Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Fake News Alert: NPR, Amnesty International, and all the others funded by the rich ruling class

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Fake News Alert: NPR, Amnesty International, and all the others funded by the rich ruling class

by Ron Horn for this website.

I wake up in the morning with the aid of a radio alarm set for Seattle's jazz station which carries many NPR programs--likely because of economic reasons. This morning through the fog of sleepiness I began to hear an NPR news program in which some person from Amnesty International was reporting about torture under the Syrian government. Because I had posted an article recently about Amnesty and their collaboration with the White Helmets, my ears immediately perked up. Then I heard the NPR narrator making the point that Syria was supported by Iran and Russia. I had been hit with another piece of fake news reporting!

I swear to god--it's everywhere! That's because the rich capitalist class owns nearly every medium of communication and they are constantly working to insure that we are on board with their imperialist aims and interests.

NPR began in 1967 under Lyndon Johnson's administration. It was like Medicare, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and various welfare programs set up under what became known as the Great Society program of his presidency. I think all these programs were promoted to distract the shocked and grieving American public away from the Kennedy assassination in which Johnson had likely participated.

Over the years government funding of NPR has been greatly reduced to what it is now only a trickle. NPR is now mainly funded by the rich ruling class through foundations such as Soros's Open Society Institute, and of course NPR's content tends to reflect this class's interests of profit, power, and the promotion under their control of a new world order.