good stuff. Bernays would be blown away at the level of pervasiveness of propaganda, "manufacturing consent", that we swim in today.
I saved one of your quotes from thanksgiving, and I keep coming back to it:
"For What Are America's Wealthy Thankful? A Worsening Culture War
When leaders run out of unifying myths, division is the last currency. Why this Thanksgiving, America is a "death cult" versus "radical socialists"
We don’t talk about why people are losing their minds, for the increasingly obvious reason that culture war is the only thing standing between America’s plutocrat class and a lot of pitchforks. So what we’ll get more and more of, as the country grows less stable, are inciting narratives: the sticks are filled with gun-toting loons, Antifa wants your house. This is what happens when a society runs out of myths to sell to the public. After a generation of lies and failures, our fear of each other is all our leaders have left.
Essentially, in the wake of Trump, the political class is accepting the inevitability of culture war, and urging it on, as something preferable to populist revolt. " -M. Taibbi
Ill add:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." -Edward Bernays "Propaganda" 1928
Great interview. The end of the interview brought me to the puzzle I can't seem to solve. At this point, "liberals" are utterly conscripted by the deep state, globalist agenda in a hypnotic and unquestioning way.
The agenda is to attack the energy sector under the guise of "the environment" that is now clearly collapsing economies, devaluing currencies and destroying the means of production and supply chains globally. Do people not see the underlying goal within the smoke screen here?
If people witness the collapse in Sri Lanka, the government shooting at the farmers in the Netherlands as they collapse the means of production of food there, what do they think is going to happen to them? If people are witnessing the grave path that Germany is going down by shutting down their nuclear power plants even when faced with the fact they will not meet energy demands even with them operational, what are they thinking?
All of the top leadership billionaire class are buying up the means of food production, buying up water rights, monopolizing the control of healthcare and pushing for the aggressive disarmament of the public. These planners are all on record saying they will use "limited wars" and pandemics to reduce the global population of the undesirable. What do the Democrat voters suppose will happen to them?
Do the people who support the Democrat party somehow believe they will be spared in the engineered collapse that is being executed?
How can so many be content to be in the simmering pot of frogs? What is there that can be done to snap people out of this bizarre hypnosis?
The fear of another Trump term is so lost and misguided. He may be a lunatic, but he isn't part of the war against the people and liberty that the globalists are waging as aggressively as they can. How do people not see past this?
Yes, it's now OK to talk about Hunter Biden's laptop and Joe's senility. But I've also noticed in the past week that it's OK to recognize the Russia hoax for the slimy political hit job that it was. Still not OK, yet, to acknowledge an incredibly corrupt FBI and CIA that propagated this hoax. And Hillary is still being given a pass. Maybe someday the Stasi at the NYT and Bezos' rag will acknowledge it's OK to talk about that. And maybe it will be acknowledged as something more than just a clever operation of dirty tricks, and will be recognized for what it really was: the attempt to depose a justly elected President of the United States. Something far more sinister and far more a threat to "democracy" than a gathering and wandering of unarmed yahoos at the Captiol complex. And maybe someday it will be OK to talk about a corrupt and complicit media complex that buried truth while expounding lies. Yeah. Maybe someday.
I'm guessing lots of readers here weren't really politically aware or active during the late 90s and early 2000s. With respect to the Big Lie Media, I haven't trusted them at all since 9/11/2001 and the ensuing two years of lies, distortions, fake patriotism, and the previously so-called liberal media's full throated endorsement for war in the Middle East based on the lies of the Bush administration and their Tory lapdogs in the UK.
NYT, WaPo, etc. have long been infiltrated and co-opted by the CIA in service to Western private capital/finance. Whereas in the past any country that was looking to go communist served as an unquestioned excuse to invade or wage proxy war, without the great Satan of state communism, new justifications and an accompanying propaganda effort are required to keep the masses quiet and acquiescent to big money's continuing pillage of the planet and the resultant need to ensure every possible market or resource is open to the taking, without any resistance. I mean you can literally color code a world map to depict where valuable resources and sources of energy are, and without exception, those countries that possess them and don't accede to FUKUS/NATO/IMF demands are all on the official enemies list.
I appreciate the self reflection. I just feel this is a tortured attempt to thread the needle between acknowledging the media’s willful abandonment of even the illusion of journalistic integrity and going all in on a Democrat manufactured fantasy. And trying to rationalize and absolve it’s behavior through reflection. I’m not buying it. The Trump years, particularly 2020, was an obvious and important display of the “Power of the Press” and its awareness that it could be effectively and deliberately used to alter the public’s perception of reality. The Press played God. For this, I doubt it will ever recover.
Kind of reading between the lines in this discussion (as you recommend people do with respect to the NYT, Wa Po, etc.), your message seems to be that the DNC needs to lie more by leaving out certain parts of its 'agenda' which either worry, repulse or drive away 90% of the American public. We are WELL past that point. They know they lie. We know they lie. It is assumed that anything which comes out of their mouths is a lie. Saying, either implicitly, or explicitly, that the DNC needs to 'massage' its messaging in the run up to the Midterms is encouraging just the type of cynical political messaging that you, yourselves, purport to disdain. I'll give the DNC one thing. It has CLEARLY telegraphed its agenda for the future of we American citizens. IMHO, it will stand or fall on that announced agenda.
Loved the interview! Thank you! We need you so much now!
Hope you can delve further into how the left has totally bought into big Pharma being benevolent saviors, and the way the Biden administration keeps dividing our country into those who question or “ hesitate” on Covid vaccine narratives and those who will line up for endless boosters etc ( people losing jobs, livelihoods and reputations over this)
The media's refusal to cover Biden's lack of cognitive fitness during that period was outrageous, even after considering the untested assumption that another Trump term would be a terrible outcome.
A reporter would have known what every person with common sense would have known, that if Biden were elected and yet clearly not up to the job, some other person or group would end up assuming his duties, Biden's role being reduced to anemic public appearances and stamping his signature on important documents. In other words, a person separate from the actual elected President would be running the show: deciding whether to fire off nukes, veto legislation, draft up executive orders, go to war, and the like. That is fucking significant! And the refusal to cover this at the appropriate time was a crime.
But, what do expect from corporate-owned media at this point? They're all compromised. Strong independent media is what we need.
Your talks with Eskow are always illuminating, as was this one.
It ended on a very pessimistic — but probably not wrong — note. I'd love to see you cover the protests against forced austerity and top-down emissions regulations in the Netherlands, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, which seems to be precipitating a lot of this quagmire. This important story is getting very little press in the States, and even less by sensible writers.
Worrisome, and disappointing that the following quotes are from the discussion. "Women and other people who can get pregnant"; "people who are capable of having abortions".
When you are out in the middle of nowhere with a gun, who can stop you from setting up your own toll booth? Excellent point. Looks like we could be finding out. Thanks again!
thanks Matt!
good stuff. Bernays would be blown away at the level of pervasiveness of propaganda, "manufacturing consent", that we swim in today.
I saved one of your quotes from thanksgiving, and I keep coming back to it:
"For What Are America's Wealthy Thankful? A Worsening Culture War
When leaders run out of unifying myths, division is the last currency. Why this Thanksgiving, America is a "death cult" versus "radical socialists"
We don’t talk about why people are losing their minds, for the increasingly obvious reason that culture war is the only thing standing between America’s plutocrat class and a lot of pitchforks. So what we’ll get more and more of, as the country grows less stable, are inciting narratives: the sticks are filled with gun-toting loons, Antifa wants your house. This is what happens when a society runs out of myths to sell to the public. After a generation of lies and failures, our fear of each other is all our leaders have left.
Essentially, in the wake of Trump, the political class is accepting the inevitability of culture war, and urging it on, as something preferable to populist revolt. " -M. Taibbi
Ill add:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." -Edward Bernays "Propaganda" 1928
Great interview. The end of the interview brought me to the puzzle I can't seem to solve. At this point, "liberals" are utterly conscripted by the deep state, globalist agenda in a hypnotic and unquestioning way.
The agenda is to attack the energy sector under the guise of "the environment" that is now clearly collapsing economies, devaluing currencies and destroying the means of production and supply chains globally. Do people not see the underlying goal within the smoke screen here?
If people witness the collapse in Sri Lanka, the government shooting at the farmers in the Netherlands as they collapse the means of production of food there, what do they think is going to happen to them? If people are witnessing the grave path that Germany is going down by shutting down their nuclear power plants even when faced with the fact they will not meet energy demands even with them operational, what are they thinking?
All of the top leadership billionaire class are buying up the means of food production, buying up water rights, monopolizing the control of healthcare and pushing for the aggressive disarmament of the public. These planners are all on record saying they will use "limited wars" and pandemics to reduce the global population of the undesirable. What do the Democrat voters suppose will happen to them?
Do the people who support the Democrat party somehow believe they will be spared in the engineered collapse that is being executed?
How can so many be content to be in the simmering pot of frogs? What is there that can be done to snap people out of this bizarre hypnosis?
The fear of another Trump term is so lost and misguided. He may be a lunatic, but he isn't part of the war against the people and liberty that the globalists are waging as aggressively as they can. How do people not see past this?
Yes, it's now OK to talk about Hunter Biden's laptop and Joe's senility. But I've also noticed in the past week that it's OK to recognize the Russia hoax for the slimy political hit job that it was. Still not OK, yet, to acknowledge an incredibly corrupt FBI and CIA that propagated this hoax. And Hillary is still being given a pass. Maybe someday the Stasi at the NYT and Bezos' rag will acknowledge it's OK to talk about that. And maybe it will be acknowledged as something more than just a clever operation of dirty tricks, and will be recognized for what it really was: the attempt to depose a justly elected President of the United States. Something far more sinister and far more a threat to "democracy" than a gathering and wandering of unarmed yahoos at the Captiol complex. And maybe someday it will be OK to talk about a corrupt and complicit media complex that buried truth while expounding lies. Yeah. Maybe someday.
I'm guessing lots of readers here weren't really politically aware or active during the late 90s and early 2000s. With respect to the Big Lie Media, I haven't trusted them at all since 9/11/2001 and the ensuing two years of lies, distortions, fake patriotism, and the previously so-called liberal media's full throated endorsement for war in the Middle East based on the lies of the Bush administration and their Tory lapdogs in the UK.
NYT, WaPo, etc. have long been infiltrated and co-opted by the CIA in service to Western private capital/finance. Whereas in the past any country that was looking to go communist served as an unquestioned excuse to invade or wage proxy war, without the great Satan of state communism, new justifications and an accompanying propaganda effort are required to keep the masses quiet and acquiescent to big money's continuing pillage of the planet and the resultant need to ensure every possible market or resource is open to the taking, without any resistance. I mean you can literally color code a world map to depict where valuable resources and sources of energy are, and without exception, those countries that possess them and don't accede to FUKUS/NATO/IMF demands are all on the official enemies list.
Not even so much as "what are they trying to tell me" as much as "what are they trying to cover for?"
Always love your conversations with RJ
I appreciate the self reflection. I just feel this is a tortured attempt to thread the needle between acknowledging the media’s willful abandonment of even the illusion of journalistic integrity and going all in on a Democrat manufactured fantasy. And trying to rationalize and absolve it’s behavior through reflection. I’m not buying it. The Trump years, particularly 2020, was an obvious and important display of the “Power of the Press” and its awareness that it could be effectively and deliberately used to alter the public’s perception of reality. The Press played God. For this, I doubt it will ever recover.
Kind of reading between the lines in this discussion (as you recommend people do with respect to the NYT, Wa Po, etc.), your message seems to be that the DNC needs to lie more by leaving out certain parts of its 'agenda' which either worry, repulse or drive away 90% of the American public. We are WELL past that point. They know they lie. We know they lie. It is assumed that anything which comes out of their mouths is a lie. Saying, either implicitly, or explicitly, that the DNC needs to 'massage' its messaging in the run up to the Midterms is encouraging just the type of cynical political messaging that you, yourselves, purport to disdain. I'll give the DNC one thing. It has CLEARLY telegraphed its agenda for the future of we American citizens. IMHO, it will stand or fall on that announced agenda.
Loved the interview! Thank you! We need you so much now!
Hope you can delve further into how the left has totally bought into big Pharma being benevolent saviors, and the way the Biden administration keeps dividing our country into those who question or “ hesitate” on Covid vaccine narratives and those who will line up for endless boosters etc ( people losing jobs, livelihoods and reputations over this)
The media's refusal to cover Biden's lack of cognitive fitness during that period was outrageous, even after considering the untested assumption that another Trump term would be a terrible outcome.
A reporter would have known what every person with common sense would have known, that if Biden were elected and yet clearly not up to the job, some other person or group would end up assuming his duties, Biden's role being reduced to anemic public appearances and stamping his signature on important documents. In other words, a person separate from the actual elected President would be running the show: deciding whether to fire off nukes, veto legislation, draft up executive orders, go to war, and the like. That is fucking significant! And the refusal to cover this at the appropriate time was a crime.
But, what do expect from corporate-owned media at this point? They're all compromised. Strong independent media is what we need.
Great discussion...reminded me of mornings with day old coffee and a Sunday newspaper...nostalgia with a contemporary twist.
Your talks with Eskow are always illuminating, as was this one.
It ended on a very pessimistic — but probably not wrong — note. I'd love to see you cover the protests against forced austerity and top-down emissions regulations in the Netherlands, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, which seems to be precipitating a lot of this quagmire. This important story is getting very little press in the States, and even less by sensible writers.
Worrisome, and disappointing that the following quotes are from the discussion. "Women and other people who can get pregnant"; "people who are capable of having abortions".
When you are out in the middle of nowhere with a gun, who can stop you from setting up your own toll booth? Excellent point. Looks like we could be finding out. Thanks again!
I already listened to it on RJ's YouTube channel. He's a great interviewer.
Matt so good to see you! Excellent interview. Are you familiar with “ The Dandelion Insurrection” trilogy’s?