Tankies tell me the "capitalist media" is hiding the truth from me. Asking what, specifically, is a bannable offence.
Original Post:
I asked, concisely and simply, what was being hidden from us. Most of them just berated me, one user claimed the Syria conflict to which I provided a link to a recent UN Statement on which quite accurately reflected the conflict start to finish. Another user claimed that the recently declassified Nixon era documents about the Chilean revolution and coup, but I was able to find a 1973 archived Newspaper accusing the Nixon Admin of having a hand in it from Times Magazine meaning it was already a mainstream theory at the time.
120 replies
Two things are happening, I think:
what
Those were all popular ideas before the advent of the internet. Israel's supremacy in US foreign policy didn't even come about until the mid-80s, universal healthcare was one of Clinton's main running points in '92, and the private funding floodgates didn't open until Citizens United in 2010, and was deeply controversial with the public.
I'll ask you the same thing I asked Diplomjodler: Show me one article in the mainstream press that simply reports the objective truth that Al Gore is right about global warming.
They were "popular" ideas, sure. What I'm saying is that the media's unanimous opposition to them was very effective at preventing them from getting real traction by distorting the thinking of a lot of people in the country. For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_health_care_plan_of_1993
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/19/world/1999-continues-warming-trend-around-globe.html
Nothing of this indicates that it's in any way urgent. That was my point. The closest it comes, way way down after it's talking about some flowers maybe doing some weird things, is:
Doesn't sound too bad. What Gore said, during the election while the press criticized him for it and later when he found financing for a platform of his own, was:
All emphasis is mine. I just picked random stuff from his movie's script. That's the reality. I think people still don't really grasp it, because the "business as usual" malpractice press got replaced with getting your news from Facebook instead of being replaced with something better, but it is at least possible to broadcast that message to a mass audience now without having to finance your own movie. In 1999, it wasn't, and the news was refusing their duty to as the only ones who could do it.
Nonsense. There was a free press that freely discussed all the topics you mentioned. It's true that the mainstream was pretty supportive of the status quo but even there you'd find, for instance, plenty of warnings of climate change and open discussions about it.
Noam Chomsky wrote a bunch of books about the free press's coverage of geopolitical issues and one of his biggest points of emphasis was how the whole spectrum of permissible debate was basically indistinguishable. That's why I used Israel as one example.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find even a single newspaper article in the run-up to 2000 that was willing to simply say plainly that Al Gore was objectively right about climate change and what a fucking emergency it was, for example. It was always represented as a "debate" and his absolutely voice-in-the-wilderness diagnosis was a "viewpoint." He had to make a whole movie of his own to be able to speak plainly about what was going on, because literally no one in the news was explaining what needed to be explained about it. And that was all after counterculture news started to get a little bit of early traction on the internet and puncture the monopoly a little bit.
It is almost impossible for people who grew up post-internet to grasp how constrained the news in the pre-internet era was. It sounds like we're making it up, like of course it couldn't have been like that.
You mean the guy who was all buddy buddy with Epstein? Well, in that case it must be true, of course.
I'm going to need you to look up "ad hominem" in the dictionary, it's not just for internet insults
Also let me know if you find one of those climate change articles or anything
I'm actually old enough to remember reading those back in the day. And if you go to any library that has old magazines or newspapers you won't have any trouble finding stuff. As for Chomsky, this motherfucker (note the ad hominem) has lost every bit of credibility he might ever have had for associating with the kind of people he's been arguing against all his life.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about:
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/us/2000-campaign-environment-favorite-issue-gore-finds-himself-2-front-defense.html
Just a bunch of shit, from beginning to end. Not a whisper of the idea that this might actually be an emergency. In fact, it's kind of treated as a liability for Gore that he keeps saying that it is.
About as good as it gets is this:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/121898sci-global-warming.html
... which, even if we're not going to take any points off for "While there are dissenters who believe the warmer climate can be explained by normal variation," doesn't really address even to the slightest degree why this kind of thing might actually be important let alone a globe-spanning catastrophe.
That's what I mean about why Gore had to make his own movie. The media was simply violently opposed to the idea of telling anyone the truth about it, limiting itself to sometimes making a grudging acknowledgement that maybe some of the most basic facts about the present might be true, with nothing at all indicated about what it meant for the future.
Okay, your turn. Where's the newspaper article where they made it clear that it was an emergency? You said anyone could find them without any trouble, so it should be easy.
Yeah, Noam Chomsky is openly siding with Russia's invasion, isn't he? "A Stronger NATO is the last thing we need" he said.
Even then, he's been a prominent figure and part of the available media in the USA for a very long time, so clearly an example of not being censored.
Yeah. He went off the deep end once he got elderly and his viewpoint of the world ossified. It doesn't invalidate his earlier scholarship, though.
(Also, his support for Russia is overblown by the disinfo machine. Mostly what he's saying in things that I have read is that NATO and the West have done ten times worse than Russia is doing in Ukraine right now, so the freakout is a bunch of hypocrisy, which is of course completely accurate. The disinfo likes to spin it like he's saying Russia is the good guys, which isn't at all what he's saying. But yes, I also think he's missing the central point in Ukraine because it doesn't fit with how he likes to look at things.)
Well... the US doesn't have state-sponsored censorship like most socialist countries. That part is true. My point, and I think the OOP cartoon's point, is that because our media is capitalist, it was more or less impossible before non-big-business media developed out of the internet for certain messages to get out. I do think that's a fair point. Just the fact that one academic was able to get one counterculture message out (and generally be regarded by 100% of the external political spectrum as a terrorist as a result) doesn't invalidate that to me.
We had those beliefs in print and more, actually. For example, people used to think our supply of oil would have been completely used up by now, it caused a lot of fear and panic back in the day. Al Gore was running a presidential campaign on a Climate Change platform starting in 1999.
I am not a tankie, but I can help you out - there are many many examples of this
Some journalists will call any policy even slightly to the left of neoliberalism "socialist". This is done because the red scare taught Americans that socialism and communism are evil ideologies, despite Capitalism having a much higher death count - think of all the kids dying mining conflict minerals for our iPhones in Africa.
In mainstream press, criticism is focused on individuals and policies, rather than the system itself. In any kind of financial crisis, there is never much mainstream media coverage suggesting that capitalism itself is at fault, it's always little cracks in the system. There are always going to be more cracks because it is a deeply flawed system.
The media often refers to the democrats as "left wing", despite democrats being very decidedly right wing. This serves capital by shifting the overton window and preventing people realizing there is no left wing alternative in the United States.
Any economic policies which acknowledges the reality, that taxes being spent on things like healthcare and education are always a net benefit to the economy, are dismissed as somehow delusional or wrong. In the mainstream press, the national budget is treated as being like a household budget, which it clearly isn't.
The mainstream media is owned by billionaires. Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, The Times (UK) are all owned by the Murdoch family. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. The LA Times, the Atlantic, Time Magazine, the Boston Globe, are all owned by billionaires. It's obvious that it is in their best interests to mislead us into thinking that capitalism is the best system.
Exactly. They're not hiding things in the sense of conspiracies, I don't think, rather journalists are also believers of capitalist dogma and won't question it because it never occurs to them. We need to remind people "A better world is possible" because mainstream society and media are telling them it isn't and we're just naive.
Nope, they're a big tent party with centrist & leftist factions. Divisions between factions clearly show up in their voting patterns.
The leftist modern liberal & progressive factions & their caucuses have been a major part of the Democratic party since the New Deal, and their influences trace back to the late 19th century in US politics.
Britannica summarizes the 19th century emergence of modern liberalism to address broader social & economic obstacles to equal access & liberty than the classical liberal focus on excesses of government power.
I find it pretty ironic that you claim the democrats have leftist factions when there is not a single anti-capitalist senator or congressperson. You are a victim of the propaganda in the media, here arguing with me that the media isn't pushing propaganda. I guess it was effective.
I am not here to debate anyone, I am only here because I wanted to answer a simple question which seemed to me, to be asked genuinely. If you have any doubts about capitalism, I will gladly discuss them with you, but if you're certain that it's wonderful, I won't waste any further time with that - but have a great day regardless.
Yep, facts are "ironic" to someone who doesn't let evidence interfere with their opinions.
You are a victim of ignorance & denialism of conventional political science, history, widely reported facts.
Your ignorance is effective at convincing yourself.
It doesn't seem you followed any of the links clearly showing leftist factions in the party exist, their positive government intervention policies (social safety nets, investment in public services, economic controls) in pursuit of a fairer, more egalitarian society, or their criticisms of social & economic inequities including from underregulated capitalism. You seem to ignore criticism of capitalism & the US economy in the news from leftist democrats urging better regulation & public interventions: AOC, Warren, etc.
Not the definition or a requirement of leftism. Leftism is the pursuit of social & political equality and egalitarianism.
That modern liberalism is leftist follows from definitions & straightforward logic. Political scientists recognize leftist liberals
Many of these ideologies accept regulated market capitalism in a mixed economy.
Too bad: you shouldn't expect your falsehoods to go unchallenged. Contrary to your flat-out wrong opinion contradicting conventional political science, history, & widely reported information, the Democratic party includes a major leftist faction often followed in the news.
Anti-capitalism doesn't mean proposing reforms or social policies. It means proposing the abolition of capitalism. The fact that you think any of this liberal/social democrat garbage is "leftist" is my entire point. True leftists want to end capitalism. You will think of that as an "extreme left" position, but for people not sheltered by your media ecosystem, it's just leftist. Your "left" only at very best reaches juuuust left of centre.
It's only extreme left for Americans. These people freely participate in European parliamentary politics and are seen as regulars
Leftism typically includes groups who want to abolish existing politico-economic orders in favour of entirely different ones. The terms came from the French parliament in the 19th century when faced with the question of retaining monarchy (whose proponents sat on the right) or republicanism (sat on the left).
Liberals don't really qualify as leftists because they are fine with maintaining capitalism and can be considered centre-left at best. The left would typically start at the so-called "democratic socialists" like the Bernie Sanders and Mamdani cadre.
Example, please
In a capitalist financial crisis you receive news about who is at fault. In an authoritarian state owned financial crisis you don't receive that news because the authoritarian state run media wouldn't blame themselves.
Democrats are left wing, every policy stance they hold is progressive barring some foreign affairs politics.
There are countless, literally countless, articles and studies talking about the beneficial aspects of social programs in addition to aversion of suffering.
Obamacare, social security, medicare for all, et cetera
This I definitely don't agree with. We don't have universal health care and we couldn't get the first iteration of the IRA because the Democrats don't agree with those things (among many other massively mainstream ideas) because they are left-wing policies which will anger their donors. The only left-wing people in American politics are random isolated hotspots like Bernie or AOC who constantly have a target on their back in the media as a result.
The Republicans are far worse than the Democrats, and oppose those fairly basic left-wing policies rabidly and unanimously instead of only being wishy-washy about them enough so we don't have them, but in almost any Western democracy, the Democrats would be the right-wing party, and a lot of the problems we have are because the vast majority of Democrats are complicit in all sorts of crimes against the people.
All of these things have been covered by the media in overwhelming detail nonstop for over a decade.
I'm saying that those are things that were described as "socialism" to scare people away from supporting them (the point #1).
They are socialism, but there are also many articles that only talk about their good points as well. Are you proposing that all western media refuses to say nice things about Obamacare and Social Security? Because I can bring up some examples for you if that's what you're saying.
I feel like this is some kind of friendly fire because the tankies got you all spun up to look for enemies lol
There's a specific point I am answering here:
There's a separate conversation about what are the issues that no big media in the US is willing to talk about, and how that list was in the year 2000 versus today, but that isn't this conversation. I'm literally just answering examples for point number 1, because it definitely is accurate that some (emphasized) journalists (to use the word a little bit loosely) will cover any middle-of-the-road normal Western democratic policy as "socialism" because they are wildly capitalistic. I feel like you are responding to some different point than that here, which again is fine if you want to talk about that, but it's separate from this conversation. Right? Doesn't that make sense?
Edit: To answer your specific question, no I don't think that it is universally true that the media unanimously refused to say anything good about social security or Obamacare. I do think that it was pretty much universal that they refused to say anything good about universal health care in the mid-1990s when Clinton was trying to do it, which led to its defeat. That's sort of my central thesis in some of my other comments here, that up until about 2000 big business had a total monopoly on media in this country which led it to be pretty easy for them to defeat anything to the left of Thatcher or Reagan that tried to rear its head. When Obama tried again in 2008, they had maybe about 60% control, which was enough to lead a lot of people to hate Obamacare even up to the present day but their control had slipped sufficiently that he was able to do some weakened and distorted version of health care without it being just completely vetoed by the insurance companies because of their and their friends' control of media.
When I said "Example, please" I wanted an Example of a subject that the "Capitalist Media" has completely kept the USA in the dark about.
Obamacare was not a valid example. Here, have a look:
Huffpost - "Health Care Costs Skyrocket For Millions Of Americans As Subsidies Lapse"
"Capitalist Media" has articles saying all kinds of nice things about that "socialism".
They aren't socialism you dingus are you serious? That's literally just spending taxes, what's what every government does. Decides how to spend taxes
Spending taxes on goods and services for the public is socialism's barest definition. Roads are socialism. Libraries are socialism.
You want to know what's not socialism? The USSR.
I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone who clearly has their mind made up, if you want to be a slave to daddy capitalism, don't let me get in your way.
So you have no examples? What a surprise.
Believe it or not, I don't wander the fediverse with receipts for propaganda in my back pocket. If I really wanted to, I could spend a few hours putting together a response to your comment with relevant citations, but unfortunately I don't have all day to spend arguing with people on the Internet, and I didn't come here for a debate in the first place. I saw you post this:
I responded, concisely and simply, with a few examples of mainstream media acting defensively on behalf of capitalism which I suspected that most people would have personal experience of noticing themselves. I don't want to waste hours of my time on this, either accept the truth or don't. It's not my problem, it's yours.
You provided no examples. The media is a diverse spread of firms across the political spectrum, the examples you gave had examples of the opposite as well, meaning nothing was effectively hidden.
I've got a nice one too. Some olympic level mental gymnastics there.
A little of column "I don't know what 'nominally' means," a little of column "Under no circumstances do I plan to address your question head on, I'll start up some tangential nonsense instead."
I’m not sure why people waste their time on these subs.
These aren’t places for useful discussion on improving society, especially in the US. They are full of people who don’t even really share or uphold socialist views, but are engaging to disrupt and affect the vote or contaminate the outlook of younger progressives.
They’re on Team Trump, Netanyahu and Putin and if they aren’t operatives themselves, they’re farmed useful idiots. I hate saying that about the latter, because they’re essentially good people led down the wrong path. That said, they’re also quite irresponsible.
There’s no space for genuine discussion in those places. You’ll first be bullied by fools then removed when you present arguments. Don’t waste your time.
Well, that’s sad.
Does the shoe fit?
Lovely.
If you didn’t vote I don’t have any sympathy for you. Your wife yeah and doubly so because she’s got to put up with…how did you put it…a piece of shit like you as well as watch you (not) vote to deport her.
Unless of course you did vote and vote Harris, in which case I don’t know why you’re mouthing off.
I never said that at all, nor do I believe it.
Well perhaps if irresponsible people such as yourself learned the limits of your political process and voted accordingly people your country wouldn’t be there and others wouldn’t think that.
I’m sorry to hear that
I’m not an American.
It's Media which is available to the West. The original post's logic takes some hoop jumping but if I flat out said that "capitalist media isn't state controlled and therefor cannot actually block ideas, literally every opinion is present" the stupid Tankies wouldn't be able to clump up enough braincells to process that concept.
hey antiyanks you're stupid, you can't stab someone through a computer you silly boy
Literally every opinion is not present though
Can you give me an example?
Is your contention that there is no censorship whatsoever in American media?
Look, mate, we both know you don't have an answer, just like the dozen people before you who tried and failed.
I'm not really trying to argue what they are, I just am genuinely asking. How could that possibly be the case is your view? Cops are arresting journalists without cause lol
The original post above and the discussion at hand is that the Tankies claim Capitalist Media is hiding the Truth from the USA, and I simply ask what they are hiding.
Personally, I'm not sure a capitalist media system is capable of hiding something, because that would imply nationwide coordination, which simply doesn't exist in a free market. It's one of those "Jews Control the Weather" level of conspiracies.
"Allende was overthrown because of capitalist media" is a new one.
Theres actually some truth to the Chilean coup claim, according to declassified documents about funding a Chilean Propaganda Magazine and cooperating with the copper mining companies, but the point is that newspapers of the time were openly talking about that claim.
For example, this TIME magazine article from October 1973: LINK
While it's certainly flattery for the Nixon admin, it's clear that this was a mainstream idea.
That was for the 1970 attempts, though, which were miserable failures and did not continue past '71 to my knowledge.
The successful 1973 coup caught the CIA off-guard, and was largely predicated on hostility from the military brass - including internal discussions among them of possible leftist involvement in the post-coup government. Allende chose to trust, in particular, Pinochet, who had successfully cultivated an 'apolitical' reputation (but apparently was one of the furthest right of them all).
It would be difficult to argue that Allende's downfall owed much to media of any kind, much less capitalist media.
People who speak seriously about "tankies" are not serious people.
agreed, Tankies are jokes and largely passive
Okay, but what would you tell someone who was asking in good faith? Like if a 10 year old asked, what would you tell them?
See, the thing you have to understand is, they're not interested in that question. They're trying to "win." That's why ad hominem is so important: They can just say you're bad-faith, and then strut off victorious. It's actually a disadvantage if they engage factually.
Why that is, is an exercise for the reader...
I do actually understand that, but someone who doesn't can see this exchange and learn it for themselves.
quite well put
OP was quite poorly behaved in the post that they are referencing, acting in bad faith as a troll completely uninterested in thinking or learning about the topic.
The ignorance and incuriousity is exemplified by the irresponsible use of the term "tankie", seeming to be a conflation with all socialists or leftists, or simply everyone whose position they personally fail to understand and refuse to respect.
Some bullishness is generally warranted as a response to those who refuse to examine their own behavior.
Feel free to answer the question. "Tankie" is by absolutely no means a conflation with all socialists or leftists. Tankies are right-wing, which is why we don't like them.
Again, feel free to answer the fairly basic question, IDK how you can refuse to do that and preemptively accuse any and every listener of being obviously incurious about the answer. You have no idea who's reading this who you now have the opportunity to make a sensible argument to.
You seem confused.
My best suggestion is that you reread the thread from the beginning, preferably when your head is more clear.
Sounds like you're incurious
Did you reread the thread from the beginning?
https://nypost.com/2026/01/05/media/nyt-and-wapo-held-reporting-about-maduro-raid-drawing-rare-praise-from-secretary-of-state-marco-rubio/
And also dont be stupid and think this is the first or last time fhey will do this.
You would answer a 10 year old child's question with a link to an article with a statement that would leave them feeling like you think they're stupid? If you can't explain something in terms a child could understand I don't think you fully understand it either.
Some things arent simple enough for child minds. Such is the problem with all the flat earth and anti vaccine shit going around. Just because you dont understand something doesnt mean it isnt right or that you have any grounds to question it.
I see you aren't interested in answering the question.
So you're engaging in bad faith? You have no intention of having an actual discussion, you just want an argument?
Your conclusion is completely unsound.
OP is a troll whose questions were addressed despite their complete lack of sincerity.
No one should feel compelled to continue engaging such a bad actor with any earnestness.
No, I don't think it is.
OP got banned and called names for asking a question.
That's how I feel about the people who banned someone for asking a question.
When every challenging question is presupposed to be "in bad faith", no critical questioning "in good faith" is possible. "In bad faith" is just pretense to evade genuine debate & critical self-reflection.
I'm Donald Trump's biggest hater, unlike you fuckin Tankies who looove and cheeerrish him so much.
You came here to lie and talk shit, but I'm the troll?
I am not on lemmy, at all. I am on PieFed because the PieFed devs are NOT pro-war, pro-genocide, pro-Russia, and Transphobic like the Lemmy Devs are.
I asked knowing you couldn't answer, and I was proven right.