“In the Age of Trump there will be no thunder in the streets from the treads of tanks or the boot-heels of soldiers. As the late political theorist Sheldon Wolin warned some years ago, American fascism will just be a new type of normal. In too many ways, it already is.”
— Chauncey Devaga, As we turn the page on 2019, our president is mentally unwell — but that’s only one symptom of deeper illness
*****
“With few exceptions, MSNBC puts forward the views of ‘corporate liberalism’—or more accurately: ‘liberal corporatism. It’s anti-Trump but rarely is there a focus on corporate greed or exploitation or corporate power. That’s no surprise for a for-profit channel that’s owned by Comcast (and formerly General Electric) and sponsored day and night by big pharma, health insurance, fossil fuel ads, and the like.”
— Jeff Cohen, founder of media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and former MSNBC producer, Analysis of Primetime MSNBC Programs Finds Sanders Received ‘Least’ and ‘Most Negative’ Coverage of Top 2020 Democrats
*****
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
— Malcolm X
*****
“Honestly, I don’t think I would have said anything because obviously he’s not listening to scientists and experts, so why would he listen to me? … So I probably wouldn’t have said anything. I wouldn’t have wasted my time.”
— Greta Thunberg, “I wouldn’t have wasted my time” meeting with Trump
*****
“Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is another member of the Business Roundtable. Just weeks after he made the commitment to all his stakeholders, Whole Foods, an Amazon subsidiary, announced it would be cutting medical benefits for its entire part-time workforce. The annual saving to Amazon from this cost-cutting move is roughly what Bezos – whose net worth is $110bn – makes in two hours. (Bezos’s nearly completed DC mansion will have 2 elevators, 25 bathrooms, 11 bedrooms, and a movie theater.)”
— Robert Reich, The biggest business con of 2019: fleecing workers while bosses get rich
*****
“How can you talk about American meritocracy when so much power is defined by nepotism, incompetence and sheer impunity?”
— This was the decade the US’s self-serving myths fell apart
“There must be struggle.”
— Fredrick Douglass