Can anyone provide examples of mainstream American media allowing anyone from the extreme left to present their views in a fair way?

Institutions do not generally act in ways that hurt their existence. Corporations act to maximize profit. They would never have a satisfactory presentation of left perspective.

But I think it’s important to point out that they occasionally do have someone on from “the left” and give them a few minutes to present a view that goes against everything that corporate media’s viewers have been exposed to. This helps present the left as even more “fringe” because the limits of the format (what Chomsky described re: “concision”) means that a lone voice on the left in the sea of corporate madness makes the left even less appealing (and crazy).

There is literally nothing remotely “left” about the corporate media. And it makes completely sense.

But you don’t understand. If you listen to the dog & wulf, folks like Hillary & Obama are the extreme left and to hear them tell it, Trotsky enthusiasts. The mainstream media adores them and fawns over them to the exclusion of “real” patriots.

^ You’re right. When they have spent years calling Obama and Hillary (Wall Street-friendly, militaristic capitalists) “socialists”, it’s interesting to see them struggle to find the words to describe people on the left.

That’s how unhinged the right has become. In order to pass that hyperbolic nonsense off as credible, it becomes necessary to declare the entirety of formerly trusted journalism in bed with the liberals. After all, what other possible explanation can there be for the recalcitrant press refusal to certify Obama’s Kenyan birth or Hillary’s child porn ring?

If there are no elected officials that fit your description of extreme left, if the support among the electorate is essentially zero, there’s not much point in giving them air time.

That would be like bringing on the Flat Earthers to discuss NASA planetary probes.

If you disagree, who do you think should be given a platform? And where?

@Call_Me_Jay Do you think support among the electorate is “essentially zero” because that point of view is never heard in the media? Do you think support for the radical right would exist if it wasn’t given the attention it receives? I think if the media is committed to giving voice to extremists on the right then they should give equal time to extremists on the left. If they don’t want to give extremists on the left a platform to make their case, then they should likewise not give one to the extremists on the right. The current approach leads to a fundamental failure to properly frame the political spectrum, and you have moderate left candidates being inaccurately characterized as extremists. It shifts the entire political discourse in the US to the right.

I disagree with the NASA analogy. This isn’t a factual report, we’re discussing the merits of political theories. And for the record, I’m not extreme left in my views.

Extreme left, I guess you mean communists? No,I have no examples for you. I still think it’s very hard to find people in America who want communism. There would be no audience for it.

There are media outlets showing candidates who want increased social systems in America, but not the government controlling everything.

I think I consider a lot of the media left leaning, because they reject the right point of view to the point that they twist it (in my opinion) and over generalize about people on the right. I’m left leaning myself, so policy wise I usually agree with left policy, but I don’t like that the left is now treating the right like how the right has been treating us. Name calling, eye rolls, hypocrisy, etc. I used to think we were better than that. I used to say my side was willing to listen and debate in a friendly manner. I don’t say that much anymore.

So much of political TV the hosts give their opinions. It’s not like old fashioned news, so the programs take on the leaning of the host.

@JLeslie “I still think it’s very hard to find people in America who want communism”

See Communist Party of the United States of America

These people exist, though I don’t agree with them. I do think that if the media is going to give voice to people who have extreme right wing/libertarian beliefs such as wanting to privatize education, prisons, end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, destroy unions, remove worker protections and market regulations, then it’s only fair to give equal representation to those on the other extreme.

@gorillapaws You’re link says estimated membership 5,000! That’s nothing. That does not add up to a TV audience. The extreme right probably is 15–20% of America’s adult population.

extreme right wing/libertarian beliefs such as wanting to privatize education, prisons, end Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, destroy unions, remove worker protections and market regulations

All those views have representation in Congress, the administration, and the Supreme Court.

Because conservatives started grass-roots campaigns starting in the 1970s to win local elections and funding conservative think(oxymoron, I know)tanks to push their rotten agenda.

I lived at one ground zero, in West Michigan, where Amway money (Betsy Devos’s in-laws) was funding candidates and get-togethers.

They were very smart in working from the bottom up. When a congressional or senate seat opens up, they have a deep bench for candidates.

I’m doing my little part, working for a county-level campaign. The candidate should win and I would not bet against him moving up to the US House in the next ten years

The communists are exactly as relevant as the Flat Earthers. And Libertarians. They’re navel-gazing wankers, pooping out thought experiments that entertain only themselves.

So, no. No one can give an example of “real extreme leftist” air time. But, feel free to call CNN a left wing propaganda machine.

Don’t the people who say that tend to be the ones who consider Hillary Clinton and Obama extreme-right-wing, and call Bernie Sanders a communist?

(sigh…)

Your definition of far left is more extreme left so it’s not in the scope of what you are asking. If you want to see a strong left-wing bias look at CNN at any given day.

@rojo Have they been using the word propaganda for CNN? Or, just that it’s a left bias?

@ARE_you_kidding_me I guess it is hard to come to any kind of answer that is accepted by either side when we can’t even agree as to where the goalposts are.

I feel like Bill Maher, must have had at least one extremely left guest on his show. It’s probably the furthest left you can go, with that size of a audience…

^^Ok, but Bill Maher is no commy. He agrees with the right on more than one thing. I would definitely categorize him as being to the left himself, even a left bias, but he lets people like Ann Coulter have more of a say than most of the mainstream political shows out there now.

No. I didn’t say he was a comy.

I said he may have given some far left people, a chance to plead their cases.
He likes to have conservative representatives on his show. Coulter, is a piece of shit, but she had the Sarah Huckabee balls, to show up, and earn that paycheck, by supporting countless indefensible positions, and being a really good bitch…

It is unfortunate that the left actually lacks the right’s propensity for fringe groups. The vacuum has actually allowed people (who should know better) to label Black Lives Matter and the ACLU as the left’s equivalent to skin heads and neo nazis. Americans, always notorious for their short attention spans, are left vulnerable to such vacuous bullshit as Trump’s declaration that “there were good and bad people on both sides”

What I find funny is just before Trump was elected the left leaning media (which I mainly watch) drones on about how the Republican Party was going to fracture and have a mess when Hillary won, thinking that Hillary was inevitable. Now, Trump won and suddenly everyone talks about the Democrats fracturing and the party needing to find its direction. Same shit different day.

Both parties have their problems. It will be interesting to see if Trump runs again, and if a Republican tried to challenge him.

Both parties are more or less fractured at this point.

Both parties are more or less fractured at this point.

That shtick is tiresome. “Both sides are bad so vote Republican” has been a cliche about “independents” for almost 20 years.

I think this is relevant to this discussion:

Friday, my wife and I went to a little pub that is fairly close to us. It has a wide range of clientele from college kids to old farts my age and a fair representation of both sexes. Friday we found ourselves enjoying our hamburgers sitting in a booth next to four men who looked to range in age from mid-twenties to forties and, judging from their matching clothing, they all worked for the same company. This was shortly after five so I assume they were there having a pre-going home for the weekend drink and from the number of empties on the table, they had been there for at least an hour.
They were rather boisterous and it was hard to ignore them let alone not overhear them. In the course of their conversation one of them mentioned something he had seen on CNN; to which one of the others replied “CNN?!?! Whatnahell you doin’ watching the Coon News Network?” At which they all laughed out loud. Still laughing, one of the younger ones then stated that he was not being PC and the correct name was the “Colored News Network”! Which about brought the table to a complete uproar in laughter, choking beer snorts and the like.
So, what does this mean? Who can say. Maybe it was the beer talking but beer just loosens the tongue, it doesn’t instill ideas. But it does seem to indicate that there is a contingent of the American public who equate CNN with liberal values and, in turn, liberal values with racial equality which they evidently do not agree with. Are all conservatives like this? Probably not but if you scratch the surface and dig deeper many times you get to the root of the problem.

@rojo If I heard that when I was living in Memphis, I would just assume it was white Republicans equating the Democrats with black people. What I mean is, there was an assumption that if you were white you were a Republican when I lived in TN. They know there are some of us white Democrats out there, but they assume most of them live in the Northeast and California. So, I fit the stat I used, since I wasn’t really a Southerner.

Pretty damn awful though what you overheard. Sad state of affairs we are in right now in America.

@JLeslie it is rather sad. I would say that two years ago I would not have heard it. Not that it would not have been thought or discussed, just not so blatantly and in such a public forum.

^That’s the Trump effect. Empowering hate, and divisiveness… We must shoot it down, whenever we see it. Shame is what used to keep such voices in private. We must call these people out. Otherwise, such thinking will fester…

I think the main point is that they considered CNN unacceptable as a news source in part because CNN was more likely to support civil rights for all and not just a more narrow subset of the population.

Behind closed doors I would have heard some of that stuff even 10 years ago. Out in public no, I doubt think so. I guess it friends where in public you are though.

I haven’t heard the word coon in years, in fact I don’t know if I ever have. The only reason I know it, is because I used to love the coon cheese, and my mom told me when I was a kid that it’s a bad word (so I’d be careful) and now the cheese is renamed to Vermont white cheddar anyway.