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
I believe all that’s correct and true, and yet I struggle to understand just who “the manipulators” are. Years ago I read claims the CIA was deeply embedded in newsrooms. It sounded far-fetched but now I think I was naive. A few years ago.a German journalist wrote a book making the same claims about European media. The book was mostly ignored, for obvious reasons. If it is true, what can we do about it? if it isn’t true, then believing it makes you a looney. You don’t win either way.
So who are these people who pull the strings? I’m not sure. If they’re CIA then who is pulling their strings? Big money, plutocrats, powerful billionaires? Who? And who is pulling the strings of those who pull their strings? There are puppets all the way down. It’s like the edge of the universe, where is it? The question itself collapses into mathematical meaninglessness.
It seems to me the answer is far more complicated and far more strange than anything I see discussed in mainstream politics or or culture. The Bible speaks of these things. So do esoteric texts. But those too are written by humans whose strings were pulled. By what? Everybody seems to have to figure that out for themselves, at some point. When you do, then you get to leave.
All true & totally agree. Humans are herd-like as zebras on an African plain with prowling lions.
yet humans technically have self-awareness and ability to critically examine their own behavior. That often happens only long after the crowd contagions take their toll.
What sparked this one? Maybe it's the corroding influence of critical social justice studies in universities -- per Matt's excellent Marcuse profile last year. Young people's understandable anger at being loaded up for life with college debt? The sense that "the system" doesn't work anymore? The bogus economic numbers that make things seem much better than they are?
The CIA flying pride flags in devout Muslim nations? Biological men competing as women in women's sports? Race huckstering for political gain and educational profit? The entire culture has collapsed like a cheap tent. It will be decades to pick up the pieces.
Did a central committee do this? Or was it a crowd contagion mind virus? Why do newsrooms present what they do? It makes no sense at all if their job is to report reality. They fabricate reality. Who makes these decisions and why? Maybe ratings/profits per Matt's Hate, Inc. Could be that's all it is.
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?
i beg to differ. I see trump's installation, then removal, and the administration under his years, as explicitly serving the very same inbred globalists, that biden, bush, clintons, etc, serve
the rogue myth. myth being operative word.
all he did was take counsel of the likes of bannon and stone, with a pulse on the infowars world, and spin 'truth" in populist words, i.e. telling a specific demographic exactly what they wanted to hear. hell, he appropriated a great deal of language bernie was already using.
the entirely of the trump theater serves the inbred even more voraciously, than a clinton admin could ever dream. divide and conquer, endless derision, zero action.
it continues to blow my mind, that thinking people still believe that myth. outsider. sorry, exactly 180 from reality.
Fair enough, as I said he was a lunatic, but his foreign and economic policy were very beneficial. The rhetoric wasn't as destructive as the actions of this current regime, nor did the rhetoric serve a deeply destructive agenda. I actually hope he doesn't run, simply due to his rhetoric as it damaged his effectiveness due to the emotional reactions people had to him.
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 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.
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!
I'm sorry to send you a message because I made a mistake and subscribed to your paid content, which is not currently on my radar. I am requesting to cancel my subscription and get a refund, thank you for doing so.
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
I believe all that’s correct and true, and yet I struggle to understand just who “the manipulators” are. Years ago I read claims the CIA was deeply embedded in newsrooms. It sounded far-fetched but now I think I was naive. A few years ago.a German journalist wrote a book making the same claims about European media. The book was mostly ignored, for obvious reasons. If it is true, what can we do about it? if it isn’t true, then believing it makes you a looney. You don’t win either way.
So who are these people who pull the strings? I’m not sure. If they’re CIA then who is pulling their strings? Big money, plutocrats, powerful billionaires? Who? And who is pulling the strings of those who pull their strings? There are puppets all the way down. It’s like the edge of the universe, where is it? The question itself collapses into mathematical meaninglessness.
It seems to me the answer is far more complicated and far more strange than anything I see discussed in mainstream politics or or culture. The Bible speaks of these things. So do esoteric texts. But those too are written by humans whose strings were pulled. By what? Everybody seems to have to figure that out for themselves, at some point. When you do, then you get to leave.
I think of Kafka's "Trial" or perhaps the Matrix.
It’s worse than you think:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-agents-deciding-facebook-content-policy/281307/
All true & totally agree. Humans are herd-like as zebras on an African plain with prowling lions.
yet humans technically have self-awareness and ability to critically examine their own behavior. That often happens only long after the crowd contagions take their toll.
What sparked this one? Maybe it's the corroding influence of critical social justice studies in universities -- per Matt's excellent Marcuse profile last year. Young people's understandable anger at being loaded up for life with college debt? The sense that "the system" doesn't work anymore? The bogus economic numbers that make things seem much better than they are?
The CIA flying pride flags in devout Muslim nations? Biological men competing as women in women's sports? Race huckstering for political gain and educational profit? The entire culture has collapsed like a cheap tent. It will be decades to pick up the pieces.
Did a central committee do this? Or was it a crowd contagion mind virus? Why do newsrooms present what they do? It makes no sense at all if their job is to report reality. They fabricate reality. Who makes these decisions and why? Maybe ratings/profits per Matt's Hate, Inc. Could be that's all it is.
OY ... I wish I knew!
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?
i beg to differ. I see trump's installation, then removal, and the administration under his years, as explicitly serving the very same inbred globalists, that biden, bush, clintons, etc, serve
the rogue myth. myth being operative word.
all he did was take counsel of the likes of bannon and stone, with a pulse on the infowars world, and spin 'truth" in populist words, i.e. telling a specific demographic exactly what they wanted to hear. hell, he appropriated a great deal of language bernie was already using.
the entirely of the trump theater serves the inbred even more voraciously, than a clinton admin could ever dream. divide and conquer, endless derision, zero action.
it continues to blow my mind, that thinking people still believe that myth. outsider. sorry, exactly 180 from reality.
Fair enough, as I said he was a lunatic, but his foreign and economic policy were very beneficial. The rhetoric wasn't as destructive as the actions of this current regime, nor did the rhetoric serve a deeply destructive agenda. I actually hope he doesn't run, simply due to his rhetoric as it damaged his effectiveness due to the emotional reactions people had to him.
Too much reliance on "feelings" & too little on thought.
Their intent is to actually cause starvation. When people are hungry, they will do whatever they are told.
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.
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.
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?
Hi Matt Taibbi
I'm sorry to send you a message because I made a mistake and subscribed to your paid content, which is not currently on my radar. I am requesting to cancel my subscription and get a refund, thank you for doing so.
From:ryan2199@yahoo.com
BRAVO !! Russia is not only fighting Nazis in Europe -- it is fighting for ALL of us.
Outstanding -- NATO, Biden, Putin -- with Scott Ritter (July 21, 2022)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkWAc0rUU4g
or
https://youtu.be/wkWAc0rUU4g