Columbia law professor Timothy Wu wonders if the First Amendment is "obsolete," and believes in "returning the country to the kind of media environment that prevailed in the 1950s.”
"AOC doesn’t seem to be upset that Zuckerberg has so much authority, but rather that he’s not using it to her liking."
This. She scares the crap out of me. Her ideological through-line seems to be something akin to "Only speech I like is acceptable; the rest is violence." There's always the option of not using Facebook.
Thank God the Constitution ain't easy to amend, at least under the current system. Good luck to Wu on his "edit to debug" 1A [/sarc]
She's gotta be losing some of that cred with her about-face on kids in cages. I've never respected her but always thought she was sincere, in a dummy kind of way. She's not, she's a fraud. Surely her following is starting to see the same.
My take is that she is now inside a Washington bubble that she is unable to control or even be sufficiently aware of. But I still need more evidence about her consciousness to question her sincerity.
The power AOC has is entirely through her social media profile and that’s it. The NY district that voted her in is teeny, tiny. She gets a lot of attention for a very minute amount of people.
I don't know if many people remember, but last year the idea was floated that AOC might lose her seat entirely in the upcoming redistricting after the census. The powers that be can simply delete her from congress if she gets too out of line and she knows it.
So, the question is - like Sanders, is she willing to betray the principles she ran on, the ones people supported her for, for the sake of retaining her seat - to what end?
Actually, seats in Congress are determined by state legislatures, not Congress. She'll only lose her seat if the New York legislature decided to eliminate her district.
It's not just AOC, it's the Squad and other newly elected "prog" members who had enough votes to block Pelosi as Speaker unless she agreed to put M4A up for a vote - the "force the vote" movement. I don't know what folks think of Jimmy Dore, certainly doesn't have the polish of a MT or GG (to say the least :)) but he did an excellent analysis and take down, using AOC's own tweets and TV appearances, of her rather obvious comparing her campaign rhetoric to her actual performance as a voting member of the House.
I am a debater of the old school and i think one can be most effective when one can quote "from the horse's (or pick you critter) mouth" .... often, when that is done well, that is all that is needed ....
Maybe - but I suspect Pelosi doesn't really care as long as AOC does what she is told - and I think she knows by now that when she (Pelosi) is in the spotlight she often opens her mouth to insert her foot - pragmatically, if AOC is better at selling the D agenda to the public, hey, that's OK - that keeps her (P) in power as well
There's an interesting recent Bad Faith interview with Chris Hedges (SH recommended below) in which Briahna Joy Gray takes AOC to task for not flexing her upstart power when it really counts. And Hedges responds that AOC and the squad have no real power, because Pelosi and Schumer control--"funnel"--all the donor dollars. I would agree, but would argue that she does have substantial symbolic power, but that it's mostly being used either directly against her, or as a useful foil for others with competing or contradictory aims.
I tend to take the view that she's probably originally a true blue idealist who's been rapidly cowed, perhaps co-opted, by the machine. But I don't know her personally.
She's not effective at *using* power, and all but the rhetorical power is already slipping away from her. The reason that everyone is catering to Joe Manchin is because he really will vote against them. AOC and the Squad knuckled under several times recently, and let the party retain key control. Pelosi beat her, she's just another member of the team now.
They are all young, inexperienced, and learning as they go. The beauty of the young is that *burning fire of idealism, the will to redress wrongs, and the energy to "git 'er done"
The beauty of the slightly more mature is the knowledge of how to best focus and *aim all of that "fire", and a dab of humility that allows them to tone down the arrogance of the "know-it-all" high school set.
Mistakes like aligning themselves with the Dems if they *really want to make changes are all part of learning how cumbersome and resistant to change the *real world of politics is - by *design ! That quicksand quagmire is a *feature, not a bug !
Early "oopsies" like taking on silly high school names for the press that sound as if they came from marvel comic books, like "The Squad" are the errors of the young. If the "squadsters" last any sufficient amount of time in politics, these names trumpeting "magical thinking here" become embarrassments later, much like the stuff you wrote in your High School Yearbooks.
We need to invent a new political system that is not in thrall to Corporate America. It will *not be a "light ask". People even *hinting at taking the money out of politics like Elizabeth Warren, (smartest kid on the last ticket), have to know better than to run *as a member of either established party. And Warren should know, she has been a member of both parties.
Elizabeth is correct. Citizen's United style legislation must *all die. But it is highly unlikely to happen from the platform of either sold-out Wall Street party.
I tend to agree about "originally a true blue" idealist, except to change it to "true Blue", as in a believer in the DP. I have been following the attempts to "reform the DP from within" oh, for about 30 years, and the pattern is the same. My original "awakening" came with Kucinich, who I supported in his crack at the D Pres nomination in '04, '08 - he was a Prog (M4A, Dept of Peace, e.g.) that makes Sanders look like a piker - but after his famous trip with O on AF1, he did a 180 and supported the ACA - as he himself said, "for Pres and Party" - prior he had been challenged in the DP primary for his own seat by a well funded businessman, and when that didn't work he was subsequently "re-districted" out after the '10 census ( he had served his purpose as a "prog face" for the DP, was considered a bit of an annoyance, and was replaced by a new one - O) but he still refused to "leave" the DP. Then Sanders (the Ind, LOL) was "introduced" in that role, when O "termed out" - well aware of what happened to K, he, routinely, after doing his spiel, would shut up and sit down when told (numerous examples)
So now - we have the "new, young" Prog faces for the DP, also aware of the possibility of being "kuciniched" - who are clearly, IMO, being coached in how it works .... I have 2 images for this process 1) if you tie your political cart to the DP donkey, you have to go where the donkey takes you, or get out and walk - and the donkey is following the golden carrot in front of this nose (oh I wish I were a cartoonist!) 2) to sign up with the DP is dancing with the Devil - you can boogie a bit, but step on his toes and there is hell to pay...
Sorry for the spiel - hard to put 30 years into a paragraph .... but the pattern is clear, IMO ....
I would really have liked to better understand your comment, bcuz it feels as if you are making some *smokin' hot points. At age 72, I am not a reader who would fail to get most of your references.
I also sympathize with your need to abbreviate for space. So, I would like to recommend, or remind, writers of a style for helping to smoothly achieve both clarity and brevity. I am betting you are already aware of it. Every time the writer wishes to introduce an abbreviation, it is helpful to fully define it *once, the first time it is used, i. e. Democratic Party (DP). Following that, just "DP" is fine.
I *think I figured out most of your comment, and I was willing to work thru for the value I could "sense", but that technique mentioned above has served me well, and I offer it to others as often as I am able.
I'm about as old as you, but for me the real DP machine eye-opener (besides the complete sellout to the corporate/banking sector in the 90s of course) was the Dean Scream. And Dean was like Bernie Lite. I'll never forget how eagerly the Dem press and punditry rushed in to pile on when they saw their moment to attack.
Great point Grisha as I was thinking this too. I think we need to do a much better job at vetting all politicians and decision-makers within administrations --- because what we are being sold is rarely the end product (see Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton previously) -- if these people were cars, there would be a recall notice on them from both sides of the isle - as what they sold initially, is not who they were, which is lying.
Well, I'm convinced he should be recalled but that is more about the expired warranty and those shitty Ray Bans more than outright selling lemons - like we have with Team Dem fraudulentcy (Clintons, Obama, Warren etc.)
The thing about Biden is that he is malleable, a DNC party prop, and had to be shoved down the throat of voters (see South Carolina) by the establishment not because of his message being sold as progressive, but that he would uphold the elites fiction and that the previous message was batshit crazy insane (much of this true, with an inflamed response from the corridors of power who saw Trump as ruining it for the elite classes eventually).
You have a Russian/Ukrainian last name, you should know that it doesn't require laws to harness private entities. I don't think it's unreasonable to see committees of ex-democratic staffers/associates working at large tech companies as official censors without being directly appointed by the government. These committees will have nice sounding names like "Committee for protecting Americans from foreign disinformation" and "Committee for Anti-Racist action"
Most Americans including many conservatives would take freedom of association as the defense for these "committees," without minding the direct threats and insinuations coming from politicians. Tell that to a Russian or Ukrainian about their nation's private companies and they will laugh you out of the room.
Oh, I agree - I was going to ask that myself - another "outmoded" amendment that needs to be "tweaked" for "modern times"? From flintlocks to AK-47s - what's next, rocket launchers? Some of those moose are pretty big ...
I’ll keep my eyes open, but I haven’t seen her statements, in context, as, “Only speech I like is acceptable; the rest is violence.” As always, whenever we critique what someone says it’s important to first listen or read to the full statement in context, not just the sound bites. During hearings, each Congress critter might get only five minutes to ask questions and hear the responses. If the exchange gets feisty, that clip might be treated as news, but that usually doesn’t present us with a clear indication of the views of either the Congress critter or the person being questioned.
My understanding of AOC on this subject is that she is very concerned that, currently, as algorithms maximize profits they do so in a way that increases fear and hate (as Matt T has described in Hate, Inc.). Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s stated plan has been to provide an easy platform for politicians to lie, and for the algorithms to spread the lies widely, as long as that leads to profits for the company. In her questioning of Zuckerberg, I think AOC did us all a service by pressing him to answer clearly whether FaceBook’s policy is to knowingly present — and encourage — objectively known lies as long as it’s classified as political speech. I think many people agree that’s not ideal for a country or for the world. As Matt T is showing, there’s a risk that suggested strategies to fix that problem all have consequences, and might create more problems than they solve.
"objectively known lies as long as it’s classified as political speech"
Who gets to decide what an "objectively known lie" is? You? Me? AOC? Zuck? The NYT or WaPo, which have historically printed "objectively known lies?" The Ministry of Truth?
For example, I believe Russiagate was a deliberate hoax intended to oust Trump, thanks to fine reporting by MT and several others. There are still many Americans who believe in it. Who gets to say what on Facebook? Can there be only one "party line" and the other side is an "objectively known lie?"
First time I vote was in the Nader/Gore/Bush election. Then there was the subsequent Florida...debacle, and, of course, the media peddling the Iraq War lie with near unanimity. The latter ended a lot of my assumptions about the supposed veracity of the national news media.
Oh, and now those papers employ guys like Marc Thiessen and David Frum, guys who led us into that war and who, in Thiessen's case, wrote an entire book defending American torture. Then we voted an Iraq War supporter in as president.
We *know* they lied. We *know* they faced zero consequences. Why in God's name would anyone advocate for people like that determined what's acceptable speech and what isn't?
That is the right question HBI, but either AOC and her ilk are too clueless to understand that or they know it and want to game the system in their favor. I think it is the latter.
Or let's put it another way, as long as it is me would decides what is objectively known then I am good with a system where only I make this decision. If it is anybody else but me, than I am not good with it.
I think AOC did us all a service by pressing him to answer clearly whether FaceBook’s policy is to knowingly present — and encourage — objectively known lies as long as it’s classified as political speech. I think many people agree that’s not ideal for a country or for the world.
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It's a much better ideal than allowing the government, even through a proxy like MZ, to be able to define what speech is allowable and what isn't. As soon as that happens, dissent is declared illegal.
Possibly she scares others as well. It seems to me she does what Pelosi wants her to do. Don't worry, my comment won't stay top-level for long.
She may be mostly harmless. For me, it's the true-believer projection vs. secret conformist vibe and especially the social media theatrics. I think a sitting member of the House should have better ways to spend her time than creating videos of makeup tips on TikTok; probably plays well with the Teen Vogue crowd. I'm sure that's a sexist remark.
Much of public politics involves personal charisma. I find her anti-charismatic, but many (perhaps most) disagree. It's not all about rationality.
Tulsi Gabbard is a mature adult woman and a war vet. She opted not to run for re-election after attempting diplomacy with Syria and being vilified as a "Russian asset" by the likes of HRC.
AOC is a teenage girl trapped in an adult woman's body. She will do whatever it takes to keep that seat.
By top level I mean not a reply to some other comment.
Yeah, she's the quintessence of the current fashions in idpol as bs front for status quo. But fashions change quickly so I'm not very worried. Otoh, you should introspect long and hard as to why she upsets you so. Dore had a couple of bits recently where he admitted to being triggered by her. Very funny.
Does Wu know that It wasn't that long ago --and certainly in the 1950--s that Catholics took the "Pledge of the Legion of Decency" (immoral movies) each year on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8). He's a hop skip & jump from this.
"I condemn all indecent and immoral motion pictures, and those which glorify crime or criminals. I promise to do all that I can to strengthen public opinion against the production of indecent and immoral films, and to unite with all who protest against them. I acknowledge my obligation to form a right conscience about pictures that are dangerous to my moral life. I pledge myself to remain away from them. I promise, further, to stay away altogether from places of amusement which show them as a matter of policy."
I know, to me, too. I don't think people who never had this experience realize how it affects people. Just let us read or view what we want--we can decide. The Pope, Mr. Wu or the NYTimes should not be the filters for what they think is ok to read/view. And of course to overcome the "Pledge" you had to commit a sin. I mean little kids had to promise....1976 for example it was a sin to view:
Ironically, these are all highly moralistic movies, just violent ones. DePalma and Scorsese grew up Catholic! Pretty sure Eastwood is some kind of weird deist, but only he knows.
The Catholic Church is like a giant Parasitoid Wasp, laying its eggs in the unsuspecting host where they gestate and eventually eat their way and destroy the host. Anyone that grew up in the church and beats the rap on Catholicism has my great respect.
I find it breathtaking our rulers'––and their handmaidens like Wu's––appetite for irony & hypocrisy. How they can label criticism of their policies of perpetual war, massive wealth transfer from the lower orders, and dismantling of civil liberties as 'fake news' and foreign propaganda? The New York Times, along with its supporting cast of NPR, CNN, MSNBC, etc. is the biggest purveyor of establishment lies the world has ever seen. This Martin Gurri fellow seems to be on top of this curious phenomenon: "Western élites are experiencing a collapse of authority deriving from a failure to distinguish between legitimate criticism and illegitimate rebellion."
The labeling of nominal establishment opposition like Trump, Sanders & Gabbard as 'Russian Assets,' harks back to the Moscow Show Trials. Stalin removed his opposition, old guard Bolsheviks with the erroneous slander that they were all British agents bent on tearing down the socialist utopian state. Millions of hapless bureaucrats were caught up in the hysteria and sent to the GULAG, and often, a miserable death. I know Matt struggles to avoid alarmism & hyperbole, but I wish he would address this phenomenon.
What I find most baffling is how so many otherwise intelligent people––including the vast majority of my friends & family––can still take the official narrative seriously. The established order is so shabby and crumbling before our eyes, but so few people on either side of the Atlantic are willing to acknowledge the peril.
It is fascinating what some seemingly otherwise intelligent people will believe. It is also interesting to me how little educated people actually know. Our education system is a disaster
History is filled with ostensibly intelligent classes of people who, from the outside, were utterly clueless. The French aristocracy of late 18th century France were surely the best educated people in France and we all know what happened.
The answer lies not so much in intelligence but the belief system that people subscribe to as the "good" and thus morally righteous set of beliefs and values, and that overrides all intelligence. The Ancien Regime in France became helpless because they could not override their inherent belief in the superiority of an aristocratic regime as the good and morally righteous form of governing, after all, it underpinned their value system and to decry it or criticize it was to only criticize yourself in turn. Members of their class who spoke against aristocratic privilege or the divine rights of kings were seen as betrayers, and even fools, for how could one ever allow the uneducated commoners peasantry rule themselves!
The progressive left has clearly evolved sharply away from a hardfast commitment to core American classic liberal liberties (freedom of speech, press, individualism) because they no longer identify those principles as simultaneous with what they now define as the good society. This is not a surprise as historically, the left has been more likely to subscribe to a rousseauesque society where all individuals are subservient to the greater good society because, after all, it's the greater good that counts (notice how this applied equally to socialism and fascism, both are heirs to Rousseau even if coming from different directions).
Even more dangerous is the growing belief among the progressive left that the very same American principles are now a threat to the good society they envision.
So they see no danger or hypocrisy in censorship or pushing certain media narratives or entrenching CRT into academia, for all are required as part of bringing about this new good society.
Agreed. More basically, these kinds of things happen when people believe "the truth" and "the good" are knowable and static things. These beliefs becomes dangerous when they are held by rulers. They happen in any ideology. The (imperfect) antidotes have been democracy and modern science.
"Our education system is a disaster" It's a feature, not a bug. The big lie is that our institutions are capable and willing to prepare young Americans for a truth-seeking, fulfilling path to well-educated citizenry. After secondary education. universities then get to fleece students for tens of thousands, telling you everything you learned in school was a lie. This only "irritates [you] and [while professors] enjoy the illusion of rebelling without ever having to challenge the System's basic values" (thanks Uncle Ted.) At this stage, American history education (exception of slavery and "genocide" chapters) is the only thing holding this nation together, and who knows for how much longer as we spiral into the abyss of idpol and "what can my country do for me" entropy.
Oh, were it so! If true, they could willfully turn away. Our academia are in an ever smaller bubble of limited intelligence, rebreathing their own air in analog terms, or stuck in a feedback loop in digital terms. No fresh air, no sunlight, but they can’t see it. That’s not willful ignorance, that’s blind ignorance.
Great summation of the threat we face. To your last question of why so many still take the official narrative seriously--there may be several overlapping reasons for this, but one of them, I think, is a reluctance of the part of some people to frankly acknowledge that sources they have long trusted--the NYT, CNN, NPR, etc.--have been massively lying to them. It's easier and far more comforting to continue to believe that the Media Emperor is wearing clothes than to step into the disorienting uncertainty that he/they are not.
At the time of the Iraq War, I was a supporter. I wasn't sure they had WMDs, but felt like if that's what it took to hold together the coalition to get rid of Saddam, it was worth considering.
It took me a long time to accept that I was a dupe.
The thing that frightens me is that the people demanding an end to disinformation strongly overlaps with people who supported the Iraq War - and haven't acknowledged they were duped by the US intelligence community.
They wouldn't know disinformation if it bit them on the ass. Better to leave it all out there so that people can eventually figure it out. If 2020 Twitter and Facebook had been around in 2001, they would have been censoring those who questioned the Iraq War.
And yet we went to war with the support of most of the people still running the country. Which goes to my point: The last thing we need is these people having anything to do with what we can or can't see. Do you think that a big tech/big government effort to keep the internet truthful would least to more or less exposure for those sites that had the foresight to question the Iraq War before we got into it?
I wonder if it's aspirational. Allegiance to the Democratic parties truths and the pities of wokedom is part and parcel of the _culture_of_ the educated, tasteful class. If you aspire to be accepted by the fragrant and sophisticated people who do yoga, drink wine you never hard of, make their own kombucha, and tell you about what a wonderful French butter keeper they have, you have to be all in on the politics too. In a fascinating interview with Greenwald, Shant Mesrobian (from Obama's campaign) explains why this culture demands total obedience.
I'll bet that's some of it. Both funding arms of the uniparty play that whole lifestyle game.
I also think there's a hope that the brand loyalty will bring about a return to a more stable past, despite learning that it wasn't as stable as they remember.
For many readers, "trusting" The Gray Lady, the "Newspaper of Record", etc, is simply a matter of long-standing HABIT ! There really *was a time when the NYT *could be (at least minimally) trusted ! I am now among the sadly disillusioned, but I still receive the online edition for the killer crosswords !
Time and noise. Too many distractions to think, to apply thought to problems, and to ask people legitimate questions to get answers. Most people are caught up in various traps of time, consumption, addiction and careerism. --- I agree with your thesis, but it is understandable how people miss out on this stuff in every day life.
Then again Upton Sinclair quote works here too -- - about people not being able to see precisely what they are paid to not see.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." --Yes, that's the relevant quote. Good call.
Beyond the very real material risks associated with expressing dissent or independent opinions in a work environment, it seems that social environments of any sort have always valued Popularity higher than integrity or critical thinking acuity. That goes a long way toward explaining why so much energy in Internet communications is devoted to seeking out likes, upvotes, and the "viral" popularity that leads to Fame. The implicit corollary being that any feature of ones life that might elicit Unpopularity is to be diligently avoided.
This process of social conditioning by peer groups pre-dates the Internet era. It begins in childhood, intensifies in adolescence, and by adulthood, the majority of the population takes it for granted. It shows up in all sorts of social phenomena, from clothing fashions to pack journalism. Even outcaste groups encourage conformity within their ranks, and their individual members derive psychological benefits from the approval and support of the group that surrounds them.
Exile is, by definition, a very lonely place to be. That accounts for the pull of the conditioning.
I used to want to give folks excuses too for not paying attention - but i wonder if the folks in the 1860's had so much more leisure time on their hands they could easily travel and had the time to listen to the Lincoln-Douglas debates - some ? lasting over an hour ...
You forgot to add Jill Stein - the only candidate on the '16 Pres ballot who ran on a truly progressive platform - whom Clinton labeled as a Putin puppet, who was in fact brought up before a closed session Sen committee hearing ...
I think there are parallels here between the exclusion of 3rd parties from Pres debates - "cancel culture" before the phrase came in vogue ... I was arrested at a protest against that exclusion, charged with a misdemeanor - "obstruction of gov't admin. in the second degree", refused a plea deal, went to trial - and was convicted. Fined - luckily was not black or I might have wound up in jail ...
The issue for me - and I do not see it discussed anywhere, is that the right to speak means little or nothing without a right to be heard, 'If a tree falls in the forest ...."
So while we are wringing our hands over a right to Twitter or FB, we are really missing the boat, IMO, if we do not insist on the right to be heard in public debate and discussion - the good old fashioned way - on a stage, before an audience - especially when that audience is tasked with choosing the folks who will make the policies that guide our speech rights ...
The elites appetite for irony & hypocrisy is matched only by the public's consumption and embrace of the contrived narratives. Media is downstream from Politics, which itself is downstream from Culture. Intelligence -- whether actual or artificially credentialed -- is no defense against the innate instinct to go with the flow. Even if that flow is circling the drain.
The breathtaking appetite for irony & hypocrisy is part of them living in a different world. The Aspen Ideas crowd has no connection to our world and they plan to keep it that way.
I've a friend who a couple of years ago was quite open minded. So much that I wasn't afraid to talk about the details of how the Democrats rat-fucked Sanders. After Obama's Night of the Long Knives he could accept my angry statement that DC Democrats would rather lose to Trump than have Sanders as president. And so it went on. But in the last few months I stopped as he became increasingly aggressive on the lesser-of-two-evils argument. And now it's embarrassing when he mentions misinformation and try to change the subject.
What's the attraction? That's the question I struggle with. It's not a matter of habit. He's not a consumer of NYTWaPoCNNMSNBC. He isn't surrounded by this ideology. And a year ago didn't have it. Given that it takes effort to sustain such delusions, I have to wonder, What is the ROI? Why are some people positively attracted to this Orwellian right-wing Democratic Party?
I think tha debate is a poor persuasion tool. The act of telling someone "You are wrong, I am right and here's why.." is inherently an act of dominance and will provoke defensive behavior. Also once an idea is accepted, the brain will bend over backward to rationalize it because replacing it with new idea requires more energy. It's just human nature. I have had better luck by framing arguments as gentle questions and allowing others to come to their own conclusions.
The point here isn't to do with methods of persuasion. It's that someone who was deeply skeptical of establishment Dems has in the last 6 months or so adopted a thoroughly pro establishment position. My question is: what's the attraction? How does someone who understood the deep corruption of DC Dems, who supported Sanders and was shocked at his defenestration, make the transition to thinking that Biden/Pelosi/Schumer are good enough? How does someone make that transition? What's the ROI?
It's called cognitive dissonance-- "Cognitive dissonance is the state of mind that occurs when you are simultaneously entertaining two or more opposite ideas. This situation is stressful for your brain, so it wants to quickly pick an option to resolve the conflict. Your brain then tries to rationalize the option you chose so you can feel like you made a good decision"
As you stated he accepts that the establishment dems are very corrupt and not to be trusted. But he probably feels that Joe is better than Donald. Therefore he should support the blue party and not deal with the fact that dems are really no better. Rationalization is a powerful thing.
"–can still take the official narrative seriously."
Some know it and just play along to get along. People in my circle won't call it out but won't defend it anymore either. I think it's self preservation of their social status maybe ?
TODAY: In 1593, English Separatist Puritans John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe, in an early example of cancel culture run amok, are tried and sentenced to death on the charge of devising and circulating seditious books. (Literary Hub-source.)
«In 1593, [...] an early example of cancel culture run amok»
A much later example from A de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" (1834), my usual quote, of another rather physical cancel culture:
«A striking example of the excesses which the despotism of the majority may occasion was seen in Baltimore during the war of 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A newspaper opposed to it aroused the indignation of the inhabitants by taking that line.
The people came together, destroyed the printing presses and attacked the journalists' premises. The call went out to summon the militia which, however, did not respond to the call. In order to save those wretched fellows threatened with by the public frenzy the decision was taken to put them in prison like criminals.
The precaution was useless. During the night the people gathered once again; when the magistrates failed to summon the militia, the prison was forced one of the journalists was killed on the spot and the others were left for dead. The guilty parties, when standing before a jury, were acquitted.»
I have instead the impression that "people" are more rational than you may think, in regard to self-interest in particular, and that much apparent "craziness" is quite rational greed. In the particular case IIRC the strategic aim of the USA in 1812 was to "liberate" Iraq, sorry, I mean Canada, from the dictatorship of George III. The supporters of the war probably saw they could make a lot of profit if they won and could could grab land and the fur trade etc. of Canada.
The Warhawks in Congress during the War of 1812-Southern/Midwestern states-wanted to kick Native American ass and stop the British from playing games on the Western Frontier. Conquering Canada wasn’t really on the radar as a tangible goal.
Ironically, the first major secessionist movement in American history took place in New England during the war, due to the severe economic losses the lack of trade with GB was causing, even though American maritime rights were a major catalyst in the war, along w/ the frontier issues. IMO, the W of 1812 was not a result of craziness, but calculated national interest by the USA.
I can't (after an admittedly cursory search) find any comment by Wu in response to the collusion between Amazon, Google and Apple to shut down fast-growing Twitter competitor Parler overnight, certainly the most blatant and egregious abuse of monopoly power we have seen in the last 20 years. I consider one's attitude towards that event a sort of litmus test for one's real anti-trust convictions.
The idea that the Democrat Party would break up big tech, the very entity to which they owe all their power, is the most hilarious thing I think I have ever heard. It is more likely, really inevitable at this point, that they will use big tech to destroy our civil liberties.
Will Democrat Party voters accept these authoritarian restrictions on our civil rights that they voted for? All because emotionally and psychologically weak people never learned the concept of “stick and stones”.
To your question....yes. I live in Evanston, IL, (now the first American city to include reparations in their city planning). Evanston, bottom dead center of progressive directionless-ness. Attend any public meeting, and it’s like a struggle session in Mao’s CR.
We've now reached a portion of the Commentary where Speculation is asserted as Accomplished Fact. And then applauded, with additional commentary including more Speculation asserted as if it were Accomplished Fact.
I don't care what sort of axe is being ground when that happens. It's bogus.
This is only one example of many, of course. I've been scrolling past similar junk for years.
This is the first time I've outright said something about it. And I solemnly vow that the next time I make an explicit objection to the same sort of noise, it will be directed at a comment coming from someone with a different ideological orientation than yourself, "Commentorinchief". If that makes you feel better, sir.
just...stop wasting my time, will you? You could have stopped with this sentence:
"The idea that the Democrat Party would break up big tech, the very entity to which they owe all their power, is the most hilarious thing I think I have ever heard"
which is at least a claim worthy of pondering and contesting based on extant facts, notwithstanding the hyperbolic language of the statement (or maybe that idea really is "the most hilarious thing I think I ever heard", which is pitiable.)
But no-o, you have to go off on a guided meditation fantasy excursion, and then others chime in and play along. Just another Partisan Group Therapy Circle. Circling the drain.
So Big Tech didn’t support a particular candidate and all their statements saying otherwise and their actions and money backing that up was some kind of fantasy? Perhaps many people agree with me based on the above. They didn’t hide it after all.
The records for the 2020 elections show that 95% of the political donations from people at the major tech firms (Google, Facebook, Twitter, ... ) went to Democrats. And much more money went to "non-partisan" activities, such as $250 million from the Zuckerbergs alone to Democratic Party- run get out the vote efforts in Democratic dominated areas of key states.
Out F'n Standing. A great, if probably obvious, observation. Amy Klo Booker will wanna mold this new approach into something that further promotes Dems. I sometimes wonder how, other than relentless self-promotion, she got a national voice. Kinda like AOC, a "useful idiot" to those seeking cover if ever there was one!
These people literally have no sense of irony. After all, "returning . . .to the . . . environment that prevailed in the 1950s" is almost exactly what is meant by the slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Or they meant returning to paranoia, loyalty oaths, a Cold War with those nefarious Russians, censorship, racism (against whites) & sexism (against heterosexuals).
«"returning . . .to the . . . environment that prevailed in the 1950s" is almost exactly what is meant by the slogan, "Make America Great Again."»
There is a point about both that is telling: only decadent cultures dream of going back to a better past, vital cultures respect the past but focus on fixing the present and building the future.
Two issues which resonate include with this article:
1. Complicity of corporate academia (Columbia Law School) whereby the grand new idea is really an old authoritarian notion (Wu or Marcuse) dressed up and sold as an improvement to a problem with capitalism itself, with little thought of how it might be bastardized against the public later on down the road
2. How the elite use their salespeople. Adrian Zenz, Tim Wu, Tim Geithner, Austin Goolsbee, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs alumni. They need a male hero to laud, prop up with a back story and double down on systematically in the TINA (there is no alternative) mould.
Personally, I prefer Tony Benn here:
"I have five questions that I ask people who have power, and I recommend them to the House. If I see someone who is powerful, be it a traffic warden, Rupert Murdoch, the head of a trade union or a Member of Parliament, I ask myself these five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How can we get rid of you?" That last question is crucial."
Appreciate the eye-opening, perpetual sisyphusian bait and switch being uncovered here. Appreciate it Matt!
...and I'm old enough to remember the 50s. I actually watched the HUAC hearings on my grandfather's vintageT.V.. The grandstanding and the cheap shots were even evident to a kid of 10 or 11., but of course, they were just making the world safe for hypocrisy.
The Chinese Communists designed and adopted a perfect formula. One party Marxist state that runs a capitalist economy of the truly ruthless and magnificently profitable variety. Big Tech monopolies allow for tracking, evaluation, and control of all individuals and minute shaping of communications. The American left is in awe.
The Chinese rulers have no doubt that they are pursuing what is best for China and its people when silencing antagonistic voices and disinformation. So does the American left seeing themself fighting racism, white supremacy and disinformation.
My hope is that the "genetic make up" and diversity of of the American culture is not a fertile ground for the progressive dream of enlightened autocracy. But they are sure trying. Mao famously said that political power comes through the barrel of the gun. Of course he did not have the internet to consider.
It is telling you almost never hear any criticism of China or CCP leadership by US liberal elites or Never Trumper Republicans. I am convinced US elites are envious of the authoritarianism practiced by the CCP and would love nothing more than to implement a similar system here in the US.
How then to explain the "tilt to Asia" change in policy of Obama, which included not just military moves to block the PRC, but also the TPP, which he and others touted as needed to counter the economic rise of the PRC, an economic rise aided in no small part by PNTR, a policy far more Repubs than Dems voted for?
The joining of forces by Silicon valley and the corporate Dem party, certainly not left by any definition, and their attendant rise in power, far too large for our good, is ironic in that for the last forty years, it has been the Repub party that denounced anti trust legislation and even encouraged monopolization as beneficial to the economy, a school of thought pushed by such luminaries as Milton Friedman and his Chicago school of economics cohorts, and now that philosophy has come back to bite them. For decades, cries from the left about big business policies that stifled free speech were deflected by the accurate argument from the right that the first amendment referred only to government not limiting that right and were thus irrelevant.
Amazing how principles can be cast aside when one's own ox is being gored.
Perhaps some national self reflection is in order.
We've shown ourselves all too eager to swallow one lie or baseless theory after another, all to satisfy some inner need, ranging from the birther movement, the Putin/Trump collusion, stop the steal/Kraken (which Sidney Powell has now come out and said was just a theory that only non rational people would believe) and all this abetted by our instant gratification, click a mouse get the answer culture that our digital fetish has nurtured and magnified.
We are the ones who have given the tech masters the power, and like anyone else, they will abuse it, and it is up to us, by unsubscribing from the digital world, at least in large part, to undo their outsized power.
Who knows, perhaps our analog, three dimensional lives will be more fulfilling?
You don't have to give it up entirely, grisha, (I do like that name), but cutting back on it, as I've found, makes for a more relaxed life. I'm not allowed to subscribe to any online stuff except for this site, why here and not others, I don't know( I was unsubscribed by Google awhile back, but can still access my old sites when I feel like it.)
As I understand the internet, these sites get more money by viewer numbers etc. so it's been us that has created the outsized wealth and influence of the Dems' partners in crime, as we did with Amazon, Walmart, etc.
Just Imagine, your progressive social credit score based on your carbon footprint, number of children you dare to have, things you read and also don't read, course you took or ignored in school, lists of woke pluses and minuses, key words and emotional inflection captured by your ever present and listening Alexa's of the Big Tech following you everywhere.
They are insanely jealous of the Chinese “social credit” score that controls many opportunities and permits in Chinese society. Call it a “woke passport”.
Certainly Totalitarianism is the *simplest form of government, and "simple" is the *THEME SONG of today's Toady Politician ! That highly educated "Tree Stumps" like Cruz and Hawley can even *exist in our country says HORRIBLE things about our "quality" of Higher Education in this land. Now we are even eliminating SAT and ACT scores as a basis for admission to the "Ivy League". THAT ought to take care of the "stampede to the academic nadir" in our vaunted and hallowed halls of "knowledge".
In the PRC, the government owns most of the banks and is largely in control of the major strategic industries while leaving the consumer economy more in private hands and we call it capitalist, but if someone were to advocate something similar here in the US, it would be labeled socialist or communist. The Chinese have made their system work, not just because of what they themselves were responsible for, but because they politely stepped aside and let us businessmen, their eyes on short term profits, cut their own throats, being absolutely certain that the Chinese would never be a long term rival, being happy in their subservient role. I know this not from speculation, but having met many such US businessmen over these last thirty ears who were all unable to pass up the lure of quick and easy returns.
Very different culture. Very different expectations of their people. Long ancient history. US and Canada are babies in comparison. Why do people try to do comparisons? sigh.... ridiculous.
The Democrats and progressive left are behaving as if they assume the Republicans will never be in power again.
But they will. It's just a matter of time. Even as soon as 2024 we could find all branches of the government controlled by the Republicans and I'd rank that as a pretty good odds.
Whatever powers the Democrats give to themselves, the Republicans can equally abuse - and they will because the precedence was established by the Democrats and their current scorched earth approach towards governing despite a government that is about as close to 50/50 as any modern American government. And who will defend the Democrats at that point? How would the Democrats justify their complaints without being hypocrites?
The inherent danger here is that when you start chipping away at core American principles of liberty (for all practical purposes there are really three key relevant ones: freedom of speech, freedom of press and the belief everyone should be treated as free individuals equally in the eye of the law), you do seriously risk undermining the whole concept of America itself. Any excuses used in chipping away at any of these core principles can equally be used by other people to further chip away at them, in different directions and for different reasons. Abraham Lincoln warned about this when he said the existence of slavery was a threat to freedom itself because no principle could be used to justify enslaving black people that couldn't be used to justify enslaving white people. Likewise, there is no principle that can be used to justifying censoring the news/press to promote a correct progressive outlook that can't be used to justify censoring the news/press to promote a correct socially conservative outlook.
I think Democrats really do believe they will never lose again. Look at the way they reacted in 2016. And now they're trying to permanently enshrine all the things that made 2020 so......questionable.
The Rs routinely play hardball, changing the rules when it suits them - the Ds routinely bring knives, dull ones, to a gunfight - maybe that's why the Rs are so opposed to gun control ...
Tech media platforms WILL adopt norms and policies traditionally associated with twentieth-century journalism. As I have said here in the comments before, they depend existentially on the good favor of the federal government. To name only three
- They are allowed to operate against the law as monopolies.
- They receive the huge effective subsidy of liability immunity (Section 230).
- They are not required to operate as the common carriers that they actually are.
Hence they will do what they need to do to support the status quo, i.e. they will adopt the same propaganda model that has governed legacy media all along.
- Absolutely true, but communication platforms may be a natural monopoly. Why does everyone use Facebook? Because everyone uses Facebook.
- While true, removing section 230 would make everything a thousand times worse. Only Big Tech would be able to afford the lawyers, and smaller sites would be sued out of existence. A possible solution would be to enforce the First Amendment on platforms of a certain size, since they're de facto part of the public square. And even if that were not the case, it seems to me that nobody should be allowed to shoot/sue the messenger.
- Social media platforms are not common carriers. A common carrier would be an ISP (Cox, Comcast). They exist to blindly move electrical signals from point A to point B. Social media does much, MUCH more than that by its nature, and could not realistically be regulated as a common carrier.
That said, I still agree with your overall point that social media will bend the knee to government so they can keep doing what they're doing.
A monopoly isn't necessarily a problem. It's using monopoly in one market as anti-competitive advantage in another. Hence FB should not be allowed to be so many things. Same for Alphabet and Amazon. I understand the value of 230 but the subsidy isn't appropriate for monopolies. The point about common carriage is that they need to treat users fairly. They do not. FB wouldn't give me a login so I can't take part in anything that happens behind their door.
There is a reason why the American the rest of the judicial systems in the Anglosphere are adversary systems, and that is because the truth/facts are more likely to be discovered if the issues are confronted from two different perspectives. This is also the reason why we should support the First Amendment. No-one has a monopoly on the truth.
Where he asserts that Big Tech is now the fifth estate and thus needs to be mandated to allow free speech. HIs example is, imagine when the railroads were first around and had they told Lincoln he couldnt travel on them because they didnt agree with what he said?
Big tech whether they are broken up or not should not be controlling what is said on their mediums, period.
The railroad analogy is spot on. The information superhighway, indeed. Now is the time to take this to the supreme court. While we def have a 6-3 court. While Roberts does go off the reservation frequently I think it’s very likely he’d vote in favor of this.
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney v. California, 1927
The answer to bad speech is more speech. Period. Full stop. For Wu to say that he's a Brandeis devotee and then proceed to twist himself in knots to justify censoring speech is just more typical woke BS. Shame on him.
"AOC doesn’t seem to be upset that Zuckerberg has so much authority, but rather that he’s not using it to her liking."
This. She scares the crap out of me. Her ideological through-line seems to be something akin to "Only speech I like is acceptable; the rest is violence." There's always the option of not using Facebook.
Thank God the Constitution ain't easy to amend, at least under the current system. Good luck to Wu on his "edit to debug" 1A [/sarc]
Love her or hate her(my bent) you must admire the amount of power AOC has accrued. Frightening.
She's gotta be losing some of that cred with her about-face on kids in cages. I've never respected her but always thought she was sincere, in a dummy kind of way. She's not, she's a fraud. Surely her following is starting to see the same.
My take is that she is now inside a Washington bubble that she is unable to control or even be sufficiently aware of. But I still need more evidence about her consciousness to question her sincerity.
For a good take on this, check out the Bad Faith interview with Hedges - I'll take BJG over AOC any day :D
Agree on both, and that's what I meant by 'in a dummy kind of way'.
She’s 80 years old-all she really cares about are her grandkids and her luxe SubZero fridge......
You remember her crying in front of a parking lot? Real sincere.
It is possible to be insufficiently conscious of one's contradictions, and therefore noy be guilty of hypocrisy.
Trump is, IMO, a good example of this.
I think Jimmy Dore, whatever you may think of him, has done a pretty good job of pointing out her "contradictions" :D
The power AOC has is entirely through her social media profile and that’s it. The NY district that voted her in is teeny, tiny. She gets a lot of attention for a very minute amount of people.
I don't know if many people remember, but last year the idea was floated that AOC might lose her seat entirely in the upcoming redistricting after the census. The powers that be can simply delete her from congress if she gets too out of line and she knows it.
Bingo - that's what they did to Kucinich in '10. I call this tactic being "kuciniched"
So, the question is - like Sanders, is she willing to betray the principles she ran on, the ones people supported her for, for the sake of retaining her seat - to what end?
Actually, seats in Congress are determined by state legislatures, not Congress. She'll only lose her seat if the New York legislature decided to eliminate her district.
Redistricting will be interesting, have heard that her district may be eliminated...she'll just have to run for Chuck's seat
It's not just AOC, it's the Squad and other newly elected "prog" members who had enough votes to block Pelosi as Speaker unless she agreed to put M4A up for a vote - the "force the vote" movement. I don't know what folks think of Jimmy Dore, certainly doesn't have the polish of a MT or GG (to say the least :)) but he did an excellent analysis and take down, using AOC's own tweets and TV appearances, of her rather obvious comparing her campaign rhetoric to her actual performance as a voting member of the House.
I am a debater of the old school and i think one can be most effective when one can quote "from the horse's (or pick you critter) mouth" .... often, when that is done well, that is all that is needed ....
Rats, again! "rather obvious about face" ...
It may be small in area but it has a lot of people, 697,000 as of 2019. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_14th_congressional_district
But remember she primaried out Crowley with just under 17,000 votes to Crowley’s 13,000.
So she got sent to Congress with < 3% of her district voting for her in 2018
I would think every house member is very jealous of her high profile. Especially Nance
Maybe - but I suspect Pelosi doesn't really care as long as AOC does what she is told - and I think she knows by now that when she (Pelosi) is in the spotlight she often opens her mouth to insert her foot - pragmatically, if AOC is better at selling the D agenda to the public, hey, that's OK - that keeps her (P) in power as well
There's an interesting recent Bad Faith interview with Chris Hedges (SH recommended below) in which Briahna Joy Gray takes AOC to task for not flexing her upstart power when it really counts. And Hedges responds that AOC and the squad have no real power, because Pelosi and Schumer control--"funnel"--all the donor dollars. I would agree, but would argue that she does have substantial symbolic power, but that it's mostly being used either directly against her, or as a useful foil for others with competing or contradictory aims.
I tend to take the view that she's probably originally a true blue idealist who's been rapidly cowed, perhaps co-opted, by the machine. But I don't know her personally.
She's not effective at *using* power, and all but the rhetorical power is already slipping away from her. The reason that everyone is catering to Joe Manchin is because he really will vote against them. AOC and the Squad knuckled under several times recently, and let the party retain key control. Pelosi beat her, she's just another member of the team now.
They are all young, inexperienced, and learning as they go. The beauty of the young is that *burning fire of idealism, the will to redress wrongs, and the energy to "git 'er done"
The beauty of the slightly more mature is the knowledge of how to best focus and *aim all of that "fire", and a dab of humility that allows them to tone down the arrogance of the "know-it-all" high school set.
Mistakes like aligning themselves with the Dems if they *really want to make changes are all part of learning how cumbersome and resistant to change the *real world of politics is - by *design ! That quicksand quagmire is a *feature, not a bug !
Early "oopsies" like taking on silly high school names for the press that sound as if they came from marvel comic books, like "The Squad" are the errors of the young. If the "squadsters" last any sufficient amount of time in politics, these names trumpeting "magical thinking here" become embarrassments later, much like the stuff you wrote in your High School Yearbooks.
We need to invent a new political system that is not in thrall to Corporate America. It will *not be a "light ask". People even *hinting at taking the money out of politics like Elizabeth Warren, (smartest kid on the last ticket), have to know better than to run *as a member of either established party. And Warren should know, she has been a member of both parties.
Elizabeth is correct. Citizen's United style legislation must *all die. But it is highly unlikely to happen from the platform of either sold-out Wall Street party.
I tend to agree about "originally a true blue" idealist, except to change it to "true Blue", as in a believer in the DP. I have been following the attempts to "reform the DP from within" oh, for about 30 years, and the pattern is the same. My original "awakening" came with Kucinich, who I supported in his crack at the D Pres nomination in '04, '08 - he was a Prog (M4A, Dept of Peace, e.g.) that makes Sanders look like a piker - but after his famous trip with O on AF1, he did a 180 and supported the ACA - as he himself said, "for Pres and Party" - prior he had been challenged in the DP primary for his own seat by a well funded businessman, and when that didn't work he was subsequently "re-districted" out after the '10 census ( he had served his purpose as a "prog face" for the DP, was considered a bit of an annoyance, and was replaced by a new one - O) but he still refused to "leave" the DP. Then Sanders (the Ind, LOL) was "introduced" in that role, when O "termed out" - well aware of what happened to K, he, routinely, after doing his spiel, would shut up and sit down when told (numerous examples)
So now - we have the "new, young" Prog faces for the DP, also aware of the possibility of being "kuciniched" - who are clearly, IMO, being coached in how it works .... I have 2 images for this process 1) if you tie your political cart to the DP donkey, you have to go where the donkey takes you, or get out and walk - and the donkey is following the golden carrot in front of this nose (oh I wish I were a cartoonist!) 2) to sign up with the DP is dancing with the Devil - you can boogie a bit, but step on his toes and there is hell to pay...
Sorry for the spiel - hard to put 30 years into a paragraph .... but the pattern is clear, IMO ....
I would really have liked to better understand your comment, bcuz it feels as if you are making some *smokin' hot points. At age 72, I am not a reader who would fail to get most of your references.
I also sympathize with your need to abbreviate for space. So, I would like to recommend, or remind, writers of a style for helping to smoothly achieve both clarity and brevity. I am betting you are already aware of it. Every time the writer wishes to introduce an abbreviation, it is helpful to fully define it *once, the first time it is used, i. e. Democratic Party (DP). Following that, just "DP" is fine.
I *think I figured out most of your comment, and I was willing to work thru for the value I could "sense", but that technique mentioned above has served me well, and I offer it to others as often as I am able.
Hope others find value in it.
Meet the new upstart, same as the old upstart.
I'm about as old as you, but for me the real DP machine eye-opener (besides the complete sellout to the corporate/banking sector in the 90s of course) was the Dean Scream. And Dean was like Bernie Lite. I'll never forget how eagerly the Dem press and punditry rushed in to pile on when they saw their moment to attack.
I liked Kucinich too... until I didn't.
I'd settle for stick figure drawings.
Rats! "his" instead of "this" nose ...
Its all been an act.
AOC was a Schumer intern.
You think non-connected people get those jobs?
Just like how Amy Schumer (his niece) is gawd awful unfunny but somehow is a successful comedienne?
Ok - He is her 2nd cousin once removed, apparently ....
but I take your point ....
You're kidding - Amy Schumer is Sen. Schumer's niece? Naw ....
I gotta be careful, trusting soul that I am ...
Same way Trump did :D
Just look what she's accomplished with all that power.
Great point Grisha as I was thinking this too. I think we need to do a much better job at vetting all politicians and decision-makers within administrations --- because what we are being sold is rarely the end product (see Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton previously) -- if these people were cars, there would be a recall notice on them from both sides of the isle - as what they sold initially, is not who they were, which is lying.
Agree. But the biggest recall notice of all time is now being put in place for "President" Biden.
Well, I'm convinced he should be recalled but that is more about the expired warranty and those shitty Ray Bans more than outright selling lemons - like we have with Team Dem fraudulentcy (Clintons, Obama, Warren etc.)
The thing about Biden is that he is malleable, a DNC party prop, and had to be shoved down the throat of voters (see South Carolina) by the establishment not because of his message being sold as progressive, but that he would uphold the elites fiction and that the previous message was batshit crazy insane (much of this true, with an inflamed response from the corridors of power who saw Trump as ruining it for the elite classes eventually).
Aisle not isle
I think isle was just fine!
You have a Russian/Ukrainian last name, you should know that it doesn't require laws to harness private entities. I don't think it's unreasonable to see committees of ex-democratic staffers/associates working at large tech companies as official censors without being directly appointed by the government. These committees will have nice sounding names like "Committee for protecting Americans from foreign disinformation" and "Committee for Anti-Racist action"
I don't think you need a Russian/Ukrainian last name to have figured that out :D
Most Americans including many conservatives would take freedom of association as the defense for these "committees," without minding the direct threats and insinuations coming from politicians. Tell that to a Russian or Ukrainian about their nation's private companies and they will laugh you out of the room.
Might take exception to your phrase "most Americans" ....
It is not easy to amend, but child's play to ignore. We're in the child's play phase.
I’d love to hear what Wu’s views on the 2nd Amend. are/s
That's all you, man. I Wu-ldn't.
The Chinese invented gunpowder and cannon. Gun violence is cultural appropriation.
Primo ! ;-D
Oh, I agree - I was going to ask that myself - another "outmoded" amendment that needs to be "tweaked" for "modern times"? From flintlocks to AK-47s - what's next, rocket launchers? Some of those moose are pretty big ...
I’ll keep my eyes open, but I haven’t seen her statements, in context, as, “Only speech I like is acceptable; the rest is violence.” As always, whenever we critique what someone says it’s important to first listen or read to the full statement in context, not just the sound bites. During hearings, each Congress critter might get only five minutes to ask questions and hear the responses. If the exchange gets feisty, that clip might be treated as news, but that usually doesn’t present us with a clear indication of the views of either the Congress critter or the person being questioned.
My understanding of AOC on this subject is that she is very concerned that, currently, as algorithms maximize profits they do so in a way that increases fear and hate (as Matt T has described in Hate, Inc.). Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s stated plan has been to provide an easy platform for politicians to lie, and for the algorithms to spread the lies widely, as long as that leads to profits for the company. In her questioning of Zuckerberg, I think AOC did us all a service by pressing him to answer clearly whether FaceBook’s policy is to knowingly present — and encourage — objectively known lies as long as it’s classified as political speech. I think many people agree that’s not ideal for a country or for the world. As Matt T is showing, there’s a risk that suggested strategies to fix that problem all have consequences, and might create more problems than they solve.
"objectively known lies as long as it’s classified as political speech"
Who gets to decide what an "objectively known lie" is? You? Me? AOC? Zuck? The NYT or WaPo, which have historically printed "objectively known lies?" The Ministry of Truth?
For example, I believe Russiagate was a deliberate hoax intended to oust Trump, thanks to fine reporting by MT and several others. There are still many Americans who believe in it. Who gets to say what on Facebook? Can there be only one "party line" and the other side is an "objectively known lie?"
First time I vote was in the Nader/Gore/Bush election. Then there was the subsequent Florida...debacle, and, of course, the media peddling the Iraq War lie with near unanimity. The latter ended a lot of my assumptions about the supposed veracity of the national news media.
Oh, and now those papers employ guys like Marc Thiessen and David Frum, guys who led us into that war and who, in Thiessen's case, wrote an entire book defending American torture. Then we voted an Iraq War supporter in as president.
We *know* they lied. We *know* they faced zero consequences. Why in God's name would anyone advocate for people like that determined what's acceptable speech and what isn't?
"objectively known lies" - aye, there's the rub - who decides what is an "objectively known lie" - does AOC believe in Russiagate?
Who decides what is objectively known?
Thanks, you're outed as on the other side with that one.
That is the right question HBI, but either AOC and her ilk are too clueless to understand that or they know it and want to game the system in their favor. I think it is the latter.
Or let's put it another way, as long as it is me would decides what is objectively known then I am good with a system where only I make this decision. If it is anybody else but me, than I am not good with it.
Are you into "outing"?
I usually let people hide whatever they want to hide. Except lack of belief in free speech.
I think AOC did us all a service by pressing him to answer clearly whether FaceBook’s policy is to knowingly present — and encourage — objectively known lies as long as it’s classified as political speech. I think many people agree that’s not ideal for a country or for the world.
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It's a much better ideal than allowing the government, even through a proxy like MZ, to be able to define what speech is allowable and what isn't. As soon as that happens, dissent is declared illegal.
Kind of the hallmark of the "woke" crowd, isn't it ? "All for 'we' and none for 'thee' " ?
I have been waiting for "WePhones" and WePads" to replace IPhones and IPads - whaddya think? But who ARE the "we"?
She doesn't scare me at all. What power does she have? What can she possibly do?
Btw, I think this is the first time I saw you post a top level comment!
Possibly she scares others as well. It seems to me she does what Pelosi wants her to do. Don't worry, my comment won't stay top-level for long.
She may be mostly harmless. For me, it's the true-believer projection vs. secret conformist vibe and especially the social media theatrics. I think a sitting member of the House should have better ways to spend her time than creating videos of makeup tips on TikTok; probably plays well with the Teen Vogue crowd. I'm sure that's a sexist remark.
Much of public politics involves personal charisma. I find her anti-charismatic, but many (perhaps most) disagree. It's not all about rationality.
Tulsi Gabbard is charismatic. AOC is a sad stereotype of her generation on the coasts.
My take:
Tulsi Gabbard is a mature adult woman and a war vet. She opted not to run for re-election after attempting diplomacy with Syria and being vilified as a "Russian asset" by the likes of HRC.
AOC is a teenage girl trapped in an adult woman's body. She will do whatever it takes to keep that seat.
One of these things is not like the other.
But to your point,
I think she was just tired of tending bar and really wants to keep that cushy new job.
By top level I mean not a reply to some other comment.
Yeah, she's the quintessence of the current fashions in idpol as bs front for status quo. But fashions change quickly so I'm not very worried. Otoh, you should introspect long and hard as to why she upsets you so. Dore had a couple of bits recently where he admitted to being triggered by her. Very funny.
"you should introspect long and hard as to why she upsets you so."
I looked in her eyes and saw her soul.
If George W. Bush gets to pull that shit, Joe Schmoe gets to pull it. The President should be a role model for the youth.
Does Wu know that It wasn't that long ago --and certainly in the 1950--s that Catholics took the "Pledge of the Legion of Decency" (immoral movies) each year on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8). He's a hop skip & jump from this.
"I condemn all indecent and immoral motion pictures, and those which glorify crime or criminals. I promise to do all that I can to strengthen public opinion against the production of indecent and immoral films, and to unite with all who protest against them. I acknowledge my obligation to form a right conscience about pictures that are dangerous to my moral life. I pledge myself to remain away from them. I promise, further, to stay away altogether from places of amusement which show them as a matter of policy."
Comparing the crap that we Catholics used to do when we believed in the church to wokeism seems to be quite on target.
I know, to me, too. I don't think people who never had this experience realize how it affects people. Just let us read or view what we want--we can decide. The Pope, Mr. Wu or the NYTimes should not be the filters for what they think is ok to read/view. And of course to overcome the "Pledge" you had to commit a sin. I mean little kids had to promise....1976 for example it was a sin to view:
Carrie
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Taxi Driver
I watched Taxi Driver in the 4th grade-not a good idea in retrospect!!!
Au contraire.
https://theweek.com/articles/972066/what-woke-revolution--isnt
Going to leave this here. Where he starts talking about religion, I think he might be onto something.
The Catholic Worker Movement isn't mentioned in much of current discourse, but it was there all along.
Ironically, these are all highly moralistic movies, just violent ones. DePalma and Scorsese grew up Catholic! Pretty sure Eastwood is some kind of weird deist, but only he knows.
The idea of censorship appealed to the people who thought that the overall good was more important than individual liberties.[
Wittern-Keller, Laura (2008). Freedom of the Screen. University Press of Kentucky. p. 54.
Was Clint on the bad side of the Pope for what he most likely did to Sister Sara a few years back?
Well (spoiler for 51-year old movie approaching), she turned to not exactly be a Sister.
The Catholic Church is like a giant Parasitoid Wasp, laying its eggs in the unsuspecting host where they gestate and eventually eat their way and destroy the host. Anyone that grew up in the church and beats the rap on Catholicism has my great respect.
And it metastasized beyond Catholicism with the child evangelism ("4/14") movement.
I find it breathtaking our rulers'––and their handmaidens like Wu's––appetite for irony & hypocrisy. How they can label criticism of their policies of perpetual war, massive wealth transfer from the lower orders, and dismantling of civil liberties as 'fake news' and foreign propaganda? The New York Times, along with its supporting cast of NPR, CNN, MSNBC, etc. is the biggest purveyor of establishment lies the world has ever seen. This Martin Gurri fellow seems to be on top of this curious phenomenon: "Western élites are experiencing a collapse of authority deriving from a failure to distinguish between legitimate criticism and illegitimate rebellion."
The labeling of nominal establishment opposition like Trump, Sanders & Gabbard as 'Russian Assets,' harks back to the Moscow Show Trials. Stalin removed his opposition, old guard Bolsheviks with the erroneous slander that they were all British agents bent on tearing down the socialist utopian state. Millions of hapless bureaucrats were caught up in the hysteria and sent to the GULAG, and often, a miserable death. I know Matt struggles to avoid alarmism & hyperbole, but I wish he would address this phenomenon.
What I find most baffling is how so many otherwise intelligent people––including the vast majority of my friends & family––can still take the official narrative seriously. The established order is so shabby and crumbling before our eyes, but so few people on either side of the Atlantic are willing to acknowledge the peril.
It is fascinating what some seemingly otherwise intelligent people will believe. It is also interesting to me how little educated people actually know. Our education system is a disaster
History is filled with ostensibly intelligent classes of people who, from the outside, were utterly clueless. The French aristocracy of late 18th century France were surely the best educated people in France and we all know what happened.
The answer lies not so much in intelligence but the belief system that people subscribe to as the "good" and thus morally righteous set of beliefs and values, and that overrides all intelligence. The Ancien Regime in France became helpless because they could not override their inherent belief in the superiority of an aristocratic regime as the good and morally righteous form of governing, after all, it underpinned their value system and to decry it or criticize it was to only criticize yourself in turn. Members of their class who spoke against aristocratic privilege or the divine rights of kings were seen as betrayers, and even fools, for how could one ever allow the uneducated commoners peasantry rule themselves!
The progressive left has clearly evolved sharply away from a hardfast commitment to core American classic liberal liberties (freedom of speech, press, individualism) because they no longer identify those principles as simultaneous with what they now define as the good society. This is not a surprise as historically, the left has been more likely to subscribe to a rousseauesque society where all individuals are subservient to the greater good society because, after all, it's the greater good that counts (notice how this applied equally to socialism and fascism, both are heirs to Rousseau even if coming from different directions).
Even more dangerous is the growing belief among the progressive left that the very same American principles are now a threat to the good society they envision.
So they see no danger or hypocrisy in censorship or pushing certain media narratives or entrenching CRT into academia, for all are required as part of bringing about this new good society.
Agreed. More basically, these kinds of things happen when people believe "the truth" and "the good" are knowable and static things. These beliefs becomes dangerous when they are held by rulers. They happen in any ideology. The (imperfect) antidotes have been democracy and modern science.
It’s The Hunger Games, but with woke-hunting,virtue signalling, and reality TV instead of staged slaughter.
Nicely written.
"Our education system is a disaster" It's a feature, not a bug. The big lie is that our institutions are capable and willing to prepare young Americans for a truth-seeking, fulfilling path to well-educated citizenry. After secondary education. universities then get to fleece students for tens of thousands, telling you everything you learned in school was a lie. This only "irritates [you] and [while professors] enjoy the illusion of rebelling without ever having to challenge the System's basic values" (thanks Uncle Ted.) At this stage, American history education (exception of slavery and "genocide" chapters) is the only thing holding this nation together, and who knows for how much longer as we spiral into the abyss of idpol and "what can my country do for me" entropy.
Isn't it just willful ignorance?
Oh, were it so! If true, they could willfully turn away. Our academia are in an ever smaller bubble of limited intelligence, rebreathing their own air in analog terms, or stuck in a feedback loop in digital terms. No fresh air, no sunlight, but they can’t see it. That’s not willful ignorance, that’s blind ignorance.
Great summation of the threat we face. To your last question of why so many still take the official narrative seriously--there may be several overlapping reasons for this, but one of them, I think, is a reluctance of the part of some people to frankly acknowledge that sources they have long trusted--the NYT, CNN, NPR, etc.--have been massively lying to them. It's easier and far more comforting to continue to believe that the Media Emperor is wearing clothes than to step into the disorienting uncertainty that he/they are not.
At the time of the Iraq War, I was a supporter. I wasn't sure they had WMDs, but felt like if that's what it took to hold together the coalition to get rid of Saddam, it was worth considering.
It took me a long time to accept that I was a dupe.
The thing that frightens me is that the people demanding an end to disinformation strongly overlaps with people who supported the Iraq War - and haven't acknowledged they were duped by the US intelligence community.
They wouldn't know disinformation if it bit them on the ass. Better to leave it all out there so that people can eventually figure it out. If 2020 Twitter and Facebook had been around in 2001, they would have been censoring those who questioned the Iraq War.
Ah, but you see, there are/were other places to get info - there was plenty out there to point to the lies - re nukes and WMDs ...
And yet we went to war with the support of most of the people still running the country. Which goes to my point: The last thing we need is these people having anything to do with what we can or can't see. Do you think that a big tech/big government effort to keep the internet truthful would least to more or less exposure for those sites that had the foresight to question the Iraq War before we got into it?
I wonder if it's aspirational. Allegiance to the Democratic parties truths and the pities of wokedom is part and parcel of the _culture_of_ the educated, tasteful class. If you aspire to be accepted by the fragrant and sophisticated people who do yoga, drink wine you never hard of, make their own kombucha, and tell you about what a wonderful French butter keeper they have, you have to be all in on the politics too. In a fascinating interview with Greenwald, Shant Mesrobian (from Obama's campaign) explains why this culture demands total obedience.
I'll bet that's some of it. Both funding arms of the uniparty play that whole lifestyle game.
I also think there's a hope that the brand loyalty will bring about a return to a more stable past, despite learning that it wasn't as stable as they remember.
For many readers, "trusting" The Gray Lady, the "Newspaper of Record", etc, is simply a matter of long-standing HABIT ! There really *was a time when the NYT *could be (at least minimally) trusted ! I am now among the sadly disillusioned, but I still receive the online edition for the killer crosswords !
Time and noise. Too many distractions to think, to apply thought to problems, and to ask people legitimate questions to get answers. Most people are caught up in various traps of time, consumption, addiction and careerism. --- I agree with your thesis, but it is understandable how people miss out on this stuff in every day life.
Then again Upton Sinclair quote works here too -- - about people not being able to see precisely what they are paid to not see.
I always think of the SEP cloaking device in HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE:
"So the SEP makes the 'Heart of Gold' invisible?" asked Arthur.
"Oh no," said Zaphod. "Everyone can see it all right, it just becomes Somebody Else's Problem."
Great book
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." --Yes, that's the relevant quote. Good call.
Indeed. If you work in a corporate environment, you know you need to keep your mouth shut.
Beyond the very real material risks associated with expressing dissent or independent opinions in a work environment, it seems that social environments of any sort have always valued Popularity higher than integrity or critical thinking acuity. That goes a long way toward explaining why so much energy in Internet communications is devoted to seeking out likes, upvotes, and the "viral" popularity that leads to Fame. The implicit corollary being that any feature of ones life that might elicit Unpopularity is to be diligently avoided.
This process of social conditioning by peer groups pre-dates the Internet era. It begins in childhood, intensifies in adolescence, and by adulthood, the majority of the population takes it for granted. It shows up in all sorts of social phenomena, from clothing fashions to pack journalism. Even outcaste groups encourage conformity within their ranks, and their individual members derive psychological benefits from the approval and support of the group that surrounds them.
Exile is, by definition, a very lonely place to be. That accounts for the pull of the conditioning.
I used to want to give folks excuses too for not paying attention - but i wonder if the folks in the 1860's had so much more leisure time on their hands they could easily travel and had the time to listen to the Lincoln-Douglas debates - some ? lasting over an hour ...
Take away all the time spent in front of a computer and TV screen and maybe we'd all have more time to watch debates.
I would have loved to have watched a Pres debate that included 3rd parties on my TV screen!
You forgot to add Jill Stein - the only candidate on the '16 Pres ballot who ran on a truly progressive platform - whom Clinton labeled as a Putin puppet, who was in fact brought up before a closed session Sen committee hearing ...
I think there are parallels here between the exclusion of 3rd parties from Pres debates - "cancel culture" before the phrase came in vogue ... I was arrested at a protest against that exclusion, charged with a misdemeanor - "obstruction of gov't admin. in the second degree", refused a plea deal, went to trial - and was convicted. Fined - luckily was not black or I might have wound up in jail ...
The issue for me - and I do not see it discussed anywhere, is that the right to speak means little or nothing without a right to be heard, 'If a tree falls in the forest ...."
So while we are wringing our hands over a right to Twitter or FB, we are really missing the boat, IMO, if we do not insist on the right to be heard in public debate and discussion - the good old fashioned way - on a stage, before an audience - especially when that audience is tasked with choosing the folks who will make the policies that guide our speech rights ...
The elites appetite for irony & hypocrisy is matched only by the public's consumption and embrace of the contrived narratives. Media is downstream from Politics, which itself is downstream from Culture. Intelligence -- whether actual or artificially credentialed -- is no defense against the innate instinct to go with the flow. Even if that flow is circling the drain.
The breathtaking appetite for irony & hypocrisy is part of them living in a different world. The Aspen Ideas crowd has no connection to our world and they plan to keep it that way.
I've a friend who a couple of years ago was quite open minded. So much that I wasn't afraid to talk about the details of how the Democrats rat-fucked Sanders. After Obama's Night of the Long Knives he could accept my angry statement that DC Democrats would rather lose to Trump than have Sanders as president. And so it went on. But in the last few months I stopped as he became increasingly aggressive on the lesser-of-two-evils argument. And now it's embarrassing when he mentions misinformation and try to change the subject.
What's the attraction? That's the question I struggle with. It's not a matter of habit. He's not a consumer of NYTWaPoCNNMSNBC. He isn't surrounded by this ideology. And a year ago didn't have it. Given that it takes effort to sustain such delusions, I have to wonder, What is the ROI? Why are some people positively attracted to this Orwellian right-wing Democratic Party?
I think tha debate is a poor persuasion tool. The act of telling someone "You are wrong, I am right and here's why.." is inherently an act of dominance and will provoke defensive behavior. Also once an idea is accepted, the brain will bend over backward to rationalize it because replacing it with new idea requires more energy. It's just human nature. I have had better luck by framing arguments as gentle questions and allowing others to come to their own conclusions.
The point here isn't to do with methods of persuasion. It's that someone who was deeply skeptical of establishment Dems has in the last 6 months or so adopted a thoroughly pro establishment position. My question is: what's the attraction? How does someone who understood the deep corruption of DC Dems, who supported Sanders and was shocked at his defenestration, make the transition to thinking that Biden/Pelosi/Schumer are good enough? How does someone make that transition? What's the ROI?
...Sanders endorsed Biden?
Good ol' Bernie, always rolling over like a grumpy but lovable Saint Bernard.
It's called cognitive dissonance-- "Cognitive dissonance is the state of mind that occurs when you are simultaneously entertaining two or more opposite ideas. This situation is stressful for your brain, so it wants to quickly pick an option to resolve the conflict. Your brain then tries to rationalize the option you chose so you can feel like you made a good decision"
As you stated he accepts that the establishment dems are very corrupt and not to be trusted. But he probably feels that Joe is better than Donald. Therefore he should support the blue party and not deal with the fact that dems are really no better. Rationalization is a powerful thing.
"–can still take the official narrative seriously."
Some know it and just play along to get along. People in my circle won't call it out but won't defend it anymore either. I think it's self preservation of their social status maybe ?
TODAY: In 1593, English Separatist Puritans John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe, in an early example of cancel culture run amok, are tried and sentenced to death on the charge of devising and circulating seditious books. (Literary Hub-source.)
«In 1593, [...] an early example of cancel culture run amok»
A much later example from A de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" (1834), my usual quote, of another rather physical cancel culture:
«A striking example of the excesses which the despotism of the majority may occasion was seen in Baltimore during the war of 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A newspaper opposed to it aroused the indignation of the inhabitants by taking that line.
The people came together, destroyed the printing presses and attacked the journalists' premises. The call went out to summon the militia which, however, did not respond to the call. In order to save those wretched fellows threatened with by the public frenzy the decision was taken to put them in prison like criminals.
The precaution was useless. During the night the people gathered once again; when the magistrates failed to summon the militia, the prison was forced one of the journalists was killed on the spot and the others were left for dead. The guilty parties, when standing before a jury, were acquitted.»
I noticed a long time ago that people in general are crazy. Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind.
I have instead the impression that "people" are more rational than you may think, in regard to self-interest in particular, and that much apparent "craziness" is quite rational greed. In the particular case IIRC the strategic aim of the USA in 1812 was to "liberate" Iraq, sorry, I mean Canada, from the dictatorship of George III. The supporters of the war probably saw they could make a lot of profit if they won and could could grab land and the fur trade etc. of Canada.
The Warhawks in Congress during the War of 1812-Southern/Midwestern states-wanted to kick Native American ass and stop the British from playing games on the Western Frontier. Conquering Canada wasn’t really on the radar as a tangible goal.
Ironically, the first major secessionist movement in American history took place in New England during the war, due to the severe economic losses the lack of trade with GB was causing, even though American maritime rights were a major catalyst in the war, along w/ the frontier issues. IMO, the W of 1812 was not a result of craziness, but calculated national interest by the USA.
“God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy”
I can't (after an admittedly cursory search) find any comment by Wu in response to the collusion between Amazon, Google and Apple to shut down fast-growing Twitter competitor Parler overnight, certainly the most blatant and egregious abuse of monopoly power we have seen in the last 20 years. I consider one's attitude towards that event a sort of litmus test for one's real anti-trust convictions.
The idea that the Democrat Party would break up big tech, the very entity to which they owe all their power, is the most hilarious thing I think I have ever heard. It is more likely, really inevitable at this point, that they will use big tech to destroy our civil liberties.
Will Democrat Party voters accept these authoritarian restrictions on our civil rights that they voted for? All because emotionally and psychologically weak people never learned the concept of “stick and stones”.
They will accept them and applaud them
yup.
Absolutely
To your question....yes. I live in Evanston, IL, (now the first American city to include reparations in their city planning). Evanston, bottom dead center of progressive directionless-ness. Attend any public meeting, and it’s like a struggle session in Mao’s CR.
And yet, for some reason you don't move?
I live a 5 minute bike ride to the Big Lake and a boat launch. I’m a lake guy. I could give a shit about the town.
We've now reached a portion of the Commentary where Speculation is asserted as Accomplished Fact. And then applauded, with additional commentary including more Speculation asserted as if it were Accomplished Fact.
I don't care what sort of axe is being ground when that happens. It's bogus.
This is only one example of many, of course. I've been scrolling past similar junk for years.
This is the first time I've outright said something about it. And I solemnly vow that the next time I make an explicit objection to the same sort of noise, it will be directed at a comment coming from someone with a different ideological orientation than yourself, "Commentorinchief". If that makes you feel better, sir.
Well no, it doesn’t make me feel better at all. You were saying I was special and then ruined it.:(
My opinions are based on my lived experience which you wish to deny me. This is violence against my identity! How dare you xir!
just...stop wasting my time, will you? You could have stopped with this sentence:
"The idea that the Democrat Party would break up big tech, the very entity to which they owe all their power, is the most hilarious thing I think I have ever heard"
which is at least a claim worthy of pondering and contesting based on extant facts, notwithstanding the hyperbolic language of the statement (or maybe that idea really is "the most hilarious thing I think I ever heard", which is pitiable.)
But no-o, you have to go off on a guided meditation fantasy excursion, and then others chime in and play along. Just another Partisan Group Therapy Circle. Circling the drain.
So Big Tech didn’t support a particular candidate and all their statements saying otherwise and their actions and money backing that up was some kind of fantasy? Perhaps many people agree with me based on the above. They didn’t hide it after all.
The records for the 2020 elections show that 95% of the political donations from people at the major tech firms (Google, Facebook, Twitter, ... ) went to Democrats. And much more money went to "non-partisan" activities, such as $250 million from the Zuckerbergs alone to Democratic Party- run get out the vote efforts in Democratic dominated areas of key states.
Out F'n Standing. A great, if probably obvious, observation. Amy Klo Booker will wanna mold this new approach into something that further promotes Dems. I sometimes wonder how, other than relentless self-promotion, she got a national voice. Kinda like AOC, a "useful idiot" to those seeking cover if ever there was one!
These people literally have no sense of irony. After all, "returning . . .to the . . . environment that prevailed in the 1950s" is almost exactly what is meant by the slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Make Propaganda Great Again!
Mandrake, do not let them take your precious bodily fluids :) (would have never posted this but saw your avatar and felt inspired).
Or they meant returning to paranoia, loyalty oaths, a Cold War with those nefarious Russians, censorship, racism (against whites) & sexism (against heterosexuals).
«"returning . . .to the . . . environment that prevailed in the 1950s" is almost exactly what is meant by the slogan, "Make America Great Again."»
There is a point about both that is telling: only decadent cultures dream of going back to a better past, vital cultures respect the past but focus on fixing the present and building the future.
Good point. Funny.
Thanks Matt.
Two issues which resonate include with this article:
1. Complicity of corporate academia (Columbia Law School) whereby the grand new idea is really an old authoritarian notion (Wu or Marcuse) dressed up and sold as an improvement to a problem with capitalism itself, with little thought of how it might be bastardized against the public later on down the road
2. How the elite use their salespeople. Adrian Zenz, Tim Wu, Tim Geithner, Austin Goolsbee, Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs alumni. They need a male hero to laud, prop up with a back story and double down on systematically in the TINA (there is no alternative) mould.
Personally, I prefer Tony Benn here:
"I have five questions that I ask people who have power, and I recommend them to the House. If I see someone who is powerful, be it a traffic warden, Rupert Murdoch, the head of a trade union or a Member of Parliament, I ask myself these five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How can we get rid of you?" That last question is crucial."
Appreciate the eye-opening, perpetual sisyphusian bait and switch being uncovered here. Appreciate it Matt!
When are we going to have a round of hearings entitled: “Disinformation Nation: MAINSTREAM Media’s Role in Promoting Extremism and Misinformation”?
The media likes to see itself as part of the ruling class and the government entertains that delusion for its own ends.
Exactly. (For that reason my question was, alas, rhetorical.)
What’s “progressive” about going backwards?
...and I'm old enough to remember the 50s. I actually watched the HUAC hearings on my grandfather's vintageT.V.. The grandstanding and the cheap shots were even evident to a kid of 10 or 11., but of course, they were just making the world safe for hypocrisy.
I wonder if they are recorded anywhere on kinescope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAXDHcVHkmo
The Chinese Communists designed and adopted a perfect formula. One party Marxist state that runs a capitalist economy of the truly ruthless and magnificently profitable variety. Big Tech monopolies allow for tracking, evaluation, and control of all individuals and minute shaping of communications. The American left is in awe.
The Chinese rulers have no doubt that they are pursuing what is best for China and its people when silencing antagonistic voices and disinformation. So does the American left seeing themself fighting racism, white supremacy and disinformation.
My hope is that the "genetic make up" and diversity of of the American culture is not a fertile ground for the progressive dream of enlightened autocracy. But they are sure trying. Mao famously said that political power comes through the barrel of the gun. Of course he did not have the internet to consider.
It is telling you almost never hear any criticism of China or CCP leadership by US liberal elites or Never Trumper Republicans. I am convinced US elites are envious of the authoritarianism practiced by the CCP and would love nothing more than to implement a similar system here in the US.
How then to explain the "tilt to Asia" change in policy of Obama, which included not just military moves to block the PRC, but also the TPP, which he and others touted as needed to counter the economic rise of the PRC, an economic rise aided in no small part by PNTR, a policy far more Repubs than Dems voted for?
The joining of forces by Silicon valley and the corporate Dem party, certainly not left by any definition, and their attendant rise in power, far too large for our good, is ironic in that for the last forty years, it has been the Repub party that denounced anti trust legislation and even encouraged monopolization as beneficial to the economy, a school of thought pushed by such luminaries as Milton Friedman and his Chicago school of economics cohorts, and now that philosophy has come back to bite them. For decades, cries from the left about big business policies that stifled free speech were deflected by the accurate argument from the right that the first amendment referred only to government not limiting that right and were thus irrelevant.
Amazing how principles can be cast aside when one's own ox is being gored.
Perhaps some national self reflection is in order.
We've shown ourselves all too eager to swallow one lie or baseless theory after another, all to satisfy some inner need, ranging from the birther movement, the Putin/Trump collusion, stop the steal/Kraken (which Sidney Powell has now come out and said was just a theory that only non rational people would believe) and all this abetted by our instant gratification, click a mouse get the answer culture that our digital fetish has nurtured and magnified.
We are the ones who have given the tech masters the power, and like anyone else, they will abuse it, and it is up to us, by unsubscribing from the digital world, at least in large part, to undo their outsized power.
Who knows, perhaps our analog, three dimensional lives will be more fulfilling?
"it is up to us, by unsubscribing from the digital world, at least in large part, to undo their outsized power."
...b-but then how will I read Substack?
You don't have to give it up entirely, grisha, (I do like that name), but cutting back on it, as I've found, makes for a more relaxed life. I'm not allowed to subscribe to any online stuff except for this site, why here and not others, I don't know( I was unsubscribed by Google awhile back, but can still access my old sites when I feel like it.)
As I understand the internet, these sites get more money by viewer numbers etc. so it's been us that has created the outsized wealth and influence of the Dems' partners in crime, as we did with Amazon, Walmart, etc.
Just Imagine, your progressive social credit score based on your carbon footprint, number of children you dare to have, things you read and also don't read, course you took or ignored in school, lists of woke pluses and minuses, key words and emotional inflection captured by your ever present and listening Alexa's of the Big Tech following you everywhere.
Collectivist heaven on earth.
They are insanely jealous of the Chinese “social credit” score that controls many opportunities and permits in Chinese society. Call it a “woke passport”.
Certainly Totalitarianism is the *simplest form of government, and "simple" is the *THEME SONG of today's Toady Politician ! That highly educated "Tree Stumps" like Cruz and Hawley can even *exist in our country says HORRIBLE things about our "quality" of Higher Education in this land. Now we are even eliminating SAT and ACT scores as a basis for admission to the "Ivy League". THAT ought to take care of the "stampede to the academic nadir" in our vaunted and hallowed halls of "knowledge".
In the PRC, the government owns most of the banks and is largely in control of the major strategic industries while leaving the consumer economy more in private hands and we call it capitalist, but if someone were to advocate something similar here in the US, it would be labeled socialist or communist. The Chinese have made their system work, not just because of what they themselves were responsible for, but because they politely stepped aside and let us businessmen, their eyes on short term profits, cut their own throats, being absolutely certain that the Chinese would never be a long term rival, being happy in their subservient role. I know this not from speculation, but having met many such US businessmen over these last thirty ears who were all unable to pass up the lure of quick and easy returns.
Very different culture. Very different expectations of their people. Long ancient history. US and Canada are babies in comparison. Why do people try to do comparisons? sigh.... ridiculous.
The Democrats and progressive left are behaving as if they assume the Republicans will never be in power again.
But they will. It's just a matter of time. Even as soon as 2024 we could find all branches of the government controlled by the Republicans and I'd rank that as a pretty good odds.
Whatever powers the Democrats give to themselves, the Republicans can equally abuse - and they will because the precedence was established by the Democrats and their current scorched earth approach towards governing despite a government that is about as close to 50/50 as any modern American government. And who will defend the Democrats at that point? How would the Democrats justify their complaints without being hypocrites?
The inherent danger here is that when you start chipping away at core American principles of liberty (for all practical purposes there are really three key relevant ones: freedom of speech, freedom of press and the belief everyone should be treated as free individuals equally in the eye of the law), you do seriously risk undermining the whole concept of America itself. Any excuses used in chipping away at any of these core principles can equally be used by other people to further chip away at them, in different directions and for different reasons. Abraham Lincoln warned about this when he said the existence of slavery was a threat to freedom itself because no principle could be used to justify enslaving black people that couldn't be used to justify enslaving white people. Likewise, there is no principle that can be used to justifying censoring the news/press to promote a correct progressive outlook that can't be used to justify censoring the news/press to promote a correct socially conservative outlook.
I think Democrats really do believe they will never lose again. Look at the way they reacted in 2016. And now they're trying to permanently enshrine all the things that made 2020 so......questionable.
The Rs routinely play hardball, changing the rules when it suits them - the Ds routinely bring knives, dull ones, to a gunfight - maybe that's why the Rs are so opposed to gun control ...
Tech media platforms WILL adopt norms and policies traditionally associated with twentieth-century journalism. As I have said here in the comments before, they depend existentially on the good favor of the federal government. To name only three
- They are allowed to operate against the law as monopolies.
- They receive the huge effective subsidy of liability immunity (Section 230).
- They are not required to operate as the common carriers that they actually are.
Hence they will do what they need to do to support the status quo, i.e. they will adopt the same propaganda model that has governed legacy media all along.
- Absolutely true, but communication platforms may be a natural monopoly. Why does everyone use Facebook? Because everyone uses Facebook.
- While true, removing section 230 would make everything a thousand times worse. Only Big Tech would be able to afford the lawyers, and smaller sites would be sued out of existence. A possible solution would be to enforce the First Amendment on platforms of a certain size, since they're de facto part of the public square. And even if that were not the case, it seems to me that nobody should be allowed to shoot/sue the messenger.
- Social media platforms are not common carriers. A common carrier would be an ISP (Cox, Comcast). They exist to blindly move electrical signals from point A to point B. Social media does much, MUCH more than that by its nature, and could not realistically be regulated as a common carrier.
That said, I still agree with your overall point that social media will bend the knee to government so they can keep doing what they're doing.
Not everyone uses Facebook.
Well, no. I don't either. But you know what I mean.
Yes. Not using it means one accepts the Ostrakon and wanders alone into the wilderness.
Write someone a personal letter today and wait. You might get a response!
A monopoly isn't necessarily a problem. It's using monopoly in one market as anti-competitive advantage in another. Hence FB should not be allowed to be so many things. Same for Alphabet and Amazon. I understand the value of 230 but the subsidy isn't appropriate for monopolies. The point about common carriage is that they need to treat users fairly. They do not. FB wouldn't give me a login so I can't take part in anything that happens behind their door.
There is a reason why the American the rest of the judicial systems in the Anglosphere are adversary systems, and that is because the truth/facts are more likely to be discovered if the issues are confronted from two different perspectives. This is also the reason why we should support the First Amendment. No-one has a monopoly on the truth.
This is truly fascinating to me and the most intelligent view I have heard recently was from David Sacks with Dave Rubin.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbuUf4FuTjs)
Where he asserts that Big Tech is now the fifth estate and thus needs to be mandated to allow free speech. HIs example is, imagine when the railroads were first around and had they told Lincoln he couldnt travel on them because they didnt agree with what he said?
Big tech whether they are broken up or not should not be controlling what is said on their mediums, period.
The railroad analogy is spot on. The information superhighway, indeed. Now is the time to take this to the supreme court. While we def have a 6-3 court. While Roberts does go off the reservation frequently I think it’s very likely he’d vote in favor of this.
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney v. California, 1927
The answer to bad speech is more speech. Period. Full stop. For Wu to say that he's a Brandeis devotee and then proceed to twist himself in knots to justify censoring speech is just more typical woke BS. Shame on him.
He is virtue signalling--period-- the new marketing for all professions. Grab onto a ":brand" easier than developing your own.
yes