Taibbi writes “This book is intended to help start a conversation about how much of our disdain for each other is real and how much of it is a product of the media machine.” Taibbi takes a very critical look at the current political media atmosphere in this book.
The book samples several ways that the media divides us. The book outlines the 10 rules of hate. For example rule number three is “Hate people not institutions.” The book also argues that political media has been set up to mimic a sporting event where you must always root for your team.
Taibbi notes “People need to start understanding the news not as the news but as just such an individualized consumer experience. Anger just for you. This is not reporting it is a marketing process designed to create rhetorical addictions and shut any non consumerist doors in your mind.”
The book contains information regarding sources, polling, Russia gate, Donald Trump and much more. He notes how the media typically distracts us from the important stories and notes “as people the more separate we are the more politically impotent we become.”
The book contains several entertaining stories. It also contains profanity throughout. Taibbi warns us “Today pockets of media consumers demonize each other calling for dueling crackdowns. We have become our worst enemies and the longer the cycles play out the more authoritarian our future will look.”
At times the book seemed long and some of the chapters could have been shorter but overall an interesting read. I rate this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
On July 9, 1722 the New England Courant published a letter from Silence Dogood. The letter stated in part:
“Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.
“This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own.”
Silence Dogood was the pen name Benjamin Franklin used for a series of letters that he wrote. Franklin outlines the importance of freedom of speech above. If freedom of speech is curtailed it is only a matter of time before every other right will be taken as well. In the letter Franklin continued by saying:
“The best ...
