The creepy unanimity of all media during Trump years (2015-present) was the warmup for the current Orwellian state. Everyone in my lefty social network who became a Trump obsessive went on to become a Branch Covidian, and is now a Deeply Concerned Ukrane, um, Fan (tm).
Thank you Geoffrey Pyatt, Victoria Nuland, Obama, Biden, Hunter Biden, Alexandra Chalupa, Eric Ciaramella, Vindmann, Talizhenko, Marcy Kaptur, Olga Bielkova, Pavlo Rizanenko, Hillary Clinton, and well, gosh, anybody who has anything to do with Hillary Clinton, for creating . . . yes, CREATING . . . and contributing to this unholy, purely political house of shit that is on the map known as Ukraine. Enjoy the blood you all have spilled.
Matt, your recent piece got me thinking about your writing in general and revisiting some of your earlier work. I just want to say that the thing I admire most about your writing, and the thing I think a lot of folks here are responding to, is that you never pull your punches, but you also never punch down. That's a pretty rare combination. I read The Great Derangement around the time I graduated from college, and I had a very conservative uncle who I tried to get to read it, and he acted like I was trying to foist propaganda from the enemy on him. What he would have found is a pretty poignant rumination on what is going wrong in this country that included a deeply sympathetic profile of everyday people who you disagreed with. The churchgoers near the end would have been an easy layup of biting, acidic satire, but instead of going for cheap shots, you managed to portray their basic humanity and dignity while also also criticizing the weird obsessions and predatory behavior of the megachurch they were part of. You clearly cared about those people, and it came through in your writing, and I'll never forget it. I think that kind of ethos still animates your writing.
The left-right paradigm is the ultimate Orwellian doublespeak. War is peace, truth is lies, left is right… No wonder Nietzsche had issues with the Socratic dialectic; it uses “reason” to flip knowledge into ignorance. Up is down… Sad times.
If I may a suggestion, please read George Orwell’s Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm. It was written in 1947. It is very appropriate with respect to the issues raised by Taibbi as well as to what is happening around us today.
Wish it was possible to join these calls from a computer or non-smart cell phone! I considered getting a smartphone to be able to access telegram / clubhouse, but the way things are going, don't even want the capacity to enable a QR code. Because ... Orwell was right ...
Censorship and the burning of books has deep roots in America. In 1961 my English teacher complained to my class about the wasteland that was our school library. To make his point we were able to get Jane Austin pulled off the shelves with a campaign about her books having sexual content. I also recall a student assembly featuring our John Bircher sheriff. My college couldn't invite Communist speakers to speak on campus. When Dorothy Healy finally did speak on campus, she bombed. Today everyone must know that phenotypic males can triumph in women's sports, yet none dare speak of it. It's become "hate speech" to say so. Employees today are required to attend reeducation sessions about their "unconscious bias." No question about it, Orwell was right! The "other" is everywhere and we're eager to loath and attack them.
O'Brien torturing Winston: “I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” Gender isn't biological, words ARE sticks and stones, insert your "reality" here: _______________________________
How wonderful! Sadly i didnt see this until an hour too late but i have downloaded that callin app now - great piece Matt Taibbi, yes forcing people to live the lie is part of the totalitarian pattern, Solzhenitsyn said it too, so did Vaclav Havel - just refuse to live the lie.
It is the same with the forced state injections that the majority of us do not need for covid protection - especially those who have recovered from covid already, giving them durable natural immunity. In Australia we are forced to live the lie that 3 million such people are in need of 3 and possibly 4 injections and if they choose not to they can lose their job, be unable to find another job, not be allowed in the state library or opera house or to visit a loved one in hospital or aged care, even though they have no more risk of passing on covid than a fully vaxxed person
From the article via Cornel West: "Everybody knows if Russia had troops in Mexico or Canada there would be invasions tomorrow. [Biden] sends the Secretary of State, telling Russia, “You have no right to have a sphere of influence,” after the Monroe Doctrine, after the overthrowing of democratic regimes in Latin America for the last hundred-and-some years. Come on, America, do you think people are stupid? What kind of hypocrisy can anybody stand?"
Seriously Matt; can't you see how ridiculous this is? Do you believe that we would just invade Mexico if Russia had troops there at the behest of a democratic Mexican government? No way. The Cuban missile crisis was about nuclear weapons based in a non-democratic country that was a Russian proxy. Are there nuclear weapons in Ukraine? We actually supported the return of nukes to Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. And the Monroe Doctrine! I don't recall the US taking over any new territory in a very long time. Are we to presume that our society has not progressed? That sounds oddly like the folks who think that America is a white supremacist nation circa 1950. Of course you could say that America has done plenty of horrible things in the past, but that doesn't lead one to conclude that our rejection of Russia's invasion of a democratic state is hypocritical unless you want to mix and match your historical lens for every comparison.
The creepy unanimity of all media during Trump years (2015-present) was the warmup for the current Orwellian state. Everyone in my lefty social network who became a Trump obsessive went on to become a Branch Covidian, and is now a Deeply Concerned Ukrane, um, Fan (tm).
Just perusing Matt's twitter feed. Jesus H. Christ, it's unbelievable what he has to deal with. Mass psychosis aimed relentlessly directly at him.
Great article. Tough to read, because it's all true.
Thank you Geoffrey Pyatt, Victoria Nuland, Obama, Biden, Hunter Biden, Alexandra Chalupa, Eric Ciaramella, Vindmann, Talizhenko, Marcy Kaptur, Olga Bielkova, Pavlo Rizanenko, Hillary Clinton, and well, gosh, anybody who has anything to do with Hillary Clinton, for creating . . . yes, CREATING . . . and contributing to this unholy, purely political house of shit that is on the map known as Ukraine. Enjoy the blood you all have spilled.
Matt, your recent piece got me thinking about your writing in general and revisiting some of your earlier work. I just want to say that the thing I admire most about your writing, and the thing I think a lot of folks here are responding to, is that you never pull your punches, but you also never punch down. That's a pretty rare combination. I read The Great Derangement around the time I graduated from college, and I had a very conservative uncle who I tried to get to read it, and he acted like I was trying to foist propaganda from the enemy on him. What he would have found is a pretty poignant rumination on what is going wrong in this country that included a deeply sympathetic profile of everyday people who you disagreed with. The churchgoers near the end would have been an easy layup of biting, acidic satire, but instead of going for cheap shots, you managed to portray their basic humanity and dignity while also also criticizing the weird obsessions and predatory behavior of the megachurch they were part of. You clearly cared about those people, and it came through in your writing, and I'll never forget it. I think that kind of ethos still animates your writing.
We're gonna party like it's 1984!
The left-right paradigm is the ultimate Orwellian doublespeak. War is peace, truth is lies, left is right… No wonder Nietzsche had issues with the Socratic dialectic; it uses “reason” to flip knowledge into ignorance. Up is down… Sad times.
If I may a suggestion, please read George Orwell’s Preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm. It was written in 1947. It is very appropriate with respect to the issues raised by Taibbi as well as to what is happening around us today.
Wish it was possible to join these calls from a computer or non-smart cell phone! I considered getting a smartphone to be able to access telegram / clubhouse, but the way things are going, don't even want the capacity to enable a QR code. Because ... Orwell was right ...
Ukraine is the world wide hub for human trafficking.
I can not find the link to the recorded discussion, is anyone else having this issue? I tried Spotify and Call In app.
When I went to PROTESTANT SCHOOL IN CATHOLIC QUEBEC we studied Tennyson.
The Charge of the Light Brigade (Crimea 1854) was Lord Tennyson's gift to the ages.. These wars are what makes us what we are.
That's good isn't it?
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=charge+of+the+light+brigade+poem&type=E210US91166G91269#id=1&vid=fd2b3881d99cbe00958c1ad224340128&action=click
Did the Callin take place? I'm not seeing the recording on Matt's Callin page.
Matt, missed this live. Will it be archived at Callin? Not there right now.
Did this happen? Is there a replay? If so, I can't find it.
Censorship and the burning of books has deep roots in America. In 1961 my English teacher complained to my class about the wasteland that was our school library. To make his point we were able to get Jane Austin pulled off the shelves with a campaign about her books having sexual content. I also recall a student assembly featuring our John Bircher sheriff. My college couldn't invite Communist speakers to speak on campus. When Dorothy Healy finally did speak on campus, she bombed. Today everyone must know that phenotypic males can triumph in women's sports, yet none dare speak of it. It's become "hate speech" to say so. Employees today are required to attend reeducation sessions about their "unconscious bias." No question about it, Orwell was right! The "other" is everywhere and we're eager to loath and attack them.
O'Brien torturing Winston: “I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” Gender isn't biological, words ARE sticks and stones, insert your "reality" here: _______________________________
How wonderful! Sadly i didnt see this until an hour too late but i have downloaded that callin app now - great piece Matt Taibbi, yes forcing people to live the lie is part of the totalitarian pattern, Solzhenitsyn said it too, so did Vaclav Havel - just refuse to live the lie.
It is the same with the forced state injections that the majority of us do not need for covid protection - especially those who have recovered from covid already, giving them durable natural immunity. In Australia we are forced to live the lie that 3 million such people are in need of 3 and possibly 4 injections and if they choose not to they can lose their job, be unable to find another job, not be allowed in the state library or opera house or to visit a loved one in hospital or aged care, even though they have no more risk of passing on covid than a fully vaxxed person
Orwell knew
Happy st Patrick’s day
Could whining Cancel-Karens and BlueAnoners be writing the missing prelude to "1984"?
Trump still lost. It’s hard for Conservatives to admit it for some reason, but it’s not propaganda to admit this.
From the article via Cornel West: "Everybody knows if Russia had troops in Mexico or Canada there would be invasions tomorrow. [Biden] sends the Secretary of State, telling Russia, “You have no right to have a sphere of influence,” after the Monroe Doctrine, after the overthrowing of democratic regimes in Latin America for the last hundred-and-some years. Come on, America, do you think people are stupid? What kind of hypocrisy can anybody stand?"
Seriously Matt; can't you see how ridiculous this is? Do you believe that we would just invade Mexico if Russia had troops there at the behest of a democratic Mexican government? No way. The Cuban missile crisis was about nuclear weapons based in a non-democratic country that was a Russian proxy. Are there nuclear weapons in Ukraine? We actually supported the return of nukes to Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. And the Monroe Doctrine! I don't recall the US taking over any new territory in a very long time. Are we to presume that our society has not progressed? That sounds oddly like the folks who think that America is a white supremacist nation circa 1950. Of course you could say that America has done plenty of horrible things in the past, but that doesn't lead one to conclude that our rejection of Russia's invasion of a democratic state is hypocritical unless you want to mix and match your historical lens for every comparison.