Glorious leader is beneficent to all!

Today's must-read is from Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi: "The Sovietization of the American Press" - "The transformation from phony "objectivity" to open one-party orthodoxy hasn't been an improvement."

Reality in Soviet news was 100% binary, with all people either heroes or villains, and the villains all in league with one another (an SR was no better than a fascist or a “Right-Trotskyite Bandit,” a kind of proto-horseshoe theory). Other ideas were not represented, except to be attacked and deconstructed. Also, since anything good was all good, politicians were not described as people at all but paragons of limitless virtue — 95% of most issues of Pravda or Izvestia were just names of party leaders surrounded by lists of applause-words, like “glittering,” “full-hearted,” “wise,” “mighty,” “courageous,” “in complete moral-political union with the people,” etc.

Some of the headlines in the U.S. press lately sound suspiciously like this kind of work:

— Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty

— Champion of the middle class comes to the aid of the poor

— Biden's historic victory for America

Of note in this essay is the compare and contrast in the New York Times' coverage of the exact same executive decision on America's posture towards Saudi Arabia after the Jamal Khashoggi murder.  Revulsion turned to statesmanship just. like. that.

We can't say we didn't see this coming.

The North Korean media is cringing at the obsequiousness of this. https://t.co/wyV2eRJj88

— Howard Wall 💰📈📝 (@HJWallEcon) March 12, 2021