Greg Lloyd
Greg Lloyd boosted
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 20 hours ago

Bill Goodman, a former longtime host of “Kentucky Tonight” on KET-TV, which broadcasts statewide from Lexington, recalled watching a recent episode of his old show that devoted nearly an entire hour to an in-depth conversation about #Medicaid cuts. The guests engaged in reasoned & intricate arguments from opposite sides of the national debate.

“You don’t find that on commercial television,” he said.

#Trump#Republicans#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy

Greg Lloyd
Greg Lloyd boosted
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 20 hours ago
#PublicMedia supporters say the commercial forces that made television a “vast wasteland” still exist in an era of #socialmedia algorithms that reward #content that attracts the most likes & shares. That’s rarely the hyperlocal issues or deep policy discussions that are the bread & butter of local public television & radio stations, which have their own locally produced programs that run alongside the national shows of #PBS & #NPR.

#Trump#Republicans #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 20 hours ago

The explosion in #media sources is what Capitol Hill #Republicans & their allies point to in justifying this year’s rescission package.

“With cellphones & internet & all that, I think the ability of people almost any part of the country to access all kinds of information sources is, you know, greater than it’s ever been,” Jeff Miron, a VP of Cato Institute, a libertarian research group, said this week—on none other than #NPR.

#Trump#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 20 hours ago

“He was unpleasantly surprised that a lot of conservative politicians from red states resisted,” said Steve Oney, the author of “On Air,” a book on the history of #NPR. “In their communities, their #PublicRadio & #PublicTelevision stations were seen as assets.”

Now, though, Oney said, “people get their news from anywhere they want, so there’s not the critical-mass support back in red-state America for #PublicBroadcasting.”

#Trump#Republicans #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 20 hours ago

But in the years that followed, the strength of local #PublicTelevision & #PublicRadio stations in conservative states was often what saved the #federal #funding.

In 1995, #NewtGingrich, then the #House speaker, made one of the most aggressive moves since #Nixon to “zero out” federal support for #PublicMedia before he found it politically untenable.

#Trump#Republicans#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp 20 hours ago

Nixon’s admin didn’t follow through. Instead, it toggled between pressure on the independent Corporation for #PublicBroadcasting to do its bidding & a plan to push more of its budget down to local stations — which, #Nixon aides believed, tended to have more conservative management than the national #networks run out of New York & Washington.

#Trump#Republicans #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
DrALJONES
@DrALJONES@mastodon.social  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago

The billionaires called it an "excess of democracy", & they worked out how to defeat it:

THE PLAN

In 1975, Samuel P. Huntington said the "excess of democracy" was caused by mass education in the 1960s.

It followed that education had to be de-democratised. Along with the media.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/an-excess-of-democracy-how-corporations-killed-the-campus,15165

HOW IT'S GOING

2025: SCOTUS complies:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/15/headlines/scotus_greenlights_dismantling_of_education_department_unleashing_untold_harm

#Plutocracy #TrilateralCommission#USPol #PowellMemo#EuroPol#Education#Racism#Autocracy .

America must limit the education of marginal groups, said Huntington. Prior to World War Il, only 40 per cent of the population was educated beyond elementary level; by 1972, that figure was 75 per cent. The report summed up the threat thus — education raises political consciousness, which raises demands, which make democratic government unworkable: The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to have a more consistent and more ideological outlook on political issues ,and to hold more “enlightened” or “liberal” or “change- oriented” views on social, cultural and foreign policy issues. ...Black political participation,’ the report said, ‘was the product primarily... of increased group consciousness.
America must limit the education of marginal groups, said Huntington. Prior to World War Il, only 40 per cent of the population was educated beyond elementary level; by 1972, that figure was 75 per cent. The report summed up the threat thus — education raises political consciousness, which raises demands, which make democratic government unworkable: The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to have a more consistent and more ideological outlook on political issues ,and to hold more “enlightened” or “liberal” or “change- oriented” views on social, cultural and foreign policy issues. ...Black political participation,’ the report said, ‘was the product primarily... of increased group consciousness.
America must limit the education of marginal groups, said Huntington. Prior to World War Il, only 40 per cent of the population was educated beyond elementary level; by 1972, that figure was 75 per cent. The report summed up the threat thus — education raises political consciousness, which raises demands, which make democratic government unworkable: The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to have a more consistent and more ideological outlook on political issues ,and to hold more “enlightened” or “liberal” or “change- oriented” views on social, cultural and foreign policy issues. ...Black political participation,’ the report said, ‘was the product primarily... of increased group consciousness.
DrALJONES
@DrALJONES@mastodon.social  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago

The billionaires called it an "excess of democracy", & they worked out how to defeat it:

THE PLAN

In 1975, Samuel P. Huntington said the "excess of democracy" was caused by mass education in the 1960s.

It followed that education had to be de-democratised. Along with the media.

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/an-excess-of-democracy-how-corporations-killed-the-campus,15165

HOW IT'S GOING

2025: SCOTUS complies:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/7/15/headlines/scotus_greenlights_dismantling_of_education_department_unleashing_untold_harm

#Plutocracy #TrilateralCommission#USPol #PowellMemo#EuroPol#Education#Racism#Autocracy .

America must limit the education of marginal groups, said Huntington. Prior to World War Il, only 40 per cent of the population was educated beyond elementary level; by 1972, that figure was 75 per cent. The report summed up the threat thus — education raises political consciousness, which raises demands, which make democratic government unworkable: The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to have a more consistent and more ideological outlook on political issues ,and to hold more “enlightened” or “liberal” or “change- oriented” views on social, cultural and foreign policy issues. ...Black political participation,’ the report said, ‘was the product primarily... of increased group consciousness.
America must limit the education of marginal groups, said Huntington. Prior to World War Il, only 40 per cent of the population was educated beyond elementary level; by 1972, that figure was 75 per cent. The report summed up the threat thus — education raises political consciousness, which raises demands, which make democratic government unworkable: The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to have a more consistent and more ideological outlook on political issues ,and to hold more “enlightened” or “liberal” or “change- oriented” views on social, cultural and foreign policy issues. ...Black political participation,’ the report said, ‘was the product primarily... of increased group consciousness.
America must limit the education of marginal groups, said Huntington. Prior to World War Il, only 40 per cent of the population was educated beyond elementary level; by 1972, that figure was 75 per cent. The report summed up the threat thus — education raises political consciousness, which raises demands, which make democratic government unworkable: The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to participate in politics, to have a more consistent and more ideological outlook on political issues ,and to hold more “enlightened” or “liberal” or “change- oriented” views on social, cultural and foreign policy issues. ...Black political participation,’ the report said, ‘was the product primarily... of increased group consciousness.
Nonilex
@Nonilex@masto.ai  ·  activity timestamp last month

Barack #Obama warns the #US is ‘dangerously close’ to slipping into #autocracy under #Trump

In rare public remarks, the fmr president said recent actions from the admin are “not consistent with American #democracy.”

#USpol #democracy#Constitution #law
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/barack-obama-trump-speech-trump-autocracy-rcna213729