What did happen to Democracy Now?

I finally found the information for what the hell happened to Democracy Now. Amy Goodman seemed to have been captured soon after Trump became president and it was very obvious to me and many of her long time viewers. I got whiplash when she got on board with Russia Russia Gate and Orange Man bad. WTF came blurting out of my mouth loudly. Here’s a very interesting story on who was funding her. I knew that it was the Carnegie and Ford foundations that had donated $20 million, but look at what I just found out.

By 1995, billionaire speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute foundation had given the Pacifica Foundation’s KPFA radio station in Berkeley, California a $40,000 [equivalent to over $64,000 in 2018] grant. And in 1996, the Carnegie Corporation of New York foundation gave Pacifica a $25,000 [equivalent to over $40,000 in 2018] grant to launch a daily radio news show, Democracy Now!, hosted and produced by long-time WBAI Evening News producer Amy Goodman, that was initially broadcast from Pacifica’s New York City area WBAI radio station in Manhattan on February 19, 1996.

Sitting on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (whose assets had increased to $3.3 billion by 2017) in 1996, when it provided Democracy Now! with its initial foundation funding, were U.S. power elite-connected Establishment folks like then-Chevron board member and future Bush II administration National Security Advisor and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the managing editor of the Time Warner mainstream media conglomerate’s Time magazine, Henry Muller, and the multi-millionaire wife of then-U.S. Senator and future 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry, Teresa Heinz.

And in 2017, the Carnegie Corporation of New York board of trustees included former New Jersey Governor and 9/11 Commission Report Chair Thomas Kean, former New York Times Company CEO and president Janet Robinson, PBS NewsHour Co-Anchor/Managing Editor and Duke Endowment Chairperson Judy Woodruff and the former Commander of U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM) from 2013 to 2016, (Ret.) Genaral Lloyd Austin III, who “was responsible for military strategy and joint operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia” during the Obama administration, according to the Carnegie Corporation website. The same website also noted that Carnegie Corporation of New York trustee Austin helped “to spearhead the 2003 invasion of Iraq as the assistant division commander for the 3rd Infantry Division” and in 2008 “returned to Iraq as the commanding general of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq during the period when the surge forces were drawing down under Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

But the Democracy Now! Productions show, not surprisingly, has apparently never been very eager to provide its viewers, listeners or website readers with much news reporting that examines how the Carnegie Corporation of New York which initially funded it has, historically and currently, been controlled by members of the U.S. power elite, undemocratically concentrates institutional economic power and accumulates wealth from an economic system that exploits workers and middle-class consumers, and works to perpetuate a militaristic, plutocratic, politically undemocratic society in the United States

Im following so many links tonight I can’t remember where it started or what I originally read that made me go down so many rabbit holes, but this info came from this article.

In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network

In The Pay of Foundations

How U.S. power elite and liberal establishment foundations fund a “parallel left” media network of left media journalists and gatekeepers.

If you check out many of the left alternative media radio/tv shows, publications, websites or blogs that receive grants from the U.S. power elite’s liberal foundations, you'll notice that they rarely provide their listeners, viewers or readers with much critical news reporting or unflattering historical information about their foundation funders; and they generally also block U.S. left-wing grassroots anti-war activist viewpoints that are not within the parameters approved by the establishment liberal board members and program managers of their foundation funders from being heard on their shows, printed in their publications or featured on their websites or blogs very often.

Yet as long ago as 1915, a Colorado miners’ representative, John R. Lawson, in a statement before the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, noted that a “skillful attempt” was “being made to substitute Philanthropy for Justice” and there was “not one of these foundations, now spreading their millions over the world in showy generosity, that does not draw these millions from some form of industrial injustice,” since their millions represented “the withheld wages of the…working-class.” And as the now-deceased former CounterPunch co-editor Alexander Cockburn wrote on February 5, 2010:

“There are two important reminders about political phenomena...which help explain the decline of the left: first is the financial clout of the `nonprofit’ foundations, tax-exempt bodies formed by rich people to dispense their wealth according to political tastes. Much of the `progressive sector’…now owes its financial survival—salaries, office accommodation, etc.—to the annual disbursements of these foundations which cease abruptly at the first manifestation of radical heterodoxy. In other words, most of the progressive sector is an extrusion of the dominant corporate world, just as are the academics, similarly dependent on corporate endowments. A second important reminder concerns the…collapse of the organized…left which used to provide a training ground for young people…”

But during the last 25 years, some U.S. “parallel left” journalists and “parallel left” alternative media organizations have been funding their news operations by accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in “charitable grants” from the tax-exempt foundations of the same U.S. power elite whose undemocratic abuses of power, crimes and immoral policies they claim to be—unlike the corporate-sponsored mainstream media—exposing and holding accountable in their “independent journalism” work and reporting. Take, for example, the foundation-sponsored Democracy Now! Productions radio-tv show which is broadcast on over 1,440 radio and television stations daily around the globe, according to the Democracy Now! Productions website.

In the early 1950s--when the CIA was using the Ford Foundation to help fund a non-communist "parallel left" as a liberal Establishment alternative to an independent, anti-Establishment revolutionary left--the Pacifica Foundation was given a $150,000 [equivalent to over $1.4 million in 2018] grant in 1951 by the Ford Foundation's Fund for Education, whose “first chief was Alexander Fraser, the president of the Shell Oil Company,” according to James Ledbetter's Made Possible By… book..

Pictured in the photo is Hillary HerHeinous Clinton who use her foundation during her tenure as Secretary of State to get filthy rich by using pay to play tactics. I’ve written a lot about how anyone or country that had business before her state department would pay her many millions and get it taken care of. In trouble? Pay Her enough and it went away. Need some back scratching? Ditto. After she lost the easiest election in history to Trump the money dried up and went instead to the McCain foundation. He died and who knows who’s foundation is getting the money now. I’m guessing Obama’s, but just a guess. Bill Gates said that he was going to give away his billions. He donated it to his foundation which funds gawd only knows what, but since he started giving it away he has doubled his billions. Plus think of the tax write off he gets for his donations. It’s a big club…you know the thing!

If you’re interested in seeing how badly our media has been captured read this at the source. I’ve left a lot out, but it’s pretty interesting to see how long it’s been captured and how long we have been manipulated by the PTB who actually run the world and our government.

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Lookout's picture

I've wondered too, and stopped donating to her long long ago.

Something odd happened at The Real News too. Paul Jay and Aaron Mate left and it disappeared for a while. It is back again with new reporters.

Paul who started the real news went on to create https://theanalysis.news/
and Aaron joined https://thegrayzone.com/.

Again thanks for the story of Amy's buy off.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

snoopydawg's picture

@Lookout

and knew that Ford and Carnegie had recently donated to her show, but was surprised to learn that they had always funded it. So maybe something else contributed to her changing her views so dramatically. Sibel Edmunds had pointed out how she had a Syrian warlord on her show once and how bad it was for her to be giving him a space to get his side of the story out.
But there was a definite change in her reporting after Trump became president.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

me as a listener because I smelled the same stink on him as well.

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snoopydawg's picture

@entrepreneur

He posts frequently on DK and is all in that 1/6 was a resurrection and attempted coup and exaggerates the events of the day. He sure gets his ego stroked over there. Not one person has been charged for either of those claims and I bet if democrats thought they could get away with it they would be pushing for it. Instead we’re getting these carefully laid out talking points about what so and so did. They’ve been stringing this out for almost a year now and I think it’s just one more try at Fitzmas to keep supporters thinking that some justice is coming for Trump.

People who have TDS actually think that republicans were wrong for not voting to certify the election, but it’s legal for either party to question the results. Democrats have done it 3 times since 2001 and 5 democrats voted against certifying Bush’s win. Funny how they forget about that.

Another thing that has changed with journalists is that they are represented by the CAA which is just another way to capture people in all kinds of industries. They represent actors, journalists, politicians and I can’t remember who else. I’m not sure I can find the old articles I have that explains what they do, but they kicked Tulsi out after she criticized Hillary. Or was it Kamala?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
integrity, honesty, intelligence, and objective scrutiny of both parties have become exactly like the Neocon Republican hypocrites we used to mock for the illogical and hyperbolic posturing.

I have a theory that the big shift occurred in 2016 because Hillary was the one anointed by the intelligence community, Wall Street and the defense industry. And they had already laid their plans for raping and pillaging the planet (much like the way Cheney met with oil executives to carve up the Iraqi oil fields before the Iraq invasion).

I think the attitude shift of the upper level media and political figures on the left is due to increased backing from the Deep State. In my view Neoliberals are now getting away with all of the same type of shit as Neocons used to get away with during the Bush years.

Trump was literally not supposed to win. When Hillary won everyone who bet the farm on Hillary lost their minds. I speculate that in addition to their plans being ruined they may have broken a bunch of laws in anticipation that with Hillary in the White House they would never be investigated or prosecuted. So some of them may have been desperate to discredit Trump to undermine him before he could muster the support to investigate anyone.

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snoopydawg's picture

@entrepreneur

I agree with you on all of it.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

@entrepreneur

In my view Neoliberals are now getting away with all of the same type of shit as Neocons used to get away with during the Bush years.

I also got whiplash from many members of DK who were against what Bush did, but became okay with it when Obiden started doing them. It’s worse now because they are fully okay with war against both Russia and China for Ukraine and Taiwan. They go out of their way to insult Trump supporters and call them Nazis when right now Biden, democrats and republicans are supporting Nazis in Ukraine. The group has ties with the Hitler Nazis. Doh! But they apparently don’t know that because Rachel hasn’t told them about it.

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9 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

During the primaries, she gaslit the hell out of Bernie Sanders. She essentially refused to say his name despite winning numerous primaries. She would always couch it in terms of which or how many Killary had won. I remember Mark Shields and maybe David Brooks essentially doing the same on PBS newshour.

Amy never mentioned the trickery (ratfucking) by the DNC, to my recollection either.

She also stunningly repeated the CIA talking points regarding Syria without question.

I still, depressingly listen out of habit, to furthering dismay. She has sunk to mostly covering identity-politics as the pressing concern of the day.

IMO id-pol is a favorite of the liberal elites primarily because it doesn't cost them a penny.

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snoopydawg's picture

It was very apparent that she was reporting CIA’s talking points on Syria. It’s when I noticed that she had changed from being objective to not anymore. But I’m questioning if I just didn’t see it earlier because she was confirming things I already believed in? Conformation bias from her just like it was for Keith and Rachel when they went after Bush/Cheney. Gave Obama a pass tho when he continued their work. Again I’m wondering what propaganda I think is fact?

Doh! This should have been a reply to borg. My bad…

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg

that if someone is a corrupt shithead, they always have been.

And then it becomes very easy to lump everyone who's being corrupt into that same pile, assuming that they have all always already been corrupt.

But I think it's wise to stick to the specifics of the evidence we know. For instance, if someone has been obviously, visibly punished for dissent, it's probably not the case that they were always already a corrupt bastard.

Keith Olbermann, for instance, was blackballed for the things he said about both Bush and Hillary Clinton (a lot of people forget that he excoriated Clinton for her remarks about Obama and Robert Kennedy) and he was only allowed back into his original profession--sportscasting--if he signed something promising he'd never say anything political. They muzzled him. Then, in 2016, he was brought back to give credibility to the neoliberal shitheads.

Howard Dean is another example. Although Howard Dean was never as far left as people thought he was, he was actually a critic of U.S. foreign policy. And the elites didn't like it (even though he was one of them). That's why Obama essentially cleared out all of Dean's people from the DNC when he got into office. And Dean disappeared from view for a long time...until, unless I misremember, 2016, when he was brought back to give credibility to the neoliberal shitheads.

As for Amy Goodman, I find her still a mystery. Because she apparently took the money in the 90s--yet, while she may not have broadcast critiques of the Ford Foundation or the Carnegies, she made a lot of serious critiques of U.S. foreign policy during the two Bush administrations. That is generally out of bounds for the puppet left, even when they're trying to build up credibility for their false persona. Back during the Bush administration, you couldn't cast any doubt on the Iraq War, for instance. Look at what happened to Valerie Plame and her husband. Or (at least IMO) look at what happened to Paul Wellstone. Even Howard Dean--there's really only two reasons why they might have shut him down; his desire for healthcare reform, which was not all that radical, or his vocal opposition to the Iraq War.

I don't know how you can be even to some extent under the thumb of Condoleeza Rice and still broadcast critiques of the Iraq War. I don't know how you can be getting money from those shitheads and broadcast an alternative, inclusive presidential debate that included both Jill Stein and, um, whoever the libertarian candidate was that year. She did that in 2012. That is *clearly* not in line with the neoliberal agenda, and it's not the kind of thing they generally allow their puppets to do even for the purposes of establishing credibility.

If there's two things you can't do in this country, it's criticize the empire and its concomitant police state--or suggest that we could or should have more than two political parties. It's become more OK in the past five to ten years to say that the Iraq War was a stupid crap thing to do, but it emphatically was NOT OK to say that before 2009. And Democracy Now! was saying so. Further, hosting that debate in 2012 was definitely outside of acceptable procedure for neoliberals and neoconservatives.

I noticed she did not hold such a debate in 2016.

My guess, FWIW, is that some of the people we're discussing were always plants, a fake left like DKos. And others just took money where it was offered, thinking they'd retain some journalistic freedom. And they did, for a while. And then the chips were called in. And in addition to the carrots, some sticks were placed in a visible, prominent place. And people who used to be willing to dissent ceased to be willing to do that when the cost of it appeared to be becoming too high.

From all the data on Goodman I've seen, I find it very hard to decide into which category she fits.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

zed2's picture

This entity is trying to divide us from within. While pushing the Anglo-American arms-industry mafia's framings..

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zed2's picture

They wrote some good content describing TISA, our plan to end democracy and make the world a corporate posession.

TISA is why Julian Assange has been silenced. It ends unpredictable democracy.

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She sometimes had great interviews but I hate that feeling of only getting one very opinionated side of a story.

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lotlizard's picture

Have been backing it since it started, but in recent years I’ve become convinced that, like the German Green party, it’s been captured by the Atlanticist / NATO arm of the U.S. Deep State.

They only parrot the Washington-Brussels-Tel Aviv-Riyadh line on things anymore, have done zilch for Snowden and Assange, and focus all their activism on idpol.

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that claims to be a truthteller until their colors are authentically tested.

In 2007 Maddow revealed that she was nothing but a polemicist and in bed with the Clintons. (iirc Olbermann had crashed and burned by that time. Unable to sustain his fury over the Iraq War, his only substantive critique of the Bush administration.) However, Democratic, liberal, and leftish voters had been captured in 2004 by supporting John Kerry and other DC Dems that lined up with GWB. (And had been mostly mute about the 2000 FL election theft.)

Being a casual - as contrasted with devoted - viewer of Democracy Now!, I have only a vague recollection that Goodman was soft on Israel. Stopped viewing the show when she began trumpeting the Obama line on Syria. (Were the seeds of that present in the coverage of Libya?) That preceded the 2016 election cycle. Thus, not surprising that she presented unreliable and biased coverage of that election. There's no coming back from such an egregious journalistic failure, but it's not without industry and financial rewards.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Marie

Not as I remember it, anyway.

He was not a big fan of the police state, nor of the Bush administration's heavy-handed intimidation of the press.

And, like I said, he made a serious critique of Hillary Clinton--probably the best one ever broadcast in anything remotely resembling mainstream news.

I don't think he crashed and burned because he could not sustain his outrage against George Bush.
He did seem to be reluctant to criticize Obama. But he was also, as I pointed out elsewhere, politically muzzled by having his livelihood threatened.

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1 user has voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver