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Thread: On The Perception of 'Freedom' in the U.S.

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    Default On The Perception of 'Freedom' in the U.S.

    On The Perception of ‘Freedom’ in the U.S.

    Preface

    In the culture and political discourse of the United States, and of the whole neoliberal first world it reigns over, few concepts are given more reverence than that of freedom. And yet, in the minds, the language, and the political thought of the American masses, the notion of “freedom” has become abstracted and obfuscated to an absurd degree. The petit-bourgeois white American scoffs at freedom when it is for those less privileged than they are, they mock Black proletarians who demand freedom from police brutality as “entitled” and poor proletarians demanding freedom from abusive work conditions as “lazy.” And yet, in the same breath, they declare their love of freedom and denounce any inconvenience to them as a danger to it. Fundamentally, they do not know what the word means. They use “freedom” as a title to bestow on things they want, while refusing to recognize the real freedom others lack. This hypocrisy, this fundamental lack of knowledge about what freedom truly means and who does and does not have it, is a deep sociopolitical problem of American culture. So, in the following essay, I will explore this problem. Firstly, what exactly is the concept of freedom in a proper understanding? Secondly, how exactly has this concept been distorted in the understanding of the American cultural superstructure? Thirdly, what exactly is the nature of the problem, and what are its possible roots? And finally, what do we do about it?

    I: What is Freedom, Anyway?

    What exactly is freedom, in a pure conceptual understanding? What does it mean to be free, and what does it mean to be un-free? As is the case with any abstract concept, before we explore how it exists in a given circumstance we must provide a working definition of what it means in the abstract. We must, not however, be idealist; we must provide a definition that is not nonsensically metaphysical but instead grounded in practical materialism. Freedom, after all, cannot really be abstracted; it can only be experienced in relation to material objects and systems and thus is fundamentally a characteristic of the material conditions of reality, so it is very difficult to describe it outside of a set of material conditions. Freedom, furthermore, exists as a characteristic of the material reality of humanity and of the people who experience it. Thus, it must always be freedom for someone. And sometimes, for those deserving of freedom to be free, others must be denied freedom that they would ordinarily use to abuse those deserving freedom and deprive them of freedom. So, to be sure, this is a complicated question.

    Some thinkers, in trying to define freedom, raise the concept of “positive” and “negative” freedoms. These concepts were introduced by liberal political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who defined negative liberty as the absence of external forces preventing one from doing as one wills, and positive liberty as the presence of the resources one needs to do as one wills. Liberalism, however, is an ideological facet of the contradictory superstructure of capitalism, and so we must be wary of its implicit political implications. Indeed, the distinction between the two has, in material practice, often served as an excuse to deny freedoms branded as positive. Positive freedoms, to the liberal mind, include the freedom from exposure (shelter) and the freedom from illness (healthcare). And, since many liberals brand positive liberties as less important as negative ones, they use this as an excuse to deny those fundamental rights to the poor and desperate. Some even suggest that giving such “positive liberties” to all defies the negative liberties of others- apparently to allow all to live in safe conditions is to deny the rich the “right” to watch the poor die of exposure from their walled-off McMansions. Of course, we Marxists can see this is bourgeois nonsense: we know that the world is divided in a struggle between the oppressive minority capitalist class and the oppressed majority labouring class, and that it is justified and necessary to deny certain freedoms to the oppressors in order to liberate the working majority from capitalist tyranny. Nobody deserves the “freedom” to oppress others, no matter how rich they may be. So, as the “negative and positive” theory is a bourgeois one, what is the proper Marxist theory of freedom?

    Let us take the kernel of truth within the bourgeois nonsense of the Berlin concept, and say that being free has to do with doing as one wills. Let us say that a free person is one who may do as they will, as they would do if not actively prevented by an outside force. Based on this definition of a person who is free, we may define freedom itself: freedom is a characteristic of material circumstances, which we may define by saying that in free circumstances all persons may do as they are inclined without obstacles or interruption. But our work is not yet done, we must be good materialists and determine how this definition works in our material reality. There are times when we must compare two opposing possibilities of material circumstances, both of which in some way infringe in some way on someone’s ability to do as they will, and decide which is freer. Indeed, the ability to do this is crucial for a working definition, as it is what enables us to make judgements using this definition in the context of real material conditions. This is especially important from a Marxist perspective because when we talk about the conflict between the classes we must often make these judgements, given that the freedom currently enjoyed by the bourgeoisie is founded in large part on the un-freedom of the proletarian majority. So, let us follow the worthy example for reckoning the measure of good things set by Bentham’s work in the field of ethics. Let us say that, if we compare two mutually exclusive sets of possible circumstances, the freer is the one in which freedom is given to the most people: that which infringes the least upon the ability to act as one would without interference for the smallest number of people.

    From these two ideas: 1) that freedom is the characteristic of a scenario that it infringes as little as possible on people’s ability to do as they would without interference and 2) that the freer of two situations is the one that infringes the least upon this ability for the smallest number of people, we may begin making important judgements about freedom in the real world. We may say, first of all, that neoliberal capitalism is an un-free system because the system of wage labour forces workers to work exorbitant hours to survive, which they would not do if not infringed upon by an outside force. We may, second of all, say that a minor infringement upon the rights of a few people is not necessarily a violation of freedom if it prevents a larger infringement upon more people’s rights. And from there, we may say the right of one to abuse or mislead or actively harm many is not a condition of freedom, as it may be the lack of infringement upon one but is nonetheless the active infringement upon many. And from there, we may say that the accumulation of all society’s resources or power into a few hands is an infringement upon freedom, because it encroaches upon the rights of the vast majority to act as they would with said resources/power if it were shared fairly among society. And from these basic statements, these axioms of understanding of freedom, we may begin to examine the problems of how “freedom” is misunderstood in the US.

    II: The Notion of ‘Freedom’ in the American Cultural Superstructure

    The first basic problem of the American view of freedom is that it mistakes a few arbitrary rights and privileges given to the few at the expense of the many for true freedom, and prioritizes those rights and privileges for the powerful over real freedom for the majority (in practice, prioritizing bourgeois rights and privileges over workers’ freedom). Let us look, for example, to the so-called “freedom of enterprise” that is the cornerstone of neoliberal economics and the cultural superstructure it has built up around itself. Is it a situation of freedom in which a single person may, simply because he (let us be frank, these brutal capitalists are always hes) wields an undue amount of capital, buy up all the usable land in an area for his gain and deprive the rest of humanity of it? Of course not, not by any sensible definition. Forbidding it may infringe on the right of one man to do as he would, but allowing it infringes on the right of untold thousands to do the same. Yet this is what the neoliberal US calls “free enterprise!”

    This mistake, this prioritization of freedom for certain individuals over freedom for society- which we may term the Fallacy of One-Over-Many, is thoroughly embedded in American culture, despite clearly being wrong by the very basic logic I outlined in part one. It is the notion that individual rights are the measure of freedom, and that the concerns of broad social classes should be ignored. It is in the notion that some idolized capitalist figurehead of the market is practicing his “freedom” when he , say for instance, forces his workers back to the production line in spite of a massive threat to their lives that will probably kill most of them, the most supreme possible infringement upon their ability to act as they will. On a fundamental level, this fallacy is a quintessentially neoliberal and individualist one. It tells us people as a whole do not matter, and we should care only for the whims of certain individuals. It is a cultural programming to accept the whims of the powerful, to lie down and accept that the bourgeoisie may do whatever they wish, because it has been falsely termed “freedom.” This is the first distortion of freedom in the US.

    The second problem we may term the Fallacy of Us-Over-Them. Whereas the Fallacy of One-Over-Many is basically neoliberal, this one is chauvinist; it is the subconscious prioritization of “freedom” for some privileged in-group- usually white, American, and relatively well off- over real freedom for the majority. Freedom, as I’ve said, must always be freedom for somebody, and the freest scenario is logically the one in which that freedom is for the most people possible. But to the American mind, the “freest” scenario seems to be the one in which freedom is concentrated the most into the hands of the chosen in-group, regardless of whether or not their interests align with those of the majority. This is where a topical example comes to mind: that of the anti-quarantine protesters (who we must remember have come from the ranks of the bourgeoisie). Is it a free scenario for a few rich people to enjoy the benefit of an open economy to serve them, while the proletarian majority must give up their ability to live safely in order to work in that economy? No, logically the freer scenario is one in which the rich few must give up their right to be doted upon in order to preserve the right of the majority to survive, for this is the scenario which infringes less upon the ability of fewer people to act as they would than the first, and thus is the one with the greater freedom for the most people. But this logic is rejected by American culture, because the bourgeois protesters belong to their own in-group and thus demand they be recognized over a majority that does not. And that is the Fallacy of Us-Over-Them demonstrated perfectly.

    The third fallacy, what we shall call the Fallacy of Here-Over-There, may be the most dangerous and widespread mistake in the American view of “freedom”: the trend in American culture to assume the freest scenario, the freest course of action, is always that taken by the US or its allies over that taken by others. It is a manifestation of American exceptionalism, it is the refusal of the American mind to acknowledge the US as an enemy of freedom despite clear evidence it is one.

    For an example of this, we may simply look at the usage of the words “terrorism” and “terrorist” in popular American discourse. What is a terrorist? It would seem to mean any militant who utilizes terror as a weapon against the masses, any fighter who is in that way an enemy of freedom. And yet, the way the word is used follows very specific lines that have less to do with definitions and more to do with politics. An organization or individual is only called “terrorist” in the popular American discourse when it very clearly stands against the hegemony of the US and its allies. When Al Qaeda or ISIL or Boko Haram (all of which are terrible organizations, to be clear) use the tactics of terror, they get the label. But when the equally evil soldiers of the neonazi Azov Battalion, or the Añez coupists in Bolivia (whose illegitimate fascist state uses terror and violence against indigenous protesters), or indeed the US’s own military (who do after all kill more Afghan civilians than the Taliban) use the same tactics they are not labeled enemies of freedom in the same way, because they are tied to the US and its allies and interests.

    Another, even more dangerous example of the Fallacy of Here-Over-There is the American hypocrisy on state surveillance and other such exercises of authority. In the depths of the Cold War, the US led the neoliberal world in condemning the so-called “surveillance states” of the Eastern Bloc. Even today, “surveillance state” is one of their favorite propaganda epithets to wield against other states. And yet, for all their bombastic performative opposition to the notion of surveillance, the US government wields the most elaborate and total surveillance mechanisms in history. In the 2010s, former CIA employee Edward Snowden determined through examination and leaking of secret documents that the US government- through a wide number of bills, programs, and interlocking organizations- may monitor all manner of personal activities archived by cell service providers: photographic contents of texts, phone numbers contacted, and call durations. Not long after, they gained the ability to archive the contents of emails, texts, and cell phone calls as well, and to do it with virtually no authorization beyond one of their own analysts saying it is “necessary”. Let us compare this monstrous apparatus of surveillance to the supposed “surveillance states” the US was supposedly the freer alternative to: The KGB occasionally tapped the phones of particularly severe political enemies. The CIA and NSA, however, may request to listen to anybody’s cell phone calls at a moment’s notice and cell service companies will acquiesce- they have essentially tapped every phone in the country. Yet still, American culture insists that the neoliberal hegemony led by the US, and its capitalist economy, is freedom incarnate and that socialism is undeniably and universally the opposite. It says American capitalists and government agencies may do whatever they wish and still represent freedom, while the failings of a few socialist nations at one time in history constitute a permanent failing of the socialist system. In short, it says America can do no wrong and its enemies can do no right, regardless of the material reality of the situation. There is only one way this makes sense: the American exceptionalist propaganda of the Fallacy of Here-Over-There has, within the cultural superstructure of the American hegemony, replaced any genuine understanding of freedom with the notion that whatever the US does, it equates to “freedom.”

    Finally, we must address the key mistaken notion at the root of all the others. Ultimately, the problem of the conceptual distortion of “freedom” in America is rooted in a singular fallacy: the notion that the whims of the global economic market are the arbiters of freedom, that the free function of the market is the same as- or more important than- the free activity of people. This is a form of so-called Capitalist Realism, a cultural phenomenon documented and critiqued by philosopher Mark Fisher. Essentially, this is the pervasive cultural pressure to believe that modern neoliberal capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, that any alternative would be impossibly unviable, and that to imagine alternatives is silly and futile. As it relates to the concept of “freedom” in the US, Capitalist Realism takes the form of a pervasive insistence that the current way of doing things, neoliberal capitalism, is already as free as life can conceivably be, and any challenge to it will result in less freedom. But this is not true, of course; our current system denies the right to control one’s own labour and its products, the right to freely seek shelter in empty houses, the right for all to eat when there is enough, and a whole host of other rights that could easily be guaranteed in a freer system. But the cultural institution of Capitalist Realism convinces the masses to subconsciously believe this nonsensical idea. It does this through the media, controlled by the capitalist class, which constantly reinforces a narrative that equates “free” markets with free people. We are constantly bombarded with messaging that reinforces this core falsehood, which we may call the Market Fallacy. The Market Fallacy is reinforced, for instance, by corporate and state sponsored coverage of life in Venezuela and Cuba, which equates the availability of commodities with freedom and thus dupes the audience into doing the same. One thinks, for instance, of the infamous “no choice, no hope” tweet from right wing pundit and noted idiot Benny Johnson: the availability or non-availability of a wide selection of different brands is propped up as synonymous with “choice,” “hope,” and freedom. What nonsense, to say that the right to choose one of a dozen identical breakfast cereals is a more important right than the right to eat even if you are poor, or the right to freely pursue shelter, or the right to access healthcare! And yet the proliferation of media like this makes the Market Fallacy an accepted fact in the cultural framework of the US. In this culture, the functioning of the market economy is seen as a more important facet of freedom than freedom itself, and indeed is allowed to infringe on freedom. The ability to be efficiently forced to consume, the ability to shop pointlessly, is somehow seen as a greater freedom than the right to live, or eat, or have shelter. This is the Market Fallacy, the core problem with this country’s notion of “freedom,” in practice.

    The Market Fallacy also, in addition to conflating the “freedom” of the market with freedom for people, can often prioritize the former over the latter. It is of course more important that a free society allows people to act as they will than that it allows markets to, for allowing people to act as they will is precisely what defines circumstances as being free. And yet, when the two are at odds (as they often are, for capitalist markets are the enemies of workers’ freedom) American culture can be relied upon to prioritize “freedom” for the market at the expense of basic rights for real people. For an example of this, let us look to the way American neoliberals have responded to the protests over the state-sanctioned lynching of George Floyd. For decades- in fact, for the whole history of this sordid and bloodstained nation-state- the white liberal has seen the constant and predictable infringement by the state upon Black people’s basic right to live without the fear of death as only a minor concern. When yet another Black man is struck down without cause they may shed a tear or pen a tweet, but they will never be willing to take to the streets for their Black brothers. It would seem that the brutal infringement upon Black people’s right to do as they will- the most brutal infringement, that of murder- is only a minor challenge to freedom in the American mind. Of course, this is the Fallacy of Us-Over-Them, for Black men are decidedly the out-group in this culture. But it also illuminates this particular aspect of the Market Fallacy, if we simply compare this to how they respond when Black people try to end this infringement on their freedoms. The moment a match is taken to a big-box store, the whites cry “Horror, horror! Our freedoms are under siege! What a terrible tragedy, that one of Target’s 1,871 locations has had its functioning temporarily inconvenienced!” What nonsense this is! When thousands of people have their freedoms permanently revoked it is nothing, but the moment they fight back by temporarily inconveniencing the rich and powerful it is “looting” and “terrorism,” it is an imminent threat to “freedom” and in is sent the national guard. The only mindset in which this response makes sense is one viciously corrupted by the Market Fallacy, one which believes that the functioning of the neoliberal market is the be-all end-all measure of freedom and so sees even a minor threat to that functioning as an assault on their whole warped concept of “freedom.” This is the ultimate horror of Capitalist Realism and the Market Fallacy: this corruption of the notion of “freedom” has made humans and their freedoms inconsequential while forcing the masses to obsess over and worship the functioning of uncaring multinational corporations in the name of “freedom”.

    The other three problems defer to and are essentially rooted in this one. Every problem with the American conception of “freedom” and what it means is a manifestation or a byproduct of the Market Fallacy. They all, in other words, arise from the US’s Capitalist Realist culture of fetishizing the market. The Fallacy of One-Over-Many, being that it is neoliberal and individualist in its ideological influence, arises from the market’s fixation on individuals. A market-ized society cannot abide the concept of collectives or social classes; it must compartmentalize everyone into the boxes of individual consumers or individual profiteers. It refuses to acknowledge social categories beyond individuals, cruelling dividing us from ourselves to make everyone into one of these two. Thus, the culture of the market- the Capitalist Realist neoliberal culture- refuses to think about the rights and freedoms of social groups, for even acknowledging such groups exist is anathema to the whims of the market. And so this culture forces the masses to illogically consider individual’s freedoms above those of oppressed groups and above those of humanity as a whole. As for the Fallacy of Us-Over-Them, it is at its heart a failure of empathy, and the market essentially primes people to make such failures. The market depends on, and so Capitalist Realist culture encourages, people ignoring the terrible conditions of others (especially when they are caused by the contradictions of capitalism) in favor of spending all their time and energy consuming. As such, there is no room in the market’s cultural superstructure for empathy. Because of this, empathy is left out when thinking about freedom, and so Americans only consider freedom for themselves and those like them. Finally, the roots of the Fallacy of Here-Over-There lie in the geography of the neoliberal world market: the powers that govern it are all located in the US and its allies, and its enemies abroad are all foreign to the US. So, since the Market Fallacy mandates that those places which are most under the control of the global capitalist economy are “freest,” it is assumed that those outside its American heartland are less free and that those within it are always perfectly free, and this is the Fallacy of Here-Over-There. So, given that all the other problems have their roots in the Market Fallacy and that that fallacy is essentially applied Capitalist Realism, examining the roots of the US’s misunderstanding of freedom as a whole must take the form of examining the roots of American neoliberal Capitalist Realism. This is a tall undertaking, but I will do my best.

    III: The Nature and Roots of the Problem

    It is interesting that the problem of this false notion of “freedom” has taken root in the US more than anywhere else, because the development of Capitalist Realism was a very international process that took place across the whole of the first world. It began simultaneously with the decline of the Soviet Union. As that form of socialism began to cave in to pressure from capitalistic leaders, it began to look less and less like socialism could be a viable alternative to capitalism. Capitalism responded to this with leaders and policies- Thatcher and Reagan, Thatcherism and Reaganomics- who doubled down on all the contradictions of capitalism that socialism had sought to fix. From these leaders’ words and actions- recall Thatcher’s motto of “There is no alternative,” which Fisher referenced in the subtitle of his definitive book on Capitalist Realism, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?- arose an attitude that such a cutthroat, individualistic, parasitic neoliberal market as they had created was the only viable system, and that any alternative would crumble as the USSR had. Thus was born Capitalist Realism.

    However, though the phenomenon itself is quintessentially international, it has taken notably different forms and acted in notably different ways in different countries. In the United Kingdom under Thatcher, for instance, it manifested through the cold brutality of Austerity policies. In nations where it was brought in through capitalist imperialism- Argentina, Chile, Guatemala- it took the form of the quiet genocide of Pinochet’s neoliberal-fascism. In the US, however, it could not be so overtly cruel and so overtly oppressive. The culture of the US has always been obsessed with the concept of “freedom”- be that real freedom or privilege disguised as freedom- so Capitalist Realism could not take root in the US unless it hid itself within this idolized concept. And so, as Reagan and his government began to pump the American political-cultural superstructure full of Capitalist Realism, they did it with talk of “freedom”- “free” markets, defending “freedom” from the “evil empire” (again, the demonization of any alternative to neoliberal capitalism), uniting the “free” world- and thusly Capitalist Realism took the form of the Market Fallacy, and that grew into the other three fallacies of freedom.

    Based on this outline of the problem’s origins, we may come to understand its nature as being fundamentally a problem of the whole political and cultural superstructure of capitalism in this country. It is not merely a problem of perception but a problem of political economy, for it is entirely because of the traits of the political economy of modern capitalism, which created Capitalist Realism, that the problem exists. This lack of understanding of what freedom is and this collection of delusional misunderstandings of “freedom” is not an inherent problem of the American people, and it is not a random phenomenon. It is an entrenched and enforced ideological status quo, a Culturally Hegemonic idea that is forced upon the people by their rulers and reinforced by lies in education and mass media. Put simply, this is not an accident. Those in power- white male cishet capitalist millionaires and billionaires who puppeteer states and own media conglomerates: in other words, the bourgeoisie- have a vested interest in maintaining these fallacies and they do it through politics, through the neoliberal politics that have controlled this country’s discourse since Reagan. Thus, because the problem is entrenched in the political superstructure, solving it means a fundamental change to the political discourse in this country. So, in the interest of returning a sense of true freedom to this country, let us discuss how to make that change.

    IV: But What Do I Do About It? (A Call to Arms)

    Up ’til now, I have been dealing purely in detached observation of the world as it is. But, as Marx says:

    “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways, but the point is to change it.”

    So, following the proud Marxist school of political-economic philosophy, I must now give my conclusions on how to change the world with regard to the problems I have observed. I fear, however, that this is where I will lose many readers. For even among Marxists, especially in western academic Marxist circles, too many of us are what we may term on-paper Marxists. They are quite content to appropriate the language of Marxism for use in their abstract philosophizing, to be Marxists on paper (or indeed on computer screens, or at lecture podiums), but they blanch at any reminder that the real purpose of Marxist philosophy is to advance the cause of proletarian revolution, that the point is to change the world. We must, however, change the world in regard to this issue, because the people can never have freedom if they do not know what it means. Thusly, I shall here lay out the steps to take to combat the four fallacies of freedom in American culture, so that people in this country may finally aspire to and strive for real freedom. If we want to change the cultural superstructure in this country, we will have to wage an uphill cultural battle against the capitalist media hegemons that control public perception and thus dominate that superstructure. We will have to wrest control of cultural conceptions out of their control, and give cultural power to the proletarian majority. This is done in two ways:

    Firstly, we must create our own alternative media to replace that of the ruling classes. In the face of a hegemonic superstructure of deception and oppressive lies, we must flood the discourse with truth and with calls for real freedom. Every leftist has a duty to confront these lies, to visibly and vocally expose the false and contradictory nature of American “freedom” on the internet and in the streets. When we see “freedom” used as a dogwhistle for market-fetishism or American exceptionalism, it is our duty to respond with a careful and clear explanation of exactly why these kinds of perceptions of freedom are wrong. We must publicly declare that the American notion of “freedom” is not freedom, and that we must move past Capitalist Realist lies to have a truly free culture. We have a duty too to elucidate to the public what real freedom is and to work towards achieving it through activism and organizing. We must give freedom to the people, beginning with clearly teaching the people what it really means to be free.

    Secondly, and far more importantly, we must end the social injustices that produce these false beliefs among the American people. As I said in part three, these lies came from the same right-wing neoliberal political trends that produced Capitalist Realism. These ideological trends still exist, and they are still causing harm through their lies and distortion of ideas. The Market Fallacy which prioritizes profit over people, the root of the whole problem, is reinforced every time a TV pundit claims looting is worse than police-sanctioned murder. It is because of these kinds of ideology that nobody in the US truly knows what freedom is, and so we can never hope to have it while these ideas hold power over culture. Therefore, going forward, we must politically combat this kind of neoliberal ideology to the fullest possible extent. We must work through all political avenues- protest, writing and commentary, militancy, etc.- to replace the hegemony of Capitalist Realist neoliberalism that lies to the people with a wave of political leadership that tells truth to the people and strives for a new world that is freer than the current neoliberal system- a socialist world.

    SOURCES:

    “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Isaiah Berlin


    https://medium.com/@yiffadipdip/on-t...s-da860a36184f

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    For libertarians/neoliberals/neocons 'freedom' means the freedom to do business and accumulate profit as they like with as little interference as possible from the state. Of course they ignore the fact that 'my freedom ends where yours start'. As I already wrote in another posts the super-rich, the great multinational corporations and private financial institutions have so much economic power and influence that they can affect or even determine the political direction of countries, both powerful Western countries through collusion with politicians and control of the media, and third world countries by buying corrupted politicians in order to further their interests.

    I noticed the clear neoleftist bias of 'mainstream' media like CNN. Almost every day, when I open Google on my smartphone, I find articles from CNN and other media outlets like Washington Post or the Guardian, which demonize Donald Trump and promote 'neoleftist' ideas. I made a little research and found out that CNN is a unit of the WarnerMedia News & Sports division of AT&T's WarnerMedia. According to Wikipedia AT&T is the world's largest media and entertainment company in terms of revenue. We are talking about a huge, immensely powerful multinational corporation. So my question is, why a big media outlet owned by such a global capitalistic entity would support a neoleftist agenda? The typical view is that 'Trump & Co and the conservatives are the voice of the rich and the big capital, but is it really that simple? Isn't it that, maybe, this neoleftist ideology is not really a threat to global capitalism? As you wrote, 'neoleftism' (also called, properly or not, 'Cultural Marxism') has virtually replaced the class issues of 'classic' Marxism with 'identity' and social politics, focusing on race, gender etc. Maybe this diversion from class to other issues is convenient to the global economic elites. As I wrote elsewhere, global capitalism pushes for 'free movement of capital, goods and people'. Maybe that's a key reason why populists, which oppose mass immigration and focus on the interests of nation-states are a target of many media outlets owned by multinational corporations. Even Trump, often presented as a classic capitalist, supported protectionist policies and talked openly about the influence of capitalists on politics (despite he being a part of that system). Maybe that's one of the reasons why he is so hated by CNN and Co? Or at least why the owners of those 'neoleftist' media allow them to pursue their agenda? i don't claim to know all the truth, far from it, and things are always more complicated than they look like, but all this should give some food for thoughts.

    I also seem to notice that Sanders, who is closer to a genuine socialist than the other Democratic candidates, didn't get that much support from the 'liberal/leftist' media. For instance, the Washington Post (your typical 'neoleftist' newspaper, also known as 'The Pravda on the Potomac') gave some negative coverage on Sanders. Sanders said that its coverage of his campaign was slanted against him due to Jeff Bezos' purchase of the newspaper, because he proposed taxation of Nash Holdings. The Washington Post dismissed Sanders' accusations as a conspiracy theory. Funny how criticism of these 'neoleftist' media quickly becomes a 'conspiracy theory' isn't it?

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