PLEASE COVER THE SILENCING OF VACCINE INJURED PEOPLE! This is one of the most cruel and disgusting forms of censorship there has ever been. The media is a major partner, along with tech companies and the government.
There's been a near total blackout of reporting on hundreds of peer reviewed papers and case studies about covid vaccine injuries and the lack of government support or a functional safety net. Neither did MSM report on the CDC's obviously false claims of not seeing safety signals (when they were already clear from Israeli data) or Paul Thacker's devastating 2021 BMJ article on trial fraud.
What big tech is doing to people is also inhumane, going so far as to suspend accounts of injured people for simply talking about what happened to them and remove on line support groups for vulnerable, sometimes suicidal vaccine victims who are trying to support one another and share thoughts on treatments and symptoms.
We need some strong daylight on this issue and immediate help in the form of research, treatment, and financial compensation.
Awesome job Matt, awesome job Douglas! Seeing Malcolm speak and looking at his books from this new paradigm makes me think of him as a more shallow 'hot take' writer then I ever imagined. I always thought he was pithy, yet after seeing him speak for the full debate he seems far more shallow and superficial than I ever imagined, and nasty.
Boy, Malc and Mich are painful to watch. You and Doug were great.
There was, however, one moment I think should have been leapt on more aggressively, when we saw on stage precisely the corruption you're talking about really play out in real time - when Mich said "about Club Q, nobody believes that he is non-binary.... It’s simply that everyone knew that he was trolling us when he said that."
Really? Why do you believe that, Mich? Because I don't remember reading an article detailing the shooter's history, revealing that he was a right-wing agitator with no history of claiming to be non-binary. If that story was investigated and reported, I somehow missed it. Why did Mich not "believe" he was non-binary and why did "everyone" know he was trolling, in the absence of actual reporting on who he was? Surely, "shooter is trolling the courts and the public by falsely claiming to be non-binary" would be newsworthy. But, no, I have not seen that story. Why have I not seen that story?
Because it does not exist. "Everyone" knew he was trolling because "everyone" in the MSM is an incurious partisan hack who "knows" counter-narrative stories are false without having to bother uncovering the facts. In other words, what Mich did onstage is precisely what obviously happens in the newsrooms - the narrative rules. Everyone knew Saddam had WMD. Everyone knew Trump was colluding with Putin to hack the election. Everyone knew the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign. Everyone knew the Covid vaccines would stop the spread. Everyone knew lab leak was a racist right-wing conspiracy theory. Everyone knows Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not a response to 30 years of NATO expansion. Everyone knows Ukraine can win the war if the US just sends them hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons. Everyone knew the trucker protests were about white supremacy and misogyny. Everyone knows the Q shooter is trolling with the non-binary identification. Everyone knows these things not because they are true, but because "everyone" allowed into the hallowed halls of the MSM is a certified hack.
Anything that supports the narrative is reported without being subject to any scrutiny. Anything that undermines the narrative is believed and known by "everyone" to be false, and thus not investigated or reported on. So you get loads of false pro-narrative stories, and true counter-narrative stories are suppressed. Mich exposed how the machine works in a nutshell - everyone just knows and believes the "right" things. I think this was transparent in real-time for anyone paying attention, but there were some points to be scored there that were left on the table.
But I'm just Monday morning quarterbacking here. You guys kicked ass.
Your opponents came entirely unprepared, seemingly expecting some deplorables. Instead they ended up in over their heads, just like the Twitter executives.
Fantastic debate...I watched the whole thing with my husband last night, and I found it so informative. It was interesting to see some of the fallacious arguments put forward by "Malc" and Michelle.
I was curious about the article she wrote that she claimed was fair and balanced. I can't get at the full NY Times edition, but I did find the following article (linked). In the opening paragraph she references the infamous "mushrooms" brought up in her debate. Some of the words and phrases sprinkled throughout, include occupation, extremists, encampment, takeover, far-right, Diagalon, and of course, not to disappoint, Donald Trump.
Oh, and a fair and balanced first-hand account, would not be complete without summoning the grammar police, so that everyone knows Michelle knows her punctuation. As for the "deplorables," not so much:
'Mr. Wall was sitting in the passenger seat of a black truck owned by a friend he’d made in Ottawa. It was covered in painted slogans, some with imperfect punctuation: “Dad’s On a Mission,” “Bless You in Advance Boys in Blue,” “Superhero’s Never Die.'
Again, I'd like to say "bravo" to you and Douglas Murray. That was the most satisfying thing I've watched all week. Take that, CBC.
Abridged version of article referenced in the debate (I think):
Wow. I watched the debate and was surprised at the smugness of your opponents, especially Malcolm Gladwell. I believe somewhere within their arguments could have laid some valid points. However any information that they could presented in good faith was overshadowed by their total lack of seriousness and distain for any media what was not preordained legacy media.
By the way, great work on the twitter files. Anyone who has been vilified by the right and left, is all good in my book.
Matt, good God the reaction to your work, thou doth protest too much. The pure vitriol for your thread puts on display the insane hypocrisy of the left. Well , you're not carrying water for musk, you're carrying it for democracy. Thank you for your work, the one guy who called you a lazy journalist! Good lord.
God, I hate to be so base, but Malcolm Gladwell… what an ass clown! Per him, “A conspiracy theory is a theory in which one assumes a degree of unanimity and collaboration amongst one’s foes.”
So fifty years of anti-mafia RICO predicates are just crazy peoples’ inventions? Conspiracy is against the law, and prosecuted, like, weekly.
Would that this kind of forum (debate) be revived as a central component of news itself - and by that I mean not the curated MSM insertion of a differing opinion but seasoned journalists going head to head on perhaps the most critical element of democracy- Free speech. For without a truly informed public, democracy cannot survive.
I believe, as many have concluded, that within capitalist democracy, this has already been accomplished, and it’s heartbreaking that those who are unwittingly inside the press matrix believe in their failed institution, and will defend it even when the public on the whole have lost trust. As pointed out, MSM cannot grasp that its their responsibility to look at their own culpability.
A common liberal defense is “all those people are stupid or conspiracy theorists” further alienates, creates us vs them, and shows the blindness of privilege perceiving itself as the real “truth” bearers.
In the 1800’s (I will use William Llyod Garrison’s Liberator as a prime example on a topic- slavery), newspapers were numerous, crammed with debate, proposals and rebuttals, bombast and counter bombing, letters, voices famous and known, published by subscription and often barely making ends meet. I‘m afraid Matt’s reference to the days of old newscasters was a mistake, as it gave Malcom the opportunity to strike back with identity politics at every turn.
It also glorified the idea its possible to have truly trustful centralized media, for as then, just like now, giving one’s trust to an individual or organization, no matter who or what, is dangerous. A *full* trust of any information source inherently robs individuals of the capacity to reason and engage in thinking for themselves.
While this would have side-tracked everything in the debate, it’s essential to question whether any media can be trusted. (Though in this debate, that would have been countered as a form of denialism or apathy.) Accountability and accuracy of facts is one aspect of the forth estates responsibility. But just as important, it is the need for engaged civic discussion and analysis that creates conditions leading to a reasoned, informed trust of news.
By positioning humans as recipients who can trust, or not, creates a framework of passivity despite emphasis on what are reliable facts.
There was a time and the right conditions when opposing information and personal voices could rise into public awareness, with forums (I don’t include Twitter in that category) to create a democratized, informed discussion. The Abolitionists were, in my opinion, the most successful human rights organ to promote the truth and influence others through the use of the press. The narratives of slaves had tremendous impact, furthered by speeches by Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, who travelled state by state, town by town to educate others through personal experience.
In addition to newspapers like the Liberator were the Lyceums which held debates and speeches, conventions elevating individual voices-- ways in which people were able, to some degree, to recognize each other’s humanity. You guys are paving the way towards this, and that’s why I spend (perhaps) too much time on Substack and the study of history. This is why I rely on reporters such as Matt, Eva Bartlett, Chris Hedges, Ben Norton, and Scott Ritter.
It’s my opinion that critical thinking does not develop through trust, but through doubt and questioning. Though to add, doubting MSM, as many have come to do, doesn’t necessarily result in clarity or seeking well-informed sources, because the democratization of non-corporate funded “news” can be equally indoctrinating.
Sorely missing is a well-educated public who have learned to question, research, reason and communicate through debate and analysis. MSM and technology and the political news bias continue to rob us of “informed consent” in a society where we have lost the ability talk to each other. Twitter isn’t a place to have real discussion. Roger Waters says we need to go back to the bar (or pub) where we meet people not like ourselves but by circumstance, will rub elbows with and talk to.
This is why I’m so happy to have seen this debate, and for Substack, and for a forum like this to engage in. I saw today a confirmation that resistance by those in power is a blind , delusional need to self-affirm at the cost of our own freedom and liberty: As news consumers, its our responsibility think, question and examine, reference and seek contextualized information.
In sum, (sorry for my long post ) MSM’s perversion is not only of its biases, but its ability to prevent us from thinking for ourselves. I thereby choose to place trust, to the degree I’ve learned the skills necessary to develop it, in those who have earned it. As you have.
PLEASE COVER THE SILENCING OF VACCINE INJURED PEOPLE! This is one of the most cruel and disgusting forms of censorship there has ever been. The media is a major partner, along with tech companies and the government.
There's been a near total blackout of reporting on hundreds of peer reviewed papers and case studies about covid vaccine injuries and the lack of government support or a functional safety net. Neither did MSM report on the CDC's obviously false claims of not seeing safety signals (when they were already clear from Israeli data) or Paul Thacker's devastating 2021 BMJ article on trial fraud.
What big tech is doing to people is also inhumane, going so far as to suspend accounts of injured people for simply talking about what happened to them and remove on line support groups for vulnerable, sometimes suicidal vaccine victims who are trying to support one another and share thoughts on treatments and symptoms.
We need some strong daylight on this issue and immediate help in the form of research, treatment, and financial compensation.
Awesome job Matt, awesome job Douglas! Seeing Malcolm speak and looking at his books from this new paradigm makes me think of him as a more shallow 'hot take' writer then I ever imagined. I always thought he was pithy, yet after seeing him speak for the full debate he seems far more shallow and superficial than I ever imagined, and nasty.
Boy, Malc and Mich are painful to watch. You and Doug were great.
There was, however, one moment I think should have been leapt on more aggressively, when we saw on stage precisely the corruption you're talking about really play out in real time - when Mich said "about Club Q, nobody believes that he is non-binary.... It’s simply that everyone knew that he was trolling us when he said that."
Really? Why do you believe that, Mich? Because I don't remember reading an article detailing the shooter's history, revealing that he was a right-wing agitator with no history of claiming to be non-binary. If that story was investigated and reported, I somehow missed it. Why did Mich not "believe" he was non-binary and why did "everyone" know he was trolling, in the absence of actual reporting on who he was? Surely, "shooter is trolling the courts and the public by falsely claiming to be non-binary" would be newsworthy. But, no, I have not seen that story. Why have I not seen that story?
Because it does not exist. "Everyone" knew he was trolling because "everyone" in the MSM is an incurious partisan hack who "knows" counter-narrative stories are false without having to bother uncovering the facts. In other words, what Mich did onstage is precisely what obviously happens in the newsrooms - the narrative rules. Everyone knew Saddam had WMD. Everyone knew Trump was colluding with Putin to hack the election. Everyone knew the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign. Everyone knew the Covid vaccines would stop the spread. Everyone knew lab leak was a racist right-wing conspiracy theory. Everyone knows Russia's invasion of Ukraine is not a response to 30 years of NATO expansion. Everyone knows Ukraine can win the war if the US just sends them hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons. Everyone knew the trucker protests were about white supremacy and misogyny. Everyone knows the Q shooter is trolling with the non-binary identification. Everyone knows these things not because they are true, but because "everyone" allowed into the hallowed halls of the MSM is a certified hack.
Anything that supports the narrative is reported without being subject to any scrutiny. Anything that undermines the narrative is believed and known by "everyone" to be false, and thus not investigated or reported on. So you get loads of false pro-narrative stories, and true counter-narrative stories are suppressed. Mich exposed how the machine works in a nutshell - everyone just knows and believes the "right" things. I think this was transparent in real-time for anyone paying attention, but there were some points to be scored there that were left on the table.
But I'm just Monday morning quarterbacking here. You guys kicked ass.
Your opponents came entirely unprepared, seemingly expecting some deplorables. Instead they ended up in over their heads, just like the Twitter executives.
Fantastic debate...I watched the whole thing with my husband last night, and I found it so informative. It was interesting to see some of the fallacious arguments put forward by "Malc" and Michelle.
I was curious about the article she wrote that she claimed was fair and balanced. I can't get at the full NY Times edition, but I did find the following article (linked). In the opening paragraph she references the infamous "mushrooms" brought up in her debate. Some of the words and phrases sprinkled throughout, include occupation, extremists, encampment, takeover, far-right, Diagalon, and of course, not to disappoint, Donald Trump.
Oh, and a fair and balanced first-hand account, would not be complete without summoning the grammar police, so that everyone knows Michelle knows her punctuation. As for the "deplorables," not so much:
'Mr. Wall was sitting in the passenger seat of a black truck owned by a friend he’d made in Ottawa. It was covered in painted slogans, some with imperfect punctuation: “Dad’s On a Mission,” “Bless You in Advance Boys in Blue,” “Superhero’s Never Die.'
Again, I'd like to say "bravo" to you and Douglas Murray. That was the most satisfying thing I've watched all week. Take that, CBC.
Abridged version of article referenced in the debate (I think):
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0223-canada-trucker-protest-20220222-ar7hj2cqjbc6xfwhjgtw3pkhwe-story.html
Our family really respects you. My 93 year old mother wanted to make sure you knew it.
Reading the transcript would have been faster, but nothing matches watching the video. "MALC!" says it all. Smart audience as well.
Wow. I watched the debate and was surprised at the smugness of your opponents, especially Malcolm Gladwell. I believe somewhere within their arguments could have laid some valid points. However any information that they could presented in good faith was overshadowed by their total lack of seriousness and distain for any media what was not preordained legacy media.
By the way, great work on the twitter files. Anyone who has been vilified by the right and left, is all good in my book.
The tragedy is that this was a subject of debate at all.
One of the many layers of the deceitful muzzling we suffer under here in 1984.
Thank you
Matt, good God the reaction to your work, thou doth protest too much. The pure vitriol for your thread puts on display the insane hypocrisy of the left. Well , you're not carrying water for musk, you're carrying it for democracy. Thank you for your work, the one guy who called you a lazy journalist! Good lord.
Why does Malcolm Gladwell keep mispronouncing Matt Taibbi's name? What was that all about? That struck me as very odd.
Thank you! I look forward to reading it. Thank you for your courage. Courage seems to be anathema to journalists.
Amazing debate, you and Douglas Murray made Malcolm Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg look idiotic
God, I hate to be so base, but Malcolm Gladwell… what an ass clown! Per him, “A conspiracy theory is a theory in which one assumes a degree of unanimity and collaboration amongst one’s foes.”
So fifty years of anti-mafia RICO predicates are just crazy peoples’ inventions? Conspiracy is against the law, and prosecuted, like, weekly.
Would that this kind of forum (debate) be revived as a central component of news itself - and by that I mean not the curated MSM insertion of a differing opinion but seasoned journalists going head to head on perhaps the most critical element of democracy- Free speech. For without a truly informed public, democracy cannot survive.
I believe, as many have concluded, that within capitalist democracy, this has already been accomplished, and it’s heartbreaking that those who are unwittingly inside the press matrix believe in their failed institution, and will defend it even when the public on the whole have lost trust. As pointed out, MSM cannot grasp that its their responsibility to look at their own culpability.
A common liberal defense is “all those people are stupid or conspiracy theorists” further alienates, creates us vs them, and shows the blindness of privilege perceiving itself as the real “truth” bearers.
In the 1800’s (I will use William Llyod Garrison’s Liberator as a prime example on a topic- slavery), newspapers were numerous, crammed with debate, proposals and rebuttals, bombast and counter bombing, letters, voices famous and known, published by subscription and often barely making ends meet. I‘m afraid Matt’s reference to the days of old newscasters was a mistake, as it gave Malcom the opportunity to strike back with identity politics at every turn.
It also glorified the idea its possible to have truly trustful centralized media, for as then, just like now, giving one’s trust to an individual or organization, no matter who or what, is dangerous. A *full* trust of any information source inherently robs individuals of the capacity to reason and engage in thinking for themselves.
While this would have side-tracked everything in the debate, it’s essential to question whether any media can be trusted. (Though in this debate, that would have been countered as a form of denialism or apathy.) Accountability and accuracy of facts is one aspect of the forth estates responsibility. But just as important, it is the need for engaged civic discussion and analysis that creates conditions leading to a reasoned, informed trust of news.
By positioning humans as recipients who can trust, or not, creates a framework of passivity despite emphasis on what are reliable facts.
There was a time and the right conditions when opposing information and personal voices could rise into public awareness, with forums (I don’t include Twitter in that category) to create a democratized, informed discussion. The Abolitionists were, in my opinion, the most successful human rights organ to promote the truth and influence others through the use of the press. The narratives of slaves had tremendous impact, furthered by speeches by Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth, who travelled state by state, town by town to educate others through personal experience.
In addition to newspapers like the Liberator were the Lyceums which held debates and speeches, conventions elevating individual voices-- ways in which people were able, to some degree, to recognize each other’s humanity. You guys are paving the way towards this, and that’s why I spend (perhaps) too much time on Substack and the study of history. This is why I rely on reporters such as Matt, Eva Bartlett, Chris Hedges, Ben Norton, and Scott Ritter.
It’s my opinion that critical thinking does not develop through trust, but through doubt and questioning. Though to add, doubting MSM, as many have come to do, doesn’t necessarily result in clarity or seeking well-informed sources, because the democratization of non-corporate funded “news” can be equally indoctrinating.
Sorely missing is a well-educated public who have learned to question, research, reason and communicate through debate and analysis. MSM and technology and the political news bias continue to rob us of “informed consent” in a society where we have lost the ability talk to each other. Twitter isn’t a place to have real discussion. Roger Waters says we need to go back to the bar (or pub) where we meet people not like ourselves but by circumstance, will rub elbows with and talk to.
This is why I’m so happy to have seen this debate, and for Substack, and for a forum like this to engage in. I saw today a confirmation that resistance by those in power is a blind , delusional need to self-affirm at the cost of our own freedom and liberty: As news consumers, its our responsibility think, question and examine, reference and seek contextualized information.
In sum, (sorry for my long post ) MSM’s perversion is not only of its biases, but its ability to prevent us from thinking for ourselves. I thereby choose to place trust, to the degree I’ve learned the skills necessary to develop it, in those who have earned it. As you have.