Remember when Biden said he saw "confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading babies"? Then his office had to clarify that actually no, he didn't. What a horrific and oddly specific thing to lie about.
I was pretty shocked when he said the Oct 7th attacks were "like 15 9/11s". When did we become so sycophantic to Israel that a president could downplay the most sacred American date and receive so little criticism?
Now he wants to give away another $100 billion for war, and I can't afford healthcare. Remember Bidens campaign when "public option" was his #1 talking point? Maybe Grandpa Joe forgot about it, or maybe he was lying the whole time.
Is price the only concern? Seems like too narrow of a focus.
Maybe try sorting by "lifespan", as nuclear facilities last 3-4x longer.
You could try sorting by "crude oil usage", as each turbine needs 60 gallons of high synthetic oil to function, each needs an oil change every 6 months.
Would be interesting to sort by "birds killed" or "acres of habitat destroyed"
I'm not saying nuclear is necessarily better, that is a difficult calculation. But we got ourselves into this climate change disaster by short-sightedly "sorting by price". Perhaps spending more money for a long term investment would be more wise than always going with the cheapest option.
Why would you calculate this as a percentage of population? Do you really think the population numbers of a nation have any relevance to the value of a human life?
We supported social mobility during the New Deal era. Many of the New Deal programs continued to pay dividends until they were dismantled by Reagan and the neoliberals.
As for home ownership, the vast majority of new homeowners in the past 3 generations were significantly subsidized by the federal government.
I'm not suggesting these programs were perfect. Take the most glaring example: most of them explicitly excluded black people. Without opportunity for homeownership, our precious black neighbors were ghettoized and locked into poverty. The echoes of this racist policy reverberate loudly to this day.
So I guess what I'm saying is that we need to Make America Great Again. Obviously the charlatan Trump presents no solutions. The neolib and neocon policies are proven failures. The solutions offered by Republican and Democrat parties are cynical and shallow. We need to go back to the policies that make America flourish - New Deal policies - just with a few modern upgrades and significantly less bigotry.
Your first paragraph suggests that either you do not understand how manufacturing consent works, or you are in disagreement that it is a valid theory of media. There is no false equivalence, no non-sequitur, just different methodology.
The comparison to the Kremlin and RT is an important one, because propaganda from PBS is so much more effective than RT. Polls consistantly show that the vast majority of Russians do not trust their state-run media. In contrast, polls show an overwhelming trust in PBS. RT lies much more often, but PBS lies much more effectively.
I agree that PBS and NPR do lots of good work, much better than most of the alternatives. They produce well-informed, well-intentioned neoliberals with built-in blind spots. My whole thesis here is that these blind spots do exist and they are intentional.
The current media blitz in the US feels so much like the post 9/11 lead up to the war on terror. It is scary. And PBS is playing the same role, manufacturing consent now just like it did back then.
31% comes from government, which makes it nearly impossible for PBS to have substantive dissent against state department propaganda.
30% comes from businesses and think tanks. These type of organizations do not give out of the kindness of their hearts, so what exactly are they buying? It is no surprise that, for example, their coverage of the green new deal is so negative when fossil fuel companies are giving millions.
And 31% comes from "individuals". Note that individuals is not the same as viewers, it is a black box that probably includes a few individual wealthy megadonors as well as many kindhearted viewers.
So yes, I stand by my assertion that PBS is state run media. If you think an uncoordinated bloc of individual donors is PBS' main constituency then you are being duped.
(Also note: the ethnicity of the donors does not matter, it is their ideology that is the driving force)
The US state department picked a side in this conflict over 3 decades ago. The state-run media like PBS and NPR pick up the propaganda lines naturally. The national media such as NYT and NBC value their state dept contacts and armed forces advertisement dollars more than they value journalistic integrity.
After 30 years of the manufacturing consent feedback loop, here in the US we end up with a national media ecosystem that is more sycophantic to Israel than even the Israeli media. Haaretz features dissenting opinions that you can't find in national US media.
This metaphorical frog started boiling decades ago, finally most of the water is boiling off and it's really starting to stink.
When armed people ask you to leave it’s called an illegal invasion. The mean age in Gaza is 18 years old so we’re talking about kids and parents being told by men with guns to abandon their homes forever.
After 9/11, the Taliban wanted to negotiate with the US in order to extradite Osama Bin Laden. Their demands were simple:
Stop bombing us.
Give us some evidence that Bin Laden is guilty.
Bush said 'we dont negotiate with terrists lol' and ramped up the bombing of Afghanistan, leading to the brutal invasion. Later we executed Bin Laden without a trial.
I'm not sure how you could consider any of that legitimate.
It seems like most people fundamentally misunderstand the UN. The UN does not have a real army and they dont have any real control over member nations. The UN is all talk.
And talk is good. Talk is diplomacy. Talk is putting pressure on those who are doing wrong.
Maybe the UN is decades late on this subject? I'm not sure if they have addressed it in the past. But either way, publically calling out the atrocious American prison system is a good thing.
Palestinian passive resistance is well documented.
You should educate yourself on things like the Great March of Return. Palestinians (and yes, Hamas too) marched peacefully for over a year near the border fence that entraps them. Israel responded by killing over 200 people and injuring over 9000.
If you're in the mood to get angry, go to youtube and look up interviews with IDF soldiers who did the shooting. Many smile and laugh as they brag about shooting unarmed civilians.
I agree with what you have said, but I think a broader analysis is more helpful. There is nothing special about the west, they are behaving like people in power have always behaved.
The prime rule of international relations comes from Thucydides: "The strong do what they will, the weak suffer what they must."
That's a great question, but very difficult to answer accurately.
One example is the EU's Horizon 2020 program, which gave a total of $450 million to Israel. The new updated version called Horizon Europe is expected to give about $1.35 billion in aid to Israel.
The reality of military aid is that it often comes in the form of a taxpayer funded discount. When Israel buys weapons from Italy, France, Germany, and especially the US, it often comes in the form of a "buy one, get one 1/2 off" type of discount. It's a win for the buyer, it's a win for the politicians, it's a win for the arms manufacturers. Of course it's a loss for the taxpayers, and especially for the people who are targeted by the weapons, but these groups do not have a seat at the negotiating table so their concerns are dismissed. If there is an accurate financial assessment of this type of aid, I am unfortunately unaware of it.
Is it less gruesome to die to a bomb than to a gun? I'm not sure.
I think the real distinction is in the media portrayal. When those in power are violent, media naturally downplays and attempts to justify. When the powerless are violent, only then does the media focus on the victims and their suffering.
Remember when Biden said he saw "confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading babies"? Then his office had to clarify that actually no, he didn't. What a horrific and oddly specific thing to lie about.
I was pretty shocked when he said the Oct 7th attacks were "like 15 9/11s". When did we become so sycophantic to Israel that a president could downplay the most sacred American date and receive so little criticism?
Now he wants to give away another $100 billion for war, and I can't afford healthcare. Remember Bidens campaign when "public option" was his #1 talking point? Maybe Grandpa Joe forgot about it, or maybe he was lying the whole time.