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There is widespread concern. It's just not reported, because that's not a news story. If you're in the US, get together with your local community and do something about this (e.g. establish / repurpose a neighbourhood watch), before it's too late.





Then the press is not doing its job. It is the job of all of us to tell them that. Then again, everyone wants someone else to speak up because they think their voice can make no difference.

When I cancelled my Washington Post subscription I wrote a letter to the editor. The important part of that letter was under what set of circumstances I might start trusting the Washington Post again. I never got a response. Not that I expected one. I’m sure they were inundated with angry letters at the time.

From time to time I write letters. To journalists, to leaders, I even wrote our prime minister once - and got a reply. Sometimes they are letters of support when someone has stuck their neck out and deserves a pat on the back. Or when someone has done good work. Too often they are letters telling people to do their job properly or to behave like adults. A lot of politicians and members of the press need a reminder to behave like adults and do their job these days. To do the demanding part of their job. Not just the part that is easy or that brings in campaign contributions or easy sales.

I never expect people to respond. But sometimes they do. This means I’ve reached people.


I think we (people who care, that is) should look at organizing our own news. Rich people do it, must be something to it.

The purpose of most news companies is to make money by selling ads. Real news would have to come from something that doesn't run ads and makes their money another way


Yes, the press is fundamentally broken. It has been for decades.

Not just broken, intentionally subverted, in order to further these goals.

Rupert Murdoch did not buy the Wall Street Journal to help better inform the populace.


Our system works because it doesn't have friction. I wouldn't think it would take too much to make things prohibitively expensive for the government by the people adding legal, simple friction at every possible pain point.

The government has forgotten it can only do what it does with the consent of the people, and that a small minority could really frustrate things if they truly wanted to.


> There is widespread concern. It's just not reported, because that's not a news story.

No, it is annews story, and widepsread concerns are often reported on; its not widely reported on because the media is a mix of institutiins which tend to be either in support of the Administration doing it or in fear of being targeted in retaliation for reporting on topics like that.


"Study finds it's a widespread concern" is a news story – for example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3

> Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. […] Despite these encouraging statistics, we document that the world is in a state of pluralistic ignorance, wherein individuals around the globe systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act.

The situation is similar in the US: the majority of people don't think the government should be kidnapping citizens from their homes and shipping them off to foreign prisons without trial, but they also think everyone else is okay with it.

"It's a widespread concern" is not a news story, unless and until someone does the research and confirms it. Otherwise, how do the journalists know it's the case? And investigative journalists aren't usually running large-scale population studies.


It could be argued that the corruption of news media is the reason that the masses who support, and have always supported, climate action believe that it's not a widespread belief.

I'd argue it's fairly directly responsible for the small number who don't support climate action too.

And I think the same applies to governments kidnapping people and ignoring courts who tell them it's illegal.


> its not widely reported on because the media is a mix of institutiins which tend to be either in support of the Administration doing it or in fear of being targeted in retaliation for reporting on topics like that.

Here is a list of major news media outlets from Wikipedia[1].

Which of the following do you think either supports the current administration or fears being targeted by it?

ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, Bloomberg, Vice News, HBO, HuffPost, TMZ, CNET, NPR, The Hollywood Reporter, Newsweek, The New Yorker, Time , U.S. News & World Report

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_media_in_the_United_State...


If anyone's wondering whether this list of news companies is larger than the list of owners of those outlets: yes.

> Which of the following do you think either supports the current administration or fears being targeted by it? [ long list of media ]"

They all support it and none of them is afraid of being targeted because... they all support it, albeit in ways that are discernible only to those who can read between the lines.


Fox News supports and many of the others fear being targeted by it, some are a bit in between like Washington Post and LA Times (billionaire owners sucking up to the dictator, as is tradition when such regimes rise to power)

Unless you think threats of DOJ investigation, pulling broadcast licenses, or extremely expensive lawsuits don't produce fear? In that case you should let authoritarians know their playbook is out of date. Of course it's not, which is why authoritarians follow such a distinct pattern.


Look at the first 30 headlines when searching for Trump on the Washington Post and tell me they fear him in any way: https://www.washingtonpost.com/search/?query=trump

I suspect people will say they are critical of him, but "not enough" or cherry-pick 1 or 2 neutral headlines in a sea of critical ones.


No no, for WaPo one need only know that Bezos spiked the Editorial Board's endorsement of Harris and then Blue Origin executives met with the Trump campaign literally hours later.

Oh yeah and that they wouldn't publish a cartoon poking fun at the kleptocracy. The artist resigned in protest and went on to win a Pulitzer, which WaPo had no problem taking credit for.

Is it fair to say that Navalny didn't fear Putin because he was actually quite vocal against Putin?


I see. So "not enough" then.

Nope, that's actually not what I said. Nice try though!

So the Washington Post is extremely anti-Trump but once or twice the owner stepped in and forced them to remain neutral _maybe_ so as not to jeopardize government contracts for one of his other companies. But also there was a big backlash, and he probably could never do this again or the very least extremely infrequently?

> So the Washington Post… owner stepped in… so as not to jeopardize government contracts for one of his other companies

I see. So “in fear of being targeted in retaliation” then?


Those are almost all sanewashing headlines for truly terrible acts.

Literally things that you'd expect to find in an Alan Moore dystopian graphic novel, or as world building background TV headlines in a gritty Robocop described in peppy business as usual terms.

The top one is an alcoholic Fox News host being appointed as an Attorney General to replace a disastrous one that couldn't even get Republican support to be confirmed, a brief summary of his 120 days:

> He represented Jan. 6 defendants before getting the job, punished and demoted their prosecutors when he got it, and launched a series of ideological investigations (wokeness in medical journals, a five-year old Chuck Schumer gaffe) that went nowhere.




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