty level so that they rely upon welfare to survive.
I may be blind - and I must check further - but I’m looking at Target right now.
You are right about walmart Patris, everywhere they have opened one of their stores they have decimated all of the small family owned businesses around them. Small towns across the US are ghost towns because a walmart opened, empty storefronts are very common. When I served on the executive board of the Cinematographers Guild in LA we supported local grocery store workers who went on strike because their owners were demanding pay cuts in order to fight walmart which was threatening to move into LA, an embrace of walmart is the kiss of death to small town America.
NYC has fought Walmart like the plague it is. The pandemic left my NYC neighborhood half ghost town. If Walmart were near I doubt anything would be left.
Walmart and Amazon are America's bastard children that should have been strangled in their cradles.
It was a chain reaction of depressed pay and lower benefits for their suppliers employees too when Walmart demanded lower cost per unit and forced those suppliers to cut as much as they could - from their employees.
Agreed... the problem with Walmart Plus is ... Walmart. They are guilty of all that Patris has stated, and with the increased attention and the (potential) demise of Amzn Prime, they may also get drunk with power. I like the idea of entering the thing you want into a search bar for multiple choices.
I was ignorant about Walmart’s m.o.
Don't limit your alternates to Walmart. After you choose an item, condense precise product info in a search term, and enter that into your search engine. You probably have at least a few choices at comparable or better prices. To be consistent, I hope your search engine is an alternative to google, which has been so destructive to the news industry.
I highly recommend duckduckgo.com as an alternative search engine. I have been using it for years.
Me too. Ever since it was introduced 12-14 years ago. I use the DDG browser too. If you dislike being tracked, duckduckgo is the software for you. .
I use ddg too, it's just an aversion to being tracked too (no cell phone either). Something to do with JE Hoover.
You must have history much more adventurous than mine. I'm just eluding commercial pursuers.
👍👍
As I understand it, Capitol One has an app that offers other vendors with lower prices.
One more useful resource, but to me an independent search seems more objective.
I downloaded Honey years ago. You can bookmark items you want and Honey will search for the best price. You also earn points that are worth $$ to redeem. I ear points from Kroger, tractor Supply - it doesn't have to be from stores that Honey recommends.
Looks useful. Seems to be Pay Pal product.
It has saved me a lot of fruitless searches. Many times the sites it finds are less expensive than Amazon. It works on Amazon, too. It will also try bunches of coupon codes and will apply if it finds a match.
DIdn't Elon Musk (a friend who was a top auto industry PR man told me they called him Ego Most) make his first big buckaroos outta Pay Pal? Which is now owned by eBay. A quick search says around 4,000 institutional investors own 95% of eBay. CEO: Jamie Iannone. AFL-CIO website says that Iannone compensation for fiscal year 2023 was $21,560,669, which was 135 times its median employee's pay for that fiscal year. He got his MBA at Stanford. It's absolutely perfect that almost all the biggest swinging dicks in Silicon Valley went to a university named for Leland Stanford, one of the biggest robber barons of the 19th Century, and a founder of the Republican Party in California. Oh! May I refill your irony glass to overflowing? Stanford, elected Governor of California, sent a message to the state legislature in 1862 with the following: "Asia, with her numberless millions, sends to our shores the dregs of her population... There can be no doubt but that the presence among us of numbers of degraded and distinct people must exercise a deleterious influence upon the superior race..."
What the name means to me: My Uncle Pud, who looked like the Monopoly game Mr Moneybags, when mrentioned in the local newspapers was Leland Stanford Morris. He sold my mother a lot of NYLife insurance. He and my father's sister—without issue, as they say— lived the tastefully understated good life in an enchanting honeymoon house above Ohio River steamboat traffic. Down a wandering path, the estate had a guesthouse where I got to stay when I visited overnight. Till my aunt bounced a check. Uncle Pud, gone senile without anyone noticing, had hollowed out his business, then his personal accounfs, paying off his brother/partner's secret gambling debts. Elegant Aunt Freda became Leland Stanford Morris's caregiver. Penniless, they lived a couple years longer on welfare in one hotel room. Three days after Uncle Pud died, Freda, apparently healthy till then, did the same.
Almost everything you can get on Amazon you can order online direct from the vendor.
i have spoken before about the rise of fascism and compared it to Argentina and the rise of Perón. The dismantling of the press. My parents with shutters down and whispering against the government, telling me not to EVER repeat in school what i heard at home! And then i’m school with my first reader every day having to repeat the words “I love Perón” and “I love Evita” while looking at their photos. in so many sad ways I am glad my parents are not around to witness the destruction of the country they loved so much. And I pray now for my own children and grandchildren with hope and optimism in my heart that they will never be afraid to speak out !
Amen ❤️
Speaking as an employee who went on strike for 3 days back in the 1970's....it is effective.
When I see folks urge others to risk their careers, I wonder how many have themselves ever put their butts on the line as you and Lucian have.
Appreciate you!
I limited my retribution for the WP/Bezos massive cowardice to not renewing my subscription, and writing why in an LTE. I like Amazon Prime and its many benefits too much to drop it, but the WP and Amazon really are two different things.
Anyhow, yesterday I signed on as a $5 per month "Supporter"to The Guardian. That should help cover most of the many things I will miss about the WP.
Amazon and the WP aren’t “two different things” as they are both owned by Jeff Bezos who ordered this action. The only way to get the attention of these folks is to hit them where it hurts, and that’s the pocketbook. I find dropping Prime is a small price to pay. Be STRONG!
Well said, C Towers! I'm surprised at Rich Hope. Wapo is a bauble to Jeff Bezos. The prize is Amazon, the only place he can be hurt.
I'm not perfect, but let us not turn this into a "purity test".
We are on the same side: against Trumpism.
I understand your decision. I am unfortunately reliant upon Prime myself. As a partially disabled septuagenarian with an adult special needs child I'm dependent on it for goods and services.
You should feel exempt from all these exhortations, Tom. Your case obviously is special.
I knew you would say something kind to Tom because people in his position are exceptions, and you are a compassionate person.
You have to do the best you can in your position, which is not good.
I agree about supporting The Guardian and not renewing your Post subscription and understand about Prime. I have become too dependent on it and have, lately, noticed that there are many more problems with it such as late deliveries. It feels to me that they are going down anyway. What really pisses me off (pardon my French) is that Bezos and all these other Billionaires could live extremely comfortably anywhere the rest of their entire lives without ever "earning" another cent. But the rest of us mortals will suffer. EFF them! I keep thinking that Bezos is like his dildo space ship. All dick and no balls.
Do not obey in advance. This
is something even billionaires
don't understand about
fascism. They think they'll be
safe for towing the line.
Fools.
That's the way it is, Lucian. Acquiesence in advance is what they did for Hitler too. I've been babbling about the long progression of fascism in this country for what seems like forever. I grew up with the John Birchers calling my parents commies, and me too, at school. I saw it then as an on going progression. Rachel Maddow laid out the evedence in Ultra that backed up what I could not document as I observed and was subject to how deep the the threat of right wingnut Southern Baptist cristyuns was. I knew of Father Coughlin back then, but untill Ultra, I had no idea how much of the Catholic Churth is Fascist too.
Bezos and Soon-Chong are cowards. Sulzberg's a rich crybaby. "Biden won't play ball with me so I'll play with the other team, mommy!"
The legacy media is dead. Substack is becoming a new forceful platform. That is where the real journalism is beginning to take over. You know all the good ones, as well as yourself, who hundreds of thousands rely upon for the truth. I subscribe to at lest twenty of them alone. Let's hope our voices reach far enough there to make the difference. VOTE!
The hard right Cardinals in the Vatican facilitated the escapes of many Nazi officials. Opus Dei is a fascist cult in the Catholic Church.
Great idea, Lucian, for a walkout by the newspaper staff, though I doubt it will happen, because people are fearful of losing jobs, no matter how much their jobs are already threatened due to the newspapers’ finances. But the criticism should continue to be put heavily on the owners of WaPo and the LA Times, because they are the ones who put their future profits above the future continuation of democracy and a free society.
Timothy Snyder, the Yale professor and expert on totalitarianism, in his book On Tyranny, says that the first rule is not to voluntarily give up your rights to a totalitarian wannabe. That is exactly what Bezos and Soon-Shiong have done, with their “craven subservience” to Trump as you so aptly put it. He’s not a dictator - yet, and let’s hope the turnout in the next 10 days is a blue tsunami that washes him and his fascist cult out from our political lives and our society.
I am not going to ask anybody to quit their job in the newspaper business because the owner did something terrible. There are 50-500 people dying to take over any job with a major newspaper. Besides, if that person had kids, mortgage, car loans, etc., I would not ask nor condone that that person commit financial, professional, and personal suicide. Lots of seemingly well-off people are really on the edge these days.
This has to be said for people in this position. When you're the major breadwinner, you have to be careful. One time when I walked in the door at 10am, my husband said, "Quit again, did you?" I have a very bad temper, and after I had put up with an intolerable situation for three months or so, I would sit down at my desk, type a letter of resignation, print and sign it, pack all my stuff, put the letter on my boss's desk, and walk out the door. If I have brought up the situation several times, and nothing's changed, I would just walk out the door with no notice. After all, how often do you get notice you're going to be laid off at the end of the day or hour? But my husband always had a job, and I could always go back to temping as a teachers aide in schools. We almost always lived well within our income and my parents would help out if I needed money. But not everyone has the support system I had.
We owned a personnel agency. In our state if you quit (and it is proven so), you did not qualify for unemployment compensation, which was for 6 months or more if extended by the Feds. That is a big deal.
I only filed for unemployment if I was laid off. Before 2008 I was always able to work for a temp agency, so my unemployment would extend for a long time. Sometimes I got worked non-stop for a temp agency until I got a permanent job. I had really good relationships with temp agencies for a long time until they disappeared.
This is what Tim Snyder (On Tyranny) has been warning us about — obeying in advance — to tyrants. NYT is guilty too. They have stopped doing endorsements. Terrifying
NYT endorsed Harris.
Sure, and everything they write about her is a put down. “Rain in the forecast for Thursday. Here’s why this could be bad news for Harris campaign.”
Ok, so that’s sarcasm. But read it first yourself. The NYT owns our beloved Boston Globe and I have learned not to read anything with a NYT byline in it, because if there’s a shred of positivity for Harris, it appears only begrudgingly after about 15 column inches of Trump sanewashing and excuses.
I was very surprised when the NYT endorsed Harris. Why would they do that after denigrating her for three months?
If you were surprised. you must have been reading selectively. While I don't endorse every word in the nyt, to say they have denigrated her for three months, implying a free ride for our boy, is nonsense.
Auntie Beans—You are describing what the Boston Globe chooses to run of what the New York Times syndicates—not what the New York Times publishes. Times bashers have often as not canceled their subscriptions and have no idea what's in it currently.
Fool me once.... fool me twice... Once was enough for me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/opinion/editorials/kamala-harris-2024.html
I was so pleased when the above article was published at the end of September. Frankly I was a bit surprised because their newspaper spent a great deal of time “sanewashing” the monster.
i believe those reticent or still undecided …. the word fascism means little to them, obviously, or they’d know by now what the fuck to do. Hit econ issues that Biden Admin has accomplished.
Amen. Ann Telnaes Wapo editorial cartoonist, said it best. The lights were turned off. By the owner / publisher. It's not about immigrants. It's about trust in America's formerly leading voice for news and opinion. Let's pay for a new proverbial light bill.
Timothy Snyder has observed that Bezos has conveyed to Trump that Trump can bully him, which means that Bezos's effort to appease Trump will backfire. But Bezos's effort will fail for another reason as well. He has allowed the Post to publish columnists and letters to the editor criticizing his decision, which necessarily criticize Trump as well. Even Trump, as stupid as he is, knows that Bezos did not have to allow that, and the demented toddler fascist, if he becomes president, will make Bezos pay for that.
I’ll say this for LKTIV - unlike other writers chronicling impending doom, he actually offers solutions. I love the idea of a strike at WaPo and LA Times; sadly it’s unlikely to happen. Someone like Woodward has little to lose, yet I’ll be shocked if he were to strike or resign. That’s the problem in individualistic Ammurrica, everyone cares only for their own tuchus.
But I remain nauseously optimistic – I think there are just enough people who have looked up from Candy Crush long enough to see the approaching storm and will vote for Harris so that this nightmare will eventually end.
My god, Norris, I hope you're right!! I, too, am "nauseously optimistic" (great phrase!!). The mere thought of the Orange Turd winning makes me queasy & weak in the knees.
"When you are bullied, you STAND UP or you lose your self-respect and your dignity and your right to life."
If you can stand up. There are people who cannot, a fact which makes standing up all that more important for those of us who can. Remembering schoolyard bullies, the solution was usually to get an older sibling or large friend involved, or maybe gather a group for security. Sometimes a teacher would see the bullying and blow a whistle, and make the bully disappear. Here and now, the solution looks like we need to gather together for our own security. There is strength in numbers and power in collective action, so please participate. 2024 is going to be a lesson about bullies. Which lesson remains to be seen.
A lot of people are canceling their subscriptions to these two papers because of their cowardice. Let's see how they hemorrhage money as that continues. (I don't subscribe to the WaPo but I will cancel my LAT subscription after the election.) If they're worried about their economics maybe they should think about that.