Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now, And Rachel Maddow, of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, In Talks About Merging Their Broadcasts

Amy Goodman left, Rachel Maddow right

It’s not like `continental drift’ although there is a `drift’ to be gotten, . . . and it is drift on a truly monumental scale.  People talk about `watching grass grow’ or ‘watching paint dry’ when they talk about things happening slowly so as to go unnoticed.  `A watched pot doesn’t boil,’ but when your tea kettle starts whistling, you know that something’s happened.

These are the words of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman letting the cat out of the bag about her talks with Rachel Maddow about merging their shows based on the things they increasingly have more in common.  Goodman seems very happy to be the one giving the exclusive `cat out of the bag’- or is it `trial balloon’?- interview.

“Look,” says Goodman, “change is part of life.”  Goodman seems more relaxed than usual, as though allowing herself to wax philosophically this way is allowing her to speak her thoughts more truthfully in a liberating way.  She continues:

Yes, change is part of life.  It was when Rachel was doing Air America radio with Al Franken as a “left–wing,” albeit poorly funded, counter to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, that people got to know who she is.  That was then. [2004] Now she, like us, has regular headlines that track well with the lead you can get from the New York Times.  Rachel, us, and also pretty dependably the New York Times, we’re true blue behind the powerful narratives of the Democratic Party. When I say that those narratives are powerful, I don’t mean that they are inspiring or attuned to the populace, or to the directions for leadership our populace may yearn and hunger for, what I mean is the power of Democratic party coming from the corporations that the party aligns with and, of course, coming from Wall Street.  It’s those alignments that give the selective narratives of the party extraordinary force as they are deployed and can be insisted on.  And I am very happy about the whole identity politics thing.

If, with some migration of platforms, Democracy Now and the Maddow show are going to merge, the reason for their discussion of the possibility is the growing commonality of themes.

Goodman points out that the nation’s had an era where the awfulness of Donald Trump made it easy to find common ground, “I mean Donald Trump’s awfulness was so important, that you didn’t need to pay attention to really anything else.”  And, she points out there have been a lot of things tying into Donald Trump’s awfulness that were consequently easy to agree on: Russiagate and the way that Russians are nefariously interfering to make this country worse and make Trump more dangerous, January 6th and the way we have to stop insurrectionists from taking away our democracy, which we are realizing really needs to be revered (“January 6th sort of taught me that word `insurrectionist’ and got me thinking about it, before then I doubt I’d thought to know what it meant– did you know it’s right out of the constitution?- Though no law under it yet”- interjects Goodman parenthetically), the way we have to censor hate speech (including anything an insurrectionist or any of those election deniers might have to say, and then there’s need to regulate speech in our social media Town Squares so that people don’t get depressed by conversational downers.

Goodman sips her green tea and goes on: “Rachel is very much against hate speech,” she says, “she’s a firm counter the bad kind of hate speech we both deplore.”  Blowing on her tea, she continues:

We are also aligned by being both on the right side of those divisive cultural issues that the Trump presidency made even easier to checklist for future segment coverage.  Thank God Trump changed his position on abortion, thankfully 180 degrees, before taking on his role as a supremely obnoxious president, otherwise it could have been confusing!

We were also both perfectly aligned on the Covid narrative thing: "Wear a mask, wear two masks," we told our Democracy Now audience, "it’s an act of love.'  (We didn’t get to adding the eye visor thing, but thought about it.- Oh maybe we did)  While Rachel was beautifully firm and emphatic: "Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person."!

The whole Covid thing, the crazy need for lock-downs meant there were a lot of fearful things, numbers and statistics to tumble out before the public in a stream; for a while Democracy Now even changed its mantra slogan from "the war and peace report? to the "quarantine report."  When it comes to history and wars waged, history, when it doesn’t repeat itself, at least rhymes.

But that Covid fear and what to do about it, that’s another thing where we both agreed about how important it was to be saying the right thing and make sure that people were not allowed to say the wrong thing– That Joe Rogan! Talk about people who need to be stopped in their tracks with a dose of good old healthy censorship and centrally managed social opprobrium- Imagine saying good things about the `horse paste’ Ivermectin,

 Mentioning Rogan and Ivermectin Goodman wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“We still have significant differences, Rachel’s show and mine” says Goodman, “so I don’t know where that takes us.”

She mulls:

Rachel is more provincial, addressing herself more specifically to what riles Americans living locally in this country, more specifically, her kind of Americans.  Democracy Now has an increasingly worldwide audience and worldwide sensibility, for instance, Rachel hasn’t caught up to match me with things like my guttural pronunciations, like when I say“Afghanistan,” or introduce my co-host Nermeen Shaikh.  It just isn’t her style, and we can’t expect it.

But Democracy Now can’t leave its worldwide audience behind it.  If this thing is going to happen, we have to take that worldwide audience along with us in the merger.  We at Democracy Now, also spend more time feeling for the victims in this world, which is not exactly the way Rachel likes to keep the energy up, especially when those victims come from far-flung places in the world that Americans have rarely heard of.  When the time comes, we at Democracy Now are better positioned to do truly convincing ‘worthy victim’ stories.

Some things are going to be very problematic.  Democracy Now was originated out of, was incubated out of WBAI, out of the Pacific network of station.  We are still carried on that family of stations, still with a reasonably hefty listenership.  We’ve established ourselves and Pacifica has cast its lot reporting, with a fair amount of honesty, about the Israeli state’s vile and horrendous treatment of Palestinians.  That honesty, on our part and many other Pacifica carried programs, has been determinative in the loss of a certain appreciable amount of funding for Pacifica.  Unlike perhaps some other things, that’s something where we can’t now leave our audience behind by backtracking or denying our core DNA. . .

    . .  But you can imagine what a problem this would be for Rachel.  Even if our meld is only accomplished by doing back-to-back shows that could be a toxic proximity for her.  The solution, if the time comes, may be to take our cue from her.  She deep-sixes those kinds of stories and that kind of reporting.  So you also don’t hear anything about our U.S. Saudi Yemen war from her.— Out of sight is out of mind.  What we could do, and might do, is just move all of out Israel/Palestine reporting and coverage to our web edition special section.  There it would be invisible to the kind of audience that never looks for that kind of thing and justifiably still there for the kind of audience that still does.  You know we are all in our individual bubbles these days.  So you always have to remember to think in those terms.

It causes Goodman to sigh.

But merging these shows is meant to take us counter to that bubble thing.  Instead of isolating bubble thinking, we’ll have more people thinking the same things when we get our shows together.  But we can’t move too fast.  Our audience has to move with us.  We do polling and focus groups to make sure we don’t get too far out in front of them.  We are alert for feedback.  And, for instance, at Democracy Now we’ve recently had to go back and do some stories to illustrate that we are still anti-war and ant-US imperialism, like what’s expected of us from our past.   Like, for instance, with that particular segment of the audience that still listens to us on Pacifica stations, those we haven’t yet pulled away to listen to us just through the disintermediation of our multiple internet platforms, it can a bit jarring right now if our content is too different from other Pacifica shows.

We want to be on the same page with Rachel and crew about things like the Ukraine war, [Goodman catches herself and doubles back]. .  The `Russian provoked’ Ukraine war, [she emphasizes], but our audience can get a little unnerved by the idea we are on the brink of possible nuclear annihilation of the world and wonder if we really are still sincerely for peace enough if we are to expect them to keep following us where we go. An easy way to offer reassurance, like we just did, is to use the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, ahem, U.S. invasion of Iraq, and reiterate where we stood on that twenty years ago.  The past is a place where you can anchor the trust you hope to keep getting  in the future.  So people will keep following into whatever Heraclitian storms may toss us on the waves in that future.

Look, I believe that `in solidarity there is strength.’  For progressivism to win, we have to be rowing in the same direction.  When we marched into wars, the Democrats were once thought of as the anti-war party.  Now we have two war parties, but it’s clear that the Democrats are now taking the lead.  The Republicans have a few isolationists who are against our bringing democracy-enhancing regime change to other countries. . .  The name of our show is Democracy Now, something to remember, when we try to keep our bearings.

The interview can’t end without posing one obvious question: Why not PBS or NPR instead?  Goodman smiles, shaking her head as if disappointed with the quality or lack of perspicacity of such a question, even if it might be obligatory and expected as inevitable.  Goodman speaks slowly and deliberately:

Merging our audience with PBS or NPR wouldn’t be any kind of achievement.  PBS and NPR are already where Rachel and her show are, which is to say, aligned with The Washington Post and New York Times, but PBS and NPR are selling the audience the idea that they are the thinking man’s version and the cultured man’s of media consumption.  That pose already successfully siphons audience, say from Pacifica, when the audience is looking for better production values along not so obvious and time-consuming commercials that you get with `commercial’ broadcasts.  But sliding over there wouldn’t be an achievement.  Because it’s sort of contrary to their brand, PBS and NPR don’t fish for audience indignation, including the Red Team, Blue Team variety of indignation, the way that Rachel and I do,– not so overtly–  Rachel does it with her raised-to-the-sky eyebrow and cocked neck, while I put it in my voice.  I can do it with slight variations in my tone and I also pick words to drawl out more slowly.  Moreover, we at Democracy Now do subtle, not quite subliminal, editorializing with our interspersed music segments, something Rachel doesn’t do.  Bringing our audience to MSNBC with skillful drifting would be a much more real achievement.      

One last question to Goodman (but is it too rude?): And the true “achievement” to be aspired to might also be inextricably associated with handsome recompense?— Doesn’t Rachel Maddow get paid something like $30 million a year counting salary and regular bonuses?  Goodman simply smiles.

Democracy Now and The Rachel Maddow Show are not merging broadcasts just yet.  This April 1st interview with Goodman was just to preview how it’s being talked about.  Goodman was specific that if it happens it could be a year from now, say next April 1st, or two years from now on the April 1st after that.

Looking For Clarity On The Situation In Lebanon? You Won’t Get It From Democracy Now Where Its Question Is: “Can you respond to the World Bank saying Lebanon is in one of the worst economic collapses in the last 150 years?”

Democracy Now pitches the question: "respond to the World Bank saying Lebanon is in one of the worst economic collapses in the last 150 years"

Want to get clarity about what might possibly be happening now in Lebanon?  You are not going to get it from the reporting of Democracy Now, or as we might better call it these days, Democracy Not Now What It Once Was (“DNNWIOW” or #DNNWIOW).  What you’ll get from DNNWIOW is that the situation in Lebanon is confused, awful, pretty much impossible to explain and just about anything that happens next will probably be alright, maybe perhaps better, or at least acceptable.  Like it might be acceptable if Lebanon was one more country subjected to the kind of externally provoked regime operations we conduct?  OK if its government is  replaced by a puppet subservient to our interests?  Or maybe, not really so bad if, like Lybia or a number of other countries where were we have meddled, Lebanon was just kept in perpetual chaos?

In other words, DNNWIOW’s `there is terribly confusing awfulness in Lebanon you’ll never understand’ reporting is very much the same thing that you get from mainstream corporately owned media all the time about Israel and Palestine; it’s the kind of befuddlement building that then allows Israel, without significant protest from the American populace, to continue carrying out its persecution and removal of Palestinians from what was their country.

In other words, I make the case that DNNWIOW’s reporting on Lebanon, similar to the New York Times reporting on Lebanon, is just a useful conduit of the narrative that the United States Government wants put out there.  Or to cut through the crap: It’s pure propaganda.

We are talking right now about DNNWIOW’s first segment, its opening segment, on Thursday, October 14, 2021, an interview of more than 20 minutes of Lara Bitar, the editor-in-chief of The Public Source, what DNNWIOW described as “a Beirut-based independent media organization.”

Probably the interview question that most quintessentially captures the flavor and content of the interview is when DNNWIOW host Amy Goodman asks Bitar: “Can you respond to the World Bank saying Lebanon is in one of the worst economic collapses in the last 150 years, a bit further explain?”  (Much of the interview was conducted by co-host Nermeen Shaikh, but Amy Goodman chose to step in to ask this question herself.)

Gee, Lebanon is suffering `an economic crisis’?  That’s what’s going on?  The World Bank says so?  The World Bank’s assessments and characterizations of what are going on are referred to a half a dozen times in the interview and any offered understanding of Lebanon’s plight basically stops there.  

To read or watch the interview:  Snipers Fatally Attack Protesters in Beirut as Lebanon Reels from Devastating Economic Collapse, October 14, 2021.

Amy Goodman on left, Lara Bitar on right

The DNNWIOW propaganda is basically the subtle kind of propaganda that relies on misdirection and what is tactfully, or, as a matter of tactics, left out of the picture rather than being an attempt mounted to sell unadulterated and obviously false misinformation.  The best way to recognize what DNNWIOW was providing as the propaganda, is to hold it up against some actually good, context-setting reporting that will give you a very clear view of the situation in Lebanon.  I recommend that, for that contrast, you go to another interview about what is happening now in Lebanon– Again it is two women. Again it’s a female show host doing the interview, and again, the interviewee is a woman residing in Lebanon.  I’ll make the case, that in this instance, the dialogue between these two women and their ability to analytically present relevant facts does a much better job to qualify each of them as competent and sincere journalists.

The interview is conducted by Mnar Muhawesh, founder and editor-in-chief of MintPress News, interviewing Rania Khalek an American journalist living in Lebanon.  Ms. Khalek, writing under her Breakthrough News brand, was on my National Notice list of the many alternative media female journalists well worth paying attention to these days.  Ms. Muhawesh should have been on my list also; sorry I missed her.

Mnar Muhawesh on left, Rania Khalek on right

Here is the interview via Twitter, MintPress News' Facebook post, and via PSCP TV: Lebanon economic crisis, US Sanctions wars & Israeli resource exploitation in the Middle East region with @mnarMuh & RaniaKhalek

What do we learn from this interview that explains and puts Lebanon’s crisis into perspective?- We learn the following:

    •    Lebanon, a small country of about six million people, is mostly bordered by Syria a country that’s now war-torn nation in the throws of a regime change violence and destruction largely set in motion by the U.S. government.  Syria is naturally an important trading partner for Lebanon (Syria supplied about 10-15% of all of Lebanon’s power- now lack of power is another critical shortage Lebanon deals with), and because of US sanctions against Syria, Lebanon, locked in, cannot now trade across this crucial border.
    •    The other country bordering Lebanon is Israel on Lebanon’s southern border.  But Lebanon is on a continuing war footing with Israel so it cannot trade across that other border either, and instead must deal with continued threats by Israel, a country which previously invaded it.
    •    The only other access to Lebanon is the Mediterranean Sea, but a year ago last August there was a huge destruction in the port of Lebanon from a truly extraordinarily massive explosion.  Khalek does not assert she exactly knows the explanation for the explosion that involved stored fertilizer, but can give important background about it and she can expertly recite what she refers as the many politicized theories offered to explain what actually happened.
    •    The structure of the Lebanon government (set up in compromise when its civil war ended in 1991 and with the intention that the government be “intentionally weak”) carefully divides and shares power between different factions, different sects.  A substantial portion of the government, part of its majority coalition, is allied with Hezbollah and for that reason that portion of the government is the subject of US sanctions. The sanctions have the effect of hamstringing the entire country in its dealings with the rest of the world.  Plus the US backed and Saudi financed sect has worked in an adversarial fashion to make the harmful US sanctions apply more and cause more harm than they have to.
    •    Lebanon desperately needs fuel and power, it affects just about everything. Iran was willing to supply oil to Lebanon, but that help was blocked by other US sanctions, the US sanctions against Iran.
    •    The US also got involved to block help to Lebanon from China, Russia, and from Qatar.    At the same time the West is generally pulling back and refusing to help.  One excuse is that they want Lebanon to change the structure of its government, which is not about to happen. 
    •    The US and its banks and financial institutions are allied with Lebanese elites and with the International Monetary Fund and they, through this alliance, set up the Lebanese financial systems institutions that are now failing.
    •    The US and Western powers are also interfering with local Lebanese politics by providing support for both fascist and failing parties and factions in Lebanon. The many factions in the country provide ripe opportunities for co-optation, which the US takes advantage of and tries to weaponize.
    •    The US, and Israel along with it, wants, dominance and hegemonic power in the region.  The US, and Israel along with it, is therefore directing much of its energy toward trying to quash Hezbollah in Lebanon, but Hezbollah is immensely popular particularly in certain parts of the Lebanon because, ‘as a force of protection’ for the country, Hezbollah defeated and evicted Israel when Israel invaded, plus Hezbollah was critical in repelling ISIS and Al-Qaeda when they came into the country, with Hezbollah then pushing ISIS back even into Syria because of its threat.
    •    Continued chaos is probably what the US and its allies want in Lebanon, because the probably emerging alternative would be Hezbollah running the country.
    •    The formerly praised structure of the now collapsing Lebanese financial system that was set up with US banks involved was always something of a Ponzi scheme. Hezbollah was shut out of participation in and creation of that now collapsing defective financial system.    
    •    Not that it is high on the list of causes for the current crises and power shortage, but Israel repeatedly bombed Lebanon’s power stations in the past decade.
    •    Lebanon is also dealing with climate change and wild fires.
    •    Toward the end of the discussion, all this was related to how have an overall strategy of promoting sectarianism, balkanization and division in the entire region to the extent the US and Israel actually promote and fund right-wing religious fundamentalism.  (Reminder: Israel was the first sectarian state in the region.) Without this regional debilitation, Lebanon might, through its relationships with its neighbors might have a much stronger and resilient economy.

Much of what is important above is pure fact.  Some of it ventures into characterizations with a point of view.  It is not necessary to agree with all of the characterizations above- some might choose to dispute a few (but everything said seems pretty on target to me)-- Still these points all go a long way in explaining a lot and to provide much needed clarity.

By contrast, the 20-minute Democracy Now report (pardon, that's the "DNNWIOW report") mentions absolutely none of the facts set forth above.  Its only allusion to Lebanon’s long border with war-torn Syria is to note passingly that for some reason there is a bad situation with destitute Syrian refugees (as well as Palestinian and "other" refugees) who for some reason now live in Lebanon.  Nowhere is Israel mentioned nor the threat posed by it at the southern boarder.  There is no mention of any of the sanctions imposed by the US or their effect, not the sanctions against trade involving neighboring Syria, not the sanctions blocking aid from Iran, not the sanctions against Hezbollah nor their effect on the rest of the country.  Hezbollah does get mentioned, but only to describe the political party that's part of the government as trouble making and a source of problems being faced.

When it comes to trouble making in Lebanon, there is no mention of any covert involvement of the US to manipulate things or how, when there is mysterious trouble making, it is hard to know whom to pin the blame on.

Simply put, coming to it with some understanding, the DNNWIOW report is so inadequate it’s virtually the most laughable of jokes.  Unfortunately, this is not a laughing matter.  The people at whatever this new Democracy Now is cannot be unaware of the deceptive nature of their Lebanon reporting.  This certainly includes chief show host, executive producer, and long term figurehead for the program, Amy Goodman herself.  They must obviously be aware of the deceptive nature of their reporting because Democracy Now for decades, since its early origins out of WBAI 99.5 FM New York, has a long and distinguished history of covering Israel and its occupation of Palestine in a way that was a meaningful counter on that subject to exactly that kind of reporting about that situation emanating from the US corporate media.

What is the thinking of those working at DNNWIOW when they work to put out this kind of misleading reporting?  Is the thought that by acquiescently conduiting mainstream US State Department narrative one day, they'll get an improved chance at doing something good in the world the next? Is the thought that they will please their big money foundation funders by going along to promulgate these narratives so that they can later go on later, with good, glitzy production values, to accurately cover other more important controversial, undercovered, stories they want to deliver to a big audience on later occasions?  . . Maybe?

Maybe, but if that is the case, DNNWIOW is getting to be an insidiously dangerous program to watch.  That’s because you’ll never know when you are getting reliable reporting on an important story and when you are getting a spiel of establishment propaganda.  Moreover, as DNNWIOW keeps promoting itself as “independent global news” and “the war and peace report,” and has a fabled and reputable history, and as DNNWIOW wears its social justice “heart” on its sleeve, unsuspecting members of the public are all the more likely to be confused when these ruses in reporting are subtle enough.

Confused?. . .  Here, as just that sort of example-  the next story DNNWIOW was reporting that day on October 14, 2021 (about our withdrawal from a senseless 20-year war) was this- see if you find any of its slant identifiable and suspicious:

Afghan Interpreter Who Rescued Biden in 2008 Is Evacuated from Afghanistan with His Family- After weeks of pleading for help, an Afghan interpreter, who helped rescue then-Senator Joe Biden when he was stranded 13 years ago in Afghanistan, has finally escaped Afghanistan. Aman Khalili describes his journey out of the country, and we speak with the reporter who broke the story. “I was in the safehouse for 15 days,” Khalili tells Democracy Now! Khalili is “representative of a group of people that are still appealing for help from America.