The Column

21/12/2021

An urgent, profound humanitarian crisis is unfolding as we speak, but the ramp of media concern is virtually nonexistent. A report here and there over the past weeks, but nothing remotely close to the nonstop moralizing and calls to “do something” we saw during the last few weeks of August upon the U.S. withdrawal.

Once again, humanitarian concerns mysteriously track with the immediate needs of U.S. strategic interests.

16/12/2021

“And even when democrats do something significant that improves poor people’s lives, Democratic leaders don’t take any credit for it. Take, for example, the greatest transfer of wealth to the poor and working class in 60 years: Enhanced Unemployment Insurance. Democrats largely supported extending it, and they did as a matter of votes. This was a major win for struggling workers—it kept people alive, paid rent and bought groceries and gave people what they almost never have: breathing room.

But as a matter of messaging, it was nowhere to be found. President Biden didn’t mention it once in any of the 2020 presidential debates. He rarely mentioned it in any speeches. Neither did Nancy Pelosi. They acted embarrassed by it, then quickly killed it in September. They didn’t fight for it, because—as Pelosi made refreshingly clear—they are capitalists and their fellow capitalist at the Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups made it apparent that if they wanted any of their support in 2022 they’d have to end the program. This was clear as early as April 2020. So Democratic leaders snuffed it out and never talked about it and now, never bring it up at all.”

If Democratic leadership doesn’t seem to care, why should we?

24/11/2021

"In this reading of history, both the enslaved person and enslaver, the Confederate Army general and Frederick Douglass, the Native American targeted for genocide and the white genocider, the colonizer and the colonized, can all be part of some coherent political project based largely on the tautology that anyone in North America south of the 49th parallel and north of the Rio Grande from 1619 to present is, was, and always has been part of some foreseen, and vaguely designed American Experience. "

At the end of the day, the U.S. has to be the good guys. If we’re not, the whole power arrangement doesn't really work.

16/11/2021

When calls for incarceration are our only vehicle for empathy, mass incarceration is inevitable.

16/11/2021

What’s noteworthy about the moral preening of the Cuba doc is that VICE is literally funded by the Saudi regime and, as a result, the “hard-hitting” outlet has run zero critical reporting on the absolute monarchy since its business partnership began seven months ago.

VICE’s Cuba documentary is an object lesson in selective outrage.

06/11/2021

For the paper record, the speaker must be wearing an “I am a racist” t-shirt in order to call something racist

For the paper record, the speaker must be wearing an “I am a racist” t-shirt in order to call something racist.

01/11/2021

Every few weeks we have a new “Sputnik moment.'' Perhaps none of them are.

24/10/2021

CNN’s Scott Jennings and MSNBC’s Mike Murphy are paid by carbon emitter front groups. Shouldn't viewers know this when these pundits comment on the climate-heavy Reconciliation Bill?

CNN’s Scott Jennings and MSNBC’s Mike Murphy are paid by carbon emitter front groups. Shouldn't viewers know this when they comment on the climate-heavy Reconciliation Bill?

22/10/2021

CNN insists it adequately covers the substance of the “$3.5 Trillion” “social spending” bill, but a survey of three of its major news programs tells a different story.

22/10/2021

There are key questions mainstream journalists have yet to ask. They probably should before Prop 47 is repealed and more faceless Black and Brown kids are thrown in prison.

11/10/2021

Increasingly, reporters, pundits, and editors are allowing landlords to rebrand themselves “housing providers” in a troublesome and cynical trend of faux identity politics.

Landlords are not protected or oppressed class—their identity preference is irrelevant.

06/10/2021

The public is left with vague reporting about a “$3.5 trillion” “price tag” that should be “slimmed down,” with no sense of what would actually be gutted or who would be harmed if it is.

05/10/2021

The weapons company is trying to gut the Build Back Better bill while, at the same time, seeking “emergency reimbursement” in the 2022 defense bill.

28/09/2021

Rightwing demagogues like Tucker Carlson incite against the homeless on a nightly basis, but mainline outlets also help stigmatize the unhoused, only with more subtlety.

20/09/2021

The West's "charity" double game on vaccines is about domestic PR and maintaining control over public health policy in the global south.

17/09/2021

Tapper has asked how we can afford free college, stimulus packages, housing for the poor, and single-payer healthcare. But, mysteriously, never did the same for 20 years of war.

13/09/2021

"But activism without conflict is a strange form of activism, indeed. There’s poverty but no persons or institutions making anyone poor. There’s hunger but no one is hoarding resources and food. It’s not activism against anything in particular, just abstract social problems with no authors.

In addition to the World Bank, Global Citizen has worked on these control opposition stunts with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for years, inviting IMF officials to give speeches about the perils of poverty at “rallies” ostensibly to help the global poor. But, as Cohen and Ross also note, the IMF, like the World Bank, is despised by activists in the global south. The IMF extorts poor countries with exploitative privatization schemes and structural adjustment programs that drive poverty and destroy ecosystems.

Global Citizen lavishes these powerful institutions with “leadership” awards. Its 2020 “World leader of the year” award went to EU commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and its 2018 “World Leader of the year” award went to Conservative Party Norway PM Erna Solberg—both of whom remain fierce opponents of the TRIPS waiver. Two of the group’s four finalists last year actively worked against TRIPS at the WTO, a third was head of the IMF. Do the heads of the EU and IMF really need awards? Are they otherwise obscure and unrecognized? What is the point of these media products if not public relations for the already powerful and entrenched?"

The show’s producer Global Citizen, funded by Bill Gates, the World Bank and a who's who of multinational corporations, wants us to rely on those who drive poverty to fight poverty.

08/09/2021

At the end of August, two deadlines loomed––the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the end of pandemic lifelines for the poor. One solicited wall-to-wall coverage and outrage from our pundit class. The other, largely indifference.

The contrast of weeks of media outrage over the Afghanistan withdrawal with U.S. media's broad indifference to millions thrown off life-saving aid couldn't be any starker.

08/09/2021

Yesterday, 9.3 million people were kicked off UI. This––along with the end of the eviction moratorium––will throw millions into poverty. Our latest is on US media's role in making this happen, namely their wholesale adoption of the "labor shortage" panic.

Anti-poor Republicans and feckless Democrats are to blame, but so is American media, which uncritically disseminated Chamber of Commerce talking points for months.

07/09/2021

Labor rights were forged in blood and rebellion, but one wouldn’t know this reading NPR’s typically sanitized version of events.

04/09/2021

"As U.S. cities flooded, Congress pushed a $38 billion increase to a military that is worsening the climate crisis.

In July, dozens of climate and social justice organizations sent a letter to the Biden administration and members of U.S. Congress calling on them to 'eschew the dominant antagonistic approach to U.S.-China relations and instead prioritize multilateralism, diplomacy, and cooperation with China to address the existential threat that is the climate crisis.' The letter underscores, 'Nothing less than the future of our planet depends on ending the new Cold War between the United States and China.'"

As U.S. cities flooded, Congress pushed a $38 billion increase to a military that is worsening the climate crisis.

03/09/2021

03/09/2021

02/09/2021

American media loves nothing more than likening uniquely American far-right political currents with those baddie, poor, non-white countries.

01/09/2021

"Europe" is more than just NATO funded think tanks and xenophobes. But one wouldn't know it reading about Biden's supposed rift with "Europe"––which we're told is just three racists in a trench coat.

Right-wingers worried about immigration and weapons-contractor-funded think tanks are held up as the entirety of European opinion.

30/08/2021

Hi all, welcome to The Column––a substack from Adam Johnson and Sarah Lazare. We will be posting writing here and would very much appreciate a subscription and follow.

Our first post, by Adam, is about NYT reporter Peter Baker's Raytheon-sourced "middle ground" Afghanistan "analysis" as an object lesson in conflict of interests and blob cope.

An object lesson in how routinely corrupt "national security" reporting is.