Is the sun setting on the web press in America? –

A view of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the Appalachian range from atop the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland: Glynn Wilson

By Glynn Wilson –
The Big Picture –

CATOCTIN MOUNTAINS, Md. – It was never my intention to move to Washington a decade ago to take it by storm to try and fix the federal government or bridge the partisan divide, promises often proclaimed by politicians of all stripes when they ask people for campaign contributions and support.

I’ve been around long enough as a journalist to know better than to think the problems with the federal government could be fixed in any short time frame just by exposing the problems in news stories and features. Even before Trump came along in 2016 and ramped up the divisions for personal and political gain, it was not easy to run such a large federal bureaucracy in such a large country where so many people are loath to pay taxes.

It’s in our national DNA.

That has plagued the United States of America since it was founded by a violent separation from a tyrannical government 3,000 miles away in England that insisted on charging more taxes on tea, paper and stamps than people could afford to pay and still turn a profit from their farms and businesses in Colonial America.

After all the problems of the Bush years, the wars in the Middle East, deregulation and tax cuts for the rich that nearly crashed the global economy in 2008, the Obamas took over the White House and gradually brought us back from the brink of collapse, along with the Democrats in the Senate and House then. I’m not sure how many people remember how close we came to ATMs not working and back to eating shoe leather, like they did in Birmingham during the Great Depression.

But it all went south again when Trump took over in 2016 by spouting crazy nonsense about a “swamp” and the need to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and firing people up to believe only he could save it. He didn’t save it, did he?

In fact he never tried to save it. The point was to destroy it by spreading chaos and confusion like they do in Russia, to create the fertile field for the end of democracy and a crypto-fascist dictatorship.

Enough of “the people” stood up in 2020 and said we’re not going to take this anymore. But instead of slinking off from the scene as the discredited criminal he is, Trump continued spouting his bullshit and millions of people are still fooled by it to the point where he could return to power again in 2024. If this happens make no mistake this will be the end of American democracy as we know it.

I personally don’t think he can win the popular vote. But there are questions in some key, close battleground states.

You’ve seen the stories about what he plans to do if he’s elected again. You don’t need me to remind you over and over again, with links. This message is all over social media and is even covered sometimes on corporate cable TV news talk shows to some extent.

If I thought continuing to cover every bit of sensational clickbait about all of this would do any good, I might keep doing it. The problem is, between Trump’s own channels and the anti-news nature of social media these days, especially the Facebook algorithm and the bots, even the New York Times and ProPublica can’t seem to make a breakthrough by shaming Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves or step aside for the good of the country and the reputation of the court.

Supreme Court Justice Alito Refuses to Recuse For Display of Controversial Flags

So if the power of the press in this country is dead, and there’s no way to make a living doing it anymore, why am I beating a dead horse?

The press has been dying in this country for 20 years. I’ve covered it all, written about what was coming and even made speeches about it.

But now with the push toward Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence creating deep fake images and chat stories the bots steal from us journalists, I’m afraid journalism is on its final death knell. Look no further than journalism departments at universities around the country, where MAGA sympathetic administrators are doing their part to kill even the teaching of journalism by slashing funding and even dismantling entire departments, while they also ban books and tear down libraries and bury the moldy books in landfills. History is disappearing before our very eyes.

Hey, I’m not so hard headed, stubborn or proud that I can’t move on and do other things with my life, if people don’t want to support journalists anymore. I would love to grow a garden like I did down in North Carolina during that first summer of Covid, and split firewood like I did for Mark Hainds in the Connecuh National Forest north of Pensacola in the winter before Covid hit. Like I did in Catoctin Mountain Park near Camp David in Maryland two years ago.

I still have some manual labor left in me if anybody has a place for me to stay and some work they need help doing.

But I’ve got to be honest with you. While I do have a personal checking account that is fairly stable because it is being fed by a Social Security payment every month, and a PayPal account that is stable due to recurring contributions from long time fans, my Wells Fargo business account and the LLC corporation I set up to practice independent journalism on the web is in jeopardy. Our last regular sponsor was U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama.

We finally just got rid of the Google ads on the New American Journal site since the code got hacked. They were not paying us anything anyway since the fake news stories came along in 2017.

So the only way we are going to be able to remain in business is if we can raise about $500 a month in reader donations. I hate to keep asking, but its either that or I try to make it out West in a worn out Dodge Roadtrek camper van and find free places to camp on Forest Service land, in most cases with no electric power or cell phone or internet service.

Ideally, I would like to remain in the Catoctin Mountains a little longer to see if I can find support and funding for a small farm in the woods with a cabin, a garden and a firewood business, maybe even a place for a writers, artists and musicians retreat, glamping style. I am willing to put in the work. But it will take help from my friends and family, or I might as well die in my sleep and give up the ghost and surrender to the inevitable forces of change in society, perhaps concluding that I don’t really recognize this world anymore.

It is my conclusion that between Facebook and Trump, people have been turned into selfish beings like never before, withering the vine of altruism to the breaking point. I know this is not universally true. I watched as millions of Americans worked themselves to the bone and contributed everything they could afford to stop Trump from winning a second term. But there are clear signs of burnout, which even the public opinion pundits talk about.

What is to become of us? What is to become of me? I still love much about this world. But I am at my wits end to find a way to keep surviving in it. Maybe like the Beatles sang, we get by with a little help from our friends. I hate to ask for your help. But at this point I seem to have no choice.

If I can’t get more help, this may be my last story to write and publish, and this website might just disappear in a poof, if we can’t raise the money to keep it up and going. It’s in your hands. What say you?

More Pictures

A sunset view from atop the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland: Glynn Wilson

Wild flowers in a mountain meadow atop the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland: Glynn Wilson

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