"How do I survive this situation. And I thought about, you know, using deadly force. I thought about shooting people. And then I just came to the conclusion that, you know, if I was to do that, you know, I might get a few but I'm not going to take everybody and they'll probably take my gun away from me and that would definitely give them the justification that they were looking for to kill me if they already hadn't made that up in their minds. So the other option was to appeal to somebody's humanity and I remember yelling out that I've got kids and it seemed to work."
Michael Fanone: DC Metropolitan Police Officer who was attacked and nearly murdered by the insurrectionists at the Capitol, among other things attacking him with a "Blue lives matter" flag.
Listening several times to Officer Fanone's stunningly chilling account, which he played down, he didn't mention he suffered a heart attack as he was nearly murdered, I noticed that he appreciated the role that the imaginations of the insurrectionists played a huge role in what they did, "the justification that they were looking for to kill me if they already hadn't made that up in their minds". Of course none of those insurrectionists had any real cause to attack the Capitol, none of them were endangered by the counting of the votes, none of them were under any real danger from Joe Biden becoming president, their entire insurrection was a product of make-believe in the fascist media, lies peddled on cable-TV, hate-talk radio, on completely fictitious podcasts, YouTubes, psychotic QAnon style online cults, the ACLU championed media such as Parler. It is remarkable how, in the United States, it is the middle-class and the affluent who are the greatest danger to domestic tranquility and egalitarian democracy even as they enjoy enormous comfort and privilege. The protection of their privileged position is their primary motivation. And in the case of a lot of them, the suckers who got gulled into going along with it, all of that privilege was as imaginary as the greatness that Trump claimed he was going to bring America back to. All of those chumps would certainly have been better off under the Biden administration. I'll bet all of them would have welcomed the support checks that Democrats would give them and the other things that will be passed in the Democratic Congress.
A fact of American life is that the consumption of honest news is a minority thing. Most Americans don't read real newspapers, they don't listen to media that follows professional ethics or which make an effort to confirm the truth of what they report. Most Americans get most of what replaces the truth from entertainment TV, movies, videos, radio and a little of the same thrilling junk in the form of read text.
Anyone who thinks there is a bright line that separates "journalism" from "entertainment" divisions in the news is buying into a self-serving corporate myth, one joined in with full enthusiasm by those who make money from babbling and scribbling in the media, who produce both the junk headed under "entertainment" and those who produce the loss-leader, always in need of demonstrating their profitability as the bottom line of profit, the "news".
Morning Joe and Mika may have come to understand, to their horror, what Trump was relatively early but they were as much as any people in the media a part of the rise of Trump, having him on as a reliably entertaining diversion on their "news" show. I may have some respect for their belated realization of the danger they were a part of creating, I wish I had full confidence that they and their colleagues who were as and, in too many cases, far more guilty of that would change their behavior in the face of future liars and opportunists.
I am absolutely confident that NPR won't change anything about what they do, I have every confidence that C-Span will continue its role in promoting Republican-fascism on its repulsive morning show. If there is one thing I wish Democrats in the Congress would do it would be to replace C-Span with something that doesn't run Washington Journal type shows, that would defund NPR and PBS for their roles in promoting Republican-fascism.
The role of journalism in producing depravity, led in that direction by what is called in American journalism "features" has long been noted. It's most developed critique in Karl Kraus's monumental play, "The Last Days of Mankind" is nearly a century old. I see no evidence that that blistering satirical work has had the least effect in reforming journalism or even the alleged intellectual culture that runs the scribbling class. The only protections against it is the ability of those lied about in the media to sue those who lie about them WHETHER OR NOT THEY CAN DEMONSTRATE THE IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE MENTAL STATE OF THE LIAR or a financial loss due to the lie and the ability of the state to remove a broadcasting license to the mass media. As things have developed, especially the ability of cable and online media to destroy lives and egalitarian democracy, all mass media should be subject to punishment for lying, especially that which targets entire races, entire genders, etc. for oppression.
I will bet you my last quarter that that crowd of insurrectionists had a far higher percentage of Clint Eastwood fans in it than a random sample of Americans. I'll bet lots of them watch lots of Cop shows, including COPS.
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