I wonder what some of the oldsters would think of the current situation. The situation wherein a handful of billionaires control the world's information infrastructure.
A world where Facebook, the news source of choice for a vast cohort of Americans, is permitted to fob off its fact-checking responsibilities to various NATO/Atlantic Council affiliates.
A world wherein the arguably most influential news title in the world is owned by a billionaire with intimate connections to the CIA.
A world wherein everything you watch and read is vetted by unaccountable entities with a vested interest in the preservation of American Exceptionalism.
For well over two years our serious media have treated us to a side-show of Russia-Trump foolishness, ostensibly because a few hundred thousand dollars worth of Facebook adverts upended democracy in America and put Trump in the White House.
Meanwhile, Sheldon Adelson's meddling in that and every other US election, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, passes without comment. Or without a Mueller investigation, one might add. And Sheldon is just one of many ultra-rich who make a hobby of dabbling in politics.
Foreign policy too is dictated by the same donor class. It's pretty much a closed loop between the industrial-military complex and the billionaire corporatists who own the information infrastructure.
I think the old-timers would have a word for that.
Fascism.
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