Dear Progressive Reader,
My colleague Daniel Libby and I are currently on the road. We have been traveling to a series of cities and towns with David Barsamian of Alternative Radio, where we are meeting with subscribers and supporters of The Progressive, and speaking to new audiences about our work. This past Monday, our trip included a public conversation with activist, scholar, and media critic Noam Chomsky. Professor Chomsky, now teaching in Tucson, Arizona, told the audience that he saw very dangerous signs in our country today. “One of them,” he said, “is the destruction of the information system. And this is not done just by propaganda. It’s done, whether consciously or not, in a very effective way, by just eliminating the notion of truth. Just flood the information system with massive lies and deceit . . . cheapening the concept of truth and fact so that people have no idea what to believe. Fact and truth doesn’t exist. It’s a technique of propaganda that’s extremely effective. It’s working, and the effects are lethal.” Much more of this interview will appear in the forthcoming issue of The Progressive. (Our current October/November issue also includes a review of journalist Matt Taibbi’s new book, Hate, Inc, which grew, in part, out of his reading of Chomsky’s classic book with Ed Herman, Manufacturing Consent.)
As the plans move forward for the public phase of impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives to begin next week, Bill Blum looks at the current role of Attorney General William Barr in promoting a White House-favored narrative about Ukraine. Jud Lounsbury takes a walk down memory lane and compares Trump’s ratings and those of Richard Nixon at the time his impeachment was being discussed. “Trump is a wildly unpopular President, facing a country where half the population already thinks he should be removed—before the public portion of the impeachment proceedings begin in earnest,” he notes. “It’s really not fair to Nixon to compare him to Trump.”
Sarah Lahm reports on recent election victories for school funding; Harvey Wasserman explains the significance of local efforts to break up a California giant, Pacific Gas & Electric; and Mike Ervin analyzes the possible meaning behind Apple’s decision to produce new “disability-themed emoji.”
Finally, Ed Rampell reviews a new film about Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, and Mrill Ingram brings news of a new PBS documentary on the decade of fires in the 1960s and 1970s in the Bronx, and how the community responded.
Keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.
Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher
P.S. – We have begun our annual “Fall Harvest” fundraising drive, where we seek to reap the harvest of all the seeds we have planted during the past year with hard-hitting, independent reporting on issues that matter to you. Your donation today will help keep us on solid ground and help us continue to grow in the coming years. Please use the wallet envelope in the current issue of the magazine, or click on the “Donate” button below to join your fellow progressives in helping sustain The Progressive as a voice for peace, social justice, and the common good.
|
|
