The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News: How the Deep State Corrupted Many American Writers

Click here to access article by Robert Scheer from AlterNet. 

In this article Scheer, currently a professor at University of Southern California, interviews writer Joel Whitney who has written a new book entitled Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers. In addition to how the CIA used many prominent liberal intellectuals and authors as conduits for CIA's anti-communist propaganda, "Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the Paris Review)." 

My argument is that this history, though accurate, suffers from limitations of a liberal bias that particularly Scheer, who is much older than Whitney, expresses as he essentially shames those intellectuals, many of whom he knew personally, for collaborating with the CIA (a product of the ruling capitalist class). And in one point of the interview I can't help wondering if Scheer himself would not have succumbed also to the inducements of CIA money as he told about his befriending Nelson Aldrich, Jr., a member of America's old, rich, and powerful families and member of the ruling class. He admits trying to get money out of Aldrich. 

Had Scheer and Whitney in their early careers of teaching and writing had written any material that exposed the ruling class attempts after WWII to roll-back all the reformist social benefits of FDR's administrations, both of them would not be enjoying their solid careers. (FDR and his administrations tried and succeeded to ameliorate the worst effects of the Great Depression and stave off the pressures from a growing radical movement, and thus saved capitalism.) Because these two, especially Scheer, in their careers were careful to never cross ideological red lines, they enjoy the approval of ruling class institutions and the money and respectable careers that goes with this approval. Whether consciously or not they both have succumbed to the rewards of adhering to acceptable ideological limits. So, are they not like those figures who shamefully collaborated with the CIA earlier in US history, when the political climate of the McCarthy period (and its aftermath) was more acceptable, simply because it is now safe to expose this mini history?

Recommended articles for 1/4/2018

• Tax cuts as a route to cutting Social Security by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

• People being warned to check systems as Intel reveals 'serious flaws' in its computer chips from TheJournal.ie. 

I learned of these "serious flaws" from Financial Times that posted an article which stated "The flaws make it possible for a hacker to steal data from a computer’s core memory or from other programs running on the system." And the post went on to state that fixing the problem is almost prohibitively expensive. I agree with one commentator who essentially wrote that when auto manufacturers make faulty equipment, they are held liable to fix this fault. So why not the chip manufacturer Intel?

There have been other websites (see for example, the post in the San Francisco Chronicle) that have posted similar articles, but their content seems to downplay the problem. I am posting an article from this website so that non-subscribers to Financial Times can learn about this problem.

I can't help but wonder if this was purely an oversight on the part of Intel, and I suspect that reporting the problem was motivated by rumors that were already leaking out and spreading.

More recommended articles of the Iranian protests/riots for 1/3/2018

• Mass protests against austerity and social inequality shake Iranian regime by Keith Jones from World Socialist Web Site.

•  Iranian Protests: Deep State’s Unfinished Business by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.
  

Behind Korea, Iran & Russia Tensions: The Lurking Financial War

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

Although this article is not for the financially challenged, it offers well thought out and well developed, arguments that slowly and carefully lead to the final, and in my opinion, two crucially important questions: 

So the bigger question, if Trump does pursue an economic ‘containment of China’ strategy – and China and allies respond – is what will be the effect on ‘risk free’ US Treasury values in the wake of a major segment of the global economy going its own way?  And what too, will be the ability of the US government then to finance its debt at its current, and growing, levels?  Matters to ponder, perhaps. [my crossed-out word]

Posts recommended regarding the Iranian protests/riots on 1/2/2018

• Iran - Protests Decrease - Riots Increase - U.S. Prepares The Next Phase by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.

• Hypocrisy writ large: US Empire Is Running The Same Script With Iran That It Ran With Libya, Syria by Caitlin Johnstone from The Greanville Post.

And for balance, I recommend:

• Revolutionary ferment in the depths of Iranian society by Hamid Alizadeh from In Defense of Marxism (Britain). I only found this about the author.

Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine: The Madness of America’s Nuclear Weapons

Click here to access article by retired lieutenant colonel William J. Astore from AntiWar.com. (Material added at 1;36 PM Seattle time.)

The author, based on his reading of a new book by Daniel Ellsberg, makes solid arguments that the US ruling class leaders are insane by promoting a policy that was formulated in the Obama administration to upgrade nuclear weapons at a cost of $1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years (according to the Congressional Budget Office). After using atomic bombs on two civilian cities in Japan during WWII, our masters have continued using nuclear weapons as threats against those nations that it sees as competitors or that might interfere with their imperial plans. 

Our ruling capitalist class are now so thoroughly addicted to the drugs of power and profits that they are prepared to destroy the world if they can't obtain their drugs. Meanwhile back at the imperial ranch, our masters have been indoctrinating citizens to believe that war is very entertaining. Beginning in 1966 (probably in an effort to suppress the growing anti-Vietnam War movement) their culture executives began a non-stop series of movies and TV series featuring inter-galactic wars and exotic weapons as seen in Star Trek, war as comedy in MASH movie/TV series, more exotic weapons in Star Wars, and now in the 21st century the abundance of war games on many electronic devices. Yes, war, even a nuclear war, has been sold to the gullible American public as merely entertainment. Hence, the disappearance of an effective anti-war movement. 

Weapons of war are very profitable for our "merchants of death", and under our fascist rule (government + corporations = fascism) the government participates (in sharp contrast to the 1930s) in the promotion of weapons as described in the article entitled "The ‘Merchants of Death’ Survive and Prosper" from the same website.

Whatever Happened to Investigative Journalists?

Click here to access article by Frances T. Shure from AE911Truth (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth).

This very lengthy article is Part 21 of her long series of articles. Throughout her article she lists numerous instances of lies told by government officials and media corporations, and in the background she always poses the question, "Whatever Happened to Investigative Journalists?" Later in the article she gives some very good answers to this question. 

However, missing from her tome is a more profound class analysis, and thus it ends up being quite naive politically. But this lack of understanding of the important role of class in determining history is common throughout American society. The capitalist ruling class has been extremely successful through their control of all institutions to censor any thought of class as a political factor. Thus, she believes that the government has been corrupted along with corporate media, and naively believes that the solution is to get rid of the corruption by investigating and exposing it!!! 

At one point she comes close to the truth by writing, "To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary", but in the next sentence she negates this insight by writing "questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American." Her entire article doesn't support this last statement. Yes, to question the 9/11 story and so many other stories (lies) would be to reach the conclusion that we must prepare for a revolution. That she can't handle, and that is so true of most Americans. Yet, without a revolution, we are doomed to extinction either through a nuclear war conflagration or ultimately by climate destabilization.

New Year's Message and Warning from a War Correspondent

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from Countercurrents.org.  (Edited for clarity at 11:59 AM Seattle time.)

Vltchek has demonstrated what a real journalist does in reporting the truth, as he sees it, in his/her travels to the most war-torn areas of the world. Also, I think he has stumbled upon what is so vitally needed to overcome the forces of greed and cruelty spawned (def.#3) by the anti-human system of capitalism which sets one tiny class over the entire world's humans. He complains about the lack of support in 2015 he received from readers while suffering from exhaustion.

You and your determined work may save several villages, or if you are very good, you could make a difference on a global scale. Your writing or your films may help to stop a war. But never expect any official recognition, any practical backing or even mercy from your readers. In 2015, after making several films and writing books about several particularly horrid war zones, mostly in Africa, I totally collapsed. For several weeks, I was not able to move. I thought it was the end. There was no help at all coming from those millions of my readers living in all parts of the world. At that time I made my condition public. Still, nothing. Few letters of ‘moral support’ arrived. Few: “Be strong, the world needs you!” In the end, it was my close family circle that literally pampered and rescued me and put me back to my feet and into fighting order.

This is not a reproach, just a warning to those who are getting ready to fight for the survival of humanity: “You will be totally on your own. You will most definitely collapse on several occasions.”

What is totally lacking is an organized effort to support journalists such as Vltchek. We who see the ongoing destruction of both humans and the environment caused by capitalist rule must become aware that it will take something more than family support to confront this evil monster of capitalism. Remember capitalism puts families as the primary social unit of capitalism. This was so succinctly expressed by that British servant of capitalism, Margaret Thatcher:

...you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.  

However, she omits (and therefore lies) that these rich families are united and highly organized under capitalist class rule.

I simply don't understand why it is so difficult for activists to realize that some greater scale of organization is needed to break the power of capitalists than the family unit. Yet, Vltchek expected greater support for his work from readers when he suffered from exhaustion in 2015 when there wasn't any organization to support him. We on the left have not moved one iota from family support to build larger organizations with clout to defend ourselves from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" inflicted upon us by this tiny class of capitalists. How can we expect anything different than exhaustion, defeat, and more misery!!!?

We must put social back into the effort of building socialism. We must think in different terms than what we were raised with. We must be conscious of our indoctrination under capitalist rule and create another consciousness--or else we will perish.

Recommended articles for 12/30/2017

• Russian military advisors work with all Syrian army units — Russian General Staff from TASS, a Russian News Agency.

I learned about this report by way of an article from a Kuwaiti independent journalist posted on his website. I'm not sure one can draw all the implications he does from this TASS announcement, but it is very much worth our attention.

• The Next Financial Crisis Will Be Worse Than the Last One by Nomi Prins from TruthDig.

She takes a gander (def.) at the huge run-up of corporate debts, tax cuts for the rich, and continuing low-interest money available to corporations, and reaches the following conclusion:

What does that mean? Financially speaking, 2018 will be a precarious year of more bubbles inflated by cheap money, followed by a leakage that will begin with the bond or debt markets. The GOP tax cuts won’t technically kick in monetarily for corporations until after the year is over in 2019, but the anticipation of extra funds will fuel more buybacks. This will help to provide cover for any rate hikes the Fed implements, because it provides corporations the ability to boost their own share prices further.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and other smaller regulatory authorities in Washington will push for greater deregulation of the financial systems and banking industry on any level possible. If there is another financial crisis in 2018 or later, it will be worse than the last one because the system remains fundamentally unreformed, banks remain too big to fail and the Fed and other central banks continue to control the flow of funds to these banks (and through to the markets) by maintaining a cheap cost of funds.

•  Venezuela after the municipal elections by Jorge Martin from Defense of Marxism (Britain).

I agree totally with his analysis of the Venezuelan political scene. I observed first hand the bureaucratic resistance to any leftward course of the Bolivarian Revolution that I drew attention to in previous posts. See here and here.

Recommended article for 12/28/2017

• China plans to break petrodollar stranglehold by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times. (Because I am very busy today taking care of personal problems, this is the only article I could find at this time. I may post additional articles later if I have the time.)

The Holberg Debate 2017: "Propaganda, Facts and Fake News" with J. Assange, J. Pilger & J. Heawood

Click here to access a 2:40:40 video featuring the moderator asking each of these participants, Julian Assange, Jonathan Heawood, and John Pilger, a series of questions. (I am updating this post as I listen to this video. Please skip the second speaker. My reaction was that he is a fake speaker and a fake human. I'm looking forward to Pilger because I know he is so very human. 1:49 PM: Yes, Pilger was wonderful as he reviewed the record of Western journalism during the past 60 years. The record was one of fake or omitted news we have received--or not--up until the present, and most of it related to major war crimes. Updated again at 2:32 PM Seattle time after listening to all of it.)

At the 2017 Holberg Debate, Julian Assange, John Pilger and Jonathan Heawood discussed the presence of propaganda in news and social media, and its democratic implications.

The event took place at the University of Bergen, Norway, on December 2nd, 2017.

What really piqued (def.#3) my interest listening to Assange was when the moderator got on the topic of artificial intelligence (at 45:40m) in the context of the information war (the crafting of news and information to get people to believe and do things that would promote capitalist ruling class interests, and likewise, not believe and do things that might interfere with ruling class interests). At this point Julian Assange made this rather startling statement in reference to artificial intelligence: "...it's overwhelmingly the biggest threat to humanity as much as...a much bigger threat than climate change." His following remarks elaborated on this statement which I found most interesting and insightful.

Here are the brief show notes:

About 00:11:00 Julian Assange; About 00:56:00 Questions for Julian Assange; About 01:19:00 Jonathan Heawood; About 01:43:00 John Pilger; About 02:17:11 Las Q&A Session.

I rarely post videos or article of this length; but because this topic is so important, I decided to post it. I recommend listen to Assange's response to a question posed by the moderator at 45:40m regarding artificial intelligence, skip the second speaker, and listen to Pilger's entire address.

About the speakers:

Julian Assange joins the panel via videolink. Assange is an award-winning journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He is also a programmer, cryptographer, author and activist. Founded in 2006, WikiLeaks has published millions of leaked documents and several videos. This includes logs that relate to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the controversial “Collateral Murder” video from Iraq, U.S. diplomatic cables, and election campaign related e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.

Jonathan Heawood is the CEO and founder of IMPRESS, the only press regulator to be recognised as independent and effective under the Royal Charter in the United Kingdom. He has previously worked as a journalist and human rights campaigner, and he is a former director of English PEN. Heawood has written on free speech and regulation for various publications, including The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, Critical Quarterly, Journal of Media Law, Ethical Space and Communications Law.

John Pilger is an Australian journalist, author and documentary film-maker. Pilger has covered military, political and cultural conflicts around the world for more than five decades, and his criticism of American, Australian and British foreign policy is strongly reflected his documentaries and writings. He worked at the Daily Mirror from 1963 to 1986 and wrote a regular column for the New Statesman magazine from 1991 to 2014. Pilger has won numerous awards as a journalist and film-maker, and he is one of only two people to win British journalism’s highest award twice.

The Holberg Debate 2017 is a collaboration between the Holberg Prize, the Fritt Ord Foundation and Norwegian PEN (Western Norway).

Who armed ISIS? A three year study provides some answers (updated commentary)

Click here to access article from Islamic Societies Review. (I have added additional content to my commentary at 10:54 PM Seattle time.)

Supplies of materiel, including advanced light weapons systems the U.S. military, from foreign parties — notably the United States and Saudi Arabia, ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters.

You may be tired of finding evidence of the US-led Empire's and their allied governments' support of ISIS in Syria in order to overthrow the government of Syria and replace it with a government that is acceptable to the Empire's ruling capitalist class. I have (including this article) 37 links to articles offering such evidence. Meanwhile, most Americans continue to believe the propaganda crafted (def.#5) in the ruling class's media corporations that omits or denies this well documented fact. What most Americans are not aware of is that the purpose of media corporations is not to inform them, but to manage their thoughts in support of ruling class interests. 

What you need to know is that this fact is a prime characteristic of the new version of fascism 2.0. In contrast to the earlier German, Italian, and Japanese versions, this updated version doesn't care that you and a relatively small number of people like you know what is really going on in the world. They just need a certain (unknown) percentage of brainwashed people to maintain capitalist rule. With this arrangement they avoid the troublesome task of brutalizing people into acceptance of their rule. However, this arrangement depends on the level of security that their fascist rule enjoys. If I and other observers are correct, we can expect the decline of the power of the US Empire and the ascendance of other nations led by Russia and China. With this decline we can expect that our masters will increasingly go after people like you and me. Should we just wait for this to happen or should we take action now to prevent this from happening? And if we want to take action now, what should we do? 

These are the crucial questions facing us. I don't have the answers--nobody or no one person does, but we might put our heads together and come up with some good answers.  

‘Forces deep within US deep state’ are behind Trump’s national security strategy: Scholar

Click here to access video and transcript featuring Dennis Etler, "a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California" posted on PressTV (Iran). (I again thank Christopher in northwest Oregon for alerting me to this excellent post.)

The video post includes extensive quotes which are essentially a transcript of his talk starting with the section "What is the deep state?". Etler accurately describes the capitalist Deep State that is behind the curtain and in control of their puppets regardless of actors and administrations. The two political parties in the US represent a "heads I win and tails you lose" that is offered by the Deep State to ordinary Americans in their "democratic" elections.

Recommended articles for 12/24/2017

• Pyongyang rejects biological weapons rumors, accuses US of fabricating pretext for attack  This is another example of the psychological term called "projection", a term that I touched on in the third article in the post "Recommended articles for 12/19/2017" entitled "Putin Is Preparing for World War III". I strongly suspect that this charge was made by Trump's regime because the US actually used biological weapons during the Korean War against North Koreans and nearby Chinese populations. Since then the ruling class has devoted massive efforts--and largely successful--to cover up this major war crime. For a recent, comprehensive review of the evidence, the best source is a recent book entitled This Must Be the Place by Dave Chaddock.

• US Congress passes tax windfall for corporations and the rich Excellent analysis of the latest move by the ruling capitalist class to enrich themselves in the face of government budget deficits.

• Western Media Consumed by Myanmar Monster of Own Creation by Tony Cartalucci

  

  Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi pledge to work together for Burma

  from Land Destroyer Report. The author knows southeast Asia very well because he resides mostly in Thailand (the last I heard), and he has followed political events in that area very closely. It was several years ago under the Obama administration of the world's "indispensable nation" that a "pivot to Asia" was announced. This, of course, meant that the US ruling class was going to put more efforts into containing and curtailing China's influence in the area. Soon there appeared articles in corporate media that looked favorably on certain events there, particularly in relation to the government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar (Burma). Well, it turns out that the attempt to use this character as a useful puppet in their anti-China program backfired. (On the left is another photo from this earlier period when the US ruling class was attempting to recruit her for this project.) 

Catalan independence forces win majority

Click here to access article by Jack Hazeldine from CounterFire (Britain). 

I'm mainly posting this article as an illustration of leftist journalism that very much annoys me. So much of left journalism functions like a cheerleader to lead a more left crowd in cheering for progressive measures, movements, or entire countries, but sadly often at the expense of reporting the truth regardless of its nature. Hazeldine does get around to reporting the rightward political movement of recent elections in Catalonia, but the headline and the opening paragraphs paint quite another picture. If we are to become truly informed about the ongoing ruling capitalist class war against workers, we desperately need, and require, the truth about events. Here is his first paragraph:

Catalan independence forces have won a 5-seat majority and 47.5% of the vote in Parliament on a 82% turnout and against the full political force of the Spanish state which as tried every tactic they could to delegitimise and destabilise them. Unionist parties garnered 43.5% of the vote.

Only when we read further on down do we become aware that the "Unionist" parties are against Catalonia independence. I guess we should have known by the name alone that this was so, but proper names, such as this capitalized one (it should not have been capitalized because there is no "Unionist" party), can mean anything. So, then, should we conclude that 47.5% versus 43.5% is a smashing victory as suggested by the headline and early paragraphs? Apparently not, because after reading several paragraphs down, we learn that the leftist parties suffered defeats, and there was a decided shift toward the right and centrist parties among the pro-independence voters. 

This reminds me of the elections held during the last days I lived in San Francisco when proponents of a new baseball stadium wanted to build it on a site closer to the downtown area. They kept holding such referendums for voters to decide until they finally got the vote they wanted. Then they went ahead to build the stadium. It looks like the Spanish government is using the same strategy and introducing measures to pressure the voters of Catalonia until they get a vote they want. Hazeldine alludes to pressures, but he doesn't elaborate.

A combination of political pessimism and the pressures of repression brought about a quite inward-looking and closed campaign generally....

A better report is, sad to say, from the NY Times. In this report we learn of the difficulties that separatist leaders confronted in the campaign: one was in prison and the other in exile.

The best report I have read this morning comes from a British Marxist website called In Defense of Marxism in a report entitled "Catalan elections: Rajoy's strategy defeated".

Recommended articles for 12/20/2017

• Why Putin Confounds US Media by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• US Germ Warfare Apology to North Korea Could Advance Dialogue by Wayne Madsen from Strategic Culture Foundation. Of course, there will not be any apology issued. The main reason for this article is to advance the case for the fact that the US used biological weapons during the Korean War, a major war crime that the ruling class has devoted massive efforts--and largely successful--to cover them up since then. For a recent, comprehensive review of the evidence, the best source is a book entitled This Must Be the Place by Dave Chaddock. 
  
  And for other war crimes committed by the US on North Korea during this war, read an article entitled "State of Fear: How History’s Deadliest Bombing Campaign Created Today’s Crisis in Korea" by Ted Nace from CounterPunch.

• Class Dismissed: Identity Politics Without The Identity by Michael K. Smith from CounterPunch. This piece provides an accurate description of the social "identity" problems suffered by the white working class that is obscured by corporate media with its emphasis on gender and racial politics. Of course, this is intentionally done by the ruling capitalist class to distract people from the real issues of class war. It also accurately describes one main difference between the work lives of upper-middle class salaried workers from wage workers of the lower classes.

 ...in the optic of identity politics, white people are “privileged” by definition, so downward mobility can only be the result of personal failure. In particular, if you are white and don’t have a college degree, and two-thirds of American adults do not, then you are not part of the good life and have only yourself to blame.

As a result, the white working class is virtually invisible today.

Recommended articles for 12/19/2017

• US Plans Slash and Burn of Middle East to “Minimize” Iranian Influence by Tony Cartalucci. The author is great on accessing publications by the Deep State to determine what they are planning. (The Deep State are top capitalists in finance and industry, who function much like a board of directors for the capitalist ruling class, and function behind a curtain of secrecy, much like puppeteers, to control all institutions, most especially government and media.) I sometimes think that articles published on Brookings' website (or their surrogates) reflect important policies that they want to be considered by the wider capitalist class, but not necessarily implemented. In any case we should be informed about what they are considering as plans for our world.

• War and Conflicting Geopolitical Agendas by F. William Engdahl. (Disregard the opening paragraphs which appear to be a commercial to sell his book Gods of Money.) I am only posting this because I think he makes a disastrous attempt to interpret history of WWII. It is very important to understand history, especially that of the 20th century so that we can understand present day issues. I will not go into a detailed review of this article, because it is not worth the effort. This article illustrates that Engdahl knows a lot about geopolitical facts, but he sometimes errors in interpreting these facts--and he misinterprets big time in this article! In it his one major error is to argue that Churchill and company refused to support the anti-Hitler camp of Germany's ruling class, a mistake that led to war against Germany. He mostly bases this on something Sir Halford Mackinder wrote in 1904! He totally omits the significance of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the obsession by the Western capitalist countries to rid the world of this blasphemy for capitalist enterprise. I wonder if he hasn't lived too long in Germany where he may have been influenced too much by German apologists for the Nazis. For my interpretation of WWII see this, this, this, this, and this.

• Putin Is Preparing for World War III "Lookie" (def.) here at the latest cover of Newsweek magazine! Our masters may be preparing us for WWIII and it will likely be a war fought with nuclear weapons. It seems to me that our masters nowadays are frequently guilty of projection, a psychological mechanism that tries to project onto others what they themselves want to do (or did) to others.

Recommended articles for 12/17/2017

• How Do The People Of Truth Win The Current Information War? by Tim Bryant from The Last American Vagabond. (a "best post").

• Three Unelected Men Just Overrode The Will Of 83% Of The US Population by Caitlin Johnstone from The Last American Vagabond.

• Doctor Who Exposed Clinton Foundation Corruption In Haiti Found Dead by
  Ryan Cristián from The Last American Vagabond.

The Year of the Headless Liberal Chicken

Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch. (At 8:00 PM Seattle time on 12/15/2017, I added a link and expanded at bit on my commentary.)

I love Hopkins as a writer. Consider this as a masterful antidote to all the ruses that our ruling class have imposed on us especially since Trump's unplanned-for election. However, liberals, mainly the upper-middle class (and their wannabees) who identify with the ruling capitalist class, are the butt of his extended lampoon. They are immune to any antidote because they are the "house niggers" (Big Brother Google, concerned that you might become aware of the history of racism in the USA, removed this video from YouTube--simply because they "own" YouTube. So now we can only videos like this video when Malcolm described them more politely as a "house Negro" and thus passed Google censors) who love their capitalist masters more than themselves while working in their corporate offices. 

Here is a sample of Hopkins' writing in the article:

Look, I know what you’re probably thinking, but it isn’t like liberals don’t actually care about fundamental liberal values like freedom of the press and speech and all that. It’s just that they desperately need the Democrats to take back the House and the Senate next year, so they can get on with impeaching Trump, and if they have to stand by while the corporations suppress a little leftist dissent, or, you know, transform the entire Internet into a massive, mind-numbing echo chamber of neo-McCarthyite corporate conformity … well, sacrifices have to be made.

Harvard Experiment Finds Large Effects From Small News Outlets

Click here to access article by Jason Alcorn from MediaShift.  (Material added at 10:08 PM Seattle time.)

The researchers found that even small internet outlets such as Truthout, Ms., Yes!, etc, can have a very significant influence on people's attention in their communications as measured by Twitter. 

You can see the reasons for doing this kind of research: to further refine how corporate media corporations shape news events.  This has been common knowledge for many decades. That is precisely why our capitalist masters like to invest in major media even though they are by and large not profitable. It's because major media corporations are powerful in shaping news and opinions of the general public which always ends up supporting the interests of the tiny ruling class of capitalists in opposition to the general interest. This is precisely why Jeff Bezos (Amazon corporation) bought The Washington Post. Our ruling class already know this, and they've known it for many years. The tip-off is suggested in the concluding naive questions: 

If mostly small publishers working in small collaborations can influence conversation so significantly, what of non-profit news collaborations, local newspapers, and television news? What of collaborations between all three?

Of course, you and most of the people who follow this blog know that major media have for a number of years collaborated to dumb-down, mislead, and deceive the general public. The challenging implication from this is that we, the people, must find a way to establish our own media. Otherwise we will continue on down the road of ignorance and deception while capitalists, because of their addictions to profits and power, will destroy all of humanity.

The ruling class controls every institution to insure that they serve their interests. As a way of illustration to demonstrate this insight, I recommend reading "How Hollywood sold us the (good) Korean War" by Patrice Greanville. This very popular TV series (M*A*S*H) sold imperialism as entertainment to the gullible American people.