@Min Weber

“David Buttigieg should watch these clips, to understand what I’m trying to say on belonging to a community.”

I’ve seen them, I’ll leave them to you however!

Cheers!

@Min

I am not afraid of a plebiscite. It’s the damn principle: you do not get to vote on rights.

Rights are non-negotiable and should be upheld without the vote of the majority. There’s no need to get so defensive as it certainly isn’t personal, but anyway, let’s face it – we ain’t gonna agree to save our lives so have a beer on me and let’s agree to disagree.

@Min

I agree. Plus, they are not my “beloved” PN, but seeing the alternative they are far and away the best option. I have yet to see a true change in Labour.

Yes, the PN screw up sometimes, but when looking at the big picture there is no comparison between the two.

My layman’s view: in the US, news is controlled by a few large conglomerates: they don’t agree on most things. You get Fox on one extreme and maybe MSNBC and NYTimes assets at the other but in reality they are corporate propaganda machines.
In the US everything is about money, there are no ethics or ideologies. Ironically the government funded PBS seems to be a well balanced source but cable companies effectively control what the masses see. Seems like the rustbelt only gets served Fox for example. The US federal government has a fascist bent and is too tied with corporations. The healthy antagonism between public and private is missing. Then you get opportunists like this http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1007.verini.html

In Europe it’s a bit different. The ideological left-right and cultural north-south divide still permits a relatively healthy debate about issues but with Black, Murdock and Berlusconi hoarding news and media assets it’s becoming more difficult to get a balanced view. There is also a language problem where some interesting media sources are only published in original language.

So, though there is a general pattern of mass betrayal of their audience’s interests the system is still anarchic enough. It can be explained by greed and personal interests more than kevin’s conspiracy theories with Bildeberg, the Illuminati etc… but then again, I want a world-government, so that makes me aligned with the devils kevin denounces, so I don’t see their shadows. We need a pax romana #2

Dear Joseph A Borg

I do not know who you are – but I am very grateful to you!

I watched the entire 4 hours of Adam Curtis’ documentary – it is a much, much better articulation of exactly what I have been trying to say these past few days.

Thanks a lot!

” It’s the people who go to them to have their marriage declared null because they have somehow convinced themselves that they were never really married. It’s a state of denial that is typically Maltese: instead of doing the mature thing, accepting the situation and moving on, people wipe out whole chapters of their lives and try to pretend that they never happened.]”

Wrong. they are simply forced to do so since there`s no divorce.

This too is an insightful comment, Joe: “You make it look like the media is an independent entity when in fact “the media” is just a public manifestation of entrenched interests in government, corporations and the rich 1%.”

My tentative reaction (works-in-progress style) is: yes and no.

To my the media are like one of the estates of the ancien regime.

Those estates were independent of each other and yet enmeshed in the same system.

Would you agree with this analysis?

Thanks Joe, for this: Adam Curtis’ Century of the Self.

I didn’t know about the series.

The dominance of the Self is a recurring theme in contemporary literature, which looks at the atomization of society.

David Buttigieg should watch these clips, to understand what I’m trying to say on belonging to a community.

It would be nice if you could share with the readers of this blog your impressions of the book you’re going to read, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

This summer I intend to concentrate on – among others – Amitai Etzioni.

“Not at all, be as frank as you wish but I only ridicule dangerous nonsense, such as getting other people to vote what is universally accepted as a right.”

Why are you afraid of a plebiscite?

Ah! You believe you’re part on an enlightened elite and the rest are just illiterates idiots?

Well, let me tell you a secret… that is how many in the ultra-conservative-religious camp view themselves: they are the elite and the rest (including you) are illiterate idiots.

All in all, perhaps in your case they might not be off the mark…

@ David B.

And they were not democratic!

(It was your beloved PN which did, eh!)