Category: Policy analysis for Indepedents

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Do you think Sessions is doing his job?

Is Sessions doing his job?

Every day you hear the left gloat about Mueller and how he is about to get what’s needed to impeach Donald Trump. You see videos of Dem activists actually calling congress to stop working on Tax Reform and instead keep up with all the “Russia treason” paraphernalia. Odd world we live in…

Meanwhile, when the DOJ confirms they are investigating Tony Podesta and a possible Dem orchestation with Russia regarding possible special treatments and a specific Uranium deal made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, suddenly all the Russia collussion “has been debunked” and is just a witch- hunt.

In such a tragic and comedic media induced frenzy, some people are wondering where is Jeff Sessions in all of this. A few days ago he made his first appearance before congress testifying about the Russian investigation, and he had a heated exchange with Al Franken. The left, of course, watched Sessions say he didn’t have any inappropriate meetings with Russians and concluded Trump should be impeached.

Other than that, we have heard little about Jeff Sessions’ workings as head law enforcement agent in the country. Especially when nearly half the voters demanded the new commander in chief to “drain the swamp”, basically asking for an end to politician impunity and a two-tier-justice system, epitomized by Hillary Clinton, according to almost half the country who thinks her corrupt.

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It was fascinating to see the response of the left when Devin Nunes announced that two congressional committees are starting a probe on the relationship between the Russian government and the Obama administration. They called it fake news first, then they said it all the Uranium One deal with Hillary was debunked by Snopes -or something, ha-, and then they said that “all this Russia investigation is diversion”. Yeah… nauseating.

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So, where is Jeff Sessions in all of this?  We asked, and we can state a robust enough hypothesis: there is controversy around the role Jeff Sessions is playing. We can say, based on an initial poll we ran using Twitter -oh ye shadow-banners of conservatives and libertarians- that a majority of people are frustrated with Sessions. The left are hung up on his views on same sex marriage and on drugs, so they basically just hate him, as do many libertarians for the same reason. But amongst the conservative, Republican and Trump base, many are also feeling a bit anxious with the almost eight months that have gone by and NADA.  Some even think that the left have dirt on him, hence his failure to act.

There are a few conservative influencers who have very good things to say about Sessions’ and Trump’s strategic capabilities and are actually expecting grand things from both of them regarding bringing justice to Washington DC.  They basically induce that neither the Attorney General nor the President have shown their hand but have been running secret investigations that will soon be out on the public, or that will be used as leverage to fulfill campaign promises.

Check out the results of the poll and the always interesting comments from our freedom loving community here:

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@CulturOfFreedom

Cultur | Capital
A Blog for Independents

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This is how Mainstream Media views Independents

Mainstream Media -the usual suspects- go out of their way to disregard independents.

What do you think? Is this one of those strategically conceived cultural paradigms that social engineers deploy through paid articles and videos around the web and on TV and Radio? Or would you say it is just simplistic or even mediocre analysis by journalists who are not able to grasp American culture? Or are you one of those who actually think that independents in America are overrated or to a great extent irrelevant?

Most of the conspicuous articles you can find around the web about independents are dated around the presidential election campaign 2016. And the cultural-industrial complex was sure to sow the seed of distrust on the independent sector of politics, just like they do when they create insecurity in every other topic.

Gallup and Pew are two of the most cited authorities about independents in America based on their long standing surveys and interviewing methodologies.  On 2015, according to Gallup a record 43% of Americans viewed themselves as independents, and by 2016 the number had decreased to 39%.

Source: Gallup 2016
Source: Gallup 2017

Keep in mind, right now Democrats are a small majority in America, and there are more independents who end up voting Republican than Democrat.  Democrats are much more devoted to their party, at least when it comes to expressing it to a polling firm.  But we all know that Dems are more of a social movement, with plenty paraphernalia and machinery and high media investment in cultural issues.  On the paper and on the numbers, Republicans are promoters and protecters of individuality and family rights, of federalism and law, so they are less devout to any movement other than America herself, the Constitution or to their local communities -religious or laic-.    

To a great extent, there are many independents who end up voting Republican as a means to vote against the Dems or their agenda.

During the 2016 election Pew produced a series of insights about independents in America. They listed 5 "facts" about us.  "Facts" because we all know that saying something to a pollster is one thing and the objective action of a person is another.  Yet we know that the word "fact" will be thrown around abundantly in the truth wars.  So, Pew shows us that:

1- Independents outnumber Dems and Reps -however, most lean towards one party, when asked if they lean.  Tricky!-.

2- When we lean, we lean in opposition to the other party.

3- When we lean, we don't especially relate to the members of the party.  We feel somewhat outsiders, particularly about the politicians.

4- Animosity against the other party is at a two decade high.  And that is extended to independents who lean towards a party.  Independents, too, are polarized according to the proposed interviewing methodology by Pew.

5- Pew found a hypothetical correlation between leaning to a party and leaning to an ideology, ie, conservative or liberal.  We will not deal with this conclusion here as it is a complete chapter and to some extent obvious, but we will leave a note to deal with conservatism and liberalism vis a vis independents in a later article.

Now, how does the Washington Post read the study from Gallup during the election cycle on January 11, 2016?  Well they disregarded independents as a growing myth, supposedly because we lean towards a party, when asked if we lean.  Even if we do, that was the reason for calling us a mythical creature of no relevance, like the ethical journalist of the mainstream media.  They tell you tales about him, so that you don't go wondering to DC with independent intentions.  

Mainstream Media and Independents
Washington Post, January 2016

Meanwhile, the Nation turns us down as "just partisans" turned off by partisanship.  Basically as idiots who don't know what they're doing, because we were asked a yes or no question by Pew -although this one went straight to citing the Washington Post about the study, and you know how it goes-.

Mainstream Media and independents
The Nation, May 18, 2016

Yet leave it to Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight -remember how he was during the election cycle?- to call us straight up overrated.  This time, they went all the way to call us like that to say basically that Hillary Clinton losing independent voters was a non-issue.  This piece of wisdom and truth was from September 15, 2016.  Ha.

Mainstream Media and Independents
FiveThirtyEight Sept 15, 2016

Yet there are a few who understand the importance about independents in America.  Remember our poll, in which 88% of 7,000 twitter voters said they would have voted for Donald Trump if he had run as an independent, representing roughly 55 Million voters with a 2% error -although we had no access to the data and it was not conceived specifically as such-.  Independents are THE political force of importance in America.  And the fact that mainstream media disregards us as irrelevant even when around 40% of voters when asked just that view themselves as independents should speak volumes about the way we are played.  

NPR did see a unaffiliated voters as important and let us know in February of 2016.  Kudos to them, even if afterwards they lost it.  They also touch an interesting point about independents which shall be dealt with eventually.  One of the things that characterizes independents is that they usually don't have a say in choosing the candidates that make it to the general.

Mainstream Media and independents
NPR, February 28, 2016

And the results were loud and clear.  Independents played a major part in choosing the President of the United States of America, even if he chose to ran as a Republican.  But this is what it's all about though, is it not?  Americans are free.  Americans are independent.  We must not let ourselves be culturally abused by fake binary systems or coerced into a faux choice.  If we don't understand our importance we will end up with just one party as we seem to have now, just without the courtesy of letting us think we can decide.  

Mainstream Media and Independents
IVN Nov 9, 2016

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If you get caught up in an ideological battleground, you’re probably a victim of the Leftist agenda

@CulturOfFreedom Ideological Battlefield

Left, Right and Center... Right?

Well... not quite... only in a metaphorical world of right and wrong -pun intended- do such models exist.  Most of us grow up, find some stuff we like doing, do our best to do it as much as possible and in the best scenario make a living out of it, meet someone we'd like to do all that stuff with and if we're lucky enough raise kids and enjoy grandkids, while doing, hopefully, the stuff you like doing the most that you can. Does any of that seem left or right? Only to the ones competing to get your money and your votes, ie, your money.

So... "the left" wants to "redistribute" wealth, because that is something that according to them happens unfairly in society. So they just take it away -unfairly and forcefully- from everyone, and then allocate it like the savior of society in turn decides to, science and everything...

Meanwhile, the right, who is basically everyone else according to the left, wants your money and your votes so they can fight the left who wants to standardize everything, just like the right wanted to for decades in the name of religion.

And the "centrists", well... They're better than everyone else, of course, cause they're in the center, balanced and neutral about stuff. They're like the spawn of the Dalai Lama and Stephen Hawking, because quantum politics and economics... right?

"You are so selfish! You see.. I want EVERYONE to be well off, while you just want to be well off yourself!", says my holier than thou socialist friend. Who's easily ignited into calling me racist, as you well know by now. Meanwhile there I was thinking -and living accordingly to my best effort-, that I also wanted to live in a city with educated people, with access to culture and nice stuff and with children playing in neat, clean and comfortable places.

 

Ideological Battleground - Independence and Independents

The only difference, of course, is that I don't have any reason to believe, even after almost a decade in universities, that there is some magic formula that is secretly told to lawyers at Harvard or Oxford that will suddenly improve anything and everything for me. I know that everything is just a popularity contest, with Billions -that's right, the grotesque Democratic party now invests... nah nah nah... throws to the garbage BILLIONS in campaign advertising, including your neighborly fake Facebook and twitter profiles plus your reliable "fact checked, fact checkers", the one calling you ignorant bigot for posting a kitten that is 1% more grey than it should be-.

No. Lawyers with teleprompters don't have magic formulas. Neither do economists at the New York Times. Yes, we do need leaders, hopefully the managerial type, those who can be held accountable at a face-to-face level. But the bottom line, for us bottom-liners, you know, citizens who grow, work, raise and try to live fun, full lives, is that we're interested in tangible, pragmatic stuff. We want to be able to get ours without so much bureaucracy. We want to enjoy private lives and safe public spaces. We don't go around thinking about races and ideologies. We go around feeling insecure about the cultural abuse we receive from mainstream media and cable suppliers, and we feel completely manipulated by promise-making politicians. So, we don't want centralized stuff. We want community projects and to be able to decide wherever we need, or want, our money to be allocated. We don't want the government to tax the rich just because that "sounds fair". We want them to be efficient in the only tasks they should be handling: looking out for the freedom of everyone in this soil, who hasn't forfeit such privilege by negatively affecting the freedom of others.

Today, we might find more solace in an institution that SAYS they defend the constitution, federalism, property rights and the right of individuals to pursue happiness, ie, the GOP -yeah I know... pffft...-.  Tomorrow we might want to support a stronger Libertarian party, when the moment is right and they find a way to handle all those "oh so purist Libertarians" who seem more priests of yet another ideology than pragmatic achievers.  But we're actually fed up, and that is what we are strongly shouting everyday on social media... and many are feeling represented by Donald Trump precisely because of that.

Better than belonging to a party or adhering to a specific belief we are inviting everyone to be pragmatic, community oriented and to focus on their well-being, their family's and the cleanliness of their living environments. Being openly independent is a potent way of holding the pan by the handle and keeping control over elected officials who won't answer an email after they invite you to a focus group to see what new concept is more catchy.  

We'd like to continue this conversation with you! Why don't you sign up to our newsletter so we can share with you more ideas about independence, for the independent minded.

@CulturOfFreedom

Cultur | Capital

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The state of today’s Corrupt Media is at odds with a Free Market Economy

@CulturOfFreedom

The corrupt media just won’t be transparent about it and will carry the banner of “truth” like any other populist religious pamphlet.

 

The messages a medium distributes are selected according to a dynamic process that occurs in three levels: the chapter of the medium, the current demand of the consumers and the level of cash that is being poured in by external actors at a determined moment to push for an outcome.  The corrupt media just won’t be transparent about it and will carry the banner of “truth” like any other populist religious pamphlet.

So, when the media tycoons started their visions, they always started out both with the great potential of the business per se in mind, but also with a designed, strategic ideological position they wished to add to.  Be it, get the freedom message out there -as is our case-, or be it get the message from the academic community to the general public, or be it get the “unbiased” news out there to the citizens of the city, region or world.  They all have founding chapters, and each founder comes from a specific background and wanted to be a voice about something in society.  That founder searched for editors and writers in specific places at specific times and people of specific backgrounds heard about the new medium, that was a new voice about something they cared about, and reached out for a job.  Many times, even, writing and producing content they didn’t like or want to right for the sake of that voice, and of what the public was demanding at that specific time.

What do media consumers demand?  Ideally, most people demand being informed and “truth”.  

Subconsciously, though, as it happens when one delves in the ocean of “truths”, what many people look for in the media is archetypical reassurance of their beliefs.  What this means, basically, is that people consume the media that tells them what they think they want to hear.  The concept associated to this practice has been coined “eco chamber” per the act of only following people and media that repeat only that which you wish to hear (read) on social media.

But the era of TV, meaning the era of cable/sat subscriptions, generated a particular dynamic in which TV shows started to play a role in “culturization” -borrowing an anthropological term- at the same level as schools and families.  You are basically an individual response to those three cultural forces in terms of identity.  If you watched TV every day for the past 10 years, you had three dads: your guardian, the talk-show host and your teacher.  The tellers of “truths”.   One of the problems with this dynamic is that it falls in the lap of free market economics, affecting the notion of competition -with corporate monopolies and oligopolies-, unsustainable industrial practices –mass consumption corporations controlling almost all of the advertising budget that finances the corporate media-, and an offer-based system that was only until recent years been the norm -you see what you get and don’t have a choice-, but that with the practice of shadow-banning and censoring of certain people and groups by the new great media corporations -Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.- has suffered a new setback in what should be a free Internet and market of exchange of ideas.  And here is where it gets tricky.

Let me draw a “click-baity” analogy by using Islam as an example.  

I read many times that some people want to “ban Islam“, many of them out of fear of terrorism and many out of fear that their lives will change if they won’t.  But here’s the deal.  Why has Islam surged so vastly? One thing happens when you don’t have competition and another happens when you have a respectable set of options.  “By the sword”, as we have seen with the rise of the Islamic “State” and Radical Islamists who want to convert the world in the Middle East and Africa mainly.  Islam, as a political ideology, has spread through the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.  Where’s the competition? Why haven’t all these people seen in any of the other religious or political options a better choice? Well there’s many places where the competition has been exterminated by force, as in Saudi Arabia and the new developments in the Iraq-Syria border; and there are other places where muslims simply start choosing other ideologies because they simply find them a better option, as is the case of many young and second generation muslims living in large Western cities.  Why should Islam be banned if there are actually better lifestyle options abound?  I write this as an outspoken admirer and defender of Western Civilization.  Christianity and Democracies should be competing more efficiently against them, and if they were, they would/should be winning the culture wars.

If a Western State starts banning voices like Islam or White-Supremacists, we will be walking the path of the Religious Monarchies and there are live examples of the effects that such practice may have in our lives and in our freedom.  Meanwhile, if our message of liberty, freedom and self-determination is BETTER and is more efficiently delivered than those of any violent sect of fanatics we shouldn’t even be in trouble in the first place.

Problem is, the biggest advertising capitals in the world right now are from mass-consumption corporations (including Political Parties and States).  

Hence, big media become the distributors of standardization messages in a 24/7 loop, repeat, multi-format strategy.  So one problem is monopolies.  And there are very good norms in form to protect the public from them.  Another problem is consumer accountability and the responsibility media have to be transparent about the hows and whys of their content.

For instance, if we were openly told by @CNN when content is being sponsored by the Democratic Party, they wouldn’t be corrupt in terms with ethical standards.  Good examples of this are Breitbart, which is openly Nationalistic and the Huffington Post which is openly progressive.  For all we might dislike the HuffPost, at least they are upfront about what they do, and the competitors should be moved by how they might be doing a better job at reaching their target audience.

However, if the new great media corporations continue to, as has been proven in many occasions, censor specific movements and ideas either upfront or by the means of shadow-banning, Internet won’t be a universe of freedom to interchange and interrelate, but the essential tool of dictatorship and control.  We need civilian consumer groups actively demanding that Anti-Trust practices are penalized and that Media Outlets are open about their funding.  This, of course, falls also in the shoes of the consumer, who needs to be active in their responsibility of understanding the fabric of culture and society so they are better entitled to their rights.

@CulturOfFreedom
Cultur | Capital

A Blog for Independents

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Cultural Abuse: how we are purchased and sold every day

Did Trump make us hate MSM? Or did we elect @POTUS because we’ve known for a while about their mal-praxis?

This post is essentially about Freedom.  It touches base with one of the basic drivers for two decades of work, and relates with what has been going these past two years.

You and I are being abused by the offer-based media.  

The media that has everything prepared as soon as you wake up and that is competing against the next channel to see who captures your interest quicker.

Of course, you already know this.

Do you know how corporate media works?  Well, the way it works is to a great extent their responsibility, as producers, but it also falls in the responsibility of the consumer, the viewer.

It all starts with creating an audience, and audiences are created by two means basically.  You can either purchase an audience or you can create one.  To purchase an audience you basically give money to those who have previously purchased or created an audience.  To create one, you have to appeal to people in their most primal of human emotions.  To what emotions do the media you consume appeal?  Basically fear.

Fear of the unknown, fear of what could be, fear of what it if there’s no change, fear of the strange, fear of your neighbor.  Fear of belonging and fear of not belonging.

 

I have lots of friends who work for large media corporations.  And I have had the opportunity of interviewing many people, from different countries, who make decisions –financial and editorial decisions- in newspapers, magazines and TV, digital and print.  As a matter of fact, a close member of my family has worked for two major local TV networks and is currently working for one of the big ones, internationally.  We have run an international media and digital culture observatory for over a decade and we handle both quantitative and qualitative research tecniques and information.  So we have a good grip of what we’re explaning.

Now, before we continue, let’s put the Mainstream Media where it belongs, in the Entertainment Industry, which is where audiences are purchased and created.  Keep in mind only until recently, when you turned on the TV you had to watch what was on.  If it weren’t for consumer generated content, even with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu we’d still have to watch what is offered, but at least we get to choose when and what not to watch with a  larger offer.

So if you watch, say Zoolander 2, you’ll see cameos from CNN, MSNBC and other specific news networks “reporting” a news within the film.  Which means, the Executive Producers of Zoolander landed a deal with them for airtime in exchange of money and/or airtime.  So the kids who watch Zoolander 2, who are looking to be entertained, get struck by a symbolic message that when you find out about stuff you find out on CNN and MSNBC.  FOX does it too.  When you see an action film about the American army you used to get Bill O’Reilly instead.

You purchase an audience.   

Now, imagine that you’re a Presidential candidate with over 1 Billion USD to spend on advertising.  Imagine what that deal will look like: purchasing and creating an audience.  Imagine all the talk-shows and sitcoms they could be in.

Now imagine how a foreign country would pay in order to drive foreign investment and gain points in international forums.  Well it is very well documented how media takes money from candidates and from foreign governments in exchange for different types of deals: airtime and bias.  It’s as simple as that.

Now is that a problem per se? Of course not.  Let them do business and create jobs.  The problem is when they become a cultural mafia that lies to you and runs 24/7 slandering campaigns.  Rest assured that the media, in today’s unaccountable state is able to destroy you or any member of your family with one of their reputation destroying tactics that they or anyone else would pay for.  This is, amongst many other things, one of the ways in which they create division between those who have large advertising budgets and the little guy.

When you turn on the Cable/Sat programming, even in a sitcom channel, you are being sold advertising dollars as truths.

So what’s the solution? You need to unplug from Cable/Sat, and learn to use the Internet as a means to get straight to the source.  Every institution has the responsibility nowadays, through social media and digital tools, to be its own medium.  We also have to be active about the Internet as a property of the public and not a bureaucratized- statist realm.

The Internet must be completely open and unrestrained.  

When you see an organization or politician pushing for the control of the Internet, you are seeing that organization or politician wanting to take freedom from you.  To hook you back into your offer-based mind-numbing programming.

We shall continue this conversation soon, and it shall start with what are now the media empires: Google and Facebook.

@CulturOfFreedom

Cultur | Capital