Friends,
Joe Biden has cancer. And so do we all.
And despite Biden and his team clearly wanting most of us (especially President Donald J. Trump) dead, our job as God-fearing people is to forgive and pray for him. So that's what I will do.
Meanwhile, there's a far more malignant tumor at the heart of America's politics. You already know what I'm about to say, but this episode once again draws attention to how much the media covered for Biden and his team during his years in office.
Remember, just a few weeks ago, the corporate media was still querying whether or not Trump was vivacious enough to hold office. Meanwhile, it looks increasingly likely that Joe Biden didn't just get diagnosed, but perhaps had this "aggressive" prostate cancer during his time in office.
Yes, it is the corporate media which is the real cancer in America, and therefore the world.
I am now old enough to recall when many on the (at least soft) left understood this, too. Authors like Greg Palast and Ben Bagdikian and the recently deceased Robert McChesney wrote perhaps as well as any of us ever could about the threat of placing the security of America's future in the hands of corporate executives in an increasingly cozy club of companies – many of them not even American-based.
That cartel has since become even tighter, and regardless as to whether or not Jeff Bezos perfunctorily rejigs his paper's strapline or opinion pages, the crisis at the heart of the Republic remains, and continues to grow.
Today, CBS's chief of news resigned. The second such move amongst senior management in the Paramount-owned firm which is in the throes of defending itself against a President Trump lawsuit over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview on 60 Minutes. Remember that?
All the while, Paramount is undergoing its own takeover, with David Ellison, son of Oracle billionaire and establishment Republican donor Larry Ellison, at its helm. Ellison the younger is in turn backed by Redbird Capital Partners, which features on its board none other than the Asia Society's John Thornton (extremely close with China), and failed CNN President and Trump hater Jeff Zucker.
In other words, a lot of moving of the deckchairs around the Titanic. Such moves preserve these legacy media brands while providing a lick of expensive paint to their crumbling facades. They'll claim to have "heard the American people" and "endeavor to chart a course towards a more democratic and representative media" or some other bollocks, all the while laughing to the bank because by the time you figure out what's really going on (and how nothing has changed), they'll have presided over another several election cycles, consistently attempting to undermine the populist candidate (left or right, frankly).
And those who used to really care, like McChesney, would be spinning in their graves at what their organizations are now doing, instead. McChesney founded something called FreePress, which was created for democratizing the media apparatus. Today, FreePress (not 'The Free Press' – Bari Weiss's group, which is different), advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Its current chief, Jessica Gonzalez, is a massive lefty donor who just cries about Elon Musk on her social media all the time.
In other words, McChesney's vision is now as dead as he is. And as Joe Biden is about to be, if his prognosis is to be believed.
But America's prognosis doesn't have to be the same. Despite major reforms under the Trump second term, media cartelization continues apace. If we're really truly serious about destroying the fake news media, a few lawsuits and a couple of resignations simply ain't gonna cut it.
We need massive, sweeping anti-trust action on the matter, smashing these corporate behemoths into tiny little pieces and refusing to allow foreign corporations a controlling stake in any U.S. media group. For now, this remains a pipe dream. But then again, just a few short years ago we wouldn't have dreamed that the Supreme Court would be striking down Roe, or debating birthright citizenship.
It's time for us to grasp the nettle of wholesale media reform. Are you with me?
Raheem Kassam
Monday, May 19, 2025
Washington, D.C.
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