Campaign finance reform is of extreme importance, but democracy fundamentally relies on education—and media has always been central to that. I have a very challenging time explaining the concept of campaign finance to even educated people, as our media has been decimated. I’ll reference Amartya Sen via Lawrence Hamilton:

"Media freedom critically enhances our capability 'to communicate with each other and to understand better the world in which we live.' Without it, quality of life diminishes—even in an authoritarian state that engages in it, is wealthy in term of GNP."

Historically, media was imperfect. Yet after the Reagan administration repealed the Fairness Doctrine (1987) and Clinton signed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, legacy outlets abandoned even the facade of objectivity. Today, they largely function as tools of a fascist-leaning wealthy hegemony. Meanwhile, the alternative—branded "solutions journalism"—operates as a neoliberal instrument:

● On one side, it champions public-private partnerships, acting as cheap PR for select nonprofits funded ironically by elite foundations with board members who own legacy media.
● On the political side, it mirrors Rahm Emanuel’s "Battle Ground" strategy: partitioning populations along racial lines to fracture dissent while preserving delusional working/middle class white hegemony.

As a radical cultural integrationist and anti-capitalist (think a 50-state Bill McKibben model), I’ve consistently challenged both media frameworks. When conglomerates and nonprofits confine discourse to racialized silos—with op-eds dominated by homogeneous (male and often white) voices—they actively reinforce the hierarchies they claim to critique.

The independent left media circles the drain to hell via two paths:

Esoteric content that is unreadable because it is dense, laden with obscure references or simply boring. Often it is a little bit of both and just generally irrelevant to average people. You don’t need 5000 words to state the same thing you stated last week and the week before that and the week before that. Everyone they discuss is dead, especially the Black people and they try to pound every situation into not only a Marxian framework, a Marxian framework in 1870 Europe—yes, you definitely do that.

OR

It is a Kool-Aid and hummus snack away from a cult. “Left" propaganda that blends antivaxxers, Putin apologists, 5G fear mongering, ethnonationalists, and authoritarian fantasies complete with guillotine (an analogy I really, really hate) —effectively priming their already practicing masochism for free audience for the far-right sadism.

As The Who sang: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Systemic change—not selective targeting —simply focusing on dismantling captialism is also selective targeting, because what are you building—has to be the solution. I was talking to my friend Francisco about my dislike for the guillotine analogy and he said “Possibly Hydra might be a better analogy with sharp edges,” and I was like, “Yes, yes!”

Hydra from Greek mythology was a multi-headed serpent- for every head Hercules cut off the Hydra, two grew back. Victory came only when his nephew Iolaos cauterized the wounds of the Hydra with fire so the heads would not grow back.

Our greatest challenge is recapturing the narrative. People must see their exploitation and recognize escape routes. Ignorance is enslavement.