Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of the death penalty for federal or state crimes.
Neither candidate is interested in eliminating or reducing the 5,113 US nuclear warheads.
Neither candidate is campaigning to close Guantanamo prison.
Neither candidate has called for arresting and prosecuting high ranking people on Wall Street for the subprime mortgage catastrophe.
Neither candidate is interested in holding anyone in the Bush administration accountable for the torture committed by US personnel against prisoners in Guantanamo or in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of drones to assassinate people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia.
Neither candidate is against warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, or racial profiling in fighting “terrorism.”
Neither candidate is interested in fighting for a living wage. In fact, neither are really committed beyond lip service to raising the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – which, if it kept pace with inflation since the 1960s should be about $10 an hour.
Neither candidate was interested in arresting Osama bin Laden and having him tried in court.
Neither candidate will declare they refuse to bomb Iran.
Neither candidate is refusing to take huge campaign contributions from people and organizations.
Neither candidate proposes any significant specific steps to reverse global warming.
Neither candidate is talking about the over 2 million people in jails and prisons in the US.
Neither candidate proposes to create public jobs so everyone who wants to work can.
Neither candidate opposes the nuclear power industry. In fact both support expansion.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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