I would bet that I walk into a bookstore at least once a week. And while I like Barnes & Noble because they have a café, I try to visit independent stores as often as I can.
I like to read books. I like to buy books. I probably have more books in my house than guns. And that’s saying something about how much I like books.
Between 2008 and 2016, every time I walked into a bookshop, the first thing I saw was a display of books which were basically right-wing assaults on Obama and his attempts to create a government that would rob Americans of their Constitutional ‘rights.’
Now when I walk into a book shop, I see the same book display right next to the cashier. But this time the books are all about Trump and basically say the exact, same thing. Trump’s a Fascist, an autocrat, a guy with designs on trying to become President for Life.
I used to think that all those anti-Obama books were full of shit. The Trump books are just as bad, if not worse. And the reason they are worse is that as liberals we are all taught to believe that liberals respect truth and conservatives don’t.
There’s a story out today about how Maggie Haberman may have consciously buried important stories about Trump because she wanted to use them for the first time in her book. The accusation was made by Steve Schmidt, who used to be a GOP political consultant and now is a spieler for MS-NBC.
So, his comments have to be taken with a grain of salt because he was hired by MS-NBC to be their critic-in-residence when it comes to discussing what the Fake News says and what the Fake News doesn’t say.
On the other hand, MS-NBC doesn’t compete with FOX NEWS. MS-NBC competes with CNN and the other alt-left media operations which earn their revenue by spreading what I call internet news.
Yesterday I watched CNN’s featured program called ‘The Situation Room’ with Wolf Blitzer, which runs from 6 PM to 7 PM. Here’s how the program is described: “Wolf Blitzer brings you the latest in political news and international events.” Note the word ‘news.’
Know how many minutes of reportage by Blitzer and other CNN spielers took place during this 60-minute show? Try 32 minutes.
The other 28 minutes were used to promote various products for sale, in particular medicines and over-the-counter creams, lotions and various other fake remedies for the over-60 set.
Of course, there’s only so much you can say about someone’s mobile home being destroyed by a hurricane in Florida, ditto about the latest Herschel Walker scandal or the mess that Putin has made in Ukraine.
It turns out that roughly one-third of all Americans get their news from cable sources like CNN, with another third watching local network TV. The remaining 40% split their news-getting time between social media, radio, and print news, with most of the over-65 crowd still watching what they have always watched – local Tv stations – and the kids under 30 looking at social media on their iPhones and droids.
But if one-third of this country’s total population are primarily tuned into news programs on the cable stations, that means that more than 100 million people are getting as much information about laxatives and unwanted hair-removal creams as they get information about the world around them every day.
Which makes the size of the American population watching all those advertisements equivalent to the 15th most populated country in the entire world today. Talk about a captive audience for someone who wants to sell a new pimple-remover product online. Or for that matter, get your name better known so that when people walk into a bookstore, they’ll buy your book.
This is what happens when a country shifts its economy from making things to buying things. It’s called a ‘post-industrial’ society and there is no country which is as post-industrialized as the United States.
Which brings me to my final question for today – ready?
Did Walter Cronkite tell my parents anything that was any more based on reality when he did the CBS nightly news?
Purchase on Amazon.